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Off the Top of My Head

Without Majority Rule Is The US Still a Democracy?

by John Lawrence

The US Senate is not ruled by a majority. Arguably that makes the US not a democracy or a democracy in name only. The filibuster is an artificial rule that precludes majority rule in the Senate, and, therefore, in the US since the Senate is a representative body of the people. A majority of the people want gun control, but, because the Senate is not a democratic institution, there is no gun control. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019 found that 60% of Americans say gun laws should be tougher. Conclusion: the US is no longer a democracy. Strong majorities of voters across party lines view access to clean water, a quality public education, adequate food, and housing as basic human rights that should be secured by the federal government. A survey by Harvard University found the following: "The right to clean air and water, for example, was considered important by 93 percent of those surveyed; protection of personal data, by 93 percent; the right to a quality education, by 92 percent; racial equality, by 92 percent; affordable health care, by 89 percent; and the right to a job, by 85 percent."

The filibuster precludes democracy. It is not in the Constitution. Neither is the right to own a gun. The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." At the time of the American Revolutionary War, militias were groups of able-bodied men who protected their towns, colonies, and eventually states. They were state based armed groups that later became the National Guard. It was these groups that were allowed by the Constitution to bear arms, not every idiot who came down the pike. Other more mature societies regulate gun ownership the way the US regulates drivers.

NPR reports:

"It's illegal for Russian citizens to own automatic and semi-automatic guns. It's possible to apply for a handgun or shotgun license, though citizens are required to provide reasons such as hunting or target shooting. Applicants face strict background checks, including criminal history, a full psychological evaluation and a medical exam. They must pass a test on firearm laws and safety. Each weapon is then registered by the police during a home visit. Police take bullet patterns, test bullets and cartridges so bullets can be matched if the gun is used in a crime. A license lasts five years, after which applicants must go through the whole process again."

The US is falling apart because groups with lots of money are lobbying Congress to perpetuate their income stream from gun sales regardless of what the majority of US citizens want. Yet the US lectures other countries about human rights. Is it a human right to own a gun? I don't see it listed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. What is listed is the following:

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

The controlling interests of US society are not the majority of the people. US society is controlled by wealthy interests which lobby Congress providing them with financial incentives to do their bidding. One of the main reason companies lobby Congress is to preserve their rights not to have to pay for externalities. Externalities are byproducts of the production process that pollute the environment. It would lower their profits if they had to pay for them. William D Nordhaus writes in The Spirit of Green:

"One prominent example is the activities associated with the Koch brothers and their companies. Koch Industries is a privately owned company holding companies with major environmental impacts and with revenues of around $115 billion in 2017. As reported by the Center for Public Integrity, one of Koch's holdings, Georgia-Pacific, is significantly impacted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision on dioxin. They write that Koch has intervened 'in various regulatory proceedings to dilute or halt tighter federal regulation of several toxic by products that could affect its bottom line, including dioxin, asbestos and formaldehyde, all of which have been linked to cancer.' According to Greenpeace, 'Koch Family Foundations have spent $145,555,197 directly financing 90 groups that have attacked climate change science and policy solutions, from 1997 - 2018.'"

So it's understandable why Republicans especially don't want Joe Biden's climate change agenda to pass even though a majority (actually two thirds!) of Americans want the government to do something about climate change according to a Pew poll. "A majority of Americans continue to say they see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe that the federal government falls short in its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change." But since the Koch brothers and others like them have the Republican party in their pockets, the filibuster assures them that nothing will get done. And this is happening in a democracy where democracy rule supposedly prevails? The US, sadly to say, is no longer a democracy if it ever was.

Off the Top of My Head

Joe Manchin Is Living in La La Land

by John Lawrence, April 8, 2021

Joe Manchin is not facing the reality that exists in the US today. He is nostalgic for a day when a bipartisan consensus was possible. Today it's not. The best we can do is to go ahead with Joe Biden's agenda with the slim majority Democrats possess in the Senate, but Manchin is essentially siding with Republicans, the Party of No. Manchin wants stability in American governing, but his vision of stability is one in which Republicans will negate every attempt Biden makes to bring the US into the 21st century and effectively compete with China. Yes, America will swerve back and forth policywise if Federal control switches between parties. But that's the best that American democracy is capable of at this point in time. The alternative that Manchin suggests is a stability of no progress. China has no such problem. Their society is basically all on the same long term wavelength. They will go full steam ahead with progress.

In his recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Manchin states: "The time has come to end these political games, and to usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation." Is he kidding? "usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground" There is no way that is going to happen in the current political environment. There is very little to no common ground. Democrats want to get things done for the American people to improve their lot. Republicans only seek political power because their personal fortunes go up to the extent that they hold political power, and all they care about is their personal power and fortunes. Republicans have determined that their personal power increases to the extent that they make the Democratic agenda fail. Mitch McConnell actually stated this when Obama was President. McConnell was quoted as saying: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." That's pretty clear. It's not about helping the American people except for the wealthy class of which they themselves are members. It's about making the other party fail.

So Joe Manchin has his head up his ass if he thinks there is going to be a new age of bipartisan consensus. It's wishful thinking. It's not going to happen right now or any time in the near future. Maybe some day, but right now the best hope is for the Democrats to go ahead and make improvements in American society while they hold power. Any other course only dooms the US to fall further behind the rest of the world, doom earth to catastrophic climate change and lets China zoom ahead in making progress. Joe Manchin is incredibly naive or else he wants to be the main power broker in the US Senate. "Generations of senators who came before us put their heads down and their pride aside to solve the complex issues facing our country. We must do the same. The issues facing our democracy today are not insurmountable if we choose to tackle them together." Doesn't he realize that the only issue Republicans want to face is how to make themselves and the rich even richer? Doesn't he realize that the only thing Republicans are interested in is political power? They will lie and cheat, create conspiracy theories and do anything that's even quasi legal to achieve and maintain political power.

Manchin is playing his role as the skunk at the party which is too bad. Biden's job is not trying to form a bipartisan consensus with Republicans. It's trying to appease Joe Manchin in order to get anything done. The only hope for America is to go big when Democrats hold power which they do only by a miracle in the fact that two Democratic Senators were elected in runoffs in the state of Georgia. Somehow Biden will get Manchin to go along with most of his agenda that Republicans will not be able to undo if and when they control the Federal government again. The atmosphere has already set the record this year of 420 parts per million of carbon dioxide making it unlikely that our planet will not face the worst consequences of global warming. Only cooperation with China, not only on this but on future pandemicsand other issues, will give our grandchildren the slightest chance at a decent life. To the extent Republicans control the Federal government this chance will be reduced to zero.

 

 

Off the Top of My Head

Biden's Agenda

by John Lawrence, March 27, 2021

Biden has a definite agenda and a time table for putting it forward. His first two massive bills, COVID relief and infrastructure will go forward as planned because they can be passed with only a majority in Congress due to the budget reconciliation process. Other bills like voting rights and immigration are more dicey because they are subject to the filibuster. It's clear that Democrats will not get even one vote in the Senate for any bill subject to the filibuster. Biden will keep alive the meme that he "wants to work across the aisle" even though he knows that is impossible because he wants to at least appear moderate and cooperative. He doesn't want to alarm anyone, but push will come to shove inevitably when it becomes time to get a voting rights bill passed which is absolutely necessary if Democrats ever want to hold power again and accomplish anything. The coming figurative Civil War will be over voting rights. If Republicans are successful in rolling back voting rights for the poor and minorities, they will continue to hold power. If there is a Federal voting rights bill that will not only expand the way people can vote as was put into place because of the pandemic but also eliminate gerrymandering, then Democrats will continue to hold power because of the changing demographics of the American electorate. That's why a voting rights bill is so critical.

Republicans have devised different methods for voter suppression over the years not the least of which is gerrymandering. If they control how the voting districts are drawn on the map, they can insure that a Republican will be elected from each district. So expanding the voting franchise in a fair way is absolutely critical. If that is done, Democrats will hold and gain power for the foreseeable future. If not, Republicans will continue to hold power even as a minority party. So the stakes involved are huge. Biden has his timetable laid out. Do the easy stuff first. Two massive trillion dollar bills are the easy stuff because they can be passed in Congress with just a majority and without any Republican votes. When it comes time to pass a voting rights act, Democrats will have to attack the filibuster, and Mitch McConnell will go apoplectic. Be prepared for all kinds of threats from Republicans because they know that their time in power and the time when white people have controlled American politics is passed. America is becoming a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and very diverse society and American political power will reflect that if democracy and majority rule holds sway. Republicans and white people in general will do everything they can to hold onto power. American history demonstrates that.

However, Democrats, who have the slimmest of majorities in the Senate, have the power in their hands to change the filibuster rule or to eliminate it altogether, and I'm sure they will do whatever is necessary to pass their agenda. Their only problem is with the two conservative Democrats in the Senate, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. They will have to make sure that these two will come on board with whatever the Democrats decide to do. Biden has two of the best leaders on his side in terms of Nancy Pelosi in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate. They will figure out a way to outsmart the Republicans and bring the American people to their side as well. Republicans will be furious, no doubt. Fortunately, they blew their wad with the failed coup attempt popularly known as an insurrection. Now the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security is focused on their case. It won't happen again.

Biden only has two years for certain in which to enact his agenda. The special election in Georgia which elected Warnock and Ossof was critical to the success of the Biden administration. Warnock only has two years to serve until the next state election in Georgia to fill his seat whereas Ossoff was elected to a 6 year term. That's why there is a furious attempt to change the voting laws in Georgia so that a Republican senator will be elected there in 2022 and Democrats will lose their majority in the Senate which will again be controlled by Republicans. It was a happy coincidence for Democrats that Ossoff and Warnock were both elected; it was an anomaly for the state of Georgia, and Republicans are determined that it won't happen again. The success of the Biden administration hangs on his first two years to get his agenda done, and, if he wants to get anything done in the last two years from 2022 to 2024, it is critical that Federal voting rights are established which will roll back the white supremicist Jim Crow voting legislation currently being passed in Georgia and other states.

So the critical issue really is the filibuster. If Democrats don't go all out and eliminate it or at least create carve outs for voting rights legislation, they will lose control of the Federal government in 2022, and Biden's agenda will be defenestrated. It's all about the future of American politics and who will hold power - the Democrats who will serve the American people especially the poor and the middle class or the Republicans who will serve the rich and the white supremicists.

Off the Top of My Head

Ending the Filibuster is Necessary for Voting Reform and Other Crucial Initiatives

by John Lawrence, March 18, 2020

Voting reform at the Federal level is necessary to counter all the state efforts to restrict voting. This is as important as Biden's COVID relief bill which was passed by budget reconciliation and only needed a majority vote. It is important to note how precarious the COVID relief bill was because it got zero Republican votes. If even one of the two Senators from Georgia had not won in the runoffs, there would be no COVID relief bill or Democratic majority in the Senate. The Republican party is the party of NO. Biden's trope of "working across the aisle" is a total fiction and he knows it, but he's trying to keep it alive for appearances sake as it makes him seem more moderate. He knows that he will get no Republican votes for any legislation he wants to get passed, but he will seem less extreme if he at least keeps the idea alive. But when it comes right down to it, Biden will do what he needs to do to get his legislation passed into law. He's  not naive.

So Republican Mitch McConnell has threatened a "scorched earth" policy if Republicans ever regain control of the Senate. He even threatened to defund Planned Parenthood. Golly gee! I'll take that in return for comprehensive national voting reform including eliminating gerrymandering and overruling state efforts to restrict voting. Democrats have a lot on their agenda for helping Americans; Republicans have nothing. Here is McConnell’s complete account of the horrors that await the country were the legislative filibuster to perish:

“As soon as Republicans wound up back in the saddle, we wouldn’t just erase every liberal change that hurt the country. We’d strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero input from the other side. Nationwide right-to-work for working Americans. Defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities on day one. A whole new era of domestic energy production. Sweeping new protections for conscience and the right to life of the unborn. Concealed-carry reciprocity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Massive hardening of security on our southern border.”

Jeesh, Mitch, I'm totally terrified! I say go ahead and abolish the filibuster. When you weigh all the good Democrats can do for the country against all the bad Republicans can do, the scales are tipped heavily in favor of ending the filibuster which is an archaic Jim Crow rule anyway. Any democracy worthy of the name should at least stand for majority rule. The things that Republicans are against are only manufactured pipe dreams anyway for the most part. If we have to give up Planned parenthood and sanctuary cities in return for solving the problem of global warming, I say go ahead and do it. There is so much important business that has to get done that Democrats are capable of doing. Biden learned his lesson under Obama when for 8 years Republicans slow walked him through a futile Presidency. Biden learned his lesson then although he still wants to seem moderate so he will appear to be just that. After Republican intransigence has been conclusively demonstrated, however, Biden will, as a seeming last resort, abolish the filibuster in order to get the job that he came to do done.

The For the People Act (also known as H.R. 1) is a bill in the United States Congress to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, limit partisan gerrymandering, and create new ethics rules for federal officeholders. This is the minimum of what needs to be done that will require ending the filibuster. Much needed and much delayed immigration reform will also require that. The question is will the US be a nation that accomplished big things or one in which nothing gets done. Republicans can threaten all they want. Their agenda is a big nothing burger. If HR 1 is enacted into law, they may never be back in power again. Their access to power is based on restricting voting rights. Democratic access to power is based on expanding them. The real question is is the United States going to stand for a real democracy or is it going to retreat into an autocracy. The rest of the world including primarily China is moving ahead while head in the sand Republicans are challenging and threatening Americans with their damaging policies. Biden and the Democrats should not take that bait, and, having learned their lesson from the Obama years, go ahead and do what's necessary to get America on the move again towards a more equitable and rational nation which makes a positive contribution in world affairs.

Biden Must Get Manchin and Sinema to Fall in Line

by Robert Reich

 

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

America is at a turning point on voting rights – one that’s almost as critical as the mid-1960s when the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed. 

The present choice is whether to expand voting rights and strengthen our democracy, or allow the GOP to enact even more restrictive voting laws and partisan gerrymandering — cementing themselves in minority rule for years to come. 

Just as in the mid-1960s, presidential leadership will be a decisive factor.

Across the country, state Republicans have introduced over 250 bills restricting the right to vote. As a lawyer for the Arizona GOP recently admitted before the Supreme Court in seeking to defend the state’s voting restrictions, if they’re eliminated, “it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.”

Democrats in Congress are fighting back against this anti-democratic agenda with their For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. 

These bills would automatically register new voters, outlaw gerrymandering, expand early voting, ban restrictions on mail-in ballots, reform campaign finance laws, and restore the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Mitch McConnell calls it a “power grab.” It is a power grab – grabbing power back for the people.

Yet although Democrats now possess a razor-thin majority in the Senate, these efforts don’t stand a chance unless Democrats overcome two obstacles there.

The first is the filibuster, a rule requiring 60 votes to pass regular legislation. The filibuster is not in the Constitution and not even in law. It’s just a Senate rule, which Democrats can and must end with their 51-vote bare majority.

The filibuster has historically been used against civil rights and voting rights. So it’s appropriate that Democrats finally end it in order to protect and expand these rights in the face of state efforts to restrict them.

Which raises the second obstacle. Two Democratic senators – West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema – have said they won’t vote to end the filibuster, presumably because they want to preserve their centrist image and appeal to Republican voters in their states.

Well, I’m sorry. The stakes are too high. We are talking about the future of civil and voting rights — critical to fighting racism and preserving American democracy. There is no excuse for two Democratic senators to allow Republicans to stomp on our democracy and entrench their minority rule for generations.

And there is no reason President Joe Biden should let them. It’s time for him to assert the leadership that President Lyndon Baines Johnson asserted more than a half-century ago.

When someone tried to persuade LBJ not to waste his time on civil and voting rights, he replied, “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?” Johnson worked to break the southern filibuster – lobbying recalcitrant senators and pressuring their colleagues to do the same. As Senator Hubert Humphrey later described it, “the president grabbed me by my shoulder and damn near broke my arm.”

Historians tell us that Johnson’s efforts may have shifted the votes of close to a dozen senators, breaking the longest filibuster in Senate history and clearing the way for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We are once again at a crucial juncture for civil rights and voting rights, one that will shape our nation for decades to come. Joe Biden must learn from LBJ, and wield the power of the presidency to make senators fall in line with the larger goals of the nation. Otherwise, as LBJ asked, “what the hell’s the presidency for?”

Off the Top of My Head

If Two Democratic Senators Were Not Elected in Georgia Run-offs, There Would Be No COVID Relief Package Under Biden

by John Lawrence, March13, 2021

It was crucial that the two Georgia Democratic Senators were elected. Not one Republican voted for Biden's $1.9 trillion bill. If there were one less Democrat in the Senate, nothing like it would ever have been passed. Republicans are the Party of No. Not one Republican Senator will ever vote Yes on any legislation put forward by a Democrat so that Georgia election was crucial. That's why Republican legislatures not only in Georgia but around the country are scrambling to put restrictive Jim Crow voting regulations in place on the belief that Republican operative Paul Weyrich was right. He said, "So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

So now economist Larry Summers is worried about inflation due to the fact that trillions have been added to the deficit. So far, lawmakers have enacted six major bills, costing about $5.3 trillion, to help manage the pandemic and mitigate the economic burden on families and businesses. Even those economists know that the Federal government doesn't need taxes  in order to spend money. The Federal Reserve can create it with a few keystrokes on a computer just the way they did to bail out Wall Street banks during the Great Financial Recession (GFR) of 2008. Of course the public wasn't suppose to know about this "secret" bailout by the Fed. Authorities wanted you to believe that the $700 billion bill passed by Congress provided the bailout. In reality it was much more. Rolling Stone reported: "Washington Post “Fact-checker” columnist Glenn Kessler disputes the numerous studies showing the real bailout outlay was through the Fed, which the Sanders campaign had said was anywhere from $7.7 trillion (the number Bloomberg used in its coverage of secret Fed lending) to $29 trillion (the number the Levy Institute at Bard College calculated, including guarantees and other forms of aid).

So how is it that  Larry Summers was not so worried about inflation due to the Fed's trillions of dollars created and given to Wall Street? The answer is that that money was given to rich people which has caused no inflation because rich people are not going to spend money in ways that drive up the Consumer Price Index (CPI). They are mainly going to invest their money in ways that aren't included in the CPI. They are going to purchase assets like stocks and real estate. Consequence: no inflation at least as measured by the CPI. Instead the Wall Street bailout during the GFR as well as the $2 trillion tax breaks of the Trump administration produced asset inflation. It's the reason that home prices and rents are becoming increasingly unaffordable. But Summers is worried about inflation as measured by the CPI which is what happens when poor and middle class people get a trillion dollar bailout. They will spend that money at least partly on consumer goods that are included in the CPI and potentially drive up prices. However, much of the bailout money will go to pay off debts like past due rent and mortgage payments. This is not inflationary. So the real moral of the story is that, according to economists like Summers, bailing out rich people is good, bailing out poor people is bad.

So two lessons are to be learned here. 1) The Fed doesn't need taxes to create money and spend it into the economy whether that money is to bail out banks or to bail out the poor and middles class. 2) Democrats need to enact at the Federal level voting laws which encourage as many people to vote as possible and roll back Republican enacted restrictions on voting at the state level. In order to do the latter, Democrats will have to eliminate the filibuster at least for particular types of legislation. The only reason Biden's $1.9 trillion relief bill passed is that it was done by a process known as "budget reconciliation" which only requires a majority vote in the Senate. A national voting rights bill cannot be passed by that process and is subject to the filibuster which requires 60 votes. The Party of No wouldn't hesitate to use the filibuster to doom any voting rights legislation at the Federal level which means essentially that Jim Crow voting rights would again be put in place to discourage black people from voting. And don't worry about your children and grandchildren having to pay off the national debt. The Federal Reserve doesn't need their money.

Urging Senate to 'Ignore the Parliamentarian,' Sanders to Force Vote on $15 Minimum Wage Amendment

Published on Tuesday, March 02, 2021

by Common Dreams

"I regard it as absurd that the parliamentarian, a Senate staffer elected by no one, can prevent a wage increase for 32 million workers."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

141 Comments

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, arrives at a hearing on Capitol Hill on February 25, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Stefani Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

Calling on the Senate Democratic majority to disregard the advice of the unelected parliamentarian, Sen. Bernie Sanders late Monday announced he will force a vote this week on an amendment to include a $15 minimum wage provision in the pending $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

"At a time when millions of workers are earning starvation wages, when the minimum wage has not been raised by Congress since 2007 and stands at a pathetic $7.25 an hour, it is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage," Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement.

"The Senate should ignore the parliamentarian's advice, which is wrong in a number of respects."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

The Vermont senator's announcement came as the White House and Senate Democrats signaled a retreat from the effort to include a minimum wage increase in the coronavirus relief package after the parliamentarian advised last week that the measure would run afoul of the Byrd Rule, which requires provisions of reconciliation bills to have a direct—not "merely incidental"—impact on the federal budget.

Citing two anonymous Democratic aides, the Washington Post reported Monday that "Senate Democrats will move forward with a version of the relief bill that does not attempt to raise the minimum wage." Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a floor speech Monday that the chamber will begin voting on the sprawling relief package this week, with an initial procedural vote expected as early as Wednesday.

In his statement Monday night, Sanders said he was "extremely disappointed by the decision of the parliamentarian, who ruled that the minimum wage provision was inconsistent with the Byrd Rule and the reconciliation process."

Echoing the calls of progressive House Democrats and dozens of grassroots advocacy groups representing millions of people across the U.S., Sanders said his "own personal view is that the Senate should ignore the parliamentarian's advice, which is wrong in a number of respects."

"I am not sure, however, that my view at this point is the majority view in the Democratic caucus," the Vermont senator added, alluding to opposition from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). "Obviously, as soon as we can, we must end the filibuster that currently exists in the U.S. Senate. Given the enormous crises facing working families today, we cannot allow a minority of the Senate to obstruct what the vast majority of the American people want and need."

Progressives in recent days have pushed Vice President Kamala Harris to overrule the parliamentarian's advice, which she has the constitutional authority to do. Should the vice president opt to use that authority, it would take 60 votes in the Senate to overrule her.

 

But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was adamant during a Monday briefing that Harris will not attempt to overrule the parliamentarian, the official tasked with interpreting Senate rules.

Asked by NBC News reporter Geoff Bennett why the White House appears to be fighting harder to salvage the collapsing nomination of budget office pick Neera Tanden than to keep the minimum wage increase in the coronavirus relief package, Psaki accused Bennett of "mixing a few things kind of irresponsibly."

Sanders made clear Monday that he will continue pushing to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour if his coronavirus relief amendment fails to pass this week.

Following the parliamentarian's advisory ruling against the proposed pay raise last week, Sanders and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) began crafting a backup plan that would impose tax penalties on large corporations that don't pay their employees $15 an hour. But Sanders and Wyden reportedly dropped the plan after it became clear that the measure would be too difficult to implement and that there wouldn't be sufficient support to include it in the emerging Covid-19 relief package.

Speaking to the press about his new $15 minimum wage amendment, Sanders said Monday that "there will be a roll call vote, and we'll see who votes for it and doesn't."

"I would suggest that those who vote against it from a political point of view, that's a mistake. The American people want to see that minimum wage raised," Sanders continued. "Let me be very clear—if we fail in this legislation, I will be back."

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Progressives to VP Kamala Harris: 'This Is Not a Difficult Decision. Use Your Power. Keep $15 In.'

Published on Friday, February 26, 2021

by Common Dreams

"A $15 federal minimum wage is now in the hands of Kamala Harris. There is a path to get it done. Refusing to step up will be seen as a huge failure."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

83 Comments

President Joe Biden listens as Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Pentagon on February 10, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Brandon/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

The attention of the Fight for $15 movement and its allies turned to Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday night after the Senate parliamentarian opined—erroneously, according to progressives—that a wage hike proposed as part of the emerging coronavirus relief package runs afoul of budget reconciliation rules and should be removed from the aid legislation.

While the parliamentarian's advice is typically honored on Capitol Hill, progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups emphasized that the unelected official's opinion is not binding and that Harris, as presiding officer of the Senate, has the constitutional authority to ignore the recommendation.

"If Vice President Kamala Harris decides to use her constitutional power to disregard the decision of the parliamentarian and tell the clerk to call the roll for the vote, the only way her decision could be overruled is with 60 votes," Morris Pearl, chair of advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement Thursday night.

"Because there is no possibility of 10 Democrats breaking ranks, if the vice president of the United States decides to use the power that is granted to her in the Constitution, every lawmaker in America would then have to publicly vote to either support working people or continue to exploit human beings for profit," said Pearl. "This is not a difficult decision. Use your power. Keep $15 in."

Should Harris opt to exercise her authority to keep the pay hike in the coronavirus relief bill, the two Democratic lawmakers who have publicly opposed the $15 minimum wage provision—Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.)—would face a choice: Either abandon their opposition to the popular wage proposal, or vote to sink the entire $1.9 trillion aid package over its inclusion.

Though Harris herself has not spoken publicly about the parliamentarian's decision or what she intends to do in response, the Biden White House has thus far signaled that she would not be willing to disregard the official's recommendation, which accepts Republican arguments that the proposed wage increase would not have a sufficient budgetary impact to comply with Senate rules.

In an interview Wednesday ahead of the parliamentarian's decision, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said that Harris would "certainly" not override the advice, adding, "We're going to honor the rules of the Senate and work within that system to get this bill passed."

But Klain's suggestion that disregarding the parliamentarian's opinion would somehow be inconsistent with Senate rules was swiftly refuted by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who pointed out that "there is no provision in the Constitution that says that the Senate parliamentarian has any power."

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) added late Thursday that "people don't care about listening to the parliamentarian."

"People care about getting the relief they need," Bush tweeted. "Do what it takes to raise the minimum wage to at least $15."

Bolstering the progressive case for Harris to step in and prevent an unelected official from quashing a popular and much-needed wage increase, a confidential memo circulating on Capitol Hill and obtained by The Daily Poster details precisely how Harris and Senate Democrats could team up to overrule the parliamentarian's decision and keep the pay raise in the relief package.

"It would take 60 votes to overturn the ruling of the chair [Harris] on a Byrd Rule point of order, regardless of what the parliamentarian advises," reads the memo obtained by The Daily Poster. "What would probably happen is a senator would appeal the ruling of the chair and then the full Senate would vote on whether to sustain the appeal."

"The chair's ruling would be upheld as long as there are not 60 affirmative votes to sustain the appeal," the memo continues. "So, if the majority could hold enough members together (less than 60 affirmative votes to sustain the appeal), the ruling that runs counter to the parliamentarian's advice would be upheld."

As progressive advocacy group RootsAction put it Thursday night, "A $15 federal minimum wage is now in the hands of Kamala Harris."

"There is a path to get it done," the group said. "Refusing to step up will be seen as a huge failure."

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'Subpoena Kevin McCarthy If You Have To': Democrats Urged to Bring Witnesses After Bombshell Report on Trump Call

Published on Saturday, February 13, 2021

by Common Dreams

"As evidence of Trump's behind-the-scenes sociopathy mounts, it becomes clearer that Dems must call witnesses."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

53 Comments

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) walks back to his office from the Senate floor on U.S. Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, February 4, 2021. (Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Update:

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager, said Saturday morning that his team will seek to subpoena Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) to testify before the Senate about her knowledge of a phone conversation between Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that took place during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol," Herrera Beutler said in a statement late Friday. "McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That's when, according to McCarthy, the president said, 'Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.'"

The Senate voted by a margin of 55-45 Saturday morning to open the door to calling witnesses. Senators will soon vote on calling specific witnesses, including Herrera Beutler; Trump's defense team has threatened to call "lots" of witnesses, but their requests must be approved by the Senate.

"The significance of this development in the impeachment trial can't be overstated. We are now going to have witnesses. Each witness can lead to other witnesses and new information. This can also prompt others with new evidence to come forward voluntarily," tweeted Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "The focus for now is on Trump's conversation with Kevin McCarthy. That conversation goes to the critical issue of Trump's actions and state of mind after the rioters breached the Capitol."

Earlier:

Democratic House impeachment managers are facing growing public pressure to call witnesses to testify at Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial in the wake of bombshell reporting on the former president's conversation with Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy during the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by a right-wing mob.

Progressive watchdog groups, as Common Dreams reported earlier this week, have been urging Democrats to call witnesses since before the start of the trial, but CNN's late Friday story on Trump's conversation with McCarthy added fuel to those demands.

During the phone call, according to CNN, Trump told the California Republican, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," a comment that reportedly prompted a shouting match between the two GOP leaders as McCarthy pleaded with the then-president to speak out against the attack. Hours after the assault began, Trump finally released a video urging the insurrectionists to go home while praising them as "special."

"Trump's call with McCarthy is another powerful piece of evidence that Trump was on the side of the rioters attacking the Capitol," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) tweeted late Friday. "He utterly failed his oath to protect and defend our nation. This should seal the conviction with every senator."

While the Democratic leadership is hoping for a speedy end to the trial in order to move forward with confirmation of President Joe Biden's nominees and legislative business—including coronavirus relief—critics argued Friday night that failure to call witnesses following news of Trump's remarks to McCarthy would be a dereliction of duty.

"Democrats should call Kevin McCarthy as a witness and have him testify under oath about this call," tweeted Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter. "I know they want to wrap this up but it won't take long. The American people deserve the truth."

After House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), delivered their striking case in support of convicting the former president for inciting a deadly insurrection against the U.S. government, several members of the Senate Democratic caucus said Thursday that witnesses would not be necessary.

"I feel like we've heard from enough witnesses," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), referring to interviews played during House Democrats' presentation. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, "I think the case has been made. I don't know what witnesses would add."

But observers argued that the new details of Trump's phone conversation with McCarthy indicate that compelling the House Republican leader and others to testify under oath could yield important new information. Calling witnesses would require a simple-majority vote in the Senate.

"As evidence of Trump's behind-the-scenes sociopathy mounts, it becomes clearer that Dems must call witnesses," said the Washington Post's Greg Sargent.

 

Others echoed that sentiment, pointing also to new reporting confirming that Trump was aware that former Vice President Mike Pence was in danger when he tweeted an attack on Pence during the mob assault.

In an appearance on MSNBC late Friday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) argued the new reporting "undermines the entire defense that the president's lawyers have put on" and said he would be open to calling witnesses to testify at the trial.

"I think [House impeachment managers] have established a slam-dunk case that the president incited violence for the purpose of overturning the election," said Van Hollen. "If they make a decision to call witnesses... obviously we would welcome that."

Watch:

Joining the growing chorus, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tweeted Saturday morning that "the House Managers should ask for witnesses to be called, including anyone who communicated with Donald Trump or [has] direct knowledge of his actions and state of mind while he was in the White House after the Capitol was breached and while the attempted coup was ongoing."

Democrats are expected to decide on whether to call witnesses at some point Saturday morning. As Politico reported, "If Democrats and Trump's team opt against calling witnesses on Saturday, the trial will move immediately to closing arguments, expected to last no more than four hours. That would set up a vote on the charge against Trump in the early afternoon."

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Off the Top of My Head

The Republican Game Plan is No Mystery: Obstruct Democratic Attempts to Help the Poor and Middle Class

by John Lawrence, January 24, 2021

The Washington Post article said it best: Right on schedule, Republicans pretend to care about deficits again. When they are in power, they run up the deficit by giving tax breaks to the rich. When Democrats are in power, they use the filibuster if necessary to deny Democrats any success in helping the American people who need help the most. They are deficit hawks, supposedly, but only when Democrats are in power. Knowing how this game operates by now, Democrats are prepared to do whatever is necessary to thwart it. The main tool at their disposal to get the COVID relief package passed is budget reconciliation which escapes the filibuster and only requires a majority vote in the Senate, exactly what Republicans have used to get their tax cuts passed. It seems clear that what the Republican party really stands for is aiding and abetting the rich while denying financial help and opportunities to the poor.

Even conventional economists like Larry Summers advocate for more Federal spending since interest rates are low. "We note that in a world of unused capacity and very low interest rates and costs of capital, concerns about crowding out of desirable private investment that were warranted a generation ago have much less force today. We argue that debt-to-GDP ratios are a misleading metric of fiscal sustainability that do not reflect the fact that both the present value of GDP has risen and debt service costs have fallen as interest rates have fallen." His point is, since interest rates are near zero, the US debt is not going to increase much as a result of paying interest on Treasury bonds. Furthermore, pump priming to get the economy up to full capacity as quickly as possible results in more taxes being collected by the Federal government which lowers deficit spending. Also, since the Fed sets interest rates, it can keep them at zero.

Furthermore, the piece de resistance is that in the final analysis deficits don't matter. The US Federal government can never run out of money since the US dollar is a sovereign currency. It can just be created by a few keystrokes on a computer by the Federal Reserve as it was when trillions of dollars were created to bail out the big banks. It is the same process that is used when the Federal government needs money. Instead of the Fed creating the money and moving it into the accounts of the big banks at the Fed, the money is created and moved into the account of the US Treasury which also exists at the Fed. This is the process that takes place when the amount of Federal government spending exceeds the amount the Federal government takes in from taxes. Republicans know this because of the $2 trillion that was created this way due to the Trump tax cuts.

So Republicans basically are lying to the American people as they have done so many times before when they pretend that money is not available to accelerate the COVID response or to provide relief to the American people or to rebuild infrastructure or to combat climate change. They are deluding the public. Democrats need to reeducate the American people about how the economy really works. Government debt just ends up on the Fed's balance sheet the same way that the trillions to bail out the big banks ended up on the Fed's balance sheet. Since the US dollar is a sovereign currency, there is never a need to pay it off. The US can never be in a situation of dependency on China or Japan or be constrained to pay off the Treasury bonds that they own since they could be paid off tomorrow again by a few keystrokes if necessary by moving money to their accounts at the Federal Reserve. Modern Monetary Theory has unmasked the way that the US economy really works in terms of how the US currency is created or destroyed by the US central bank - the Federal Reserve. In her book The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton details this process.

So are there limitations on the creation of money by the Fed. Of course, but, as long as there is unused productive capacity in human or material terms, deficit spending can benefit not only the economy in general in terms of increasing GDP, but it can benefit the actual lives of people who are suffering because of food insecurity, rent and mortgage insecurity, health care insecurity, crumbling infrastructure and a desire to save the planet as a habitable place to live for their grandchildren. As the article points out, "the greater risk now, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell and others have warned in recent months, is that policymakers will do too little, rather than too much, to prevent permanent damage to the country’s productive capacity."  Janet Yellen, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to run the Treasury Department and former Fed Chairman, has also said that the government must “act big” with its next coronavirus relief package. So do Fed Chairmen and current and former Treasury Secretaries know more than Republican hacks who are spewing deficit hawk propaganda? You bet they do. They know how the relationship between the Fed and the US Treasury actually works. And it works how Stephanie Kelton outlines in her book.

Off the Top of My Head

Which is better: A Universal Basic Income (UBI) or a Government Job Guarantee (JG)?

by John Lawrence, January 22, 2021

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors a JG where the government is the employer of last resort employing people that the private economy cannot accommodate. Now Larry Summers, Secretary of Treasury for Clinton, is coming around to the MMT view. Especially now when there is so much work that needs to be done (infrastructure, renewable energy) and so many idle workers, a JG makes much sense. One might ask where will the money for this come from? Answer: from the same place it came from for Reagan's $100 billion tax cuts, Bush 1's $125 billion tax cuts, Bush 2's $1.2 trillion tax cuts and Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cuts, all of which benefited the rich a lot more than they benefited the poor. Surprisingly, MMT maintains that government spending whether in the form of tax cuts or government programs benefit the private sector economy whether or not they are "paid for" out of tax receipts. Since the US dollar is a sovereign currency, the Federal Reserve can just create the money by a few keystrokes on a computer and move it into the US Treasury's account at the Federal Reserve. This process does not depend on tax receipts or money generated from the sale of Treasury bonds.

Either way - tax cuts or government programs - benefits the private economy. It's just that tax cuts benefit the rich more and government programs benefit the poor more. The fact that both entail deficit spending is irrelevant because the Fed can never run out of money. Don't believe me? Read: The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. She explains it better. Larry Summers says:

"The impulse behind the latest “big” progressive idea of creating a federal job guarantee is entirely valid. Studies show that those without jobs are much more likely to be dissatisfied with their lives, to become addicted to alcohol or drugs and to be abusive within their families than even those working at low wages they find inadequate.

"On this point, the U.S. economy is falling short of its potential. The fraction of the adult population between ages 25 and 54 that is working or seeking work has declined over the past 20 years. Despite America’s vaunted labor-market flexibility, the chance that a 25- to 54-year-old man will be out of work is much greater than it is in France and not very different than what it is in Spain . And in sharp contrast to the rest of the world, the fraction of adult women working in the United States has been declining since 1999 .

"These trends are important causes of the increasingly bitter nature of U.S. politics and of resistance to technological change and overseas trade. President Trump received disproportionate support in parts of the country where joblessness increased most.

"If the United States could guarantee jobs in even a modestly efficient manner and in a way that significantly increased employment, it would be a very good thing. I want to be enthusiastic about job-guarantee proposals. But at a time when cynicism about government runs strong, it is important for progressives to avoid making promises that they cannot keep. We must rigorously examine the practicality of a job guarantee."

Here's how the Fed's money creation process works. Tax receipts are deposited into the US Treasury's account at the Fed. The US Congress authorizes either spending programs or tax cuts. The US government spends money. When the Treasury's account at the Fed gets down to zero (spending equals tax receipts), the Fed injects money into the Treasury's account. It is impossible for the US government to ever run out of money. Then Treasury bonds are sold by the Treasury Department which are bought by "primary dealers" (mainly big Wall Street banks) which are obligated to buy them. Some are sold to investors whether they be private individuals or governments like China and Japan.

When the point is reached that the banks don't have enough liquidity (cash - because they've been buying up Treasury bonds)), the Fed creates liquidity by buying up the Treasury bonds from the Wall Street banks in return for cash. Where did it get the money to do this? It created it by a few keystrokes on a computer. So by a roundabout process the Federal Reserve makes sure that the US government has all the money it needs as authorized by Congress regardless of any considerations for deficit spending or the total amount of the US national debt. Those are just accounting entries on the Fed's balance sheet. The Fed buys and sells Treasuries every day as a means of setting the interest rate or of providing liquidity as it did in the Great Recession of 2008. The Fed is the loaner of last resort to the US banking system, and it stands ready to create as much money as is necessary to keep it running smoothly. It also stands ready to provide the same guarantees for the US government, but the money has to be authorized first by Congress.

The takeaway is that Deficits Don't Matter. The private sector benefits from government deficit spending whether those deficits are created by tax breaks or government programs. Government spending programs primarily help the poor while tax cuts primarily help the rich. A government Job Guarantee in which the government becomes the employer of last resort is better than a Universal Basic Income because a job provides one with more dignity than a handout and there is much work to be done. Congress - not taxes - is the limitation to government spending. Republican obstructionism is the only thing that can limit economic benefits to the American people because, while the Fed can directly benefit the Big Banks without Congressional approval, it cannot benefit the American people without Congressional approval. Democrats want to benefit the American people, convert to renewable energy, provide jobs and income for the American people and prevent the earth from burning up due to climate change. Republicans want simply to hold on to political power by preventing Democrats from being successful.

Off the Top of My Head

Instead of Sanctioning Foreign Actors Sanction Domestic Terrorists

by John Lawrence, January 12, 2021

The best development so far post insurrection is taking away Trump's twitter account permanently. The FBI, CIA and other law enforcement are rounding up the insurrectionists and they should get lengthy jail sentences and sanctions. The biggest threat to American democracy is not out there; it's in here. Their gathering places on social media such as Parler have been taken down or will be taken down soon. If the terrorists can't meet to spout their vitriol as well as plan future insurrections, we'll be making progress. Rush Limbaugh and other domestic terrorists should be sanctioned. Anyone egging on, benefiting from, taking advantage of the poor mental health or encouraging hatred and violence of the American people needs to be sanctioned. The fact that these terrorists could overwhelm the Capitol Police was a huge security failure. The fact that it took the Pentagon three hours to supply troops shows the fact that we are wasting huge amounts of money on a worthless military establishment that does not confront the real threats to this country. Perhaps these domestic terrorists need to be reeducated. We don't have the moral authority to mock China any more for doing this with its domestic terrorists.

Right now security forces in the US are on high alert. The National Guard is out in force. There are more forces on the streets of Washington, DC now than there are in Afghanistan. They should stay on high alert for the time being. I think the situation will get under control. Massive arrests and the total deplatforming and isolation of Donald Trump and domestic terrorist social media sites needs to be carried out. If they don't have gathering places on social media, they won't be able to organize. That's important. There needs to be a recognition that the militarization of the mindsets of young Americans which happens in the military and the glorification and seeming ubiquity of war as the only way to deal with other nations is a cause of the recent problems. Instead of funneling all non-college bound youth into the military, there needs to be an upsurge in funding and encouragement for young people to go into the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. We need to demilitarize the mindsets of the American people.

Terrorist and threatening phone calls need to be traced and the perpetrators brought to justice. No public official should have to live in fear for their lives and their family's lives because of death threats on phone calls or on social media. Social media is a big problem. They have gotten rich off the fact that their algorithms have encouraged, aided and abetted the domestic terrorists. Their business model showed that there was a lot of profit in encouraging conspiracy theories and other activities detached from reality. It's good that it has become evident by reporting on legitimate news outlets that social media is not subject to the First Amendment because that only applies to government hindrance of free speech. Social media platforms are private entities and they do not have to honor so-called free speech. Private entities also don't have to honor the Second Amendment so that there is space to restrict guns on private property which is probably 99% of the property in the US.

The next administration has its work cut out for them. Good leaders and good people will prevail. Deplatforming all right wing media and groups that espouse conspiracy theories and outright lies will be an important step. Sober analysis and critical thinking must replace narcissistic fantasy and entertainment values. This starts with children in school. They need to taught how to distinguish truth from lies. They need to be taught the value of peace and harmony not only in their daily lives but in the pursuit of that status among and between nations. They should be taught that the US has not always been but should aspire to moral and ethical behavior with regard to other nations and within its own country.

Money must be drained from the military establishment which is oriented towards either non-existant or phony threats and reoriented towards the real threats and funded at appropriate levels rather than be treated to carte blanche amounts of superfluous cash. Budgets both military and domestic need to be appropriate to their realistic needs. Right now the greatest need is in overcoming the pandemic and responding to the economic needs of the lower half of the population. Also eliminating energy production from fossil fuels needs to proceed post haste. It's obvious that the private economy can not do this at the rate necessary to save the planet from the ravages of global warming. Only big government programs in conjunction with the programs of other countries can possibly achieve the reality of zero carbon emissions by 2030.

The last word is that Trump must be denied any post Presidential influence or following by any and all legal means. This is the greatest thing that can be done to heal and deradicalize the country. America also will pay a heavy price if it doesn't get its promotion of gun culture under control.

Off the Top of My Head

Congressional Republicans That Supported Insurrection Should Be Censured

by John Lawrence, January 10, 2021

Although it takes a two thirds majority to expel someone from the House or Senate, it only takes a majority to censure. Therefore, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Kevin McCarthy at the very least should be censured. They will lose their committee chairs and be publicly shamed because the politician must stand before his peers to listen to the censure resolution. Meanwhile, Trump should be impeached in the House, but there should be no trial in the Senate because that would be a media circus of which Trump would be the star, and this would steal Joe Biden's thunder just as he assumes the office of President of the United States. The page needs to be turned and Trump should be blacklisted from every form of media exposure. Twitter, Facebook and others have already banned him for life which is the best thing that could have happened. Right wing app Parler has been deplatformed. Rudy Giuliani and Don Junior need to be prosecuted for inciting to riot for the words they spoke at Trump's Save America rally that preceded the insurrection. "Trial by combat"? Indeed. Long story short, Trump should be denied any media exposure whatsoever. The focus should be on Joe Biden's Presidency and the reckonings of those that have committed prosecutorial crimes needs to be done offstage, so to speak.

We need a breath of fresh air come January 20 while in the background those who have committed crimes connected with the insurrection need to be brought to justice. Every one of the rioters need to serve jail time or be fined - even those who crossed the barriers but did not go inside the Capitol. Those who went inside the Capitol need to be dealt more severe penalties. None of these rioters should be left off the hook. The myth that these assholes are Patriots needs to be dispelled. The only ones who are innocent in my opinion are those who didn't cross the line that the barriers represented. I'm sure that over time they all will be penalized in one form or other because there is so much video and social media evidence including their own bragging on social media. The FBI has their work cut out for them. In the meantime security needs to be ramped up at state Capitals all across the country, and gun laws need to be augmented and strengthened. Probably the only thing that saved the Capitol from an armed insurrection was the fact that so many of them flew to Trump's event and weren't allowed to bring guns on the plane. You can't have people with machine guns threatening state Capitals or office holders of a party they disagree with. We've seen too much of that already. Security around Joe Biden and Kamala Harris needs to be extremely tight. We don't want what happened to Abraham Lincoln happening to either of them.

At the same time Joe Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress have to get a humungus aid package passed and into the hands of the American people - all of them - so that there are tangible benefits for all to see and benefit from including Trump, hopefully former, supporters. The coronavirus must be brought under control. The ineffective US intelligence agencies have a budget of about $75 billion and yet they had no intelligence relating to what an average American could plainly size up: a Trump rally attracting tens of thousands on the same day that Congress certified the election results. I wrote previously how like James Bond's arch villains, Trump would show up January 6 for one last stand even when we all thought the election was finally, after repeated certifications at multiple levels, over. Bond's villains do not give up and neither did Trump after he had tried every other trick in the book to overturn the election. I'm sure he had plans for the inauguration on January 20 as well. That's why security at the inauguration needs to be extremely tight.

Social media by and large has finally done the right thing banning Trump and right wing wack jobs and conspiracy theorists. But it is obviously too late. They should have done this long ago. There are much needed reforms that need to be undertaken regarding social media. They have in fact aided and abetted the worst impulses of American society as their algorithms favored conspiracy theories and other fantastic falsehoods as they brought more eyeballs to the platforms than did the plain unvarnished truth. We have to reckon with a model in the media that is basically centered on entertainment including the news. Bringing eyeballs to the media - all media - is what advertising is all about. Advertisers won't pay and media corporations won't make any money from sober analysis because it's not entertaining enough and people demand to be entertained. Although Trump's lies are being finally called out all over the media, let us not forget that lies perpetrated via the media are nothing new. The Willie Horton ads promulgated for George H W Bush's 1988 Presidential campaign typify the lying that political candidates have always partaken of with Trump just being the latest purveyor.

"Horton, an African-American man, was a convicted murderer who raped a white woman and stabbed her partner while furloughed from prison under a Massachusetts program in place when Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, was governor. The TV ad is now considered one of the most racially divisive in modern political history because it played into white fear and African-American stereotypes. In it, an off-screen narrator tells the story of Horton’s crimes while pictures of Bush and Dukakis and a menacing mug shot of Horton flash across the screen. The narrator notes that Bush supports the death penalty for murderers."

Clearly, there should be thought given to bringing about truth in media and what can be done to insure that the American people aren't sold a pack of lies by politicians or in any other kind of advertising. American culture has also been brutalized and vulgarized because this has been shown by advertisers to attract the most eyeballs. Violence in media runs rampant. It's almost like you have to watch movies from Europe to see something which doesn't contain violence and usually gun violence of the most graphic sort which pervades US entertainment. This is the stuff that media corporations produce because they think it's the most lucrative. Politicians supported Trump's lies because they thought it was the best way to get elected or reelected. Other societies have not put up with this crap. Violence and lies, although they may be entertaining, need to be restrained if America is ever to attain some degree of collective mental health. I for one will send up a cheer for sober analysis.

Off the Top of My Head

Good-Bye Mitch McConnell: Democrats Win Control of Senate. Now They Need to Get Rid of Filibuster to Get Anything Done.

by John Lawrence, January 6, 2021

Nothing turned off GOP voters more than seeing their hero call for a $2000. payment to individuals while Mitch McConnell stood there on the Senate floor and said repeatedly, "Object. Object." Jon Offoss told his supporters that, if he were to be elected and Democrats controlled Congress, Biden had promised to implement the $2000 payments. That would be incentive enough for many Republican voters, especially the non-rich, to vote for a Democrat. Thank God, Democrats will control the Senate and the Roadblocker-in-Chief, will not get the chance to block all progressive Democratic legislation coming forward from the House in the next 4 years. Now there is one more potential roadblock that the Senate has the ability to do away with: the filibuster rule. Meanwhile, on the day Joe Biden is certified by the Congress, Trump, while completely neglecting the fact that yesterday the most people ever died from COVID, is holding another shit show and super spreader event in Washington so his supporters can get off on their collective anger that their hero wasn't reelected in a free and fair election. By the way I noticed in the excellent CNN film about Jimmy Carter (Rock and Roll President) that the Ku Klux Klan in white robes protested openly at one of his campaign events and one of them was carrying a sign, "America First." So that's where Trump got the idea for that slogan.

Even when Democrats gain control of the Senate, opposition party senators can filibuster the majority’s agenda. That means that any one Republican senator can filibuster any progressive piece of legislation that Joe Biden and House Democrats put forward including the Green New Deal, or more appropriately - the Biden New Deal, a public option for Obamacare which would allow anyone to choose Medicare, the elimination of part or all of student loan debt, $2000 COVID relief payments to most Americans and more, much more. The filibuster is not part of the Constitution; it is simply a rule of the Senate which can be changed by a majority vote. Eliminating the filibuster has been characterized as the so-called "nuclear option." Wikipedia notes:

"According to the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), Senate rules can be changed by a simple majority vote. Nevertheless, under current Senate rules, a rule change could itself be filibustered, requiring two-thirds of senators who are present and voting to end debate. (This differs from the usual requirement for three-fifths of sworn senators.)

"Despite the two-thirds requirement described above being written into the Senate rules, any Senator may attempt to nullify a Senate rule, starting by making a point of order that the rule is unconstitutional or just that the meaning of the rule should not be followed. The presiding officer is generally expected to rule in favor of the rules of the Senate, but under rule XX, "every appeal therefrom shall be decided at once, and without debate" and therefore by a simple majority as there is no need for a vote on cloture.

"This happened in 2013, when Harry Reid of the Democratic Party raised a point of order that "the vote on cloture under rule XXII for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court of the United States is by majority vote". The presiding officer overruled the point of order, and Reid appealed the ruling. Mitch McConnell of the Republican Party raised a parliamentary inquiry on how many votes were required to appeal the chair's ruling in that instance. The presiding officer replied, "A majority of those Senators voting, a quorum being present, is required." Reid's appeal was sustained by a 52–48 vote, and the presiding officer then ruled that the Senate had established a precedent that cloture on nominations other than those for the Supreme Court requires only a simple majority. On April 6, 2017, that precedent was further changed by McConnell and the Republican majority, in a 52–48 vote, to include Supreme Court nominations."

Long story short. Democrats can eliminate the filibuster if they really want to. And they really need to do that because the Republican game plan will be to block all progressive legislation by means of the filibuster. Even without Mitch McConnell as chief roadblocker, Republicans will stymie Joe Biden and block all his initiatives. The result is that Biden's initiatives will go nowhere. It would be a total waste of Democratic power now that they have it. Republicans have shown no hesitancy to use their power to the full extent without any pretense of cooperating or compromising with Democrats. Now that Democrats have the power, they should use it starting with getting rid of the filibuster rule. Nobody knows more - from personal experience actually - than President Obama about how the filibuster rule can impede social progress. Republicans used it to effectively neuter Obama during his 8 year Presidency. Washington Post reported:

"Former President Barack Obama called on Thursday for eliminating the filibuster, joining a growing chorus of Democrats who portray the Senate’s signature procedural weapon as an obstacle to social progress that must be abolished if the party captures the Senate and White House.

"The appeal by Mr. Obama to do away with a tactic that Senate Republicans used to thwart him and the Democratic agenda for much of his eight years in office came during his eulogy in Atlanta for Representative John Lewis, the civil rights icon. The former president seized the moment to cast the filibuster as a vestige of a grim period in the United States when Southern lawmakers used it to impede voting rights and other advances for African-Americans."

“Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching,” Mr. Obama said, referring to legislation Democrats are pushing on Capitol Hill in the face of opposition from Republicans. “And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster — another Jim Crow relic — in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.”

So the writing is on the wall. Do we want this democracy to represent the interests of the majority of its people or only the upper 10%? Do we want to save the planet from global warming? If so the Republican call for "moderation" or "compromise" or "not being too radical" will not work. There is a limited time frame for us to act or the planet will soon - in our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our children - become uninhabitable for most people. We have failed to act on this in a timely manner. Now we must play catch up, and there is no time to waste. We have about 10 years to get global warming under control. Don't listen to people that say the Green New Deal is too radical. It's too radical only if we want to let the planet become virtually uninhabitable.

Off the Top of My Head

Will Trump Detach His Base From the Republican Party?

by John Lawrence, November 15, 2020

It is becoming clear that the base of the Republican party is more loyal to Trump than they are to the Republican party. The base has really become the Trump party and old guard Republicans like Mitch McConnell are getting nervous that they will not remain loyal to the Republican party. That's why Republicans are showing deference to Trump and his pique that the election was illegitimate. They know he lost the election, but they won't come out and say so. Trump's base even held a huge post election rally last Saturday showing their loyalty to Trump not necessarily the Republican party. This makes it more likely that Trump will take his base with him when he leaves office. Effectively, they would become the Trump party. Whether Trump creates his on media empire or associates himself with Fox news or some other media empire, it's clear that there is an audience he can count on.

The Republican party made a deal with the devil in the 1960s after the Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Hitherto southern white supremacists and racists had been loyal to the Democratic party.They decided en masse that, if the Democrats were not going to continue to represent their racism and white supremacy, they would switch parties. Republicans then made a deal with the devil and accepted them with open arms because, while Republicans basically represent the interests of the rich, there are not enough of them to form a majority in a constitutional democracy. So far Trump has represented the interests of the old line Republicans by signing into law huge tax breaks for the rich and deregulating everything that could be regulated. His base hardly noticed except for the pittance of a tax break they got. They were more interested in Trump's conspiracy theories and ongoing campaign rallies where Trump sowed his racist and nativist sentiments and stoked their anger. Now it's clear that, if Trump so desired, he could detach his base that is the Republican base and take them with him forming a separate party devoted to Trump and his conspiracy theories. Trump and his henchmen in the alternative and social media world could create their separate entity and reality, which they've already to a large extent, created. So doing would continue the deep divides within the United States and further sow discord and division.

Aligning themselves with Mitch McConnell and a Republican controlled Senate, if the elections in Georgia don't result in two Democratic Senators, will hamper Joe Biden's attempts to enact any of his agenda in the same way that they blocked Obama's agenda for eight years. Then Trump and/or his family members could storm back in 2022 and 2024 to win back what they perceive they have unfairly lost in the 2020 election. They have labeled any middle of the road Democratic programs as far left or socialist and they will use the same tactics to demonize Joe and particularly Kamala as not representative of their racist and white supremacist values. Meanwhile, all the good work which Joe Biden's agenda represents will not get accomplished just like Obama's agenda was prevented from getting much of anything done except for a watered down version of Obamacare which they demonized ever since its enactment. Democrats, heretofore, have tried to cooperate with Republicans and be nice guys while Republicans have been playing hard ball using every bit of their power to promote their interests without any compromise whatsoever. They even went to the extent of denying Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish that the next President replace her on the Supreme Court. This was after they swore up and down that the next President should replace a Supreme Court Justice a year before the end of the Obama Presidency thus denying Obama that privilege.

Joe Biden could fall into the same trap of watering down his agenda just to please Republicans under the guise of cooperation. He supposedly wants to "work across the aisle." He thinks he can get Mitch McConnell to cooperate with him. My advice is to "speak softly and carry a big stick" in the immortal words of Teddy Roosevelt. He mustn't fall into the same trap that Obama - and for that matter Bill Clinton - fell into by playing nice with Republicans. Trump's base will continue to be more loyal to Trump than they will be to Mitch McConnell or the Republican party. Trump will be more concerned about staying out of jail and deferring his $431 million debt repayment so he will enlist his base along those lines. Trump knows that his personal concerns will diverge from legitimate Republican party concerns once he's out of office, and he will enlist his minions to give him their support. Prodigious and ongoing conspiracy theories will fuel the anger of Trump's base, and there will be demands for his reinstatement as the rightful President of the United States.

'Postpone the Hearing': Democrats Demand Delay in Barrett's Confirmation Process After Third GOP Senator Tests Positive for Covid-19

Published on Saturday, October 03, 2020

by Common Dreams

"Rushing to have the hearing under these circumstances just shows that Republicans know they won't have the votes after Election Day."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

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Seventh U.S. Circuit Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, meets with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in the Mansfield Room of the U.S. Capitol on September 30, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Tillis announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday. (Photo: Bill Clark-Pool/Getty Images)

Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocates demanded on Friday and into Saturday that the Senate Judiciary Committee postpone Judge Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearing for the U.S. Supreme Court after at least three Republican senators tested positive for the coronavirus.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) announced his positive result on Saturday morning, a day after two Senate Judiciary Committee members—Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)—were also diagnosed with Covid-19. 

Johnson did not attend the White House gathering last Saturday where President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Barrett, but he has been attending lunches with other Republican senators three times per week, including this past week. Lee and Tillis have also been attending the gatherings, suggesting that they may have exposed several of their Senate colleagues. Democratic senators have suspended their in-person lunches in light of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The progressive advocacy group Demand Justice was among those who called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone Barrett's hearings, which are set to begin Oct. 13. 

"They need to postpone the hearing because voting on Barrett before the election would gravely damage the legitimacy of the Court itself," wrote Susan Hennessey, executive editor of Lawfare. "Rushing to have the hearing under these circumstances just shows that Republicans know they won't have the votes after Election Day."

Johnson's diagnosis calls into question—even if the Senate Judiciary Committee moves forward with a virtual hearing—whether Barrett could be confirmed before Election Day, one month from Saturday. 

As CNN reported Saturday, "If the three senators remain out this month, it would effectively prevent Barrett from being confirmed to the Supreme Court until they return, which could be after Election Day during a lame-duck session."

"A lame-duck confirmation is a situation that GOP leaders are eager to avoid in case they lose control of the chamber next month," reported Manu Raju and Lauren Fox. "The fear is that one or two GOP senators may break ranks after seeing the election results and citing the will of the voters." 

Two Republican senators—Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have already indicated they do not support moving forward with Barrett's confirmation process before the election, but have not ruled out a confirmation during a potential lame-duck session should Trump lose to Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted late Friday that with at least two Covid-positive Judiciary Committee members, "The Senate cannot safely proceed on the Supreme Court nomination. We must focus on containing this virus to protect members and staff."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, issued a joint statement Friday along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), noting the "bipartisan agreement that a virtual confirmation hearing for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench is not an acceptable substitute" for an in-person hearing and calling on committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) postpone the hearing. 

"All circuit court nominees have appeared in person during the pandemic, and there is far more at stake for the American people with this Supreme Court nomination, including the Affordable Care Act being struck down and more than seven million Covid survivors being denied health coverage," the lawmakers said. "It’s critical that Chairman Graham put the health of senators, the nominee and staff first – and ensure a full and fair hearing that is not rushed, not truncated, and not virtual. Otherwise this already illegitimate process will become a dangerous one.” 

The statement followed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's indication that Republicans intend to move "full steam ahead" with Barrett's confirmation. McConnell made his statement before Tillis announced his positive test result.

"How many Senate Judiciary Committee members need to test positive to get Lindsey Graham to postpone Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearing?" asked UCLA political scientist Miranda Yaver after Tillis's diagnosis became public.

David Segal, executive director of progressive campaign group Demand Progress,called for the hearing to be postponed while urging voters to "prepare to push for further postponement thereafter."

Yep postpone the hearing - and prepare to push for further postponement thereafter. Call your senators, no matter where you are, at 202-899-8938. (Will get script to use once you dial.) https://t.co/hj8UeClo5p

— David Segal (@DavidSegalRI) October 3, 2020

"Call your senators, no matter where you are," Segal tweeted.

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Off the Top of My Head

Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg Looking Down on Us?

by John Lawrence, October 3, 2020

People say when people die, they are looking down on us. I'm not sure this is true, but if it is, I'm sure RBG and God are totally pissed that Trump ignored this woman's dying wish that the next President pick her replacement. In a flagrant disregard for a woman's dying wish, Trump and a whole bunch of hypocrite Republicans including Lindsay Graham ("mark my words") went full steam ahead with putting their pick on the Supreme Court. Now it looks like RBG will get her dying wish as 2 Republican Senators who are on the Senate judiciary committee have come down with COVID. So it looks like Republicans don't have their majority after 2 others said they wouldn't vote with them. If this is the fallout from Trump and cohorts coming down with COVID, I'm sure that RBG, looking down on us, is saying Mazel Tov!

In a flagrant disregard for the health and safety of the American people, not to say of his own health and the health of other Republicans and his "base", Trump has ignored science and the advice of medical experts at his peril. Now it's time to pay the piper. I have mixed feelings about the President of the US coming down with COVID, but I can't say I'm praying for him. If I were a praying man, which I am to a small extent, I would pray for the 200,000 plus families who have lost a loved one due to Trump's misleading the American people. He mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask as if he were the fearless macho man and Joe was just a wimp. In an attempt to appear strong and powerful, Trump has been reduced to the lot of 7 million ordinary individuals who have been laid low by a common virus. We dodged a bullet with SARS when it broke out in 2002. Over the next several months, SARS infected more than 8,000 people, killed 774, and threatened a worldwide pandemic. The crisis was averted only when cutting-edge science was combined with sophisticated communications strategies and close international cooperation. None of that was present this time thanks to Donald Trump. So I can't feel sorry for him.

Joe Biden is a compassionate and intelligent man. Trump considers this a sign of weakness. He tries to represent himself as a macho man and brings this out in his followers. Science be damned. Intelligence be damned. Compassion be damned. USA. USA. Lock her up. Lock her up. OK, Trump, now you've got what you so richly deserved. I can't feel sorry for you just because you're President of the US. You've put children in cages and separated them from their families. You've put nincompoops, toadies and sycophants in positions of power, people whose only qualification was their loyalty to you. You've gutted every environmental regulation you could get your hand on. You've denied the most looming crisis of our time - global warming.

Is Trump's diagnosis divine retribution? Is it God's punishment? I can't bring myself to think so. However, it is retribution for ignoring the advice of medical experts. It is retribution for ignoring science. It is retribution for not taking COVID seriously. I think this is the end of Trump's campaign. In a sense he has proven himself wrong in the eyes of any intelligent voter by coming down with COVID himself. He has held superspreader events with fellow Republicans sitting shoulder to shoulder with no masks on like the event in the Rose Garden when he presented his pick for RBG's replacement. Was this RBG's revenge for ignoring her dying wish? Was this God saying, "Too much. I have to intervene." Trump's swaggering hubris, his towering stupidity - all has come to nought for him. Pride comith before a fall. And now large numbers of Republicans including Senators and Congressmen and women and one Catholic priest, the President of Notre Dame, are coming down with COVID.

All I can think, hope and pray for is that RBG's dying wish will come to fruition, the election will come soon with Joe Biden being elected, Democrats will take control of both Houses of Congress, Joe Biden's Green Deal will be implemented (amazing how little time it took for Republicans to demonize "Green New Deal") and Trump will become a footnote in history.

Off the Top of My Head

Is This Any Way to Choose Supreme Court ... Or a President?

by John Lawrence, September 27, 2020

So we have a situation in which a President who lost the popular vote has been able to pick 3 Supreme Court Judges. This is what our Constitution has led us to? The US Constitution is out of date, archaic and dysfunctional. It needs to be either revised or rewritten from scratch. Many other countries have done just that with their constitutions. There are better ways to choose a Supreme Court than to have a President choose the composition thereof. Other ways the Constitution is dysfunctional: the electoral college, the fact that the leader of the Senate has a veto over any legislation the People's House creates and the filibuster. I would also add the Second Amendment to the list.

Here is a better way to choose the Supreme Court. Have the House of Representatives vote on the composition of it and have each judge only serve a 10 year term, not a life term. Also have in place qualifications for nominees. In other words not everyone can run for a Supreme Court Judgeship. Only those who are well qualified should be able to. Here are some of the basic qualifications: a Doctor of Law degree from a major University (in other words the highest law degree one can get), a career either in teaching or the practice of law for at least 20 years, having argued at least one case before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court should be democratically elected at least by representatives elected by the people which at present is the US House of Representatives, and not subject to Senate approval. Let me note that I'm not an expert; I'm not a lawyer so anyone should take my recommendations with a grain of salt.

It is obvious that our current Constitution allows for the opening of a can of worms in the election of the President as President Trump has pointed out and intends to exploit. He expects that the balloting will be so mixed up that the Republican party will be able to challenge the outcome in a number of battleground states with the result that the selection of the President will end up in the Supreme Court, three of whose Justices he has picked himself. This is exactly why a Constitution should not let the President select members of the Supreme Court, and they should be democratically elected instead by a vote of the House.

I find it amazing that practically no research has been done on how the Supreme Court should be selected according to my limited Google search. In a democracy these courts should be democratically elected by a representative body within the boundaries that judges or Justices should be highly qualified to even be considered. What is unreasonable about these considerations except for the fact that they don't accord with our preexisitng Constitution? It has become obvious that our 231 year old Constitution, the world's longest surviving written charter of government, is not only out of date, it's anti-democratic in major ways. It was written at a time when only white, propertied men were allowed to vote, at a time when the writers didn't trust the hoi polloi, the rabble, the uneducated, the poor or those not of the same ethnic background as they were.

'Morally Obscene,' Says Sanders as McConnell Adjourns Senate for Month-Long Recess Without Deal on Coronavirus Relief

Published on Friday, August 14, 2020

by Common Dreams

"During the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans think they can take a long vacation while millions of Americans face hunger and eviction."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

20 Comments

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) waits for the Senate subway to leave on June 3, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell adjourned the U.S. Senate for the rest of August on Thursday after failing to come anywhere close to approving another Covid-19 relief package, leaving tens of millions of out-of-work, hungry, and eviction-prone Americans without additional financial aid as the pandemic and economic crisis continue with no end in sight.

"During the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans think they can take a long vacation while millions of Americans face hunger and eviction. That is morally obscene," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in response to McConnell's decision. "It's time for the do-nothing Republican Senate to finally do its damn job."

"Almost 30 million are on unemployment and 160,000 Americans are dead. McConnell just adjourned the Senate for a month. Every time I think Republicans can't run this country any further into the ground, they prove me wrong."
—Sen. Ron Wyden

The departure of the Republican-controlled Senate comes after an attempt to revive Covid-19 relief talks earlier this week quickly failed as Democratic leaders and Trump administration officials remained far apart on key issues, from emergency funding for the U.S. Postal Service to aid to faltering state and local governments. In her weekly press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said White House negotiators refused to budge from their insufficient relief offers.

The Senate is not expected to return until September 8, when economic conditions are likely to be even more dire for the 40 million people at risk of eviction, 30 million facing drastic income cuts due to the lapse in enhanced unemployment benefits, and 14 million households with children that don't have enough to eat.

"This is pathetic and devastating," consumer advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted after McConnell adjourned the upper chamber until after Labor Day. Just before skipping town, the Kentucky Republican advanced five more of President Donald Trump's right-wing judicial nominees.

Senate adjourned until 9/8, but not before @senatemajldr moved forward on 5 more of Trump’s judicial nominees. It’s shameful that McConnell is focused on stacking the courts instead of saving USPS, funding elections, and extending census deadlines. Our democracy deserves better. https://t.co/cR6tr664i5

— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) August 13, 2020

Earlier Thursday, the Labor Department reported (pdf) that 963,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week—a figure that corporate news outlets presented as the first time since March that initial weekly jobless claims dipped below a million.

But Julia Wolfe, state economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post Thursday that the Labor Department's report downplays the number of workers who filed for unemployment benefits last week. The actual figure, according to Wolfe, is 1.3 million.

"Astonishingly high numbers of workers continue to claim UI, and we are still 12.9 million jobs short of February employment levels," Wolfe wrote. "And yet, Senate Republicans allowed the across-the-board $600 increase in weekly UI benefits—the most effective economic policy crisis response so far—to expire."

"In an unserious move of political theater, the Trump administration has proposed starting up an entirely new system of restoring wages to laid-off workers through executive order (EO)," Wolfe continued. "But even in their EO wishlist, the Trump administration would slash the federal contribution to enhanced unemployment benefits in half, to $300. This inaction and ongoing uncertainty is causing significant economic pain for workers who have lost their job during the pandemic and their families."

With tens of millions of low-income and middle-class Americans facing financial ruin as the White House and congressional Republicans stonewall an additional relief package, the Washington Post's Heather Long reported Thursday that the coronavirus-induced recession "is over for the rich."

"U.S. stocks are hovering near a record high, a stunning comeback since March that underscores the new phase the economy has entered: The wealthy have mostly recovered. The bottom half remain far from it," Long wrote. "This dichotomy is evident in many facets of the economy, especially in employment. Jobs are fully back for the highest wage earners, but fewer than half the jobs lost this spring have returned for those making less than $20 an hour."

NEW: The recession is largely over for the rich. The working class remain in deep pain.

-Stocks r near record highs
-Home values at all-time highs
-Jobs r back for affluent

Meanwhile...
-Jobs less than 1/2 recovered for low-wage workers
-$600 UI expired https://t.co/csGZqYefLN pic.twitter.com/c88yBcCeVo

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) August 13, 2020

In a statement Thursday, Kyle Herrig, president of advocacy group Accountable.US, slammed the Republican-controlled Senate for opting to "pack up and leave Washington for a month without making a new deal to assist American workers and small business owners."

"The luxuries of paid time off and premium health insurance afforded to senators is of little help to the millions of Americans who lost their jobs during this crisis," said Herrig. "Where is the urgency to get workers and their families the help they need?"

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the architects of the now-expired $600-per-week unemployment insurance boost, tweeted: "Donald Trump is suppressing votes to steal an election. Almost 30 million are on unemployment and 160,000 Americans are dead. McConnell just adjourned the Senate for a month."
 
"Every time I think Republicans can't run this country any further into the ground," Wyden wrote, "they prove me wrong."

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Off the Top of My Head

Making America Great Again or Running the Country into the Ground?

by John Lawrence, August 14, 2020

It's obvious that Congress will not approve another coronavirus relief program. They've decided to go on vacation rather than work for the benefit of the people. So Americans are left to their own devices to deal with the pandemic as best they can. There won't be another $600. added to unemployment by the Federal government. Those days are over folks. Now it's every family for itself. We are all essential workers in the sense that we had better go back to work regardless of the risk, that is if we want to eat and/or pay the rent or the mortgage. If we don't have a job, we need to create one. That's the American way. In the long run we're all self-employed. Don't expect the government or private enterprise to provide us with one. It's not their responsibility.

Trump is doing his level best to undermine the Post Office and run it into the ground lest he lose the election. He knows that the WPP (the White People's Party aka the Republican party) has a better chance of getting themselves elected if all those nonwhites and essential workers can't make it to the polls. He is even ordering the government to release more methane into the environment in the hopes that fossil fuel workers will be energized. However, the WPP always needs to have something of entertainment value that they can rally around. So the latest thing is Qanon. Q is an a real person, but someone who wants to remain anonymous hence his name, get it, Q who wishes to remain anonymous or Q - anon. Now Q is someone who knows a lot about the government and he is doing his best to protect the interests of the WPP. The WPP believes in Q although there is no evidence that he (it has to be HE) really exists. Q is probably up there sitting on the left hand of God. I think Jesus is on the right hand so the left hand is still available. The WPP is rallying around Q because they need something or somebody to believe in. It's not that they are really a cult; it's just that the WPP has become more cult-like.

Leave it to Q to come up with the deep state knowledge that Kamala Harris was not really born in the US just as Barack Obama was not either. Since her parents were illegal immigrants, she does not and cannot qualify for a leading position in the US government, potentially becoming President of the United States. She will appeal not only to the African American constituency but also to the Indian American constituency. That's too many constituencies for the WPP even to deal with . What's next? A Mexican-African-Indian-Native American-Chinese American running for President. That would check too many boxes. But by then the WPP should have entirely eliminated the Post Office so none of these supposedly essential workers would be able to vote by mail. As for senior citizens, they will have been mostly eradicated by the coronavirus pandemic so no need for them to vote by mail either.

So what will Trump come up with for a nickname for Kamala? He already has Sleepy Joe, who never leaves his basement, for Joe Biden. Let's see, hmmmm, Rajah Kamala? No that sounds too regal. Prosecutor Kamala? No that sounds like someone too much in charge. Bussed to school Kamala? No there's just no creative name that really sticks. Trump's henchmen will have to put their heads together and come up with something. Maybe Q can help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOP Plan to Slash Unemployment Benefits by $1,600 Per Month Condemned as 'Absolutely Unacceptable'

Published on Monday, July 27, 2020

by Common Dreams

"The country is on fire and the chief concern for Senate Republicans is that unemployed people have too much money."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

2 Comments

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) conducts a news conference after the Senate Republican Policy luncheon in the Hart Building on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Progressives are rejecting out of hand a proposal by Senate Republicans to temporarily slash the weekly federal boost to unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 until states develop the capacity to implement a more complex system that would pay laid-off workers 70% of what they earned prior to losing their jobs.

Bloomberg reported Monday that the Senate GOP plan, which was approved by the Trump White House, will call for a two-month transition to the new unemployment system and provide states with an option to apply for a waiver for up to two additional months. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to officially unveil the plan later Monday as part of the GOP's coronavirus stimulus package.

"Senate Republicans want to cut unemployment benefits for 30 million Americans by $400 a week. This cannot stand."
—Sen. Sherrod Brown

 

"Millions of Americans are out of work and millions of renters will soon face eviction," said advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires. "Meanwhile, Trump and Senate Republicans want to cut unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 a week. Absolutely unacceptable."

Analysts warn that replacing the flat $600-per-week payment with an individualized benefit would overwhelm antiquated state unemployment insurance (UI) systems, potentially causing massive relief delays for millions of people on the brink of financial collapse.

Michele Evermore, senior policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project, tweeted Monday that the GOP's proposed "70% income replacement is a weird technocratic solution to a problem that doesn't exist."

"This would require a different individual calculation for every person. States will take months to get this up while still processing historic new claims," Evermore wrote. "The fact that low income folks are getting more on UI is a good thing and has kept unemployed workers’ pain from spreading in their communities. This is giving people the economic power to make good choices to slow the spread of Covid, which is out of control."

Under the GOP proposal, the $400-per-week reduction in UI payments would be implemented as states transition to the wage replacement program. The change would amount to a $1,600 monthly income cut for the tens of millions of Americans currently relying on the boosted UI benefits to cover basic expenses.

The steep benefit reduction would also cost the U.S. more than three million jobs over the next year, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Unless Congress reaches a deal to avoid a lapse in additional federal payments, state unemployment benefits will revert to the pre-pandemic rate—which averaged about $370 per week nationwide—starting August 1.

"Senate Republicans want to cut unemployment benefits for 30 million Americans by $400 a week," tweeted Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). "This cannot stand."

🚨 Senate Republicans proposing to cut the incomes of 30 million+ unemployed Americans and their families by $1,600 per month in the middle of a pandemic. 🚨 https://t.co/zQ9gqUqv7x

— Charlie Anderson (@EconCharlie) July 27, 2020

With bipartisan negotiations over the stimulus package expected to begin late Monday, Democratic leaders have not said the Republican unemployment proposal is a deal-breaker.

Asked about the UI payments in an appearance on CBS "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized the GOP's 70% wage replacement idea as overly complicated but said "you don't go into a negotiation with a red line."

In May, the House passed a bill that proposes extending the $600-per-week benefit through January of next year. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation earlier this month that would extend the $600 weekly UI boost until economic conditions improve.

"These negotiations are absurd," HuffPost senior reporter Zach Carter tweeted Monday. "The country is on fire and the chief concern for Senate Republicans is that unemployed people have too much money."

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Who is Worse: Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell?

by Robert Reich

Sunday, December 1, 2019

He’s maybe the most dangerous politician of my lifetime. He’s helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. The politician I’m talking about, of course, is Mitch McConnell.

Two goals for November 3, 2020: The first and most obvious is to get the worst president in history out of the White House. That’s necessary but not sufficient. We also have to flip the Senate and remove the worst Senate Majority Leader in history.

Like Trump, Mitch McConnell is no garden-variety bad public official. McConnell puts party above America, and Trump above party. Even if Trump is gone, if the Senate remains in Republican hands and McConnell is reelected, America loses because McConnell will still have a chokehold on our democracy.

This is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. 

And then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 Senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault.

This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans – a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock.

McConnell refuses to support what’s needed for comprehensive election security – although both the U.S. intelligence community and Special Prosecutor Mueller say Moscow is continuing to hack into our voting machines and to weaponize disinformation through social media. 

McConnell has earned the nickname “Moscow Mitch” because he’s doing exactly what Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump want him to do – leave America vulnerable to another Putin-supported victory for Trump.

McConnell is also blocking bipartisan background-check legislation for gun sales, even after the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, El Paso and Odessa, Texas.  

So even if Trump is out of the White House, if McConnell remains Senate Majority Leader he will not allow a Democratic president to govern. 

He won’t allow debate or votes on Medicare for All, universal pre-K, a wealth tax, student loan forgiveness, or the Green New Deal. He won’t allow confirmation votes on judges nominated by a Democratic president.

The good news is McConnell is the least popular senator in the country with his own constituents. He’s repeatedly sacrificed Kentucky to Trump’s agenda – for example, agreeing to Trump’s so-called emergency funding for a border wall, which would take $63 million away from projects like a new middle school on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee.

McConnell is even cut funding for black lung disease suffered by Kentucky coal miners. I know from my years as labor secretary that coal mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and the number of cases of incurable black lung disease has been on the rise. But when a group of miners took a 10-hour bus ride to Washington this past summer to ask McConnell to restore the funding, McConnell met with them for one minute and then refused to help them. No wonder Democrats are lining up in Kentucky to run against Moscow Mitch in 2020.

The not-so-good news is that McConnell is up for re-election the same day as Donald Trump, and Trump did well in Kentucky in 2016. Which means we have to help organize Kentucky, just as we have to organize other states that may not be swing states in the presidential election but could take back the Senate. 

Consider Georgia: Republican Senator Johnny Isakson is retiring, meaning both of Georgia’s Senate seats are now up for grabs. And this one extra seat—in a state that is trending blue—could be the tipping point that allows Democrats to win enough seats to end GOP control of the Senate.

Trump has to go, but so does McConnell.

Here’s what you can do: Wherever you are in the country, you can donate to McConnell’s challengers. If you live in or near Kentucky, you can get out and knock doors or make calls. Or if you have friends or family in the state, encourage them to get involved.

As to the question of who is worse, Trump or McConnell — the answer is that it’s too close to call. The two of them have degraded and corrupted American democracy. We need them both out.

To Ram Through Unpopular Agenda, Trump Urges GOP to Kill Senate Filibuster

Published on Tuesday, May 30, 2017

by

Common Dreams

Though his proposals have found slim support among the American people, president wants GOP allies to push items through "fast and easy"

 

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President Donald Trump want Republican leaders in Senate, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), to kill the legislative filibuster so they could ram through regressive, and highly unpopular, agenda items. (Photo: Moriah Ratner via The Hill)

President Donald Trump indicated to Republicans on Tuesday that they should ignore widespread voter disapproval of his agenda as he urged them to once again jettison filibuster rules in the U.S. Senate in order to ram through a bill that would strip health coverage from an estimated 23 million people over the next decade and pass massive tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations.

"The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy. Dems would do it, no doubt!" the president tweeted Tuesday morning.

According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, only 21% of voters approve of the Republican "wealthcare, not a healthcare bill" which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month and is derisively known as Trumpcare.

Meanwhile, Trump's budget proposal—released in detail last week and immediately slammed by economic experts as erroneous and unworkable and by progressives as "immoral," cruel, and the epitome of class warfare—has landed with a reported "thud" even among those who backed Trump's presidential bid. And while tax cuts nearly always poll well among U.S. voters, Trump's plan, which focuses on giving massive giveaways to billionaires like himself, has been widely viewed as a direct betrayal to the many low-income and working-class voters who helped usher him into office on promises that he would confront the establishment elite.

While the Republicans in the Senate have vowed to write their own "repeal and replace" healthcare bill, as opposed to taking up what their House colleagues sent over, Trump has made it clear he believes House version is a "great" proposal and given it his full endorsement.

And while Trump might think killing the filibuster would make life easier for him, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—though he did use the so-called "nuclear option" in order to get Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch confirmed—has repeatedly ruled out doing the same for other legislative business.

As Jason Easley, writing at PoliticusUSA, argues, "Trump wants the legislative filibuster changed because a change is the only way that any of his legislation stands any chance of passage.... [the president] is losing, and he wants Republicans to rig the game so that he can win."

And MSNBC's Steve Benen suggested Trump's tweet was a combination of ignorance and political misdirection as he offered three key takeaways for readers to keep in mind:

1. We already know that Senate Republicans will not do this, at least not anytime soon. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), among other GOP leaders, has said in no uncertain terms that the legislative filibuster isn’t going away, the president’s pleas notwithstanding.

2. Trump, who’s never demonstrated an even rudimentary understanding of the legislative process, may not appreciate these details, but both health care and tax cuts are being pursued through the reconciliation process – which means they already can’t be filibustered. If filibusters were eliminated entirely, it might be a little easier to pass these priorities, but Democratic opposition is not the source of the White House’s problem.

3. The president is apparently convinced that Democrats would scrap all filibusters, but it’s worth remembering that Dems had the Senate majority for eight years – January 2007 to December 2014 – and did not do what Trump claims.

According to Benen, Trump is likely "laying the groundwork for failure" and angling for a way to put the blame on Democrats if and when the Senate fails to pass his legislative wish list.

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