I. EPA Runs Amok
#Despite the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration speeds up wall construction on the US-Mexico border.
#The Environmental Protection Agency stops enforcing environmental regulations for polluting industries during the pandemic.
#Trump's EPA wants to allow more than fine-particulate air pollution even though it appears to be a key contributor to mortality from COVID -19.
#The Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program and partners win a major court victory against the Keystone XL pipeline and other oil and gas pipelines regarding crossings of rivers, streams, and wetlands.
#In revising the Waters of the United States rule, the EPA drastically narrows the scope of the Clean Water Act.
#The EPA also loosens regulations on mercury and other toxic emissions by coal-fired power plants in a way that will make it difficult to tighten them in the future.
#The Sierra Club and other organizations challenge the EPA's plan to allow dirty industrial plants in Texas to pollute neighboring communities during startups, shutdowns, and plant malfunctions.
#The Trump administration rolls back Obama-era clean-car standards, allowing cars and trucks to emit 900 million tons of greenhouse gases over their lifetimes. The Sierra Club and others join states in challenging this rollback.
#Amid an enormous oil glut, Trump orders the Department of Energy to buy 30 million barrels of domestic crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. (Source: Paul Rauber, "Trump Watch: EPA Runs Amok," Sierra, July/August 2020.)
II. Giving Israel Everything It Wants
"Donald Trump's 'deal of the century' between Israel and Palestine essentially gives Israel's far right coalition government everything it wanted. This Middle East 'peace' deal allows Israel to annex vast stretches of the Palestinian West Bank (which has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967) to Israel, including all of the illegal Jewish-only settlements in areas colonized by Israeli settlers as well as Arab East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. Palestinians would be granted limited autonomy in a series of largely urban enclaves surrounded by the expanded borders of Israel still controlling Palestinian borders,immigration, security, airspace, aquifers and the electromagnetic spectrum. [1]
Indeed, Trump's proposal for Israel and Palestine bears remarkable resemblance to the notorious Bantustan system of apartheid South Africa.
The United Nations Charter and UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which previous U.S. administrations insisted were to the basis of a peace settlement -- explicitly forbid any nation from expanding its territory by military force. But Trump's proposal allows Israel to do just that.
In addition, the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits any occupying power from transferring its civilian population onto territories seized by military force. United Nations Security Council resolutions 446 and 2234 have explicitly recognized the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israeli-occupied territories, as does a landmark 2004 decision by the International Court of Justice. Trump now insists that Israel's illegal occupation of these territories is, in fact, legal."
"Trump's plan essential gives the green light to unilateral Israeli annexation of large swathes of occupied territory, which would bring worldwide condemnation, but the Trump administration has promised to veto any initiatives at the United Nations to criticize such a flagrant violation of the UN Charter."
III. Cops Released from Federal Oversight
"The civil unrest rocking the country in the wake of George Floyd's death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer has many catalysts. Among the more immediate is President Donald Trump and his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who freed local police departments from federal oversight and signaled that police brutality was no longer a problem that the federal government had an interest in solving. For police officers and departments with histories of terrorizing people rather than building relationships with communities they are supposed to protect, that message was heard loud and clear. [2]
After the police officers who beat Rodney King in March 1991 in Los Angeles were acquitted,leading to the Los Angeles riots, Congress took action by giving the federal government oversight of local police departments. As 'Mother Jones' reported in 2017, on the 25th anniversary of those riots: 'Since then, the Justice Department has launched 70 investigations into state and local law enforcement agencies and has negotiated 40 reform agreements, half of which are court-enforced consent decrees. The Obama administration was particularly active with this policy, enforcing 14 consent decrees for troubled police agencies,from Ferguson,Missouri,to Baltimore' "
"When Trump finally fired Sessions in November 2018,the outgoing attorney general had one final trick up his sleeve. Before leaving the Justice Department, he quietly signed a memorandum in one of his last official acts, all but ending the department's oversight of police departments. The memorandum made the Trump administration's de facto policy against new consent decrees official, while extending the same hands-off policy to other areas of federal enforcement involving state responsibilities in areas like pollution and voting rights. Experts predicted that even departments already under current federal oversight might once again act with impunity because the memo undercut the authority of civil rights attorneys to enforce them. Sessions' memo set policy, but it also sent a message to police departments that they would no longer have to answer to the federal government -- not even when officer shootings draw national attention.
This message was sent not just in order to pare back enforcement but in the states' rights language framing the 7-page document that has historically signaled support for state repression over the rights of black people. Sessions' memo also takes pains to emphasize that states are 'sovereign' with 'special and protected roles' and that, when investigating them, the Justice Department must afford states the 'respect and comity deserving of a separate sovereign.'
Christy Lopez, who oversaw investigations by the department into local police agencies during the Obama administration, predicted that: "As has so often been the case with the administration, we will have to look to the courts, to local governments and to grass-roots political protest, and pressure to protect our civil rights from police abuse. Because, as the Sessions' memo confirms, this Justice Department has no intention of letting its civil rights division protect us from abuse by the state."
Footnotes:
[1] Article written by Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco: https:/truthout.org/articles.trumps-israel-palestine-peace-plan-violates-international- law.
[2] Pema Levy, "Trump and Sessions Released Cops From Federal Oversight. Now We See the Results," Crime and Justice, June 2, 2020.
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Short Subjects on Varied Issues
*On October 24, 2019, Joe Biden warned President Trump that: "We are not prepared for pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores." "Contrary to what Trump is now saying about China, he previously said that China had 'everything under control.' "
*Unlike Joseph McCarthy, Trump seems to have only one fixed idea and it is about his own greatness." "What Trump shares with McCarthy is the capacity to create confusion and turmoil, as it is emerging as the mainstay of his reelection campaign." (Source: David Remnick, "Catering for Cranks," The New Yorker, May 25, 2020.)
*In regard to the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square 31 years ago, Trump said: "When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it," he told the Playboy magazine in 1990. "They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength."
*Defense Secretary Esper described the need to "dominate the battle space" in the nation's streets.
*The lawyer for the Floyd family, Benjamin Crump, says that when police officers kill a black man they are under-charged, and when black men kill they are over-charged.
*Attorney General William Barr has called public vandalism surrounding the protests "domestic terrorism."
*Trump said he was merely "inspecting" the basement bunker in the White House.
*Trump's press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, defended Trump when he said that a man pushed to the round in Buffalo, New York may have been part of a "set up." Trump had said: "I watched, he fell harder than was pushed." "Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?"
*Police have killed 885 people in Los Angeles County since 2000.
*Trump reelection committee sent a letter to CNN in early June demanding the network extract a poll that shows Trump losing to Biden.
*Leader of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Miley, has said: "My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics." Miley was referring to his standing near Trump when Trump was holding up a Bible.
*More than 1,250 former Department of Justice employees called on the department's inspector general to open an investigation into reports that Attorney General William Barr ordered the tear-gassing of protesters in Washington, D.C. on June 1. They wrote that they were "disturbed" by Barr's use of a number of federal agencies throughout the country to quell "lawful First Amendment activity."
*The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating 56 allegations of misconduct by police officers.
*The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would require the Pentagon to rename military bases and other assets that are named after Confederate military leaders.
*Trump has said that problems with racism will be solved "very easily. It will go quickly and it will go very easily." "But we'll make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racists or bigots."
*I was in January 2018 that Trump tweeted that the Black unemployment rate had just been reported to be the "LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED." Most of the drop in the rate occurred while Barack Obama was the president.
*When Congress passed a bill that included $8 million in relief for Indian country, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin did not disburse the funds for six weeks.
*"Even today, people of color make up more than half of home health aides and about 40 percent of child care providers." (Source: Bryce Covert, "Care Work," The Nation, June 15/22, 2020.)
*Proposition 13 in California rolled back property taxes to 1975 levels, taking a slow-moving, often hard-to-see wrecking ball to public schools, and city and county budgets.
*In John Bolton's book, he quotes Trump as saying that any conversation with him be rated as "highly classified."
*When GOP lawmakers were asked why they wouldn't subpoena Bolton to testify in the impeachment hearing, they said it wouldn't have made any difference. It shows how impervious they are to material evidence.
*Vice President Mike Pence asked state governors to downplay new community spread of the coronavirus, and attribute spikes to increase in testing.
*John Bolton reveals that Trump didn't want to weigh in on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, dismissing the matter by saying: "We have human rights problems too." Trump also declined to sign off on a statement last year commemorating the 30th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, worried it might hurt trade talks.
*Trump has threatened harsh actions on "lowlife agitators."
*Donald Trump Jr. called Joe Biden "a pedophile" and Covid - 19 "a democratic ploy."
*Unlike Joseph McCarthy, Trump seems to have only one fixed idea and it is about his own greatness." "What Trump shares with McCarthy is the capacity to create confusion and turmoil, as it is emerging as the mainstay of his reelection campaign." (Source: David Remnick, "Catering for Cranks," The New Yorker, May 25, 2020.)
*In regard to the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square 31 years ago, Trump said: "When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it," he told the Playboy magazine in 1990. "They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength."
*Defense Secretary Esper described the need to "dominate the battle space" in the nation's streets.
*The lawyer for the Floyd family, Benjamin Crump, says that when police officers kill a black man they are under-charged, and when black men kill they are over-charged.
*Attorney General William Barr has called public vandalism surrounding the protests "domestic terrorism."
*Trump said he was merely "inspecting" the basement bunker in the White House.
*Trump's press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, defended Trump when he said that a man pushed to the round in Buffalo, New York may have been part of a "set up." Trump had said: "I watched, he fell harder than was pushed." "Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?"
*Police have killed 885 people in Los Angeles County since 2000.
*Trump reelection committee sent a letter to CNN in early June demanding the network extract a poll that shows Trump losing to Biden.
*Leader of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Miley, has said: "My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics." Miley was referring to his standing near Trump when Trump was holding up a Bible.
*More than 1,250 former Department of Justice employees called on the department's inspector general to open an investigation into reports that Attorney General William Barr ordered the tear-gassing of protesters in Washington, D.C. on June 1. They wrote that they were "disturbed" by Barr's use of a number of federal agencies throughout the country to quell "lawful First Amendment activity."
*The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating 56 allegations of misconduct by police officers.
*The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would require the Pentagon to rename military bases and other assets that are named after Confederate military leaders.
*Trump has said that problems with racism will be solved "very easily. It will go quickly and it will go very easily." "But we'll make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racists or bigots."
*I was in January 2018 that Trump tweeted that the Black unemployment rate had just been reported to be the "LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED." Most of the drop in the rate occurred while Barack Obama was the president.
*When Congress passed a bill that included $8 million in relief for Indian country, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin did not disburse the funds for six weeks.
*"Even today, people of color make up more than half of home health aides and about 40 percent of child care providers." (Source: Bryce Covert, "Care Work," The Nation, June 15/22, 2020.)
*Proposition 13 in California rolled back property taxes to 1975 levels, taking a slow-moving, often hard-to-see wrecking ball to public schools, and city and county budgets.
*In John Bolton's book, he quotes Trump as saying that any conversation with him be rated as "highly classified."
*When GOP lawmakers were asked why they wouldn't subpoena Bolton to testify in the impeachment hearing, they said it wouldn't have made any difference. It shows how impervious they are to material evidence.
*Vice President Mike Pence asked state governors to downplay new community spread of the coronavirus, and attribute spikes to increase in testing.
*John Bolton reveals that Trump didn't want to weigh in on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, dismissing the matter by saying: "We have human rights problems too." Trump also declined to sign off on a statement last year commemorating the 30th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, worried it might hurt trade talks.
*Trump has threatened harsh actions on "lowlife agitators."
*Donald Trump Jr. called Joe Biden "a pedophile" and Covid - 19 "a democratic ploy."
Monday, July 27, 2020
Corporate Social Responsibility is a Sham; Super Rich Doing Well, and Curbing Police Brutality
I. Corporate Social Responsibility: a Sham
"Last August, the Business Roundtable -- an association of CEOs of Americas's biggest corporations -- announced with great fanfare a 'fundamental commitment to all our stakeholders' and not just their shareholders. They said 'investing in employees, delivering value to customers, and supporting outside communities' is now at the forefront of their goals -- not maximizing profits. [1]
Americans know that this claim of corporate social responsibility is a sham. "A record 76 percent of U.S. adults believe major corporations have too much power. One Business Rondtable director is Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. Just weeks after making the Roundtable commitment, and despite GM's hefty profits and large tax breaks, Barra rejected workers' demands that GM raise their wages and stop outsourcing their jobs. Earlier in the year GM shut its giant assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
Nearly 50,000 GM workers then staged the longest auto strike in 50 years. They won a few wage gains but didn't save any jobs. Barra was paid $22 million last year. How's that for corporate social responsibility?
Another prominent CEO who made the phony Business Roundtable commitment was AT&T's Randall Stephenson who promised to use the billions in savings from the Trump tax cut to invest in the company's broadband and create at least 7,000 new jobs. Instead, even before the coronavirus pandemic, AT&T cut more than 23,000 jobs and demanded that employees train lower-wage foreign workers to replace them."
"Oh, and the chairman of the Business Roundtable is Jamie Dimon, CEO of Wall Street's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. Dimon lobbied Congress personally and intensively for the biggest tax cut in history, and got the Business Roundtable to join him. JPMorgan raked in $3.7 billion from the tax cut. Dimon alone made $31 million in 2018.
That tax cut increased the federal debt by almost $2 trillion. This was before Congress spent almost $3 trillion fighting the pandemic --and delivering a hefty portion as bailouts to the biggest corporations, many of whom signed the Business Roundtable pledge."
"The only way to make corporations socially responsible is through laws requiring them to be -- for example, giving workers a bigger voice in corporate decision making, requiring that corporations pay severance to communities they abandon, raising corporate taxes, busting up monopolies, and preventing dangerous products (including faulty airplanes) from ever reaching the light of day."
II. Super-Rich Doing Well
"Although most Americans currently face hard times, with unemployment urging to the levels of the Great Depression and enormous numbers of people sick or dying from the coronavirus pandemic, the nation's super-rich remain a notable exception. [2]
Financially, they are doing remarkably well. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, between March 18 and April 28, as nearly 30 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits, the wealth of America's 630 billionaires grew by nearly 14 percent. During April 2020 alone, their wealth increased by over $406 billion, bringing it to $3.4 trillion. According to estimates by 'Forbes,' the 400 richest Americans now possess as much wealth as held by nearly two-thirds of American households combined."
"During this time of economic crisis, two features of the U.S. government's economic bailout legislation facilitated the burgeoning of billionaire fortunes: first, the provision of direct subsidies to the wealthy and their corporations, and second, the gift of huge tax breaks to rich Americans and their businesses. Consequently, although the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate, stock prices, helped along by this infusion of cash, are once again soaring."
III. Curbing Police Brutality
Political science professor Lawrence Wittner, who taught at New York's Albany University -- and with whom I have served on the Peace Action Board -- recounts an experience in early November 1966, when he and his sister put up "Vote No" posters, to defeat a referendum put on the New York City ballot by the Patrolman's Benevolent Association to remove civilians from the Civilian Complaint Review Board. [3]
Professor Wittner recounts the efforts to create a civilian review board with real teeth. The objective was achieved in 1993, when Mayor David Dinkens and the New York City Council re-organized the Board as an all-civilian operation.
"Even so, the Board remained weak and fairly ineffectual. The Board's minimal impact can be attributed in part to Dinkens's mayoral successors, Rudy Giuliani and Micheal Bloomberg who limited its funding while instituting 'zero tolerance' and 'stop and frisk' programs that dramatically enhanced the power and impunity of the police. Between June 1996 and June 1997 the city administration settled 503 police brutality cases in court, but no member of the police department associated with them was punished."
"The weakness of the Board is underscored by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which, in March 2019, pointed out that,although the agency has the authority to investigate and, in certain instances, prosecute cases of police misconduct, 'its recommendations on disciplinary outcomes are ultimately not binding' on the New York Police Department. The reason is that the police commissioner retains 'exclusive authority to decide and impose discipline' for police officers."
Professor Wittner says that New York City's "lengthy history of efforts to curb police brutality,as well as the sabotage of such efforts, [may] provide useful background information for the current nationwide debate over reforming police practices. Overall, it leads to the conclusion that, however difficult eliminating police misconduct might be, the job cannot be left to the police."
ADDENDUMS;
*Donald Trump Jr. called Joe Biden "a pedophile" and Covid-19 "a Democratic ploy."
*Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called the firings of inspector generals "a threat to accountable democracy."
*Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) has said that Trump's tweets about "shooting looters" and unleashing "vicious dogs" were not constructive.
*On May 5, 2015, Trump tweeted that "Nobody would fight for free speech than me."
Footnotes:
[1] "Corporations Will Not Save Us: The Sham of Corporate Social Responsibility," The PeaceWorker, May 30, 2020.
[2] https:/historynewsnetwork.org/article 175516
[3] Lawrence Wittner, "The Subversion of New York City's Official Policy to Curb Police Brutality," June 8, 2020.
"Last August, the Business Roundtable -- an association of CEOs of Americas's biggest corporations -- announced with great fanfare a 'fundamental commitment to all our stakeholders' and not just their shareholders. They said 'investing in employees, delivering value to customers, and supporting outside communities' is now at the forefront of their goals -- not maximizing profits. [1]
Americans know that this claim of corporate social responsibility is a sham. "A record 76 percent of U.S. adults believe major corporations have too much power. One Business Rondtable director is Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. Just weeks after making the Roundtable commitment, and despite GM's hefty profits and large tax breaks, Barra rejected workers' demands that GM raise their wages and stop outsourcing their jobs. Earlier in the year GM shut its giant assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
Nearly 50,000 GM workers then staged the longest auto strike in 50 years. They won a few wage gains but didn't save any jobs. Barra was paid $22 million last year. How's that for corporate social responsibility?
Another prominent CEO who made the phony Business Roundtable commitment was AT&T's Randall Stephenson who promised to use the billions in savings from the Trump tax cut to invest in the company's broadband and create at least 7,000 new jobs. Instead, even before the coronavirus pandemic, AT&T cut more than 23,000 jobs and demanded that employees train lower-wage foreign workers to replace them."
"Oh, and the chairman of the Business Roundtable is Jamie Dimon, CEO of Wall Street's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. Dimon lobbied Congress personally and intensively for the biggest tax cut in history, and got the Business Roundtable to join him. JPMorgan raked in $3.7 billion from the tax cut. Dimon alone made $31 million in 2018.
That tax cut increased the federal debt by almost $2 trillion. This was before Congress spent almost $3 trillion fighting the pandemic --and delivering a hefty portion as bailouts to the biggest corporations, many of whom signed the Business Roundtable pledge."
"The only way to make corporations socially responsible is through laws requiring them to be -- for example, giving workers a bigger voice in corporate decision making, requiring that corporations pay severance to communities they abandon, raising corporate taxes, busting up monopolies, and preventing dangerous products (including faulty airplanes) from ever reaching the light of day."
II. Super-Rich Doing Well
"Although most Americans currently face hard times, with unemployment urging to the levels of the Great Depression and enormous numbers of people sick or dying from the coronavirus pandemic, the nation's super-rich remain a notable exception. [2]
Financially, they are doing remarkably well. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, between March 18 and April 28, as nearly 30 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits, the wealth of America's 630 billionaires grew by nearly 14 percent. During April 2020 alone, their wealth increased by over $406 billion, bringing it to $3.4 trillion. According to estimates by 'Forbes,' the 400 richest Americans now possess as much wealth as held by nearly two-thirds of American households combined."
"During this time of economic crisis, two features of the U.S. government's economic bailout legislation facilitated the burgeoning of billionaire fortunes: first, the provision of direct subsidies to the wealthy and their corporations, and second, the gift of huge tax breaks to rich Americans and their businesses. Consequently, although the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate, stock prices, helped along by this infusion of cash, are once again soaring."
III. Curbing Police Brutality
Political science professor Lawrence Wittner, who taught at New York's Albany University -- and with whom I have served on the Peace Action Board -- recounts an experience in early November 1966, when he and his sister put up "Vote No" posters, to defeat a referendum put on the New York City ballot by the Patrolman's Benevolent Association to remove civilians from the Civilian Complaint Review Board. [3]
Professor Wittner recounts the efforts to create a civilian review board with real teeth. The objective was achieved in 1993, when Mayor David Dinkens and the New York City Council re-organized the Board as an all-civilian operation.
"Even so, the Board remained weak and fairly ineffectual. The Board's minimal impact can be attributed in part to Dinkens's mayoral successors, Rudy Giuliani and Micheal Bloomberg who limited its funding while instituting 'zero tolerance' and 'stop and frisk' programs that dramatically enhanced the power and impunity of the police. Between June 1996 and June 1997 the city administration settled 503 police brutality cases in court, but no member of the police department associated with them was punished."
"The weakness of the Board is underscored by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which, in March 2019, pointed out that,although the agency has the authority to investigate and, in certain instances, prosecute cases of police misconduct, 'its recommendations on disciplinary outcomes are ultimately not binding' on the New York Police Department. The reason is that the police commissioner retains 'exclusive authority to decide and impose discipline' for police officers."
Professor Wittner says that New York City's "lengthy history of efforts to curb police brutality,as well as the sabotage of such efforts, [may] provide useful background information for the current nationwide debate over reforming police practices. Overall, it leads to the conclusion that, however difficult eliminating police misconduct might be, the job cannot be left to the police."
ADDENDUMS;
*Donald Trump Jr. called Joe Biden "a pedophile" and Covid-19 "a Democratic ploy."
*Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) called the firings of inspector generals "a threat to accountable democracy."
*Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) has said that Trump's tweets about "shooting looters" and unleashing "vicious dogs" were not constructive.
*On May 5, 2015, Trump tweeted that "Nobody would fight for free speech than me."
Footnotes:
[1] "Corporations Will Not Save Us: The Sham of Corporate Social Responsibility," The PeaceWorker, May 30, 2020.
[2] https:/historynewsnetwork.org/article 175516
[3] Lawrence Wittner, "The Subversion of New York City's Official Policy to Curb Police Brutality," June 8, 2020.
Sunday, July 26, 2020
The Folly of Resuming Nuclear Testing, and "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos"
I. The Folly of Resuming Nuclear Testing
"The Annual General Meeting (AMG) of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons [held] on May 23, unanimously adopted a statement condemning recent reports of White House discussions to resume nuclear weapons testing. As a result of the Covid-9 pandemic, Abolition 2000 had to take the unprecedented step of holding its AGM online, allowing participants from some 40 countries to join.
The statement warns that resumed US testing of nuclear weapons would inevitably lead to resumption of testing by other nations. Such testing would, in any case, be in contravention of e Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by the United States in 1996, yet pending entry-into-force.
John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, and one of the statement's drafters, said, 'Testing of nuclear weapons evokes nuclear apocalypse, as in the days of US-Soviet brinksmanship. It must not be resumed. At the same time, we must recognize that the capabilities for apocalypse remain in place, and are being maintained and improved in the absence of nuclear explosive testing. This too must be brought to an end. ' "
"Daniel Ellsberg, former US nuclear war planner. and famed whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers,said, 'Renewed nuclear testing initiated by the US would enable India, Pakistan and North Korea to test and develop 'H-bomb' thermonuclear warheads, which the existing moratorium on testing has prevented them from destroying. They could then join the US and Russia in threatening the world with the capability to cause nuclear winter, global famine, and near-extinction of humanity. Obviously, no nation on earth should possess this power. Rather than inviting its spread, the US and Russia should neither maintain nor 'modernize' but dismantle their own Doomsday Machines.'
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation,and a founding mother of Abolition 2000, said, '25 years ago, we launched the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons with an 11-point statement, which includes a call to abolish all forms of nuclear testing. For more than a quarter of a century the moratorium on full-scale explosive nuclear testing has been largely adhered to. US resumption of such tests at this time would rock the foundations of an increasingly fragile world order, and would set back efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons by decades. It must not be allowed.' "
II. "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos"
"A second report, "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos: The Trump Administration After Three Years," published by the American Policy Initiative (ANTI), an independent project of Global Zero,takes a sweeping look at how the the U.S.is navigating the complex nuclear landscape under the undisciplined and unpredictable rule of Donald Trump.
Calling for broad changes, the report's authors present a disturbing triptych of instability, inexperience and incompetence,making a powerful case for the urgent need to correct and redirect the U.S.'s approach to nuclear weapons policy.
Beginning with U.S.-Russia relations, and continuing with critiques of Trump's approach to Iran, North Korea, China, modernization, nonproliferation and other critical nuclear matters, the report is a sober, even-tempered assessment of an administration led by a temperamental bull in a nuclear china shop.
The report describes 'growing nuclear instability and the accelerating arms race between Russia and the United States' as among the 'most pressing and consequential' nuclear challenges facing the U.S. today. "
"In its relations with Iran and North Korea, the administration has taken strikingly different approaches -- 'maximum pressure' and confrontation with Iran and, in the case of North Korea, threats to 'totally destroy' the country, followed by highly choreographed summits and Trump's declaration that 'there is no longer a nuclear threat' from the North. In both cases,however, Trump's approach has failed to produce concrete steps toward denuclearization.
The report's authors note that Trump takes pride in rejecting traditional approaches to domestic and foreign policy challenges, resulting in increased tension between the administration and policy makers who have invested decades in protecting U.S. interests.
The authors also closely examine how Trump has played a disruptive --even destructive -- role in dismantling international agreements and nuclear treaties, most notably the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [on the] Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, while acting in a manner that runs counter to arms control and nonproliferation.
The report explains why the U.S. is likely to continue rejecting Russian overtures to extend the last major U.S.-Russia bilateral nuclear agreement, the New START Treaty, set to expire in February 2021. The Trump administration insists the treaty should be renegotiated to include China, which has just over 300 nuclear weapons (compared with Russia and the U.S.,which have an estimated 6,370 and 5,8000 respectively).
Trump's rejection of extending New START appears all but certain, especially following the recent announcement by the Trump administration that it was planning to abandon the nearly three-decade old Open Skies Treaty. The treaty allows 34 party nations to carry out reconnaissance fights in the interest of transparency and the prevention of misunderstanding that could lead to war."
Footnotes:
[1] Drafters of the Abolition 2000 statement were John Burroughs, Daniel Ellsberg, and Andrew Lichterman, Senior Research Analyst,Western States Legal Foundation. The statement was released on May 23, 2020.
[2] "Trump Boosts Nuclear Spending, Fully Funding New Arms Race," Truthout, May 30, 2020.
"The Annual General Meeting (AMG) of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons [held] on May 23, unanimously adopted a statement condemning recent reports of White House discussions to resume nuclear weapons testing. As a result of the Covid-9 pandemic, Abolition 2000 had to take the unprecedented step of holding its AGM online, allowing participants from some 40 countries to join.
The statement warns that resumed US testing of nuclear weapons would inevitably lead to resumption of testing by other nations. Such testing would, in any case, be in contravention of e Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by the United States in 1996, yet pending entry-into-force.
John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, and one of the statement's drafters, said, 'Testing of nuclear weapons evokes nuclear apocalypse, as in the days of US-Soviet brinksmanship. It must not be resumed. At the same time, we must recognize that the capabilities for apocalypse remain in place, and are being maintained and improved in the absence of nuclear explosive testing. This too must be brought to an end. ' "
"Daniel Ellsberg, former US nuclear war planner. and famed whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers,said, 'Renewed nuclear testing initiated by the US would enable India, Pakistan and North Korea to test and develop 'H-bomb' thermonuclear warheads, which the existing moratorium on testing has prevented them from destroying. They could then join the US and Russia in threatening the world with the capability to cause nuclear winter, global famine, and near-extinction of humanity. Obviously, no nation on earth should possess this power. Rather than inviting its spread, the US and Russia should neither maintain nor 'modernize' but dismantle their own Doomsday Machines.'
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation,and a founding mother of Abolition 2000, said, '25 years ago, we launched the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons with an 11-point statement, which includes a call to abolish all forms of nuclear testing. For more than a quarter of a century the moratorium on full-scale explosive nuclear testing has been largely adhered to. US resumption of such tests at this time would rock the foundations of an increasingly fragile world order, and would set back efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons by decades. It must not be allowed.' "
II. "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos"
"A second report, "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos: The Trump Administration After Three Years," published by the American Policy Initiative (ANTI), an independent project of Global Zero,takes a sweeping look at how the the U.S.is navigating the complex nuclear landscape under the undisciplined and unpredictable rule of Donald Trump.
Calling for broad changes, the report's authors present a disturbing triptych of instability, inexperience and incompetence,making a powerful case for the urgent need to correct and redirect the U.S.'s approach to nuclear weapons policy.
Beginning with U.S.-Russia relations, and continuing with critiques of Trump's approach to Iran, North Korea, China, modernization, nonproliferation and other critical nuclear matters, the report is a sober, even-tempered assessment of an administration led by a temperamental bull in a nuclear china shop.
The report describes 'growing nuclear instability and the accelerating arms race between Russia and the United States' as among the 'most pressing and consequential' nuclear challenges facing the U.S. today. "
"In its relations with Iran and North Korea, the administration has taken strikingly different approaches -- 'maximum pressure' and confrontation with Iran and, in the case of North Korea, threats to 'totally destroy' the country, followed by highly choreographed summits and Trump's declaration that 'there is no longer a nuclear threat' from the North. In both cases,however, Trump's approach has failed to produce concrete steps toward denuclearization.
The report's authors note that Trump takes pride in rejecting traditional approaches to domestic and foreign policy challenges, resulting in increased tension between the administration and policy makers who have invested decades in protecting U.S. interests.
The authors also closely examine how Trump has played a disruptive --even destructive -- role in dismantling international agreements and nuclear treaties, most notably the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [on the] Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, while acting in a manner that runs counter to arms control and nonproliferation.
The report explains why the U.S. is likely to continue rejecting Russian overtures to extend the last major U.S.-Russia bilateral nuclear agreement, the New START Treaty, set to expire in February 2021. The Trump administration insists the treaty should be renegotiated to include China, which has just over 300 nuclear weapons (compared with Russia and the U.S.,which have an estimated 6,370 and 5,8000 respectively).
Trump's rejection of extending New START appears all but certain, especially following the recent announcement by the Trump administration that it was planning to abandon the nearly three-decade old Open Skies Treaty. The treaty allows 34 party nations to carry out reconnaissance fights in the interest of transparency and the prevention of misunderstanding that could lead to war."
Footnotes:
[1] Drafters of the Abolition 2000 statement were John Burroughs, Daniel Ellsberg, and Andrew Lichterman, Senior Research Analyst,Western States Legal Foundation. The statement was released on May 23, 2020.
[2] "Trump Boosts Nuclear Spending, Fully Funding New Arms Race," Truthout, May 30, 2020.
Saturday, July 25, 2020
A Failed Nuclear Policy, and Breaking the INF Treaty
I. A Failing Nuclear Policy
"Nowhere are the failures of this administration on clearer display than with the complex nuclear issues of Iran and North Korea. President Trump came into office criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, claiming he would negotiate a better one. And for almost a year. his administration told Europe that America wanted a better deal. Yet despite some initial progress, the President abandoned any multilateral diplomacy and withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear pact with Tehran. The result was predictable: Iran has eased its commitment to key nuclear constraints, and America has less influence with Europe, Russia, or China to achieve any tangible outcome."
"On North Korea, the dynamics are different, but the results the same. Investing in a high-stakes,high-reward gambit of summits left the U.S. worse than empty-handed. North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and missile capabilities, even while expanding its global connections and acceptability. U.S. diplomatic efforts are at a complete standstill, and hard-won sanctions pressure on North Korea erodes day-by-day. Our alliance with South Korea is less stable, and our influence over the DPRK and China are lower than ever.
In both these cases, deliberate choices and overconfidence by the Trump administration increased the nuclear danger to America and its allies, and left the U.S. in a weaker position to reverse the damage done by undermining our alliances and proven security tools.
The record is equally devoid of progress in managing the nuclear risks with Russia. The administration has laid out what seems like a reasonable goal of bringing China into the arms control, transparency, and reduction process. But in a move no experienced practitioner believes will work, Trump refuses to extend the last remaining nuclear reduction pact with Russia -- the New START Treaty -- unless China climbs on board. Russia and the U.S. are fully complying with the agreement which caps strategic numbers of both countries under effective verification. Yet instead of accepting Russia's unconditional extension of the pact for five years, a step that would decidedly benefit American security and stability, Trump has linked the extension to his China gambit. At the same time, Trump has seemingly welcomed a new arms race with Russia, and is seeking to accelerate the already expensive modernization of U.S. nuclear forces, and has deployed a new, lower yield, more usable nuclear weapon that lowers the threshold to nuclear use. With no negotiating team or strategy, the prospects for nuclear stability are fading by the day." [1]
II. Breaking the INF Treaty
"President Trump violated the US Constitution when he unilaterally pulled the United States out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on August 2, 2019. [2]
Treaties signed and ratified by the President of the United State by consent of the Senate,become 'the supreme law of the land,' according to Article VI, paragraph 2 of the U.S.Constitution. The INF Treaty was signed by President Reagan on December 8, 1987, and ratified by consent of the U.S. Senate on May 27, 1988. That means this Treaty is as much a part of the U.S. law as any Act of Congress, or Supreme Court decision.
What the INF Treaty says and what therefore the law requires, is that the U.S. may withdraw from this Treaty only if 'extraordinary events related to this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.
' "
"The INF Treaty provided for the most intrusive on-site inspections of any treaty in history, backed up by mutual verification, by satellite, other monitoring mechanisms, and a Special Verification Commission to resolve any disputes about whether violations have indeed occurred."
"Breaking international treaties is not a trifling matter. These treaties are all we have when it comes to maintaining peaceful relations with the other 194 countries we share this planet with. They are also the supreme law of the land, and presidents should be held accountable for that."
Footnotes:
[1] Jon Wolfsthal, "Trump's Nuclear Policy Has Failed," DefenseOne, May 22, 2020.
]2] Dr. Timmon Wallis, "Trump Broke US Law when He Withdrew from the INF Treaty," OregonPeaceWorks, September 4, 2019.
"Nowhere are the failures of this administration on clearer display than with the complex nuclear issues of Iran and North Korea. President Trump came into office criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, claiming he would negotiate a better one. And for almost a year. his administration told Europe that America wanted a better deal. Yet despite some initial progress, the President abandoned any multilateral diplomacy and withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear pact with Tehran. The result was predictable: Iran has eased its commitment to key nuclear constraints, and America has less influence with Europe, Russia, or China to achieve any tangible outcome."
"On North Korea, the dynamics are different, but the results the same. Investing in a high-stakes,high-reward gambit of summits left the U.S. worse than empty-handed. North Korea continues to expand its nuclear and missile capabilities, even while expanding its global connections and acceptability. U.S. diplomatic efforts are at a complete standstill, and hard-won sanctions pressure on North Korea erodes day-by-day. Our alliance with South Korea is less stable, and our influence over the DPRK and China are lower than ever.
In both these cases, deliberate choices and overconfidence by the Trump administration increased the nuclear danger to America and its allies, and left the U.S. in a weaker position to reverse the damage done by undermining our alliances and proven security tools.
The record is equally devoid of progress in managing the nuclear risks with Russia. The administration has laid out what seems like a reasonable goal of bringing China into the arms control, transparency, and reduction process. But in a move no experienced practitioner believes will work, Trump refuses to extend the last remaining nuclear reduction pact with Russia -- the New START Treaty -- unless China climbs on board. Russia and the U.S. are fully complying with the agreement which caps strategic numbers of both countries under effective verification. Yet instead of accepting Russia's unconditional extension of the pact for five years, a step that would decidedly benefit American security and stability, Trump has linked the extension to his China gambit. At the same time, Trump has seemingly welcomed a new arms race with Russia, and is seeking to accelerate the already expensive modernization of U.S. nuclear forces, and has deployed a new, lower yield, more usable nuclear weapon that lowers the threshold to nuclear use. With no negotiating team or strategy, the prospects for nuclear stability are fading by the day." [1]
II. Breaking the INF Treaty
"President Trump violated the US Constitution when he unilaterally pulled the United States out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on August 2, 2019. [2]
Treaties signed and ratified by the President of the United State by consent of the Senate,become 'the supreme law of the land,' according to Article VI, paragraph 2 of the U.S.Constitution. The INF Treaty was signed by President Reagan on December 8, 1987, and ratified by consent of the U.S. Senate on May 27, 1988. That means this Treaty is as much a part of the U.S. law as any Act of Congress, or Supreme Court decision.
What the INF Treaty says and what therefore the law requires, is that the U.S. may withdraw from this Treaty only if 'extraordinary events related to this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.
' "
"The INF Treaty provided for the most intrusive on-site inspections of any treaty in history, backed up by mutual verification, by satellite, other monitoring mechanisms, and a Special Verification Commission to resolve any disputes about whether violations have indeed occurred."
"Breaking international treaties is not a trifling matter. These treaties are all we have when it comes to maintaining peaceful relations with the other 194 countries we share this planet with. They are also the supreme law of the land, and presidents should be held accountable for that."
Footnotes:
[1] Jon Wolfsthal, "Trump's Nuclear Policy Has Failed," DefenseOne, May 22, 2020.
]2] Dr. Timmon Wallis, "Trump Broke US Law when He Withdrew from the INF Treaty," OregonPeaceWorks, September 4, 2019.
Friday, July 3, 2020
Patriotic Billionaires
I. Patriotic Millionaires
To qualify for the Patriotic Millionaires, members must have an annual income of at least a million dollars, or assets worth more than five million dollars. When the author asked Erica Payne, founder of the Patriotic Millionaires, how hard it was to persuade rich people to join, she said: "I think the last time I checked, there were about three hundred and seventy-five thousand taxpayers in the country who make a million dollars a year in income --and we now have a couple hundred members." [1]
"Some of the members feel that severe inequality fuels corruption, and has led to the election of Donald Trump and other right-wing leaders across the world. In New York State, the group has lobbied to close the carried-interest loophole,which shields the income of many hedge-fund and private-equity-fund managers."
"Sean Willentz, a historian at Princeton, told me: 'We live in a word where supply-side economics, which was always a fraud, became a religion.' " "In April, Rag Dalio, the founder of the hundred-and-sixty-billion- dollar hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, posted a lengthy essay in which he wrote that American workers in the bottom sixty per cent of earners have had no income growth, after adjusting for inflation, since 1980,while the incomes of the top ten per cent have tripled." One graphic he used, ranked wealthy countries in terms of the likelihood that a child born into the lowest economic quartile would move into the top quartile; the U.S. was second to last, ahead of only China.
When the GOP-controlled House rolled out its tax cut plan, the first item on the agenda was expected to be the multimillionaire surcharge of ten-per-cent, which would be applied to all incomes above two million dollars. Instead of raising the top tax rate for the wealthy, the former top rate of 39.6 per cent was reduced to 37 per cent.
II. A World to Win
"In 1957, when it came to liberation, Ghana was ahead of the United States. "At first, the 20th century looked as if it might be the century of the nation-state," "Instead of liberating the nonwhite domains of World War I's vanquished empires, the League of Nations converted them into a set of quasi-colonies known as mandates, to be governed by outsiders on the understanding that such places weren't fit to rule themselves." "In 1940, nearly one in three of the world's people fell under colonial rule; by 1965, it was about one in 50." "In Nkrumah's version, the African Union would have a single currency and market, a single military and foreign policy, and a central government with the power to tax." Nkrumah and Williams [Eric, Trinidadian historian and political leader] had hoped to lash nations together into larger political bodies." [2]
"The oil revolution bouyed hope, but it also drove a wedge between the oil-exporting countries, and the many 'No PEC' nations, for whom rising oil prices spelled economic catastrophe." "In sub-Saharan Africa, average incomes have risen over tenfold and life spans have increased by more than 20 years since 1900. Yet such growth is barely visible when placed alongside that of a rich country like the United States,which saw its economy grow twentyfold in the same period,and boasts a per capita G.D.P. almost 40 times that of sub-Saharan Africa."
"Brexit and Trumpism have shown that the old powers can no longer lead international institutions."
Footnotes:
[1] Sheelah Kolnatkar, "An Embarrassment of Riches," The New Yorker, January 6, 2020.
[2] Daniel Immerwaha, "A World to Win," The Nation, January 13/20, 2020.
To qualify for the Patriotic Millionaires, members must have an annual income of at least a million dollars, or assets worth more than five million dollars. When the author asked Erica Payne, founder of the Patriotic Millionaires, how hard it was to persuade rich people to join, she said: "I think the last time I checked, there were about three hundred and seventy-five thousand taxpayers in the country who make a million dollars a year in income --and we now have a couple hundred members." [1]
"Some of the members feel that severe inequality fuels corruption, and has led to the election of Donald Trump and other right-wing leaders across the world. In New York State, the group has lobbied to close the carried-interest loophole,which shields the income of many hedge-fund and private-equity-fund managers."
"Sean Willentz, a historian at Princeton, told me: 'We live in a word where supply-side economics, which was always a fraud, became a religion.' " "In April, Rag Dalio, the founder of the hundred-and-sixty-billion- dollar hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, posted a lengthy essay in which he wrote that American workers in the bottom sixty per cent of earners have had no income growth, after adjusting for inflation, since 1980,while the incomes of the top ten per cent have tripled." One graphic he used, ranked wealthy countries in terms of the likelihood that a child born into the lowest economic quartile would move into the top quartile; the U.S. was second to last, ahead of only China.
When the GOP-controlled House rolled out its tax cut plan, the first item on the agenda was expected to be the multimillionaire surcharge of ten-per-cent, which would be applied to all incomes above two million dollars. Instead of raising the top tax rate for the wealthy, the former top rate of 39.6 per cent was reduced to 37 per cent.
II. A World to Win
"In 1957, when it came to liberation, Ghana was ahead of the United States. "At first, the 20th century looked as if it might be the century of the nation-state," "Instead of liberating the nonwhite domains of World War I's vanquished empires, the League of Nations converted them into a set of quasi-colonies known as mandates, to be governed by outsiders on the understanding that such places weren't fit to rule themselves." "In 1940, nearly one in three of the world's people fell under colonial rule; by 1965, it was about one in 50." "In Nkrumah's version, the African Union would have a single currency and market, a single military and foreign policy, and a central government with the power to tax." Nkrumah and Williams [Eric, Trinidadian historian and political leader] had hoped to lash nations together into larger political bodies." [2]
"The oil revolution bouyed hope, but it also drove a wedge between the oil-exporting countries, and the many 'No PEC' nations, for whom rising oil prices spelled economic catastrophe." "In sub-Saharan Africa, average incomes have risen over tenfold and life spans have increased by more than 20 years since 1900. Yet such growth is barely visible when placed alongside that of a rich country like the United States,which saw its economy grow twentyfold in the same period,and boasts a per capita G.D.P. almost 40 times that of sub-Saharan Africa."
"Brexit and Trumpism have shown that the old powers can no longer lead international institutions."
Footnotes:
[1] Sheelah Kolnatkar, "An Embarrassment of Riches," The New Yorker, January 6, 2020.
[2] Daniel Immerwaha, "A World to Win," The Nation, January 13/20, 2020.
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Win Rural Voters, and Other Issues of Note
#Win Rural Voters
Jane Fleming Kleeb, "Organizing on the Coasts Won't Save the Planet," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
Kleeb says that: "We do not have to change our values or platform to win back rural voters; instead, we need to stand with them as family farms are abandoned, and their land is being taken through eminent domain to build a pipeline." "Showing up for rural communities is the foundation of wining back not only the White House but also the Senate. In fact, just 30 percent of Americans will elect 70 percent of the Senate."
#Refugee Status and Asylum Seekers
John Washington, "Well-Founded Fear," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
According to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Consortium, which set the original international standard for defining refugees, a refugee is someone who has a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owning to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."
"In 2017, 331,700 people applied for asylum in the United States, the most of any year for this decade -- almost twice as many as in 2015, and roughly six times as in 2010. Worldwide, there were 877,478 asylum seekers in 2010, according to the UNHCR. By 2018, that number topped 3.5 million." "The 1982 Immigration and Naturalization Service memorandum revealed the government's flagrantly discriminatory interpretation of the 1980 Refugee Act, and the 1951 Refugee Convention."
"The United States denies almost 90 percent of Mexican claims, while granting 80 percent of claims from Eritreans -- a gaping and irreconcilable disparity." "In submitting our authority of self-protection to the state, we expect protection, not only for ourselves, but for and with our compatriots. In other words, we are all safer if we are all safe." "Sovereignty needs steel and statecraft; the extension of rights and protections needs incubation and cultural shifts."
#Extinction Crisis Hits Home
Jimmy Tobias, "The Extinction Crisis Comes Home," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
"Cut off from their ancestral breeding grounds by enormous dams, preyed on by invasive species, and deprived of the freshwater flows that are crucial to sustaining their populations, the salmon have suffered long-term decline, and face an increasingly grim future," "Decades of dam building and water extraction to quench the thirst of California's growing population, and the needs of its mighty agriculture industry, have starved the state's waterways."
"A UN panel found that 1 million species around the globe are at risk of extinction, many within the coming decades." "The Trump administration is also working in lockstep with powerful agricultural interests to rollback the Endangered Species Act's protections for California's salmon, smelt, and orcas." "The threat of mass extinction isn't just happening in far-off lands or confined to some distant future."
#Trump's Moral Culpability
Eric Alterman, "The American Berserk," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
"His [Trump's] moral culpability is that of a murderer, even though the law doesn't call him one." "As the constitutional law professor, Lawrence Tribe, tweeted on March 26, 'Trump is ensuring the avoidable death of countless New Yorkers. Instead, we get Trump's meanderings,lies, and conspiracy theories broadcast on television every day, and respectful headlines on top of stories about 'disagreements' between people with a lifetime's experience in epidemiology.' "
"The advent of Covid-19 is a crisis, to be sure, even more so is a political culture that has produced a coronavirus-like presidency implacably infecting and destroying what remains of our ailing democracy."
#Early Care Neglect
Bryce Covert, "You Must Be Kidding," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
Both parents work in nearly two-thirds of married couples with children under the age of 13, and about three-quarters of single mothers and 84 percent of single fathers. That's 22.6 million families that now have nowhere to send their children. "The labor force participation rate for women in the U.S. has fallen behind that of other developed countries, thanks in part to lack of investment in early care."
#Anti-Abortion Opportunism
Rachel Rebouche, "Anti-Abortion Opportunism," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
"Over the past few weeks, eight states have tried to implement -- with varying degrees of success -- measures suspending abortions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic." "At the moment, people can seek medication abortions in Texas, but for how long is uncertain." "Texas, for example, imposes patient-clinic contact not only by banning telemedicine, but also by requiring that a physician dispense and be present during an abortion."
#Wisconsin's Nightmare Election
John Nichols, "Dangerous Voting," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
" 'Wisconsin's election offers a nightmare vision of what the whole country could see in the fall,' warned Ben Wikler, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairman. 'A fight were Democrats struggle to balance democracy with public health, and the GOP remorselessly weaponizes courts, election laws, and the coronavirus itself to disenfranchise millions of voters who stand in its way. If the coronavirus itself lingers or spikes in the fall, this could be a recurring nightmare.' "
'Republicans got their allies on the conservative-dominated state Supreme Court to upend its order and conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to thwart a federal judge's order to make absentee voting easier.'
'This has been the ugliest example of voter suppression in a state that has, over the past decade, been a proving ground for the GOP's win-at-any-cost ethos.' "
Jane Fleming Kleeb, "Organizing on the Coasts Won't Save the Planet," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
Kleeb says that: "We do not have to change our values or platform to win back rural voters; instead, we need to stand with them as family farms are abandoned, and their land is being taken through eminent domain to build a pipeline." "Showing up for rural communities is the foundation of wining back not only the White House but also the Senate. In fact, just 30 percent of Americans will elect 70 percent of the Senate."
#Refugee Status and Asylum Seekers
John Washington, "Well-Founded Fear," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
According to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Consortium, which set the original international standard for defining refugees, a refugee is someone who has a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owning to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."
"In 2017, 331,700 people applied for asylum in the United States, the most of any year for this decade -- almost twice as many as in 2015, and roughly six times as in 2010. Worldwide, there were 877,478 asylum seekers in 2010, according to the UNHCR. By 2018, that number topped 3.5 million." "The 1982 Immigration and Naturalization Service memorandum revealed the government's flagrantly discriminatory interpretation of the 1980 Refugee Act, and the 1951 Refugee Convention."
"The United States denies almost 90 percent of Mexican claims, while granting 80 percent of claims from Eritreans -- a gaping and irreconcilable disparity." "In submitting our authority of self-protection to the state, we expect protection, not only for ourselves, but for and with our compatriots. In other words, we are all safer if we are all safe." "Sovereignty needs steel and statecraft; the extension of rights and protections needs incubation and cultural shifts."
#Extinction Crisis Hits Home
Jimmy Tobias, "The Extinction Crisis Comes Home," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
"Cut off from their ancestral breeding grounds by enormous dams, preyed on by invasive species, and deprived of the freshwater flows that are crucial to sustaining their populations, the salmon have suffered long-term decline, and face an increasingly grim future," "Decades of dam building and water extraction to quench the thirst of California's growing population, and the needs of its mighty agriculture industry, have starved the state's waterways."
"A UN panel found that 1 million species around the globe are at risk of extinction, many within the coming decades." "The Trump administration is also working in lockstep with powerful agricultural interests to rollback the Endangered Species Act's protections for California's salmon, smelt, and orcas." "The threat of mass extinction isn't just happening in far-off lands or confined to some distant future."
#Trump's Moral Culpability
Eric Alterman, "The American Berserk," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
"His [Trump's] moral culpability is that of a murderer, even though the law doesn't call him one." "As the constitutional law professor, Lawrence Tribe, tweeted on March 26, 'Trump is ensuring the avoidable death of countless New Yorkers. Instead, we get Trump's meanderings,lies, and conspiracy theories broadcast on television every day, and respectful headlines on top of stories about 'disagreements' between people with a lifetime's experience in epidemiology.' "
"The advent of Covid-19 is a crisis, to be sure, even more so is a political culture that has produced a coronavirus-like presidency implacably infecting and destroying what remains of our ailing democracy."
#Early Care Neglect
Bryce Covert, "You Must Be Kidding," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
Both parents work in nearly two-thirds of married couples with children under the age of 13, and about three-quarters of single mothers and 84 percent of single fathers. That's 22.6 million families that now have nowhere to send their children. "The labor force participation rate for women in the U.S. has fallen behind that of other developed countries, thanks in part to lack of investment in early care."
#Anti-Abortion Opportunism
Rachel Rebouche, "Anti-Abortion Opportunism," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
"Over the past few weeks, eight states have tried to implement -- with varying degrees of success -- measures suspending abortions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic." "At the moment, people can seek medication abortions in Texas, but for how long is uncertain." "Texas, for example, imposes patient-clinic contact not only by banning telemedicine, but also by requiring that a physician dispense and be present during an abortion."
#Wisconsin's Nightmare Election
John Nichols, "Dangerous Voting," The Nation, May 4/11, 2020.
" 'Wisconsin's election offers a nightmare vision of what the whole country could see in the fall,' warned Ben Wikler, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairman. 'A fight were Democrats struggle to balance democracy with public health, and the GOP remorselessly weaponizes courts, election laws, and the coronavirus itself to disenfranchise millions of voters who stand in its way. If the coronavirus itself lingers or spikes in the fall, this could be a recurring nightmare.' "
'Republicans got their allies on the conservative-dominated state Supreme Court to upend its order and conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to thwart a federal judge's order to make absentee voting easier.'
'This has been the ugliest example of voter suppression in a state that has, over the past decade, been a proving ground for the GOP's win-at-any-cost ethos.' "
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)