JOBS POLICIES, ANALYSIS, AND RESOURCES
Latest Jobs Posts
Opioid Pharmaceutical Companies Reach 11th Hour Settlement and Avoid Taking Responsibility
Brief #64—Healths
By Taylor J Smith
How to Select the Best Democratic Candidate to Defeat Trump
U.S. RESIST NEWS OP ED Ron Israel, Managing Editor
Comparing the Ukraine Policies of Obama and Trump
Brief #74—Foreign Policy
By Vanessa Noguera
Trump’s Damaging Syria Decisions
Policy Summary Earlier this month, in response to a phone call request from Turkish President Erdogan, President Trump announced the evacuation of US troops from northern Syria. Shortly thereafter Turkish troops invaded an area of Syria, formerly held by US forces,...
Red States, Blue States, Who Benefits the Most from Federal Funding?
Brief #58—Economics
By Rosalind Gottfried
Impeachment Inquiry Grows
The Corruption Blog #8 A new series by Sean Gray that digs into the details of the all-encompassing corruption of the Trump administration.
Are Tariffs a Boon or Bust for American Workers?
Brief #57—Economics
By Kathryn Baron
African Americans Still Behind in Jobs and Wealth Under Trump
Brief #56—Economics
By Rosalind Gottfried
White House and Congress at Odds Over Great Lakes Carp Threat
Brief #64—Environmental Policy
By Todd J Broadman
Threats to the Affordable Care Act Amid Midterm Medicaid Success
Brief #48—Health
Policy Summary
Throughout the Trump Administration’s tenure, there has been an underlying campaign promise: dismantling and destroying the Affordable Care Act. Translation: cutting off healthcare to millions of families. The key policies in the administration have been to expand access to junk plans offered by insurance companies often out of the ACA marketplace, keep preexisting condition exclusion principles in place, and limit the reach of Medicare and Medicaid. Early in November, there was movement to continue to kick people off of Medicare to lower drug costs, which mainly affects the most vulnerable in American society. This movement directly contradicted the majority of people’s opinions on healthcare. Even extremely Republican states (e.g. Idaho) passed by a popular vote increasing access to Medicaid.
Analysis
Ultimately, the midterm success of Democrats supporting more universal healthcare has indicated the slowing of these policies meant to destroy access to healthcare. The Trump Administration and Director of Medicare and Medicaid, Seema Verma, are attempting to reform healthcare to offer more choice of private and public plans to the public. However, this is a terrible method to try to encourage those that can’t afford to sign up for healthcare to sign up. The free market approach to healthcare just ensures that the richest and most privileged in our society have access to adequate healthcare. This is why so many democrats (especially those from Republican majority states) that will be taking office support universal healthcare and ran heavily on that platform. While less people are signing up for the ACA plans, the popular approval for expanding public healthcare could indicate long term success for the ACA. This would hopefully hold true for the 2020 general elections. Ideally, the Trump Administration’s attacks on Medicaid and Medicare will be limited because of their unpopularity, however, there is no question that the effects have already been felt and have hindered the effectiveness of Obama-era healthcare reform.
Resistance Resources:
- National Patient Advocate Foundation-Advocates for and promotes action for supporting Medicare/Medicaid for underserved populations. Volunteer with a center near you help clarify the healthcare process and get people covered.
This Brief was submitted by U.S. RESIST NEWS Healthcare Policy Analyst-Sophia Adams Name: Contact Sophia.lorene30@gmail.com
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Immigration Policy Updates
Brief #59—Immigration
Policy
During the past week, when many Americans gave thanks for their blessings, those making their way to the southern US border were faced with continuing hostility and exclusion. President Trump invoked similar rhetoric he used to impose the travel ban on countries with dominantly Muslim populations, in his most recent attempts to ban asylum to all individuals who cross the border illegally. A federal judge from San Francisco temporarily blocked the government from denying asylum to those crossing the southern border between ports of entry, which led to Trump criticizing the Justice Department for appealing his request as being biased and an “Obama judge.” President Trump made claims that these measures were necessary ahead of the arrival of the Migrant Caravan from Central America, as such asylum seekers had no “lawful basis for admission into our country.”
Upon arrival at the southern US border, the Migrant Caravan was met with tear gas, as they attempted to cross as a large crowd; men, women, and children alike. US Customs and Border Protection – those that are policing the border – claim their personnel had been assaulted and hit by stones, while immigrants on the other side claim stones were thrown after “a person got hit [tear gas] and a lot of kids fainted.” President Trump defended his use of tear gas stating “here’s the bottom line: Nobody’s coming into our country unless they come in legally,” and further justifying it by saying the tear gas used was a “very minor form” and that it was “very safe.”
When confronted about the various images of women and children running from the tear gas circulating the media, Trump responds curtly questioning why these individuals are even there and why they would be running up into an area where tear gas is forming and knowingly putting children at risk. He also notes that in some cases, these ‘parents’ are not parents at all, but ‘grabbers’ – individuals who “grab a child because they think they’ll have a certain status by having a child.” He questions why an adult would put a child in such a precarious situation after claiming the tear gas was actually “very safe,” when the real question should be, why is there tear gas. Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, essentially backs him up by accusing Migrant Caravan organizers of using women and children as “human shields” and thus “putting vulnerable people in harm’s way.” Well, why is there “harm’s way?”
Analysis
The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of tear gas in war, but allows it for domestic law enforcement purposes, perhaps to respect the law of sovereignty. According to the Centers for Disease Control, tear gas can cause blurred vision, choking, shortness of breath, coughing, burning and swelling of the nose. And some journalists said it was very painful even from a notable distance away, using the terms “tear gas” and “very safe” in one sentence sounds like an oxymoron. Even if the use of tear gas was solely to invoke fear and there was no risk of bodily harm, it still contradicts the language used by both President Trump and Secretary Nielson on the subject matter: “harm’s way,” (so it is not benign) “very safe” (as opposed to dangerous?), “human shields,” etc.
This occurrence in conjunction with Trump’s push for the asylum ban, raises alarming flags about his disregard for separation of powers, the division of government responsibilities into separate branches of the government so no one branch holds supreme power, is an important distinction between democracies and authoritarian governments.
Resistance Resources
- The ACLU: a non-profit with a longstanding commitment to preserving and protecting the individual rights and liberties the Constitution and US laws guarantee all its citizens. You can also donate monthly to counter Trump’s attacks on people’s rights. Recently, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the separation of families at the border.
- The National Immigration Law Center: an organization that exclusively dedicates itself to defending and furthering the rights of low income immigrants and strives to educate decision makers on the impacts and effects of their policies on this overlooked part of the population.
- FWD.us: an organization that aims to promote the tech community to support policies that keep the American Dream alive. They specifically and currently focus on immigration reform.
This Brief was authored by Kathryn Baron. For inquiries, suggestions or comments email kathryn@usresistnews.org.
Photo by Dan Gold
Noam Chomsky: How the US “Politically Vulgarizes” Genocide and War Crimes
Interview was originally posted on the website Truthout
Noam Chomsky has revolutionized multiple fields of study, from psychology to linguistics to political science. With books such as Manufacturing Consent (with Edward S. Herman), The Fateful Triangle, Hegemony or Survival, and others, he has enlightened people all over the world. For these reasons and more, Chomsky is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of our time.
Shortly after the 2016 US elections, Truthout had the privilege of being able to sit down with Professor Chomsky in his office for a chat on an array of different topics, from ethnic conflicts to anarchism.
What follows is a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length.
Pitasanna Shanmugathas: Until not so long ago, liberal, socialist and Marxist theoreticians assumed that conflicts involving ethnicity were a phenomenon of pre-modern society and that such conflicts would progressively fade away. Why haven’t we as a society been able to overcome the futility of engaging in ethnic conflict?
Noam Chomsky: To some extent, we have. Not totally. There has been progress. Take Europe; for centuries, Europe was the most [brutal] place in the world. The Europeans were just slaughtering one another. [During] the Thirty Years War of the 17th century, maybe a third of the population in Germany was wiped out. There was another 30 years war in the 20th century — from 1914 to 1945 — a total horror story. I don’t have to tell you what happened in Europe, the rest of the world. Since 1945, there have not been any major wars in Europe. Is that because we are more civilized? No. It is because it was understood that the next time you have a war, you are finished. Humans have created the capacity to destroy themselves and everything else, and we have come very close to blowing everything up. There have been many cases where terminal nuclear war was extremely close, and the threat is, in fact, increasing now.
Well, take, say, Europe again. One of the greatest achievements of post-war Europe — now under threat incidentally — is a slow move toward a kind of federalism. The Schengen Agreement, which permits free passage among the countries of Europe, is a step toward a more tolerant … society; it is a kind of federalism. It has positive and negative aspects because of the way it is implemented. Because of the way it was integrated into the Eurozone — which is something separate from the [European Union] — it has led to a situation where sovereignty has passed from populations to the bureaucracy in Brussels, with the German banks hanging over their shoulders. That is where basic decisions are made. It does not matter who people elect for their own government — the major decisions are out of their hands. That has led to extreme resentment — justified resentment — taking self-destructive paths, but the resentment is understandable. That is part of the background for the rise of the ultra-right parties that appeal to the population on the grounds that they no longer control their own destiny…. Now we are back to [a] Europe of competing nationalities, which [has] a pretty ugly past.
How has the concept of genocide become, as you state, “politically vulgarized,” and why is it dangerous to politicize the concept of genocide?
Well, genocide had a meaning in the early stages. I mean, it is not a matter of the definition, but the way it was understood. Genocide meant what the Nazis did to the Jews, for example. That was genocide. By now the term is used so broadly that people even talk about committing genocide against five people, or a massacre somewhere with a couple hundred people is called genocide. And in fact, it is used in a very restrictive way. We use the term genocide to refer to the atrocities committed by someone else, not our own.
Let us take a real case — the Clinton and Blair sanctions on Iraq — that actually was called genocide by the distinguished international diplomats who administered the oil-for-food program, the so-called “humanitarian” aspect of the sanctions. Denis Halliday, who resigned in protest, because he said they are genocidal, and Hans[-Christof] von Sponeck, who followed him, resigned on the grounds that the [sanctions] amounted to genocide. Hans von Sponeck, in fact, published a detailed book about it called A Different Kind of War. They did condemn the sanctions as genocidal.
What was the result? Try to find a copy of von Sponeck’s book. Try to find a reference to it. Try to find a review. Try to find anything. This is wiped out of Western commentary. The last time I looked, there was not a single review in the United States. The only review in England, I think, was in the Communist Party newspaper.
So what needs to be done to reverse the political vulgarization of the concept of the genocide? Can it still be used?
It can be used if we are willing to … recognize that crimes are crimes whether they commit them or we commit them. We could, for example, listen to Justice Robert Jackson — the chief prosecutor of Nuremberg — his injunction to the tribunal. He spoke to the tribunal and said: We have to recognize that crimes are crimes whether they commit them or we commit them. We are handing these defendants, he said, a poisoned chalice, and if we sip from it, we must be subject to the same conditions. If not, the whole trial is a farce.
Is that applied when Britain and the United States invaded Iraq? It is a textbook example of aggression with absolutely no justification, [a] textbook example of what the Nuremberg tribunal called the “supreme international crime,” which differs from other war crimes in that it includes all of the evil that follows. For example, the rise of ISIS [also known as Daesh] and the death of millions of people, includes all of that. Can you find any commentary in the United States even calling [the US-UK invasion] a crime?
Obama is greatly admired on the left because he said it was a blunder. It is just like German generals after Stalingrad who said that the two-front war was a blunder, which it was. We should have knocked out England first. That is as far as you can go.
The head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, when this was specifically brought to his attention, can only go as far as saying that [Iraq] was a mistake. Was it a mistake when the Nazis committed aggression? Was it a mistake when Russians invaded Afghanistan? If you are a loyal communist, it was a mistake. We do not call it that…. At most, we made “mistakes.”
Go back to Justice Jackson. Anybody listen to his words? Then take Vietnam. The worst crime of the post-[World War II] era … millions of people killed, three countries destroyed, people still dying from the chemical warfare that was initiated by John F. Kennedy and expanded. Is it a mistake? Is it a crime? Is anybody guilty, responsible?
[In November 2016], the Obama administration [sponsored] a big memorial of the Vietnam War, and Obama made a passionate speech with his elevated rhetoric about what happened. He even did talk about crimes; he talked about the crimes that were committed against the American veterans who were not treated properly. What about the Vietnamese?
Let’s take Jimmy Carter, the “human rights president,” right after the war. [In] 1977, he was asked in a press conference, “Do we owe any debt to Vietnam?” He said we owe them no debt because the destruction was mutual…. Was there a comment? A few commented on it. I commented on it, and a couple of other people. Until we rise to a minimal level of civilization, we can’t use the term genocide.
In the aftermath of conflicts, to what extent are truth and reconciliation commissions a viable form of achieving justice and accountability?
I think they make sense in many situations. For example, take South Africa: There were horrible crimes committed under apartheid. But to try to punish people for those crimes would have torn the society to shreds and undermined any hope of progress and development, so a decision was made by the [African National Congress] — which I think is understandable — to avoid direct punishment and to settle for a truth and reconciliation commission to expose the nature of what happened, so at least it is kind of understood. Same was done in Central America, Brazil and East Timor.
Take East Timor, which was, if the term genocide has any meaning, what Indonesia did in East Timor, with the backing of the United States, Britain, other Western countries, even Sweden, that comes about as close to genocide as anything since the Second World War. East Timor finally won its independence. Should they carry out war crimes trials against Indonesia, Australia, United States and others? Or should they try to mend the fences with Indonesia and maybe settle for a truth and reconciliation commission? I think the latter, which is what they are doing. They have to live in the world, right?
Let us take where we happen to be sitting right now [in the US]. The Native population suffered a migrant crisis of an incredible kind … where the immigrants come in with the intention of exterminating and expelling the population. That is not what we call a crisis, but that is what happened here…. Should they institute war crimes trials against the people who live in their homes? It would not make a lot of sense. It would make a lot of sense to bring out understanding of what happened, to call for reparations and so on, but not war crimes trials. It just means nothing in these circumstances.
Is it genocide? … The Western hemisphere had about 80 million people when Columbus arrived, and pretty soon about 90 percent of them were gone.
Political scientists like John Mearsheimer, Kenneth Waltz and Joseph Nye have each defined what they consider to be “power” in international relations. You have criticized power structures and power systems. But I would like to know what you consider to be power in the field of international relations.
That is pretty straight forward. Power is the ability to issue orders which others have to follow; to the extent that you can do that, you have power. The orders do not have to be verbal. It can be actions: so, if you can invade Iraq, worst crime of the 21st century, and you get no censure or no reaction for it — that is power.
I think as an anarchist, in the long term, you believe that centralized political power ought to be eliminated and turned down to the local level, so what role (if any) would federalism play in your long-term vision of anarchism?
The general anarchist pictures — at least within the tradition I associate myself with — are highly federalist, but they assume that they are based on the notion of voluntary association. So there should be self-determination in all institutional structures of life. But voluntary associations could extend to regions and countries, internationally, that is a kind of federalism supported from below. I think it makes good sense in a complex world.
Evidence Mounts of Trump Campaign Conspiracy with Russia, Anti-American Actors
By Jonathan Peter Schwartz
Policy Summary
Several revelatory developments emerged this week in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. To be sure, they hardly reveal the full scope of what special counsel Robert Mueller and his team may know, but, taken together, they offer big clues to what Mueller will eventually report.
The week began with the collapse of the cooperation agreement between Paul Manafort and the special counsel’s office. Prosecutors for the special counsel accused Manafort of lying during his cooperation interviews about “a variety of subject matters.” The filing notified the court that any promises made to Manafort concerning leniency in his sentencing were voided. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Manafort could not withdraw his guilty plea. The special counsel can also proceed to try Manafort on a variety of further charges beyond those he has already been convicted of.
Most commentators found the logic of Manafort’s alleged perjury perplexing. It is possible that Manafort was telling the truth—this was his lawyers’ response to the filing—but few commenters found this possibility believable. The filing was especially definitive in its language, suggesting prosecutors have strong corroborating evidence for their allegations. This leaves only a few possible explanations for his behavior. Most concluded that Manafort must have received assurances of a presidential pardon. Speaking on Wednesday, Trump did nothing to tamp down this speculation, suggesting that pardoning Manafort was not “off the table.”
Wednesday brought further evidence of this possibility as Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, acknowledged that Manafort’s legal team continued to brief Trump’s team about Manafort’s testimony to Mueller after the cooperation agreement. Manafort did this without informing the special counsel’s office, and Giuliani seemed to relish having outflanked the prosecution. Legal experts seemed to agree that Manafort and the Trump team’s actions were not illegal, but that they again raise serious ethical and political questions, especially as it relates to the question potential presidential pardons. However, some commentators suggested that this activity could add further evidence for a case of criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice on the part of Trump and his associates.
This possibility was given further support when Giuliani confirmed on Wednesday that Jerome Corsi, who is also a target of the Mueller probe, had entered into a joint defense agreement with Trump’s legal team. Corsi, a conservative conspiracy theorist, has been thought to be a peripheral character in this drama. It became evident on Tuesday, however, that his role in Russia’s 2016 election sabotage was now of crucial interest to the special counsel’s investigators. Corsi’s connection to the Trump campaign appears to have been based on his relationship with Republican dirty-trickster Roger Stone, a long-time friend of Trump and business partner of Manafort, who is widely viewed as potentially a key figure in facilitating any cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian interference. Specifically, Stone appeared to have had prior knowledge of Russia’s email hacking of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, whose emails were later released by Wikileaks at a key moment in the presidential campaign (during the controversy over Trump’s Access Hollywood video). When asked by the House Intelligence Committee about his advance knowledge of the Podesta emails, Stone’s explanation was that he had simply guessed on the basis of informal research.
However, on Tuesday Corsi shared with several news services draft documents of a plea deal with the special counsel’s office that he was about to reject. The potential plea agreement reveals that Mueller has evidence suggesting Stone and Corsi acted as facilitators and backchannels for apparent coordination between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks, who appeared to be working in tandem with the Russian Intelligence services who hacked Podesta and the Democratic National Committee’s emails.
Specifically, the special counsel has apparently gained possession of emails exchanged between Stone and Corsi during the summer of 2016 in which they appeared to be facilitating coordination between the Trump campaign and Wikileaks via its founder, Julian Assange. The emails show Corsi having contacted an intermediary who shortly after met with Assange. Corsi then conveyed the results of the meeting to Stone, whom the document claims was at the time in regular contact with members of the Trump campaign, “including then-candidate Donald J. Trump.” Stone has also admitted to this contact during summer 2016.
There were also reports of further collaboration between Trump associates and Wikileaks. Specifically, the Guardian reported on Tuesday that Manafort secretly visited Assange on several occasions prior to his joining the Trump campaign. Manafort vehemently denied the report, threatening The Guardian with libel litigation. Manafort’s intense response may be related to the possibility that the special counsel appears to have begun probing whether such a meeting took place according to reporting by Carl Bernstein.
Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress seemed to view these events in crisis mode. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell squashed the possibility of legislation geared toward protecting the Mueller probe from interference from Trump and his recently installed acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker. This is in spite of recent bipartisan indications of support, including that of Senate majority whip, John Cornyn. Trump, on the other hand, spent the past three days lambasting Robert Mueller over Twitter. And perhaps with good reason, as reports indicate that Trump was explicitly asked by Mueller in written questions whether he had prior knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting between his son, Trump-campaign officials and Russian operatives, and whether Roger Stone told him of the Wikileaks email dumps beforehand.
Analysis
Mueller appears to be closing in on Trump and other key figures in his orbit. We can hardly know for sure whether anything illegal was done in relation to the Russian sabotage campaign by the Trump campaign or Trump himself, but the evidence is mounting. Trump himself seems unhinged when it comes to Mueller, and has taken actions, such as installing a political hack and lacky as acting attorney general a day after the midterm elections or attempting to prosecute his political enemies on a whim, that are audaciously corrupt.
There is a growing body of evidence that he and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have orchestrated a wide-ranging coverup of what occurred in the summer of 2016. This is not speculation or conspiracy theory; this is the only possible conclusion that can be drawn from the known facts as gleaned from authoritative reporting and a special counsel investigation backed by the full force of the federal government (excluding, of course, the White House).
Every American has an interest in determining the truth of these claims. Hopefully, there really was not conspiracy between Donald Trump, his campaign and Russia and other anti-American actors. But if where’s smoke, there’s fire, the available facts suggest it is getting awfully hazy at the White House.
Resistance Resources
- ACLU has worked for almost 100 years to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
- Protect the Investigation is a non-partisan initiative to educate the American people about the importance of the special counsel investigation and its current findings.
- Propublica exposes abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.
- Law Works engages bipartisan voices and educates the public on the importance of the rule of law, the role of the special counsel in the justice system, and the integrity of our judicial institutions.
- Nobody is Above the Law is a clearinghouse for organizing events to protect the Mueller probe.
- Stand Up America is an organization born after the outpouring of resistance to Donald Trump’s election in 2016. They are committed to providing you with the information you need to take impactful action and make your voice heard.
This brief was submitted by U.S. RESIST NEWS environment/at-large policy analyst Jonathan Peter Schwartz: Jonathan@usresistnews.org
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Major U.S. Government Climate Assessment Ignored by U.S Government
Policy Summary
Political controversy erupted this last black Friday, a day normally reserved for nonpolitical pursuits, such as bargain hunting and post-Thanksgiving family therapy. The controversy was instigated by the White House’s release of Volume 2 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. A product of 13 government agencies, the National Climate Assessment is congressionally mandated, its release therefore not left to the administration’s discretion.
The report paints a bleak picture of the impact climate change will have on the American economy and environment in coming decades of the twenty-first century. Extreme weather events—illustrated most recently in the intense 2018 hurricane season and California wildfires—are soon to become even more common and destructive. Heat-related deaths will become a greater threat as many regions become nearly unlivable.
On the economic from, along with the obvious damage to real estate and infrastructure from sea-level rise and extreme weather, numerous other areas of the U.S. economy will be affected. Given the international supply chain of most major U.S. manufacturers, production could also be seriously hampered by extreme weather events. Agricultural productivity will likely also decline as each 1°C rise above pre-industrial temperature levels results in a 3-7% decline in crop yield.
The report also notes the potential for rising domestic and international political instability resulting from more varied and numerous environmental refugee crises.
The National Climate Assessment comes a month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a dire report predicting that severe humanitarian crises could be a dominant aspect of global politics as early as 2040. Both reports were noted for their unusually direct language—a striking departure for the typically measured scientific community. As David Wallace-Wells notes in a comment on the I.P.C.C. report that could as easily apply to the new Climate Assessment, “[T]he real meaning of the report is not ‘climate change is much worse than you think,’ because anyone who knows the state of the research will find nothing surprising in it. The real meaning is, ‘you now have permission to freak out.’”
Yet, despite two of the most direct statements to date by the scientific community, both internationally and in the U.S., on the threat posed to human civilization by climate change, the Trump administration did its best to undermine and deny these findings. The release of the report on Black Friday seemed obviously intended as a news dump on a day when few Americans would be paying attention. A statement from the administration suggested the report was “largely based on the most extreme scenario.”
Climate advocates, such as Philip B. Duffy of the Woods Hole Research Center, attacked the administration, noting the “bizarre contrast between this report, which is being released by this administration, and [its] own policies.” Former vice president Al Gore said in a statement that the “President may try to hide the truth, but his own scientists and experts have made it as stark and clear as possible.”
Analysis
As climate expert Michael Mann noted on CNN on Friday, “[W]e don’t have to use our imagination anymore because we saw this play out over the past several months.” California’s 2018 wildfire season was unprecedentedly lethal and destructive. The 2018 hurricane season was similarly violent and destructive. But these are only the obvious effects of climate change. Most of its future impacts will be akin to the proverbial frog in boiling water. It will be a slow-motion catastrophe, especially for the Earth’s nearly one billion slum dwellers and the hundreds of millions more who only recently escaped extreme poverty.
While the National Climate Assessment largely focuses on U.S. interests, this myopic focus probably fails to grasp just how desperate the global international order could become as these millions of people begin seeking refugee status in cooler and richer northern countries. Echoing a 2015 statement by the Pentagon, Stephen Cheney, former Marine brigadier general and CEO of the American Security Project, writes, “Climate change is what we in the military call a ‘threat multiplier.’ Its connection to conflict is not linear. Rather, it intensifies and complicates existing security risks, increasing the frequency, scale, and complexity of future missions…. [Its] effects will be particularly destabilizing in already-volatile situations, exacerbating challenges like weak governance, economic inequality, and social tensions—and producing truly toxic conflicts.”
Engagement Resources
- Greenpeace is “a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.”
- The Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) is an organization whose “mission is to educate young people on the science of climate change and aid them in meaningful advocacy.”
- The Union of Concerned Scientists is a network of professional scientists who seek to bring the insights of science to bear on issues of public concern.
- Citizens’ Climate Lobby is “a non-profit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change.”
- org “uses online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects, take money out of the companies that are heating up the planet, and build 100% clean energy solutions that work for all.”
This Brief was submitted by U.S. RESIST NEWS Analyst Jonathan Schwartz Jonathan@usresistnews.org
Photo by Jon Tyson
New Trump Administration Attacks on LGBTQIA+ Community
Brief #45—Health
Policy Summary
Last month, Axios published an interview with Trump in which he suggested that there would be steps taken to ensure that gender identification from the federal government would be purely binary. Earlier this month, the Trump Administration advanced further attacks on LGBTQIA+ community by halting visas for same sex partners of diplomats, a severe hit on both our foreign policy agenda and on the legitimacy of the identity of LGBTQIA+. Additionally, language has been repeatedly used in the Department of Education to try to create more restrictive definitions for gender that would essentially create a binary rather than a spectrum of genders. Bathroom investigations to make them more gender inclusive has been halted under the leadership of Betsy DeVos.
Analysis
These blatant policy attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community have been secluded to the Department of Education and the State Department as of late. However, there will likely be a ripple effect of other policy changes throughout the federal departments if policy changes like this become common under the Trump Administration. Celebrity activists and other non-profits have been vocal about their opposition to these policies, but there is still momentum within the Trump Administration to continue to oppress and strip transgender individuals of their right to their identity. If these individual policy changes continue, there will most likely be momentum for more permanent and far reaching policy changes to take place through legislation.
Resistance Resources:
- Outright International– An organization dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA+ people and providing trainings to local communities and schools to be more inclusive.
- This Brief was submitted by U.S. RESIST NEWS Healthcare Policy Analyst-Sophia Adams Name: Contact Sophia.lorene30@gmail.com
- Keywords: LGBTQIA+, transgender rights, human rights, betsy devos, state department, united nations, bathroom
Photo by Peter Hershey
Betsy DeVos Proposed Title IX Changes
Brief #29—Education
Policy Summary
Department of Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, has released several new policies in regards to how US colleges and universities will treat allegations of sexual harassment and assault. DeVos claims the current system in place has “failed” and is a “shameful” method that has been unfair to the students suspected of alleged crimes. The proposed changes drastically shift attention to bolstering legal defenses for the accused. Many speculate that these changes echo feelings voiced by President Trump earlier in the year, when he tweeted, “Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation” and proposed that many men are unjustly assumed to be guilty. The new standards put in place by DeVos and the Trump administration will take the place of the Obama-era guidelines on how to apply Title IX, the law barring gender discrimination in schools that get federal funding. Title IX, approved as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, provides direct guidance and protocol for all manners of sex discrimination, including sexual assault, that would affect a student’s access to education.
Analysis
Many argue that DeVos’ planned changes not only reduce educational institution’s legal responsibility in sexual assault cases, but also create a large barrier between the rights of the accused students and possibly discouraging survivors from reporting any type of sexual assault and harassment.
Sexual assault continues to plague campuses across the nation. Recently polls have concluded that 25 percent of young women and 7 percent of young men say they suffered unwanted sexual incidents in college. Specifically, LGBT of students and female students of color encounter higher rates of sexual assault and harassment than the general student body. Even though a frighteningly high number of students experience some type of sexual harassment or abuse, the US government estimates that nearly 80 percent of student survivors choose not to report their assault, often out of fear of retribution or confidentiality worries. Undermining Title IX defenses may only make it harder for survivors to seek justice.
The Obama administration, defined sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”. Secretary DeVos plans to alter the definition of sexual harassment to now be understood as “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity.” Many psychologists and victims’ rights advocates groups suggest DeVos’ amendments may deter survivors from reporting happenings, as they wonder what actions are “severe” or “offensive” enough to qualify as sexual harassment.
DeVos’ proposed rule could also give schools permission to discount particular Title IX protections, such as religious exemptions. Presently, universities and schools are allowed to claim religious exemptions from certain Title IX provisions, such as counseling assistances or admissions of certain students. To do so, an institution must appeal specific exemptions from the U.S. Department of Education via letter or form. DeVos has referred to this procedure as “confusing or burdensome.” The issue for many is that religious exemptions can be used to oppress LGBT students and to refuse women’s reproductive rights on the basis of religious objections. Therefore, without the U.S. Department of Education’s monitoring of each exemption it may become easier for religious colleges to discriminate against LGBTQ students.
A major issue with the new proposed ruling is how it would permit the educational body itself to decide on the burden of proof required for sexual assault cases. Formerly the burden of proof was decided using the preponderance of evidence standard. The preponderance of evidence standard, used under the Obama administration, meant that educational institutions were instructed to admonish the accused party if evidence indicated that misconduct was more likely to have occurred than not. This standard is considered to be more in line with previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings related to violations of Title IX. Without using the preponderance of evidence standard, victims will have to go through even more to prove their claim, if the school will decide it is relevant at all.
At the moment, victims can report their sexual assault to anyone, school faculty or advisers. In return once an institution becomes aware of the situation they are required to examine the circumstances surrounding the potential assault. However, with the newly planned changes, a potential victim would have to report their assault directly to faculty “with authority to institute corrective measures”, in order for a school to be held liable for a Title IX violation, forcing victims to report to a limited number of individuals not of their choosing or with whom they may have no prior communication.
DeVos’s proposition also suggests that assaulted students and the accused students would be cross-examined, by advisers on behalf of the other individual. Cross-examination of this fashion is incredibly challenging and riddled with complications. The prospects of being cross-examined by an accused’s representative will likely silence many young assault victims. The situation is only made worse by the prospect of affluent students paying for available legal counsel or advocates while lower income students may not have such resources available to them.
Resistance Resources
The Department of Education under Secretary DeVos is making historic moves on Title IX protections. However there are a number of options still available to help halt the damage.
- Congress can also proceed in passing theCampus Accountability and Safety Act, a bipartisan effort that develops the requirements on reporting sexual harassment, sexual assault, and related crimes on university or college property. The Bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA) protect students and streamlines the response to and reporting of sexual assault. To join in on the fight to protect sexually assaulted or harassed students, click here: http://endrapeoncampus.org/passcasact/
- SurvJustice is a national not-for-profit organization that increases the prospect of justice for all survivors of sexual violence through effective legal assistance, policy advocacy, and institutional training. Furthermore, SurvJustice wants CASA (above) changed so it adds an amendment to Section 202 of the Department of Education Organization Act, which would give the education secretary to have the power to fine schools for any violation pertaining to sexual violence. Donate here: http://www.survjustice.org
- NOW Legal Defense works to enforce girls’ equal access to education. Their work in this area focuses on how sexual harassment in schools operates as a barrier to equal education. Find out more: https://www.legalmomentum.org
- Take action on issues impacting women and girls by joining The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Action Network. As a Two-Minute Activist, you will receive urgent email notices when your advocacy is needed most. AAUWs provide all the tools you need to call or send messages to your members of Congress, write letters to the editor for your local newspapers, contact your state legislators about pressing issues, and more. https://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/public-policy/two-minute-activist/
This Brief was posted by USRRESIST NEWS Analyst Erin Mayer: Contact: erin@usresistnews.org
Photo by NeONBRAND
A U.S. RESIST NEWS SPECIAL REPORT; Trump’s League of Tyrants: A Guide to Authoritarian Leaders Around the World
By USRN Analysts Erin Mayer and Colin Shanley
One of the most pervasive misreadings of the 2016 election is that Trump is simply an aberration who somehow slipped through the cracks of our otherwise stable institutions, and into a position of power. This view of Trump as a corrupting peculiarity rather than a direct creation of a society undergoing a series of compounded pressures is refuted by the emergence of a number of parallel figures around the world. A neoliberal project peddled as a global consensus beginning with the rise of Reagan and Thatcher has been ultimately realized in the form of backsliding democracy, refugee crises, ecological collapse, weakened labor power, and an ever-growing chasm of inequality.
Political parties, compromised by corporate hegemony, are often unable to identify the root causes of social issues and are left with forming a political culture of scapegoating and absurdity. With no strong alternatives calling for a just and equal society, many have become convinced of a more nihilistic solution. Reckoning from the start that there are simply not enough resources to go around, these political movements support leaders willing to bypass many social norms to rigidly enforce pre-existing social hierarchies. This often takes the form of extreme nationalism, the dismissal of the press or the concept of objective truths, the nostalgic celebration of traditionalist social relations at the expense of social justice, the subjugation of the poor, and the embrace of violence. Here we look at five of these figures: Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, Recep Erdogan, Rodrigo Duterte, and Andrzej Duda, as well as their relationships with Trump.
Jair Bolsonaro
Jair Bolsonaro, the most recent reactionary authoritarian to rise out of divided social conditions, was elected on October 28th to be the new President of Brazil. The country – the fifth most populated in the world – has for decades struggled with a political culture ridden with corruption and a society divided between wealthier upper classes and the poorer residents of the favelas, which have become a hotbed of crime. Founding member of the center left-wing Workers Party Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly known simply as Lula, served as President from 2003 to 2010, and enacted social programs to reduce hunger and increase education. Despite leaving office with a 90% approval rating, Lula was convicted just this year on a dubious corruption charge, preventing him from running again for the Presidency. This forced the Workers Party to run Fernando Haddad, an almost unknown candidate, against Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro is an outsider candidate, willing to be more direct in his attitude towards nationalism and violence than the evaporating traditional conservative movement. He was elected largely by the white, wealthy portions of the populace, who have a greater interest in preserving what remains of the social stratification built during the country’s colonization. While this story may sound familiar to American readers, what separates him from Trump is how radically further he is both willing and able to advance this far-right agenda. Brazil’s military dictatorship only ended in 1985, which Bolsonaro has spoken fondly of. A former army captain, Bolsonaro lamented only that the regime failed to kill enough people. He has amassed a record of incendiary remarks towards every oppressed group imaginable. His solution to poverty and crime is violent suppression of the favelas, accepting in advance the deaths of innocents. The preservation of the rainforest and the indigenous communities they contain are simply obstacles to Bolsonaro’s plan for economic growth. Echoing Chile’s Pinochet regime of the 70’s and 80’s, which he has also complimented, Bolsonaro hopes to unleash neoliberal reforms on the country, privatizing vast swaths of the public sector and allowing for a corporate takeover of major institutions.
President Trump took the opportunity to congratulate Bolsonaro on his victory. His National Security Advisor John Bolton called Bolsonaro “like-minded” during a speech announcing new sanctions on what he referred to as the “troika of tyranny”: Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. This suggests that Trump sees Bolsonaro as a strategic partner in the struggle between countries trying to reverse the consequences of imperialism and those trying to maintain it. While some of the international media has cautiously decried Bolsonaro, many have downplayed the danger he poses. Most major media companies are not comfortable openly supporting a candidate who can without hyperbole be called a fascist but his neoliberal market reforms are a strong enticement. The Wall Street Journal essentially endorsed him shortly before his election, and US investors have responded positively to his success.
Viktor Orban
Viktor Orban, leader of Hungary’s far-right Fidesz party, first reached national recognition in 1989 after delivering a speech commemorating the martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, during which he called for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country. He first served as Prime Minister from 1998-2002 before being elected again in 2010 due to the collapse of the social democratic MSZP party. Taking his eat with a two-thirds parliamentary majority, Orban was able to alter the constitution to reduce the rights of same-sex unions, and heavily reduce the number of his part’s Parliamentary seats, widely considered an anti-democratic power grab. Orban went on to set a 16% flat tax rate and erected a wall on the Serbian and Croatian border to prevent immigration.
Orban, an advocate of what he calls an “illiberal democracy” has heavily utilized anti-Semitic rhetoric to galvanize his base, accusing Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire George Soros of financing his political opposition and hoping to destroy the country with a flood of Muslim immigrants. According to the Intercept, “the billionaire’s Open Society Foundations provide just $3.6 million a year to Hungarian rights groups and independent media. The prime minister’s office, by contrast, spent in excess of $50 million in public money last year on advertising that attacked the philanthropist”. He has praised Miklos Horthy, the World War II leader of Hungary, who introduced antisemitic laws and collaborated with the Nazi party. Orban spoke of last April’s election as a referendum on the racial identity of the country, stating “Either we will remain a Hungarian country, a country that we know and love and in which we feel at home; or others will come here, and a country with a mixed population will come into being — with different cultures, parallel societies, and all the related consequences that we can see in Western Europe.”
This rhetoric is in direct parallel with Trump’s in the United States. Trump has called Tuesday’s Midterm elections the “caravan election” and has questioned whether George Soros was funding the caravan, despite any evidence to support such claims. For this reason Orban has found an ally in Trump, a sharp turn from his frigid relationship with Obama. Orban is an asset for Trump. His anti-Immigration policies validate Trump’s, and by supporting a European nationalist Trump undermines the European Union, whom Trump has called a “foe”.
Recep Erdogan
Recep Erdogan was elected to the Presidency of Turkey in 2014, following a period as Prime Minister from 2003-2014 during which he oversaw negotiations for Turkey’s membership in the EU, and a growing economy thanks to liberal economic policy. While largely popular as Prime Minister, the final years of his term were spent suppressing dissent and enacting Islamist policies, which alienated the more secular, liberal elements of the country.
In July of 2016, the Turkish government was the subject of a failed military coup. Erdogan blamed Turkish preacher Muhammad Gulen, who is currently living in exile in Pennsylvania, for the coup. This was not completely out of the ordinary for Turkey, a country which has experienced military led coups in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997, generally in the interest of maintaining secular order. However, both German and British officials have stated that they have found no evidence to support Erdogan’s version of events, and he has certainly capitalized on the on his resurgence in support. Immediately following the coup, Erdogan initiated a purge of opposition journalists, academics, politicians, and military officers. The coup was used to justify a referendum in April of 2017 which handed Erdogan complete control of the budget, military, and judiciary, as well as allowing him to dissolve the parliament and retain his seat until 2029.
President Trump and President Erdogan have little in common ideologically. Trump has attempted to ban Muslims from entering America, while Erdogan is a believer in political Islam. Trump despises the EU, whereas Erdogan has long sought to enter Turkey into the organization’s roster. While Turkey has been an ally of the United States in the Syrian war, Erdogan himself has never been popular within the US. Nevertheless, Trump has gotten along far better with Erdogan than once might expect. Just hours before Erdogan set his bodyguards on Americans protesting Turkey’s treatment of the Kurdish people, Trump announced that it was “a great honor” to welcome Erdogan to the White House, and later called him a “friend”. Relations have gotten colder this past year, with Trump enacting tariffs in response to an American pastor detained in Turkey under allegations of involvement with the 2016 coup. The few factors that Trump and Erdogan seem to share – a willingness to override traditional process to correct perceived grievances – may be what ultimates prevents a strong US-Turkish alliance in the years to come.
Andrzej Duda
Andrzej Duda of the conservative Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party, was born in 1972. Duda often refers to his years with the Boy Scouts with great satisfaction. It is important to keep in mind, that in Poland, the term “boy scout” is connected with a sense of upstanding patriotism as many scouts fought as children and, sadly, died during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Although completely unknown today, around the year 2000, Duda began working for the liberal Unia Wolnosci or the “Freedom Union”.
In the early 2000’s, a shift came and he began making a name for himself in conservative politics, going on to become a member of the national conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS). By 2005, he officially became legal specialist soon after a parliamentary election victory. Later, from 2008-2010, Duda worked as Presidential Chancellery under Lech Kaczynski. Following Kaczynski’s guidance, Duda would move quickly from government position to position with rapid success. In the election of 2015, he surprised the country when he won against incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski of the centrist Civic Platform. This would become the tightest presidential election in Poland’s history. Many would credit Duda’s success to the public frustration with the Civic Platform’s inability to address issues related to employment, wages and general economic growth.
This same level of discontent also helped Duda’s Eurosceptic Law and Justice party win parliamentary elections in the fall of 2017. Once again, the future president would be involved in a historic moment for his country, as this would become the first single-party victory in Poland’s history as a democracy. Duda’s work in parliament, from 2011-2014, gained public approval for his bipartisan approach, and helped later to have him elected to the European Parliament. In 2014, the twin brother of the former President Lech Kaczynski and party chairman, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, made an unexpected statement when he announced that Duda would be running as the presidential candidate for the PiS. Duda declared that by running for president he would be Lech Kaczynski’s “spiritual heir” and won the office in 2015.
During his first two years as President, Duda has been referred to, critically, as the “notary” for the Conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), because, with one exception. In 2017 that Duda would separate himself from Kaczyński’s views by vetoing two divisive laws that would have ended the independence of the Polish judiciary. Previous to the veto, thousands of Polish citizens had protested the laws, taking to the streets in hopes to bend the President’s ear. Countless Poles and even Duda’s own colleagues were shocked by rejection and what many would call a betrayal of party.
In February of this year , Duda signed a law that would ban citizens from condemning Poland for participating in Holocaust horrors carried out by Nazi and condemning concentration camps as being referred to as “Polish death camps“. The president’s controversial decision led to tensions with the United States and Israel. Many disagreed with this stance as it seemed to threaten freedom of speech laws, but to many it suggested that Duda would not back down to the United States.
However, all ideas of such behavior would soon be shot down, during a press conference, in September. The Polish President would play into Trump’s ego by offering to not only open a U.S. military base in Warsaw, but by also suggesting it be called, “Fort Trump”. President Donald Trump has advocated placing a base in Warsaw as long as Poland “is willing to make a very major contribution to the United States.” Duda, hopes the base will strengthen relations to the United States and help secure his country against a gradually more antagonistic Russia.
The Trump administration has not yet confirmed the building of a military base in Poland. Many are skeptical of the possibility of such a project and how it would sit with neighboring Russia; a country with a controversial relationship with President Trump but that has also historically criticized Poland for hosting thousands of US and NATO troops. A permanent base would cause friction with Russia, as this would put American troops extremely close to Russian borders. Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who led the US Army in Europe until this past December, speculated that opening a U.S. base in Poland may allow Russia the chance to claim NATO to be an antagonist and to take action in order to defend Russia’s sovereignty.
Rodrigo Duterte
Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines on platforms that were largely built on pledged executions of drug dealers and other criminals. The president whose nicknames include “Duterte Harry” and “The Punisher,” highlight the leader’s take on extremely violent punishments. Duterte has been rebuked by numerous human rights organizations for the killings of thousands of citizens in the name of his war on drugs and crime.
In many ways Duterte is a parochial politician. The president has been considered an outcast by the traditional Manila elite from early on, due to his violent history. Duterte was mayor of Davao City for seven terms and 22 years, where he ran the city as his own fiefdom. It was here he earned the nickname “the death squad mayor” reportedly due of the bands of assassins he sent to kill alleged drug dealers and addicts. Publicly, Duterte refuted any participation in the murders, but also celebrated their actions. He even went as far as to compare himself to Adolf Hitler in the killings of millions of drug addicts. In 2015 Duterte pledged to execute 100,000 criminals and leave their corpses in Manila Bay to fatten up the local fish. Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte, is the current mayor of Davao City.
After a long reign as Mayor of Davao City, Duterte launched his Presidential campaign. He repeatedly made off handed comments, often joking about human rights violations, including the mockery of a rape and murder of a female missionary during the 1989 prison riot. During an interview, he is recorded as saying, “they raped her, they lined up to her. I was angry she was raped, yes that was one thing. But she was so beautiful, I thought the mayor should have been first. What a waste.”
Even so, on May 30 of 2016, Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines. Directly following his Presidential inauguration, on June 30th of 2016, the new leader entered Tondo, reportedly the poorest section of Manila. As he spoke, he proudly gave the crowd permission to murder any drug addicts in the vicinity. The Filipino President’s savage takes on drugs has led to the murdering of thousands of the countries’ most impoverished people, sadly including numerous children. Duterte has publically referred to the innocent juveniles killed in the clash as ‘collateral damage’. The Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center claims, in first six months of Duterte’s war on drugs, an estimated 31 children were murdered, starting at age 4.
President Duterte has made his feelings of United States’ Presidents very clear. In just his first months in office, Duterte made a number of alarming comments toward the US, a country deemed as a longstanding ally of the Philippines. Once calling Obama the “son of a whore”, Duterte threatened to “break up” with the United States and expanded on his sentiments by telling President Barack Obama to “go to hell.”
Duterte does not seem to have the same sentiment toward the current US President, Donald Trump. During a speech, in Israel, this past September, Duterte was quoted saying the United States and Philippine affiliation had flourished under his “good friend” in the Oval Office, who “speaks my language”, he went on to say. However, Trump and Duterte are widely regarded as two of most impetuous presidents today, often making accusations without concern for factual accuracy.
Shocking many, only days after referring to President Trump as a “friend”, President Duterte turned on him when asked about the 6.4 percent inflation in August, he accused Trump’s economic policies as culprit. Duterte was quoted, “Who started it? America. When America raised its rates, everyone raised theirs as well. That is how it is. There is nothing we can do…Because America…Trump wanted it.” Later Manila’s central bank disagreed with its president, stating rapid inflation is actually thanks to the Philippines’ leaders’ new taxes.
Nonetheless, many speculate the U.S. and the Philippines are peacefully working on their mildly strained relations as they set aside past grievances in the face of a mutual perceived threat, China. As Trump’s trade war with China seems to be growing, the US is reaffirming its prior foothold in Southeast Asia and is therefore seeking to reinstate associations with allies, such as the Philippines. However, this may be short lived as soon the Philippines will have its midterm elections, and thus far, the Senate race has been led by independents like Grace Poe, while the President’s allies have been notably coming up short in the polls. If Duterte is unseated it would leave Trump’s administration in a particularly unfortunate situation.
Photo by Jørgen Håland
The Industry of Voting: How the Practice of Stealth Politics Serves to Undermine American Democracy
Summary
The recent midterm elections have cast a new light on an area of politics that has become increasingly more concerning since Donald Trump first took office in 2017–that of money in politics.
One week before the midterm elections, it was estimated that the amount spent on them would exceed $5.2 billion. Of that large sum, it has been well documented that hundreds of millions of dollars were donated by powerful families with net worths in the billions such as Sheldon and Miram Adelson and Charles and David Koch, two last names synonymous with highly conservative political ideals. The Adelsons have been hailed as “biggest political donors of 2018” with their donations to GOP Super PACs totaling roughly $87 million. Adelson, it should be noted, has made no secret of his support for Donald Trump and has made ample use of his direct line to the Oval Office. In the months leading up to November, the strong network of advocacy groups with ties to the Koch brothers pledged to donate to up to $400 million to the campaigns and policy initiatives of conservative candidates. Adding to the mix of conservative billionaire mega-donors are Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who made donations in the millions to multiple highly conservative Super PACs this election season, totaling roughly $39 million.
The Democratic party certainly has its share of mega-donors as well. Billionaire former hedge fund magnate Tom Steyer has been dubbed “the progressive answer to the Koch Brothers” for his work in democratic activism and fundraising. Steyer founded NextGen Climate Action, a Pac that supports candidates who prioritize combating climate change. During the midterms, he was reported to have donated roughly $50.7 million with over $40 million going to to it. Another business magnate who has made a name for himself as a democratic donor is Michael Bloomberg. The former New York City Mayor and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. also has his own Super PAC. Independence USA PAC focuses on supporting candidates who prioritize gun control laws as well as environmental and education policy. Bloomberg’s personal contributions to it exceeded $7 million while his donations to the Democratic Senate Majority PAC were reached $20 million during this cycle alone. Another democratic mega-donor was hedge fund manager Donald Sussman, whose firm, Paloma Partners, was the top donor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign with $21.6 million. Like Bloomberg, he made a considerable donation to the Senate Majority PAC this midterm cycle, as well as many other Democratic Super PACs, with overall donations exceeding $22 million.
Current White House insiders received large checks from powerful corporate donors as well. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan collected more than $2.8 million in donor funds from companies in the Oil & Gasoline sector while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell received close to $700,000 from the same corporations.
The rise of billionaires buying political influence through sizable campaign contributions can be traced back to the creation of the Super PAC or Independent Expenditures Only Committee (IEOC) itself. During the historic 2010 case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations could be classified as people and could therefore not be legally prevented from contributing to political causes and campaigns. The majority vote held that it was not only free speech that was protected under the first amendment, but free speech as an act. The original logic was that if politicians did not have any direct contact with the Super PACS, the system would never be corrupted.
As we have seen in the years since, such logic has proven a fallacy. The current system is set up in a way that is all too easily for special interests to take advantage of, given the lack of transparency surrounding the donations made to these organizations. Thanks to Citizens United, there is a legal basis for it. Unlike regular PACs, Super PACs cannot donate directly to candidates or political parties but they can spend unlimited amounts of money on matters that are seen as not directly linked to candidates. This does not mean, however, that the funds cannot ultimately be used to help the candidate or cause that the donor is in favor of. There is also no limit to how much money an individual can donate to a Super PAC. Given all this, it is not hard to see how such a system could easily be corrupted by those looking to advance certain political agendas.
Analysis
The trend of wealthy individuals and corporations using donor checks to buy political influence was quick to catch on and has grown rapidly with each election since 2010. It has been dubbed “stealth politics” by the mainstream media, a term that refers to the practice of rarely making public statements on political matters but instead letting your donations speak for you when they sway politicians to either implement or block policies that could affect your business interests. When we take a look at the most prominent donors this election cycle, we are faced with a collection of billionaires, many of whom are known for promoting heavily conservative ideals and many of whom backed Donald Trump in 2016 and still support him to this day. Figures such as Sheldon Adelson and Charles and David Koch are exactly the types of business leaders who stood to benefit from Trump’s tax cuts and deregulatory policies. For people like Adelsons, maintaining the current political system heavily depended on the GOP staying in control of the House and Senate so their vested interest in helping conservative candidates through significant campaign donations is hardly surprising.
This growing trend of employing stealth politics as a technique to buy influence on Capitol Hill may not be surprising, but is concerning for anyone interested in preserving the values of American democracy. In this current system, we are seeing a clear disconnect between what is most beneficial for the people of each state and district and what is most beneficial for the politicians elected to represent them. The ability to buy political influence has spread to affect every area that concerns American citizens, spanning not just oil and gas and financial regulation but also healthcare, education, and infrastructure. The larger these Super PAC donations become, the more incentive politicians will have to pass laws that benefit their wealthy donors, often at the expensive of those not in the economic 1%.
It is not hard to see how a system of wealthy individuals being able to buy influence over the politicians who govern our nation undermines American democracy. The power they hold far exceeds that of those with a net worth not in the billions. Those without the ability to buy political influence do not have voices that politicians will reach politicians in the same way–consider Sheldon Adelson’s direct phone line to Donald Trump. It is a system that can truly be described as legalized bribery where many elected leaders appear less like politicians and more like puppets that exist to pass legislation that helps grow the net worth of their most generous donors. As such, the general public’s trust of their leaders has been eroding as the political influence bubble has continued to grow. How can those who cannot buy influence trust their leaders to do the job they were elected to do and fight for what is best for everyone when these politicians have strong financial incentives to ignore them and listen to their donors? The way it looks from here, there are no clear answers.
Another problematic element to the culture of steal politics is that it has created a higher barrier of entry for politics in general. Younger people who want to build careers in public service are finding it much more difficult to raise the funds necessary to run a successful campaign on the national scale. Even if they are able to build a successful grassroots campaign, they are often faced with competitors who are backed by powerful donors. Often, the only way to gain any traction on the campaign trail is to accept money from donors who only write checks to candidates who will end up beholden to them if they win.
Overall it is clear that stealth politics is truly a vicious circle of influence and there is nothing democratic about it. It is a practice that has been undermining the democratic principles on which American was founded, completely compromising the trust that citizens should feel for their elected leaders. No system with a small circle of winners whose victory comes at the expense of everyone else can be considered democratic.
Resistance Resources
- End Citizens United is a political action committee dedicated to combating the effects of Citizens United and reforming campaign finance.
- The Brennan Center for Justice is a non-partisan law and public policy institute that has provides extensive research on voting rights and elections.
- The League of Women Voters is an American civil rights organization that works to “increase understanding of major public policy issues and influences public policy through education and advocacy.”
- The Center for Public Integrity is an investigative journalism organization that seeks to “serve democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of public trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism.”
This Brief was submitted by U.S. RESIST NEWS Analyst Sam O’Brient: Contact: sam@climatescorecard.org
Photo by Element5 Digital
California Wildfires Keep Roaring
Policy Summary
A devastating fire has been roaring through California, and the death toll has reached at least 77 people, while 1,000 are still missing. wildfires, California, Camp Fire, climate change, Trump, PG&E The fire, called, the Camp Fire, is the deadliest fire in state history, and has burned hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Northern California. Simultaneously, in Southern California, the Woolsey Fire has already burned nearly a hundred thousand acres of land, and as of last week had burned 400 structures alone. President Trump criticized the Fire Management Department, citing them to blame for the wildfires both on Twitter and on Fox News. Public officials and civilians expressed upset over this.
Analysis
PG&E is currently suspected of foul play in the role of the wildfire, and a woman living in Pulga, California, the site where the fire began, says that the utility giant only got in touch with her the day before the fires started to rage. The Camp fire has not only impacted the community to the point of being unrecognizable, with an entire town of Paradise, California burned to the ground, but has also transformed California temporarily. As of now, California’s air quality has climbed to new heights as the worst in the world, with school cancelled all over the Bay Area due to unsafe air quality, and many being asked to stay home from work. The hazards facing health are manifold, and many suspect that the worst is yet to come for California’s wildfires.
Resistance Resources
- California Community Wildfire Relief Fund: Helps provide resources for immediate and long term wildfire recovery.
- California Fire Foundation: Supplies assistance and aid to victims of wildfires.
This Brief was developed by U.S. RESIST NEWS Analyst Zoe Stricker. Contact: zoe@usresistnews.org
Photo by Joanne Francis