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Author: Sharon Zhang

  • Ocasio-Cortez Introduces Bill to Help Clear Marijuana Charges at State Level

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez co-hosts an event outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., on June 16, 2021.

    A new bipartisan bill introduced in the House aims to aid local and state governments in expungement efforts for those charged with cannabis offenses at the sub-federal level.

    The Harnessing Opportunities by Pursuing Expungement (HOPE) Act was introduced by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Dave Joyce (R-Ohio). It would direct the Justice Department to create a new grant program with up to $20 million in funding over 10 years, starting in 2023. Grants would be issued to local governments to develop logistics and implement methods for identifying and carrying out cannabis charge expungements.

    Previous bills aimed at freeing individuals from cannabis charges have largely focused on federal charges. As the press release for the bill notes, however, local and state officials handle most marijuana-related charges.

    In turn, many local governments don’t have the resources to handle expungements, either due to poor record keeping or otherwise, the lawmakers say. Some lawyers and third party organizations have launched efforts in past years to fill in the gaps left by local and state authorities or to force the governments’ hands, helping individuals with cannabis-related records navigate the often complex process.

    Ocasio-Cortez said that the HOPE Act is a step toward justice. “As we continue to advocate for the decriminalization and legalization of marijuana, this bipartisan bill will provide localities the resources they need to expunge drug charges that continue to hold back Americans, disproportionately people of color, from employment, housing and other opportunit[ies],” she said.

    Advocates for marijuana legalization celebrated the bill. “Most of the expungement conversations in Congress have focused on federal convictions, which is laudable but glosses over the fact that the vast majority of cannabis arrests occur at the state level,” said Aaron Smith, CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association. “Getting these charges expunged can be prohibitively expensive for both state governments and individuals hoping to clear their records and get their lives back.”

    Funding provided by the bill could help bring record-keeping for local bureaucracies into the 21st century. Many local governments still rely on physical record-keeping, meaning that countless people who may be eligible to have charges expunged still have them on their records — sometimes despite not ever getting convicted for the charge. The grant program could help fund technology that would digitize these records and potentially automate the cannabis charge expungement process.

    The bill could also provide assistance to individuals, funding legal clinics and creating a program to notify people of the potentiality of having their cannabis charges sealed or expunged. Because the process can be both expensive and complex, many people eligible to have their records expunged never do. One study done last year in Michigan found that 90 percent of people eligible for expungement in Michigan haven’t applied for the process.

    “Having been both a public defender and a prosecutor, I have seen first-hand how cannabis law violations can foreclose a lifetime of opportunities ranging from employment to education to housing,” Joyce said. “The collateral damage caused by these missed opportunities is woefully underestimated and has impacted entire families, communities, and regional economies.”

    Under this legislation, the attorney general would be required to conduct a study on the impact of cannabis charges on an individual’s financial health, including information on how this impact can vary based on demographics. This study would also explore the costs associated with cannabis-related incarceration.

    Expungement, which clears an individual’s record of a charge, can be an important step for people in getting their lives back after being charged. When marijuana charges show up on an individual’s record, the stigma of such a charge can prevent people from obtaining housing or employment. This happens even in places where marijuana has been fully legalized — sometimes leaving people charged with an activity that is now lawful stuck in the cycle of poverty.

    Expungement programs would be especially impactful for people of color, who have been disproportionately targeted for marijuana-related arrests or charges. In a 2020 report, the American Civil Liberties Union found that Black people are 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana, even though consumption rates across all races are virtually identical. In some places, this disparity is particularly prominent; last year, 94 percent of New York Police Department arrests for marijuana were of people of color.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Poll Finds Most Young Americans Say US Democracy Is “In Trouble” or “Failed”

    Young woman looking at lawn maze with hand on head, expressing uncertainty

    As the U.S. faces converging existential issues perpetuated largely by establishment politicians and the right wing, new polling released on Monday finds that a majority of young Americans believe that U.S. democracy is on the brink of failure — or that it has already failed.

    The poll surveyed 2,109 Americans, aged between 18 and 29 years old. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said that the U.S. is “a democracy in trouble,” while 13 percent said that the U.S. is “a failed democracy,” adding up to 52 percent.

    Only 27 percent of respondents described American democracy as “somewhat functioning,” while a mere 7 percent said that U.S. democracy is “healthy.”

    The results of this poll, conducted by the Harvard Public Opinion Project, may be a sign that young Americans are ready for the country to be radically transformed.

    Over half of the survey’s young respondents reported having felt depressed or anxious, with the pandemic, economic concerns, and school or work ranking high as factors that affected their mental health. The climate crisis was also cited as a major concern, with 56 percent of poll respondents saying they expect their personal decisions in the future to be affected by climate change.

    Young Americans are already feeling the impact of massive economic and political crises on an individual level, said Jing-Jing Shen, student chair of the Harvard Public Opinion project. “Right now, young Americans are confronting worries on many fronts. Concerns about our collective future ​​– with regard to democracy, climate change, and mental health – also feel very personal.”

    Interestingly, young Republicans were more likely to say that democracy is either “failed” or “in trouble,” with 70 percent of respondents saying as such. They were also more likely than Democrats or independents to say that a civil war was coming within their lifetime. This may be due to increasing radicalization within right-wing media and the Republican Party.

    The poll comes at a time of extreme turmoil for the U.S. Last year, measures taken by Congress to counteract the economic impact of the pandemic were successful in decreasing the poverty rate — but that relief is likely to be short-lived, as social safety nets like the federal student loan repayment pause are soon set to expire. Despite several effective vaccines, the U.S. is currently nearing 800,000 deaths due to the pandemic, and the country now faces what could potentially be a fifth wave of COVID infections.

    Meanwhile, scientists have warned that the climate crisis is rapidly worsening. But mainstream U.S. politicians are still blocking climate action in favor of lining their own pockets — often while outright denying that the climate crisis even exists, parroting decades-old talking points from fossil fuel companies.

    Indeed, the political establishment appears to be less interested in serving the public than it is in serving their own interests. While Republicans openly oppose the very idea of democracy, saying that less people should have the ability to vote, the Democratic establishment has consistentally sabotaged their own party, ignoring the wants and needs of the public to prevent progressive and socialist politicians from gaining power.

    “After turning out in record numbers in 2020, young Americans are sounding the alarm. When they look at the America they will soon inherit, they see a democracy and climate in peril,” said John Della Volpe, polling director for Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. “Despite this, they seem as determined as ever to fight for the change they seek.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ocasio-Cortez Says Assault Accusations Should Bar Kavanaugh From Abortion Ruling

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol Building on November 18, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    On Wednesday, as the Supreme Court inched closer to overturning Roe v. Wade and drastically upending abortion rights across the U.S., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) panned the court for allowing Justice Brett Kavanaugh to rule on the matter, pointing out that he has been accused of multiple counts of sexual assualt.

    “Reminder that Brett Kavanaugh *still* remains credibly accused of sexual assault on multiple accounts with corroborated details and this year the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] admitted it never fully investigated,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Wednesday. “Yet the court is letting him decide on whether to legalize forced birth in the US. No recusal.”

    Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault by several women who have said that he assaulted or harrassed them in or around the 1980s. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against him garnered particular attention as she came out publicly to say that Kavanaugh had forcefully groped her and rubbed himself against her while putting his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. In spite of these accusations, Republicans marched on with the nomination and confirmation of Kavanaugh.

    Earlier this year, the FBI said that it received over 4,500 tips about Kavanaugh in 2020, but never acted on them — even though Kavanaugh was a Supreme Court nominee at the time. Instead, the agency handed off the tips to the Trump administration, which had no motivation to investigate allegations against their nominee as Republicans were bending rules to fill the court with conservative justices.

    “Out of 9 justices, 3 were appointed by a man who tried to overthrow the U.S. government” and elected with a minority of the popular vote, Ocasio-Cortez continued. “Those 3 will decide whether the US will legalize forcing people to give birth against their will. Legitimacy requires consent of the governed. They are dismantling it.”

    After hearing initial arguments on a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court appears poised to upend the decades-old decision that has enshrined abortion rights for nearly 50 years. This is the result of years of conservative and far-right campaigning that has slowly pushed the country toward undoing abortion rights.

    If Roe is overturned, the U.S. would join a small handful of countries that have rolled back abortion protections after having expanded them. Among these countries is Poland, which banned abortion due to years of far-right governance.

    Without Roe in place, many states would likely implement restrictive bans — ones that don’t allow exceptions even for victims of rape or incest. That Kavanaugh would have the power to essentially greenlight such laws is exceptionally cruel, many advocates have pointed out.

    A lack of abortion protections would have far-reaching consequences for the public. About 26 states are poised to immediately place bans on abortions as soon as Roe protections are gone — and recent data shows that without these protections, people will have to travel 250 miles round-trip, on average, to see their nearest abortion provider. This adds additional hurdles to what can be an already expensive procedure — although getting an abortion is not only far less expensive than giving birth but arguably much safer.

    Texas’s near-total abortion ban, which took effect in September, may have already claimed victims, as medical professionals have warned that pregnancy-related deaths could increase due to the ban. The law incentivizes private citizens to report individuals that aid someone in getting an abortion by offering them up to $10,000 in lawsuit winnings. It does not make exceptions for rape or incest.

    In response to major backlash against the law, far-right Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to end rape in the state — a claim that was clearly disingenous because the criminal legal system not only fails to address the root causes of rape but also perpetuates them.

    “If Gov. Abbott is as ‘anti-rape’ as he claims, why doesn’t he just lead the Texas state legislature to pass a law for $10k bounties on people who engage in or aid sexual assault?” wrote Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. “Or is he opposed to that because it’s a slippery slope of vigilantism where men could be unjustly targeted?”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Dems Hopeful Stacey Abrams Will Win Governor’s Seat After Georgia’s Blue Wave

    Former Representative and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams is introduced before speaking at a Souls to the Polls rally on October 17, 2021, in Norfolk, Virginia.

    Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams has officially launched her campaign to run for governor of Georgia, challenging Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has led voter suppression initiatives in the state over the past year.

    As a high-profile Democrat, Abrams is a leading candidate in the race. She previously served as the party’s minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives and has, in recent months, strongly condemned Republicans’ efforts to suppress voting as a backlash to the 2020 election. If elected, she would be the first Black female governor ever to be elected and the first Democrat to hold the governor’s office in the state since 2003.

    “Leadership that understands the true pain folks are feeling, and has real plans — that’s the job of governor, to fight for one Georgia, our Georgia,” Abrams said in a video announcing her run. “And now, it’s time to get the job done.”

    If Kemp clinches the Republican primary next year, this will be Abram’s second time running against him. In 2018, she lost by a margin of only 1.4 points. Shortly before the election, however, Kemp purged over half a million voters from voter rolls, leading voters and voting rights advocates to call the results into question.

    Thanks to voter suppression efforts by conservatives in the state, access to voting seems like it will be restricted again in 2022. Concerningly, voters have already been affected by Georgia Republicans’ voter suppression bill passed earlier this year, with election officials rejecting absentee ballot applications for this year’s municipal elections at a rate four times higher than in 2020.

    This is a manifestation of Republicans ending no-excuse absentee voting in the state; because of this, only 26 percent of people whose applications were rejected ended up casting their vote in person on Election Day.

    Abrams has spent the years after her initial run for governor advocating for voting rights. After her run, she launched Fair Fight Action and Fair Count, organizations aimed at combating voter suppression and giving communities of color accurate representation in the 2020 census.

    Abrams has specifically rejected Georgia Republicans’ voter suppression laws, saying that the hundreds of voter suppression bills filed in states across the country are “a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”

    Georgia had record voter turnout in the 2020 election, leading to the state voting blue in the presidential election for the first time since 1992. “The only connection that we can find is that more people of color voted, and it changed the outcome of elections in a direction that Republicans do not like,” Abrams said in March. “Instead of celebrating better access and more participation, their response is to try to eliminate access to voting for, primarily, communities of color.”

    Still, Georgia’s blue flip could represent hope for Democrats. The presidential election results and the state’s rejection of both Republican senators up for election in January have signalled, to some Democrats, that the state’s demographic and political shifts could lead to changes in the state at large.

    The Republican stronghold over the governorship may still prove a challenge. Kemp enjoys a 44 percent approval rating in the state as of September, with 34 percent disapproval, despite the state’s Republicans gaining national attention earlier this year for their voter suppression efforts. But it’s not clear if Kemp is a shoo-in for the party’s primary, as he lacks the support of former President Donald Trump. Instead, Trump may back a candidate like former Sen. David Perdue, who has had ethics concerns railed against him and who Trump likely views as more loyal to him than Kemp is.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • People Will Have to Travel 250 Miles on Average for Abortions If “Roe” Is Axed

    Abortion rights advocates demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court. A sign reads: Your right to abortion should not depend on your zip code.

    If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, as it could very well do next year, the average American will have to travel about 125 miles or more — or about 250 miles round-trip — to access the closest abortion provider, according to data from the Myers Abortion Facility database that was first reported by Axios.

    Currently, with Roe v. Wade still in place, people only have to travel 25 miles on average for abortion access. Overturning Roe will nearly immediately quintuple that distance, forcing people who are seeking an abortion to face further restrictions and hardship.

    The gutting of Roe v. Wade appeared to creep closer on Wednesday. In hearing arguments for a case brought by Mississippi seeking to uphold a law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the Supreme Court indicated that it may be prepared to rule in the state’s favor. This cruel and draconian ruling would effectively overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that has protected abortion rights in the country since 1973.

    According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are 26 states that are likely or certain to ban abortion as soon as Roe is no longer in place. The Myers Abortion Facility based its findings off of data from the Center for Reproductive Rights, which similarly finds 27 states and territories that are hostile toward abortion rights.

    The database also finds that the portion of people living over 200 miles away from the nearest abortion clinic would increase dramatically, from 1 to 29 percent.

    With such an enormous hurdle in the way of reaching a provider, many people would be unable to access a safe abortion at all. A myriad of factors can play into this — someone may not have access to transportation out of state, or may not be able to afford gas and other travel expenses on top of sometimes already sky-high costs for an abortion itself. Others may not be able to get time off of work to take a trip for the procedure.

    In other words, overturning Roe would have devastating, dangerous and wide-reaching consequences for Americans across the country, millions of whom are struggling to get by even without another child to take care of. If only more affluent people are able to afford safe abortions, inequality will increase even further — and without widespread abortion access, many people may die.

    Prior to the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973, hundreds of people died each year due to the lack of abortion access — a death rate that physicians warn may return if the Supreme Court rules in the state’s favor in the Mississippi. There’s also the potential that people who are pregnant due to rape or incest may die by suicide when forced to carry a constant reminder of their abuse.

    Democrats in Washington don’t have to allow this to happen. In response to the abortion law, progressive lawmakers have been calling for expanding the number of seats in the Supreme Court. Because Republicans manipulated Congress and the presidency to pack the court full of conservative justices, progressives point out, court expansion may be an important avenue for Congress to protect abortion rights and other key rights moving forward. The legislation to expand the court has already been filed; Democrats, who are in charge of the House and the Senate, only need to take it to a vote.

    The party could also pursue legislation that would enshrine abortion rights into law, circumventing any potential Supreme Court decisions entirely. In fact, shortly after Texas’s near-total abortion ban went into effect, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) promised that Congress would take action to do so. But the bill only passed the House and never saw movement in the Senate — though the pro-choice movement may face staunch opposition from conservatives in the chamber.

    Abortion advocates have pointed out that the government could also circumvent bans by removing restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone and allowing it to be purchased over the counter. The pill is currently under strict restrictions from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which only allows patients to access it through certain providers.

    Barring the passage of legislation or action from the FDA, Democrats have an option to protect abortion rights that doesn’t involve a vote at all; as Ryan Cooper points out for The Week, President Joe Biden could simply ignore the Supreme Court decision entirely. The U.S.’s founding documents don’t explicitly hold judicial review as binding, meaning that the president could declare Supreme Court rulings as merely advisory instead.

    This would be a rather extreme step that would likely face resistance from many Democrats — but Democratic leaders have the power to recognize that the issue at stake is worth bucking traditionalism for.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ocasio-Cortez Slams GOP for Silence on Islamophobia Against Ilhan Omar

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a news conference at the Capitol on August 3, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    As Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) faces Islamophobic attacks from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) and other far-right members of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has joined a chorus of Democrats in condemning Republicans for their silence on the issue.

    On Tuesday, Omar shared a voicemail she received after a video emerged of Boebert cruelly implying that Omar is a terrorist because of her faith. The caller who left the harrowing voicemail made several threats to Omar’s life while hurling racist slurs and profanities against her. This is only one of the many death threats that she received after Boebert’s video was posted online, Omar said.

    Ocasio-Cortez condemned Republicans in a tweet on Wednesday. “People truly don’t understand the scale, intensity, and volume of threats targeting [Ilhan Omar],” she wrote. “Kevin McCarthy is so desperate to be speaker that he is working with his Ku Klux Klan caucus to look aside and allow violent targeting of woc members of Congress. This cannot be ignored.”

    As minority leader in the House, McCarthy has consistently enabled the most virulent hatred within his caucus. Ocasio-Cortez herself was the subject of a violent threat by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona), who recently posted a video depicting an anime version of him killing the progressive lawmaker and threatening President Joe Biden with swords.

    The House voted to censure Gosar over the threat and remove him from his committee assignments, with only two Republicans joining Democrats in doing so. Meanwhile, McCarthy and other Republicans defended Gosar through the debacle, minimizing Gosar’s role in posting the fantasy video of him murdering the progressive lawmaker.

    McCarthy has remained silent on the recent threats to Omar, signalling his tacit approval for the Islamophobia the lawmaker has been forced to endure.

    “While people toss out clichés like ‘we condemn all forms of racism and bigotry,’ the fact is Islamophobia is far too often tolerated and ignored,” Ocasio-Cortez continued on Wednesday. “Bigotry is not made unacceptable by what one says about it, it’s made acceptable based on whether there are consequences for it or not.”

    The New York lawmaker concluded with a warning about the consequences of allowing the GOP to continue escalating dangerous far-right tactics completely unchecked. “GOP are given freedom to incite without consequence. They don’t have to pay for the security required from their acts — we do. They make money off it,” she wrote, adding that they “are targeting those least likely to be institutionally protected first.”

    Progressive lawmakers like Omar and Ocasio-Cortez have had to consider additional personal safety protocols to guard from death threats and other violent messages. These threats are not only coming from members of the public; Ocasio-Cortez has previously said that she has feared fellow lawmakers, especially during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

    Republicans appear to be increasingly accepting of violence and threats toward political adversaries, including against people within their own party. One Republican representative, Fred Upton of Michigan, recently received a death threat after he voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill that much of the caucus voted against. The threat came after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) posted Upton’s office number online, calling him and other Republicans who voted for the bill “traitors.”

    These tactics aren’t just psychologically harmful — they can also lead to real life violence, as Omar pointed out in her press conference on Tuesday. As Islamophobic vitriol increases, attacks on Muslims also rise. This was demonstrated under former President Donald Trump, who regularly implemented Islamophobic policies and spouted hateful language.

    The normalization of fascism by Republicans appears to be an extremely cynical fundraising tactic. Republicans, inspired by Trump, have been making increasingly abhorrent comments in recent years. They cry that they’re being cancelled — kicked off of Twitter for a day, or criticized by Democrats — and then send emails telling followers that the only way to fight back is to fill their campaign coffers to the brim.

    In response to the attacks on Omar, Democratic leaders have been considering what action to take against Boebert. Some lawmakers have called for Boebert to be removed from her committee assignments, a punishment similar to the one faced by Gosar.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Omar Shares Audio of Chilling Death Threat She Received After Boebert’s Attacks

    Rep. Ilhan Omar plays a voicemail containing a death threat during a news conference about Islamophobia on Capitol Hill on November 30, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    On Tuesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) shared audio of a harrowing death threat she received after a video of far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) making Islamophobic comments about her was posted and amplified online.

    Omar played the voicemail — which was laced with profanities and racist slurs — during a press conference in the Capitol aimed at urging the GOP to take action against the Islamophobia within their party. The lawmaker said she received the voicemail shortly after finishing a phone call with Boebert on Monday, in which the extremist Republican refused to apologize for her comments and instead doubled down on her bigoted attacks.

    During the short portion of the voicemail that Omar played, the anonymous caller made several threats on her life. “We see you Muslim and [n*****] bitch. We know what you’re up to. You’re all about taking over our country,” the caller said, referring to hateful and false conspiracy theories. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty that will love the opportunity to take you off the face of this fucking earth.”

    “You fucking Muslim piece of shit,” the caller continued. “You jihadist. We know what you are. You’re a fucking traitor. You will not live much longer, bitch. I can almost guarantee you that.”

    Members of any party should find threats to a lawmaker’s life unacceptable, Omar said. “Condemning this should not be a partisan issue,” she went on. “This is about our basic humanity and fundamental rights of religious freedom.”

    During her tenure as a representative, the progressive lawmaker has received and reported hundreds of threats on her life. These threats often spike after Republican attacks, as they did after Boebert’s attack this week, she said.

    While speaking in the Capitol, Omar shared her experience facing Islamophobia as she sought and gained public office. On her first day as a representative, Steve King of Iowa, a Republican representative at the time, implied that she might have explosives with her because of her faith.

    “The truth is, is that Islamophobia pervades our culture, our politics, and even policy decisions. Cable news hosts, leading politicians in the Republican party routinely espouse hateful rhetoric about a religion that includes a diverse group of more than a billion peaceful worshipers around the world,” Omar said.

    She went on to point out harmful stereotypes about Muslims, including that Muslims want to take over the country and — most pervasively — that all Muslims are terrorists. When Boebert and other political officials spew such rhetoric, Omar said, “it is not just an attack on me. It is an attack on millions of American Muslims across this country.”

    “We cannot pretend that this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences,” she went on, pointing to deadly attacks on mosques and Muslim families, as well as growing Islamophobic vitriol in the U.S.

    The lawmaker concluded her press conference by calling on Republican leaders to condemn and take action against Islamophobia within the party. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has so far remained silent on the issue, standing by as his members wage hateful and dangerous aggression against Omar. Even as more videos of Boebert implying that Omar is a terrorist have been unearthed, Republican leaders refuse to take action.

    While some Democrats like Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) are publicly calling for Boebert to be formally punished, Democratic leaders have said that they’re still contemplating the path forward. “We’re considering what action ought to be taken,” House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) told reporters.

    In the voicemail shared by Omar, the caller repeated some of the bigoted language used by Boebert and other far-right politicians. Boebert referred to Omar as being part of the “jihad squad,” a hateful nickname for progressive lawmakers dubbed by Republican politicians. The use of the word “traitor” has also been pervasive among the right, with another death threat caller using the word to describe a Republican lawmaker who voted with Democrats on the infrastructure bill earlier this month.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Labor Board Calls for New Amazon Union Election After Finding Company Misconduct

    Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, with banner reading Vote, seen past red stoplights

    The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has directed that Amazon workers in Alabama get a second chance at forming a union after finding that the company illegally interfered with the union election earlier this year.

    As the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) pointed out after the first union election failed in April, Amazon employed a number of tactics to bust the union effort, which gained national attention. If the employees succeed this time, they will be the first Amazon workers to successfully unionize, which would send a shockwave across the country at a time of major labor unrest.

    Union election reruns are often unsuccessful, since the company’s efforts to poison the well are likely to stick around even after the first election. In fact, using illegal tactics and risking a second election is a common union-busting strategy.

    The date of the rerun has still yet to be determined — but because Amazon won the first election by a decisive 2 to 1 margin, the company is likely betting that it will be unsuccessful. There’s also nothing stopping Amazon from employing shady union-busting tactics again this time around, as punishments for employing illegal anti-union maneuvers are often equivalent to a slap on the wrist for large companies.

    Still, with the high profile that the Bessemer, Alabama union drive garnered last spring, labor advocates and the union are hoping that this rerun may prove an exception. Since the union drive, the company has become the target of labor advocates and garnered scrutiny for its efforts to crush pro-union sentiment among its workers. Meanwhile, the union drive inspired over 1,000 Amazon workers across the country to inquire about unionizing their locations, according to the RWDSU.

    “Today’s decision confirms what we were saying all along – that Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union in their workplace – and as the [NLRB] Regional Director has indicated, that is both unacceptable and illegal,” said RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum on Monday. “Amazon workers deserve to have a voice at work, which can only come from a union.”

    Amazon likely spent millions hiring anti-union consultants and police to intimidate workers and people who supported the union drive. Among a litany of other unscrupulous tactics, it installed a mailbox just outside of the warehouse that was supposedly there for workers to mail their union ballots, but in reality was likely surveilled by the company, the NLRB found.

    The NLRB sharply criticized the company for its misconduct, saying that Amazon displayed “flagrant disregard” for labor laws in its anti-union campaign. The company “essentially hijacked the process and gave a strong impression that it controlled the process,” especially with its installation of the mailbox, the NLRB’s Atlanta regional director wrote.

    Meanwhile, the company has already begun its messaging against the union election in response to the announcement of the rerun.

    “Our employees have always had the choice of whether or not to join a union,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees.” The statement went on to say that the NLRB decision invalidates the employees’ vote earlier this year. Of course, the company’s supposed concern for respecting employees’ decision-making is dubious considering they spent months pressuring and intimidating workers into voting no.

    Labor advocates have used the Amazon union drive as an example of why Congress should pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would create harsher punishments for companies found participating in union-busting activities — ones that could actually incentivize trillion-dollar companies to comply with labor laws.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Omar Slams Boebert After “Unproductive” Call on Islamophobic Comments

    Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire, on December 13, 2019.

    Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) has shared an account of a phone call between her and far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) after it was revealed that the Republican made Islamophobic comments about Omar at a recent event.

    In a statement released on Monday, Omar said that she fielded a call from Boebert in which Boebert refused to relent on her hateful statements. “Instead of apologizing for her Islamophobic comments and fabricated lies, Rep. Boebert refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comments,” said Omar. “She instead doubled down on her rhetoric and I decided to end the unproductive call.”

    Boebert is facing a potential campaign to be removed from her committee assignments after a video posted on social media showed her likening Omar to a terrorist. At an event, the extremist conservative lawmaker told a story — which Omar has since disputed — about being in an elevator with Omar when a Capitol police officer rushed to protect her, thinking that Omar was a threat.

    “Well she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine,” Boebert recounted saying. She also referred to Omar as being part of the “jihad squad,” a hateful nickname for progressive lawmakers dubbed by GOP officials.

    Omar emphasized in a statement on Monday that she picked up the phone in hopes of having a civil conversation with Boebert. “I believe in engaging with those we disagree with respectfully, but not when that disagreement is rooted in outright bigotry and hate,” she said.

    She concluded the statement by criticizing the GOP for refusing to rid the party of the anti-Muslim sentiment that has long been embroiled in conservatism.

    “The Republican Party leadership has done nothing to condemn and hold their own members accountable for repeated instances of anti-Muslim hate and harassment. This is not about one hateful statement or one politician; it is about a party that has mainstreamed bigotry and hatred,” Omar said, calling on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) to take action.

    In the press release, Omar’s office also pointed out that the progressive lawmaker is regularly subjected to death threats that are riddled with Islamophobic sentiment. Though the GOP has spewed racist and otherwise hateful rhetoric for decades, the party seems to have embraced more violent and hostile tactics to abase political opponents in recent years.

    Although Boebert issued a hollow apology after facing criticism for the video over the weekend, critics have pointed out that her words were disingenuous. Her behavior after the supposed apology has repeatedly confirmed that she does not regret her actions; in an Instagram video on Monday, Boebert suggested that Omar sympathizes with terrorists in yet another blatant display of Islamophobia.

    In response to Omar’s statement, establishment media outlets have framed the phone call as a spat between two lawmakers rather than a show of — and tacit endorsement of — bigotry by the GOP. Fox News and CNN emphasized that Omar hung up on Boebert; NPR’s headline on the subject emphasized that the phone call was contentious; and The New York Times’s headline seemed to give Boebert credence for calling Omar.

    These sorts of headlines make it seem as though both parties are at equal fault, implying that Omar, who has faced Islamophobic comments countless times during her tenure in Congress, has also somehow done wrong in the social and political equation. This plays directly into the right wing’s hands, normalizing rhetoric that justifies their platform of militarism and imperialism, racist immigration policy and the expansion of the surveillance state. This rhetoric also has the potential to stoke violence; over the past two decades, the precipitous rise of anti-Muslim sentiment has correlated with a rise in anti-Muslim violence and hate crimes.

    Omar responded to a Fox News story about the phone call on Monday, saying, “There is only so much grace we can extend to others as humans before we must learn to cut our [losses] or hang up on someone in this case.”

    It’s improbable that Republican leaders will take action against Boebert, who likely issued her supposed apology in order to avoid being reprimanded like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona), who was censured after posting a video depicting him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York). Gosar, who never apologized for his video and instead doubled down on its message, now faces calls to be removed.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Josh Gottheimer, Worth Nearly $9 Million, Is Seeking Unpaid Interns

    Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) speak during a news conference on the steps of the House of Representatives on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

    In 2018, Congress allocated $13.8 million for members to buck the longstanding practice of not paying congressional interns. Since then, an analysis from earlier this year indicates that over 90 percent of Congress members began paying at least one of their interns — but conservative Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer didn’t follow the trend.

    Over the weekend, the New Jersey lawmaker promoted a job posting for a spring internship in his office. The intern would work 45 hours per week while Congress is in session and 40 hours per week when it isn’t, with unspecified accommodations for class hours. According to the posting, the intern’s responsibilities would include busy work like responding to phone calls and letters, as well as running errands. They would also be required to attend hearings and research legislation.

    As compensation for this supposedly vital work, the student intern — required to live in Washington, D.C. — would receive “invaluable work experience” but no pay, according to the posting.

    Due to specifically allocated funding, most congressional offices offer compensation for their interns, though it is often incredibly paltry. Although House members get $25,000 to pay their interns, many offices have several interns at once. According to Pay Our Interns, the average stipend in 2018 was a mere $1,613 in the House.

    Even members of the House like Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) have recognized that this is nowhere near enough pay. As a result of budget cuts, the pot for congressional staff pay is quite low, creating disparities in who can access a job in Congress.

    Even before Congress allocated the funds specifically for interns, some members of Congress — like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) — managed to make it work. Now, with money allocated specifically for this purpose, it’s unclear why Gottheimer would choose not to utilize this funding in a departure from the vast majority of his colleagues.

    The New Jersey lawmaker was slammed for the job posting on social media and for blocking accounts that pointed out that the position was unpaid. Gottheimer has since deleted the tweet promoting the internship.

    According to OpenSecrets, Gottheimer is worth nearly $9 million as of 2018 — and even though he refuses to pay his staff, he seems to be looking for ways to boost his own personal wealth constantly.

    Gottheimer fought hard for the lifting of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, a proposal that is included in the Build Back Better Act. Some analyses conclude that the SALT cap lifting would provide a tax cut for millionaires — including Gottheimer, notes the Daily Poster, who pays more than $10,000 in property taxes that could be deducted from his federal taxes under the proposal.

    Over the past months, Gottheimer has opposed many proposals that would help uplift the working class, garnering a reputation akin to that of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia). Earlier this year, Gottheimer was part of a group of conservative Democrats who waged the initial push to slash the reconciliation bill and threaten its passage, even though the bill includes a number of social and climate spending proposals that other Democrats have hailed as vital.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Democrats Push to Remove Boebert From Committees After Islamophobic Comments

    Lauren Boebert

    A group of Democrats is waging a campaign to get far right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) removed from her committee assignments after it was revealed that she made Islamophobic comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) at a recent event.

    According to Politico, the Democrats are seeking a punishment for Boebert similar to ones that have already been levied on Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) after the extremist right-wing lawmakers made hateful and violent comments toward Democrats.

    A video posted on Facebook showed Boebert recounting a story about a Capitol police officer running to an elevator that Omar and Boebert were standing in. According to Boebert, the police officer thought that Omar was a terrorist, to which Boebert allegedly responded, “Well she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.” She also referred to Omar as part of the “jihad squad,” a bigoted insult waged toward progressive lawmakers by Republicans.

    Omar has said that the entire story was fabricated. But Republican officials have applauded the story for supposedly reflecting the bigoted fears of the American public.

    The Minnesota lawmaker condemned Boebert on Twitter, saying “Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout.”

    “Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny and shouldn’t be normalized,” Omar continued. “Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.” She then pointed out that normalizing Islamophobia in Congress can also endanger the lives of Muslims across the country.

    Omar later rebuked Republican leaders for repeatedly ignoring the Islamophobia that has been waged against her, noting that on her first day in Congress, Republican Rep. Steve King (Iowa) implied on Twitter that she was a terrorist because of her faith. “These anti-Muslim attacks aren’t about my ideas but about my identity and it’s clear. [Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy,] your silence speaks volumes.”

    Progressive lawmakers also condemned Boebert for the incident. The Congressional Progressive Caucus wrote that the “Anti-Muslim bigotry” expressed by Boebert “has no place in Congress or anywhere. It is past time [McCarthy] respond to the dangerous rhetoric from his caucus.”

    In lieu of McCarthy punishing Boebert for the move, which is unlikely, Democrats could take action similar to what they did for Gosar just weeks ago: filing and passing a resolution to censure Boebert and remove her from committee assignments. Gosar had posted a video on social media depicting an anime version of him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and moving in to attack President Joe Biden; in censuring him, Democrats sent a rebuke to Republicans.

    The House also voted in February to remove Taylor Greene from her committee assignments, stripping her of much of her voting power in the chamber. The Georgia extremist had supported violence toward Democrats online and spewed baseless conspiracy theories denying 9/11, sprinkling in virulent racism and anti-Semitism along the way.

    It’s unclear if Democrats have the momentum to take similar action against Boebert, who has apologized — disingenuously, as critics have noted — for her remarks. Her apology was likely politically motivated, however. Gosar stood behind his video even after it was taken down and never apologized for it, even as he was being censured. Making a small concession, however deceitful, could help Boebert avoid a similar fate.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Majority of Likely Voters Support Higher Taxes for Billionaires, Poll Finds

    Jeff Bezos speaks into a microphone

    As Congress considers a vast array of proposals to raise taxes on the rich, polling has found that proposals to tax billionaires are especially popular among likely voters from all parties.

    A November poll of about 1,300 people conducted by Data for Progress found that 67 percent of likely voters believe that billionaires should pay more in taxes, while only 22 percent believe that billionaires already pay enough. Democrats were most likely to say that they believed billionaires should pay more, with 79 percent saying as such. 70 percent of Independents and 53 percent of Republicans responded similarly.

    A proposal to tax billionaires’ assets is also popular among likely voters, the poll finds. Sixty-five percent of likely voters polled support taxing billionaires’ unrealized capital gains, with 26 percent opposing. Support is strongest among Democrats, with 81 percent in favor; but a slim majority of Republicans support it too, with 50 percent in support of the proposal and 42 percent in opposition.

    After hearing arguments for and against the proposal, likely voters were slightly less supportive of the proposal, with 61 percent in support. Although it gained one percentage point of support among Republicans, this is within the poll’s three-point margin of error.

    The polling comes as Democratic lawmakers are considering hiking taxes on the rich as the wealthiest Americans grow exponentially richer during the pandemic. The poll’s question on taxing assets was modeled after a proposal by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) to “ensure billionaires pay tax every year, just like working Americans,” according to a press release.

    The Billionaires Income Tax would levy a tax on tradable assets like stocks, paying a tax on gains and a deduction on losses. Non-tradable assets wouldn’t be subject to the tax until the asset is sold. “For too long billionaires have played by a different set of rules that allow them [to] cheat the system and pay nothing in taxes,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) in support of the proposal.

    Wyden’s proposal is a weaker version of Warren’s wealth tax, which would levy a tax on all wealth above $50 million, with a higher tax rate for people with wealth over $1 billion. Currently, billionaires are often able to dodge taxes nearly entirely due to various loopholes and policies that allow them to accumulate infinite wealth with little to no regulation.

    The Billionaires Income Tax, which was at one point being considered for inclusion in the Build Back Better Act, would only tax a portion of the roughly 745 billionaires in the U.S. currently, up from 614 in March 2020. Though the proposal is relatively narrow, it is estimated that it would bring in $557 billion in revenue — nearly a third of the reconciliation bill’s price tag.

    But lawmakers have overwhelmingly cooled on the idea of including any sort of wealth tax in the bill. Its main revenue raisers are some mild proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy and empower the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to go after wealthy tax dodgers. Meanwhile, the state and local tax (SALT) break that conservative Democrats insisted on including could end up giving millionaires a tax break, according to some estimates.

    Previous polling has also found that levying taxes on the rich is widely popular among the public, despite many Republicans and right-wing Democrats’ opposition to such proposals. Allowing unpopular politicians like Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) to dictate Democrats’ tax and social policies weakens their stance — and such a regressive tax policy could end up hurting Democrats in the upcoming 2022 midterms.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Warren, Sanders Request 8 Million Student Loan Borrowers Be Moved Out of Default

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on September 21, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) has led an effort asking the Department of Education to move student loan borrowers out of default status before payments begin again in February.

    Over 8 million people are currently in default on their student loans, according to Warren’s letter addressed to Education Secretary Miguel Cardonas, and over 93 percent of people who were in default before the pandemic still have been unable to pay their debt. Warren writes that the agency has an opportunity to relieve a huge burden for borrowers and potentially help the economy at large.

    “As the Department works to correct the past failures of the student loan program, it also has an opportunity to relieve a significant burden on borrowers by developing a policy to forgive debts for borrowers who have been in default for an extended period of time,” the letter reads. “Allowing payments and collections to resume without taking these actions to protect borrowers in default would undermine our economic recovery.”

    The letter was signed by eight of Warren’s Democratic colleagues, including Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts).

    When student loan payments restart, millions of borrowers will already be behind on payments; on top of other financial stresses, these borrowers will also have to deal with collections tactics that could lead to wage garnishment or having their child tax credit payment withheld, as the letter points out. This could have an especially outsized effect on low-income borrowers, many of whom have been left behind as the economy recovers from COVID impacts.

    The senators also urge the Education Department to create a program that would automatically forgive the loans of people who have been in default for an extended period of time. They cite the statute of limitations on other types of debt like medical debt, which can range from 3 to 10 years depending on the state, the lawmakers write.

    Many borrowers who are in default on their loans remain so long-term. One 2018 study by the American Enterprise Institute found that about 30 percent of people in default remain in default for over five years, and attempts to collect this debt are often unsuccessful and “not a cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars,” the lawmakers say.

    Implementing default and loan forgiveness would have an enormous impact on borrowers, who may be struggling to find housing, employment or new educational opportunities, the lawmakers emphasize. “The removal of borrowers’ records of default will improve borrowers’ credit scores, and in turn, their economic wellbeing.”

    Warren and Democratic and progressive allies have been urging the Biden administration to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt throughout Joe Biden’s first year in office, saying that he has the broad authority to do so.

    Biden said on the campaign trail that he would cancel $10,000 of debt for student loan borrowers, but he has thus far failed to fulfill that promise. In fact, his administration has instead been hiding a student loan forgiveness memo prepared by the Education Department earlier this year for months.

    Warren has also advocated in recent weeks for student loan servicers to ensure that, once payments restart, borrowers are transitioned smoothly to new servicers. Three servicers have announced in recent months that they’re exiting their contracts with the government, and, as Warren has pointed out, these servicers have a history of making mistakes, leaving little room for confidence as borrowers transition to new servicers.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Trump-Allied Lawyers Ordered to Pay $187,000 in Fees for Their Election Lawsuit

    Rudy Giuliani, lawyer for President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference about lawsuits related to the presidential election results at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on November 19, 2020.

    A federal judge in Colorado has ordered two Donald Trump-allied lawyers to pay a hefty fee for a lawsuit over the 2020 election that the judge had panned — and dismissed.

    The December 2020 lawsuit, which was dismissed in April, was brought by two Colorado lawyers as a class-action case on behalf of the nearly 160 million people who voted in the 2020 election. They alleged that Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook and several elected officials had been involved in a plot to steal the election from Trump, even though there is no evidence for this claim. The lawyers sought $160 billion in damages.

    The judge panned the lawsuit, reports The Washington Post: “Albeit disorganized and fantastical, the Complaint’s allegations are extraordinarily serious and, if accepted as true by large numbers of people, are the stuff of which violent insurrections are made.”

    He ordered the duo to pay $187,000 in legal fees in order to deter similar cases from being brought in the future. The two lawyers, who were sanctioned by the judge earlier this year, will have to pay $50,000 each to Facebook and $62,930 each to Dominion and Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Facebook-affiliated organization that was also named in the case.

    “[T]he repetition of defamatory and potentially dangerous unverified allegations is the kind of ‘advocacy’ that needs to be chilled. Counsel should think long and hard, and do significant pre-filing research and verification, before ever filing a lawsuit like this again,” Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter wrote. “I believe that rather than a legitimate use of the legal system to seek redress for redressable grievances, this lawsuit has been used to manipulate gullible members of the public and foment public unrest.”

    The two lawyers had attempted to appeal the order, dubiously claiming that the lawsuit had nothing to do with Trump. In their original filing, the lawyers quoted a Trump tweet falsely claiming that Dominion “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide.”

    There is no evidence for this conspiracy theory that has been largely embraced by conservatives due almost solely to attempts by Trump, his team and sympathetic media outlet to sow doubt in elections.

    According to The Washington Post , this ruling is one of the first attempts by a judge to put a price tag on a punishment for the dozens of lawyers who filed election lawsuits over the past year. Trump and his team had filed many lawsuits in attempts to overturn the election, all of which failed.

    Earlier this year, a judge sanctioned Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and other lawyers who had worked on Trump-allied lawsuits and ordered them to pay attorney’s fees in a Michigan case brought over false election fraud claims. Trump’s top lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was disbarred in June by a New York court for his role in perpetuating the former president’s election lies.

    Though the strategy to file lawsuits over the election didn’t work out for the Trump team, the overall strategy paid out in spades, opening avenues for Republicans to openly skew elections in their favor by rewriting local laws and engaging in more aggressive gerrymandering.

    Republicans in key states like North Carolina and Ohio are charging ahead with racist district maps that give the GOP an edge in the 2022 midterms.

    GOP electeds have filed and passed law after law in nearly every state to suppress voters as an extreme and alarming reaction to Trump’s loss in 2020.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ocasio-Cortez Leads Campaign to Add Immigration Reform Back Into Reconciliation

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attends a press conference during COP26, on November 10, 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland.

    In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and other Democratic leaders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and 90 other Democratic House colleagues urged the Senate to add immigration reform proposals that were previously cut from the Build Back Better Act back into the bill.

    The lawmakers are advocating for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, including Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and farm and essential workers. The reconciliation bill passed by the House provides opportunities for temporary work visas and deportation relief for undocumented people, but no permanent solutions for them.

    “When Congress promises ‘immigration reform,’ as it has done throughout the negotiation process, our party must fully deliver on that promise,” the lawmakers wrote. “For decades, immigrants have sought relief from the precarity of jumping from one temporary status to another in the only country they can call home. Another temporary status would merely extend this precarity.”

    Without pathways to citizenship enshrined into law, the lives of the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are often left to the whims of different presidential administrations and employers.

    While Republican presidents have more openly used racist rhetoric against immigrants, Democratic presidents are often not “pro-immigrant” as the party purports to be; Joe Biden, for instance, has dramatically increased the number of immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under his tenure, and deported asylum seekers at the southern border en masse, many of them to Haiti, which is experiencing mass political and environmental instability. Human rights experts and former State Department employees have slammed Biden’s deportations as inhumane and immoral. And under Barack Obama, over 2.5 million people were deported — more than any in U.S. history.

    Democratic staff are meeting with the parliamentarian on Tuesday to discuss the current immigration proposal in the bill.

    Lawmakers cut the citizenship pathway proposal from the bill when, in September, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it would not have a significant impact on the budget. Proposals must be relevant to the federal budget to be included in the budget reconciliation process, which allows the Senate to pass bills through a simple majority vote.

    Contrary to the parliamentarian’s ruling, however, reports by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and economists say that immigration reform does affect the budget significantly; not only would the proposal move the country’s immigration policies in a more humane direction, but it would also have significant and positive impacts on the economy, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

    Whether or not Democrats decide to include the proposal is “a question of political will,” the letter read. “We do understand that the Senate Parliamentarian has issued a memorandum dismissing — despite evidence to the contrary — the budgetary impact of providing a pathway to citizenship,” the lawmakers continued. “But the role of the Parliamentarian is an advisory one, and the Parliamentarian’s opinion is not binding.”

    Indeed, the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling on the budget reconciliation process can be overturned by the vice president. Progressives pointed this out earlier this year when the parliamentarian said that a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour couldn’t fit into the reconciliation process, despite evidence showing otherwise. The Biden administration was opposed to bucking the parliamentarian’s recommendation at the time, much to progressive lawmakers’ chagrin.

    Democrats have another option at their disposal if they’re dedicated to including the immigration reform proposals: They could replace the parliamentarian with someone else, which is what Republicans did in 2001 in order to pass a series of tax cuts under George W. Bush. However, this process may be lengthy, and lawmakers say they are eager to pass the bill soon.

    It could be beneficial to Democrats politically if they chose to add the immigration proposals back in. Though much of the public is likely unaware of the archaic and obscure laws regarding budget reconciliation, polling has found that a majority of the public is in favor of creating pathways to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders and undocumented workers. 80 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans support such a proposal, Data For Progress found earlier this year.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Labor Department Finalizes Rule Giving Federal Workers $15 an Hour Minimum Wage

    DC Mayor Muriel Bowser talks with Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh

    The Department of Labor has finalized a rule raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour for new and existing contracts beginning in January.

    The rule, which raises the minimum wage for federal contractors from $10.95 and indexes the wage to inflation, is expected to impact about 327,000 people working as janitors, cafeteria workers, nursing assistants and more. Workers on a tipped wage will also see their non-tipped wages raised, as the guidance eliminates the tipped minimum wage, which is currently at $7.65 an hour, by 2024.

    The guidance comes months after President Joe Biden signed an executive order on the matter in April.

    The workers who will be affected by this rule “do essential work on our nation’s behalf,” Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said in a statement. “They build and repair the federal infrastructure, clean and maintain our national parks, monuments and other federal facilities, care for our veterans, and ensure federal workers and military service members are provided with safe and nutritious food,” he continued, pointing out that many of the workers who will be affected are people of color.

    According to the agency, just over half of the workers who will be impacted by this order are women. On average, workers will receive a raise of $5,228 yearly. The Biden administration says that this order will have a positive effect not only on the workers, but also on federal work at large, increasing productivity, decreasing turnover and boosting efficiency.

    Experts have estimated that about 5 million people work on federal contracts, with most of them already making above the $15 an hour threshold.

    Biden’s order expands on an order by former President Barack Obama in 2014 ruling that federal contractors be paid $10.10 an hour minimum, also indexed to inflation.

    Monday’s guidance is part of the president’s promise to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers, though Biden has done little to push Congress on the issue since it was shot down from the stimulus package earlier this year. The Senate parliamentarian had ruled that the provision couldn’t be included in the American Rescue Plan Act, despite evidence that it would have an impact on the federal budget and thus should have been eligible for a vote via budget reconciliation.

    Even though Vice President Kamala Harris could have overruled the parliamentarian’s decision, the administration chose not to do so, much to the dismay of progressive lawmakers and advocates.

    Economists say that although raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is crucial, the raise doesn’t go far enough. For a family of four, researchers have found that $15 an hour isn’t a living wage. For a single person without kids, a $15 minimum wage is a living wage in some parts of the country — but in more expensive states in the West and Northeast, it falls short.

    If the minimum wage had kept in step with inflation and productivity since it was first set in 1938, the wage would be much higher. The first federal minimum wage in the country was $4.90 in today’s dollars, not much lower than the current rate of $7.25 for non-tipped workers — and higher than the current rate of $2.13 for tipped workers. Taking rising productivity rates into account, the federal minimum wage would be $31.67 an hour, or over four times the current minimum wage, said University of Massachusetts Amherst economist Robert Pollin earlier this year.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • January 6 Organizers Were “Following POTUS’ Lead,” According to Leaked Texts

    January 6th capitol rioters march together

    Leaked texts from organizers of the January 6 Capitol attack reveal that Donald Trump’s incitement of the far-right militants was directly linked to their plans to storm the Capitol.

    Rolling Stone obtained texts from conservative activist Amy Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer. Amy Kremer, a former Tea Party activist, leads the advocacy group March For Trump and chairs “Women for America First,” which obtained one of the permits for the rally that preceded the attack on January 6. The texts, if verified, offer insights into the thoughts and plans of the riot’s organizers.

    Rolling Stone reports that Amy Kremer and Kylie Jane Kremer repeatedly discussed having meetings with the White House before the attack. During a March For Trump bus tour launched after the 2020 election, Amy Kremer reportedly wrote to fellow organizers: “For those of you that weren’t aware, I have jumped off the tour for the night and am headed to DC. I have a mtg at the WH tomorrow afternoon and then will be back tomorrow night.”

    “Rest well,” she continued. “I’ll make sure the President knows about the tour tomorrow!” A spokesperson for Amy Kremer denied the content of these texts, telling Rolling Stone that parts of the publication’s reporting on the attack are untrue.

    On December 13, Amy Kremer evidently texted, “still waiting to hear from the [White House] on the photo op with the bus,” referring to the March for Trump tour. The organizers frequently referenced the White House’s help in organizing the rally.

    On New Year’s Day, Amy and Kylie Jane Kremer discussed the logistics of setting up the rally. “We are following POTUS’ lead,” Kylie Jane Kremer texted, per Rolling Stone. On January 3, organizers celebrated after Trump retweeted a post from Kylie Jane Kremer promoting the event. “I will be there. Historic day!” he wrote.

    If verified, these texts showcase Trump’s close ties to the organizers of the attack, and lend even more evidence to the argument that Trump and his team are directly responsible for the day’s events.

    Previously released evidence has shown that other organizers of the attack expressed sentiments similar to those of the Kremers.

    The Department of Justice released information in February showing that members of the Oath Keepers, a far right militia composed of current and former military and police, were waiting for Trump’s go-ahead for months to “activate” members of the group. “Trump wants all able bodied Patriots to come” to the attack, one Oath Keepers member texted in December. That text came just days after Trump tweeted, “Big protests in D.C. on January 6. Be there. Will be wild!”

    Rolling Stone previously reported that Republican lawmakers were also involved in the attack. Two organizers of the attack told the publication that Representatives Paul Gosar (Arizona), Lauren Boebert (Colorado), Mo Brooks (Alabama), Madison Cawthorn (North Carolina), Andy Biggs (Arizona), Louie Gohmert (Texas) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) helped organize the attack on the Capitol, along with their staff.

    Recent reporting has also revealed ties between Trump’s orbit and the attack; ProPublica recently uncovered texts that show Kimberly Guilfoyle, a GOP operative and girlfriend to Donald Trump Jr., bragging about raising $3 million for the rally on January 6.

    Texts uncovered by reporters will likely be used by the January 6 committee as evidence, along with communications by the attack’s organizers that have been amassed through subpoenas, including texts and communications from the Kremers. The two have also been issued subpoenas to provide testimony.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Biden Picks Jerome Powell to Lead Federal Reserve Despite Progressive Warnings

    On Monday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden is planning to nominate Republican Jerome Powell for his second term as chair of the Federal Reserve, one of the most influential positions in Washington.

    Alongside Powell, Biden will nominate Lael Brainard as vice chair. Brainard is the only Democrat on the seven-person Fed board and was previously being considered by the White House as a leading candidate to replace Powell.

    The two appointments will then go to the Senate, where progressive lawmakers will likely put up a fight against Powell’s nomination — particularly Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), who has called Powell a “dangerous man” due to his record over his first four-year tenure.

    Since Powell’s original nomination by Donald Trump, he has been panned by progressive advocates and lawmakers for not being strict enough when it comes to regulating banks and Wall Street. He has also been criticized for his ignorance on climate issues.

    If confirmed, Powell will hold great influence over the economy during a time of rising housing prices, high inflation and instability in the labor market.

    In a statement announcing the nomination, the White House noted the administration’s belief that it is important to have steady leadership at the Fed as the pandemic continues.

    “Fundamentally, if we want to continue to build on the economic success of this year we need stability and independence at the Federal Reserve — and I have full confidence after their trial by fire over the last 20 months that Chair Powell and Dr. Brainard will provide the strong leadership our country needs,” said Biden. There are three remaining nominations to the Fed board that the president has yet to announce.

    Progressive advocates were rooting for Brainard’s nomination as chair of the agency, citing her voting record on the Fed board, her stances supporting tougher Wall Street regulation, and her understanding that the climate crisis should be factored into the Fed’s decisions.

    A handful of senators have come out against Powell’s renomination, including Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), Jeff Merkeley (D-Oregon) and Warren. However, he will still likely be confirmed by the Senate, where he enjoys the support of conservative lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia).

    Biden bucked progressive recommendations in nominating Powell for a second term, perhaps as an attempt to appeal to bipartisanship. That appeal may have serious consequences, as economics experts have warned that Powell’s record is alarming during an unstable time for the U.S. economy.

    “[A] Powell renomination raises serious concerns simply based on his record,” Gerald Epstein wrote for Truthout in September. While Powell has rightly earned praise for his support of maximum employment and his handling of economic turmoil during the early months of the pandemic, Epstein wrote, “supporters who focus only on these areas are ignoring another crucial component of the Fed’s job — financial regulation and financial stability — where Powell has a much more problematic record.”

    As Fed chair, Powell rolled back financial regulations that were put in place after the Great Recession, including Dodd-Frank, legislation that was implemented to prevent predatory mortgage lending and to curb the excessive risk-taking that led to the crisis. Many of the moves Powell made early in the pandemic were only necessary because of existing weaknesses in the financial system, Epstein noted.

    The Fed has been embroiled in several scandals during Powell’s tenure — one including Powell himself. Last year, just before the stock market crashed in October, Powell sold between $1 million and $5 million in stock. Vice Chair Richard Clarida made a similar stock transaction in February of 2020, just before new pandemic policy changes were announced.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • McCarthy Mocked for 8.5 Hour Long Speech About Hitler, McDonalds, and More

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) conducts his weekly news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Thursday, November 18, 2021.

    Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) went on an eight-and-a-half hour long tirade starting on Thursday night and ending early Friday morning during his allotted “magic minute” on the House floor on Thursday.

    The speech, which began at roughly 8:30 pm ET on Thursday, resembled a filibuster and appeared to be a tactic to delay a vote on the Democrats’ social spending reconciliation bill, which passed the chamber Friday morning. It is the longest recorded speech in the House, breaking a previous record set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

    Although McCarthy occasionally touched on the bill itself, his speech also included completely and bizarrely unrelated tangents, including one about his friendship with Elon Musk and his inability to afford a Tesla. Some have speculated that the speech served more than one purpose, saying that it not only delayed the bill, but also served as McCarthy’s audition to take over as House speaker in the event that Republicans take back control of the chamber.

    McCarthy finally finished his “magic minute,” which allows party leaders in the House to speak for as long as they like, at about 5:00 am, with Republican colleagues nodding off behind him. At that point, he yielded his time back to Pelosi, who had left hours ago.

    The bill that he was filibustering contains provisions like paid family and medical leave, universal pre-K, Medicare expansion and a plan to lower the cost of certain prescription drugs. It passed 220 to 213 after the chamber reconvened at 8 am, and now goes to the Senate, where it will likely be revised.

    Reporters who witnessed much of the speech described it as circular and repetitive, and nearly incoherent in theme.

    McCarthy parroted oft-repeated Republican grievances that have taken over the party in recent weeks, like spurious concerns about inflation, which economists have said won’t be worsened by the Build Back Better Act. He repeatedly brought up China, a popular talking point among Republicans, and at one point suggested that the Chinese government wouldn’t bolster the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as the reconciliation bill proposes, using this talking point to paint the bill as extremist.

    He straight out lied about the reconciliation bill, saying at one point that it would cost $5 trillion — far higher than the bill was going to cost even when it was planned to be a $3.5 trillion bill spread out over ten years. Democrats heckled him in response, yelling out increasingly large numbers to mock the GOP leader.

    By at least 11 pm, the speech was essentially a stream of consciousness, as reporter Aaron Rupar noted. “Gas prices! Thanksgiving!” the GOP leader exclaimed about two and a half hours into his speech. During his rant about the fully paid-for bill, he touched on World War II and Hitler. His speech also contained countless non-sequiturs — “I can’t even afford to test drive a Tesla,” he said around 11, “and Elon is one of my best friends.”

    He pondered what the country would be like if Abraham Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated, said that he would love to debate Jim Crow, and said that he wished he had attended the Tiananmen Square massacre. Close to midnight, he mentioned January 6 as the day he got his second COVID shot.

    At around 1 am, McCarthy reportedly asked, “Does the McDonald’s still have the dollar meal?” Later, after many reporters and fellow members of Congress had left, he informed the chamber of “the secret” behind baby carrots, which is that they’re large carrots that are carved down to shape. That was around 3 am; after that, he went on to talk for two more hours.

    The speech was largely mocked by Democrats and progressives, who joked about its absurd length. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) in particular made several jokes at McCarthy’s expense, calling his tirade an “unhinged diatribe.” At 11:30 pm, when many of the Republicans behind McCarthy had fallen asleep, Raskin quipped, “We are hearing rumors that the front row of GOP hostages behind Kevin McCarthy are asking whether they can just be censured instead.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • House Passes Reconciliation Bill With Paid Leave, Universal Pre-K

    Members applaud Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (C) (D-California) and chant her name after she announced the passage of the Build Back Better Act on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on November 19, 2021.

    The House passed the Build Back Better Act on Friday morning, after negotiations that dragged on for the better part of this year. The bill, which now heads to the Senate, contains measures like expanding Medicare to include hearing, allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of some prescription drugs, funding to combat the climate crisis and free pre-kindergarten for all.

    The bill passed 220 to 213, with all Republicans voting no. Only one Democratic member ended up voting “no” on the bill — Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who opposed the bill due to conservative Democrats’ inclusion of the loosening of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, which would primarily benefit the rich.

    Democrats were able to bring the bill to a vote after conservative Democrats had insisted that the vote wait until the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) gave a score on the bill’s costs and offsets.

    On Thursday, the CBO said that the bill would cost roughly $1.7 trillion over the next ten years. With funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) included, the CBO estimated that the bill would decrease the deficit by $127 billion through 2031. This news evidently pleased the so-called deficit hawks in the House, like Representatives Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) and Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida), who had been withholding their votes until the CBO score came out.

    Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) spoke for nearly the entire night to delay the bill, starting his speech at about 8:30 pm ET and ending at about 5:00 am. His eight-and-a-half-hour speech was the longest continuous speech in the House since at least 1909, and was about a variety of issues unrelated to the reconciliation bill, including his grievances with Democrats, the House’s mask mandate, Hitler, his friendship with Elon Musk, the McDonald’s dollar menu and more. The speech was widely mocked by Democrats.

    Progressive lawmakers applauded the passage of the bill on Friday. “We’re now closer than ever to delivering real, meaningful change to the American people,” wrote the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Twitter.

    The group highlighted provisions like affordable housing investments, ensuring that child care won’t cost a family more than 7 percent of their income and four weeks of paid family and medical leave. They also highlighted the bill’s proposal to form a Civilian Climate Corps and prescription drug plans allowing seniors to pay less out of pocket for drugs.

    As the caucus admitted, the bill still doesn’t measure up to what many progressive lawmakers had originally envisioned for the bill. However, the bill is still being debated in the Senate, where Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) expressed optimism that it could be improved upon.

    “The Senate has an opportunity to make this a truly historic piece of legislation. We will listen to the demands of the American people and strengthen the Build Back Better Act,” he said on Friday. He said that the Senate must include tax increases on the rich, implement a stronger prescription drug pricing plan and ensure that Medicare covers not only hearing but also dental and vision. He also highlighted the urgency of the bill to address the “existential threat” of the climate crisis, which the bill in its current form is weak on.

    However, Sanders will likely face resistance — as he has for months now –from conservative Democrats Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) who, despite having gotten the bill cut in half from its original $3.5 trillion price tag, are still demanding that critical provisions be cut from the bill.

    Coal baron Manchin, for instance, has been opposed to paid leave and child care funding programs, and still claims to be especially concerned about the price of the bill, even after it was drastically reduced. Although he has yet to say anything about the CBO score, he has complained in recent weeks about the bill’s potential to add to the deficit, while remaining mum about the CBO estimate that the infrastructure bill he negotiated isn’t fully paid for.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Teamsters Elect New President Who Vows to Go After Amazon

    Teamsters Local 25 President Sean O'Brien speaks at the Greater Boston Labor Council in Boston, Massachusetts, on September. 5, 2016.

    Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have elected Teamsters United’s Sean O’Brien as the influential union’s president after more than two decades of leadership from James P. Hoffa, son of the notorious Jimmy Hoffa, who had ties to organized crime.

    The vote was called on Thursday, with O’Brien decisively winning 66.5 percent to 33.4 percent. O’Brien will take the helm of one of the largest unions in North America, representing workers in a wide range of industries including transportation, manufacturing and film and television.

    O’Brien, formerly the leader of Teamsters Local 25 in Boston, ran on a platform of taking aggressive action to organize Amazon workers and taking a tougher stance on the next United Parcel Service (UPS) workers’ contract, which expires in 2023. He and his running mate, former Teamsters United leader Fred Zuckerman, ran against the Teamster Power slate led by Steve Vairma and Ron Herrera, who campaigned on continuing Hoffa-era policies.

    James P. Hoffa’s administration perpetuated business-unionist tactics that tend to position corporate leaders as having similar motivations to workers. Teamsters United and advocates like Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) have coalesced behind a new approach, one that is more militant against business ownership.

    “I want Amazon to know that the Teamsters are coming for them. We’re coming for them hard,” O’Brien told Truthout’s Candice Bernd in October. “We have to leverage our political power on a national level to look at how we take a deep dive into Amazon and get the politicians involved, look at the anti-trust laws, look at what the pressure points are at Amazon that’s going to help us organize.”

    While the Teamster Power slate also ran on a platform of unionizing Amazon workers, they were less transparent about their planned strategies.

    Once the underdog, Teamsters United has risen in power over the past years, a departure from 2016 when Zuckerman ran for president and narrowly lost. TDU organizer David Levin told Truthout’s Bernd that the group gathered more petition signatures for O’Brien’s nomination than had ever been collected under the current election system.

    The group has organized members behind changing the “two-thirds rule” that’s infamous for having led to the ratification of what workers say is an inadequate contract for UPS workers in 2018. The contract was ratified despite 54 percent of UPS workers voting against the proposal because the rule requires a two-thirds “no” vote if turnout for the vote is less than 50 percent. The contract created a second tier of workers, which allowed the company to pay newer employees less.

    Sean Orr, a Teamsters United campaigner and UPS worker, told More Perfect Union: “For a concessionary contract to be forced on us, three years ago, and then for the membership to vote it down, and for Hoffa to say, ‘we’re going to pass it, we’re implementing it anyway,’ — that was a slap in the face to every Teamster in this country.”

    Though advocates are optimistic that O’Brien and Teamsters United’s leadership will usher in a reformed era for the union, others have been critical of O’Brien’s checkered record. He is known among officers for being hotheaded and has been accused of being an opportunist by former TDU advocates. In 2013, O’Brien was suspended after threatening members of Teamsters Local 251 in Providence, Rhode Island, over their support of a challenger to the local’s incumbent leader.

    He also oversaw Boston’s Local 25 in 2014, when workers were caught insulting TV crew members with racist and sexist slurs. He called those charges “fiction at best,” even though one of the men hurling slurs pled guilty to criminal extortion charges in relation to the event.

    O’Brien was a member of Hoffa’s camp until 2017, when Hoffa fired O’Brien from his position as a lead contractor for UPS. Up until then, “in New England there was nobody that was more militant in supporting Hoffa than he was,” Edgar Esquivel, a former TDU member, told Truthout’s Bernd.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Agency Tasked by Trump With $100M to Boost Supply Chain Hasn’t Spent a Penny

    President Donald Trump, right, Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Adam Boehler, left, listen to Daniel O'Day, CEO of Gillead Sciences Inc., as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on May 1, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

    In 2020, former President Donald Trump tasked a government agency with giving loans to help ease supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — but that agency hasn’t spent a single penny of the $100 million it received, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found.

    In a report released on Wednesday, the GAO found that the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has received 178 applications for loans since June 2020, when the agency first received the funds. However, with loan reviews taking longer than expected — and with the agency continually extending the expected response time — the only money the DFC has requested for reimbursement so far has been for payroll and internal services, totalling about $1.4 million.

    The DFC website says that the money, allocated under an executive order signed by Trump in May of last year, was given “to finance the domestic production of strategic resources needed to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, and to strengthen any relevant domestic medical supply chains.”

    One project that could be eligible for loans is companies manufacturing personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, gloves and COVID tests.

    The program began in the midst of a major PPE shortage that researchers say was largely the result of supply chain issues. The shortages were so dire that some health care workers had to improvise PPE, wearing trash bags and snorkel masks to protect themselves as governments, health officials and the public scrambled for supplies in the early stages of the pandemic.

    COVID tests were also scarce. In the beginning of the pandemic, many health care centers only allowed people with symptoms to get tested because of testing shortages. It remains difficult to find at-home COVID tests even now, partially due to a lack of government support.

    The money that was allocated to address these challenges was given under the Defense Production Act, an obscure wartime law used to compel companies to manufacture certain equipment. As such, the $100 million allocated to DFC for the COVID loans is part of the Department of Defense’s funds from the 2020 CARES Act.

    The DFC was formed in 2019 as the result of a Trump-issued executive order that merged two separate agencies. Under Trump, the DFC was run by Adam Boehler, a college friend of Jared Kushner’s who was previously an adviser in the Department of Health and Human Services, according to NBC.

    According to the GAO’s assessment, the DFC has narrowed down the applications to just eight applicants, but still has yet to give out a single loan. Officials say that they failed to account for issues they’ve faced in administering the program, like regulatory processes, hiring new staff and interagency process timelines.

    A spokesperson for the DFC has disputed the GAO report, saying that it “inaccurately portrays DFC’s particular role” in the program. While the DFC is responsible for parts of the program, spokesperson Pooja Jhunjhunwala said that the Department of Defense oversees the funding.

    NBC reports that the company whose application is closest to acceptance right now is called ApiJect. But according to the GAO, ApiJect’s project to build a new facility to make vaccine-related equipment has run into delays because the company has not yet secured “the necessary property rights for the project site.”

    Meanwhile, the portal to apply for loans under the program has been paused — and the agency will lose its ability to give out COVID-related loans at the end of March 2022.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • John Deere Strike Ends as Workers Win Higher Wages, Bonus and Better Pension

    At truck hauls a piece of John Deere equipment from the factory past workers picketing outside of the John Deere Davenport Works facility on October 15, 2021, in Davenport, Iowa.

    Union workers for equipment manufacturer John Deere voted to approve a new contract on Wednesday, ending a strike sustained by over 10,000 workers at 14 locations for nearly five weeks.

    The new agreement lasts six years, and includes a 10 percent wage increase, 5 percent raises in 2023 and 2025 and the preservation of a previous pension program that the company had originally planned on cutting for people hired after a certain date. The contract also includes a $8,500 signing bonus.

    The contract was ratified with 61 percent of members voting in favor and 39 percent voting against. The strike was the largest in the country amid a wave of strikes and labor movements. One union member died during the strike after being struck and killed by a vehicle as he was walking to the picket line.

    United Auto Workers (UAW) has described the agreement as “groundbreaking” and standard-setting.

    “The sacrifice and solidarity displayed by our John Deere members combined with the determination of their negotiators made this accomplishment possible,” said Chuck Browning, UAW vice president. “They have started a movement for workers in this country by what was achieved here today and they have earned the admiration and respect of all that strive for what is just and equitable in the workplace.”

    Union members had rejected previous contracts offering lower pay hikes and nixing pensions for new hires — provisions that one worker called “a slap in the face,” according to Labor Notes. The workers began striking in October after the company offered several inadequate contracts. Workers said that long hours, along with increased demand, had created difficult working conditions. Meanwhile, the company was reporting record earnings.

    John Deere had attempted to break the strike by cutting off health care benefits for workers at the end of October. That decision was panned by labor advocates and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who called the move “beyond outrageous.”

    The company claimed last week that it had “economically exhausted” its offers, which some workers questioned. “Look at what they’re paying executives,” welder Chuck Smith told the Des Moines Register. “Look at what they’re giving their CEO. It’s corporate greed.”

    Other workers expressed relief over the new agreement. “I’m exhausted and nervous, but I’m proud of what was accomplished,” Illinois John Deere worker Kristin Jordan told The Washington Post.

    The new contract comes as thousands of workers across the country are either preparing for a strike or actively striking. About 40,000 Kaiser Permanente workers are striking beginning on Thursday, in solidarity with roughly 600 engineers who say they are not paid as much as workers in similar positions in the Northern California region. The company had reached an agreement with 32,000 employees who were set to strike over a tiered pay system that would pay employees hired after 2023 lower wages.

    University of Pittsburgh Medical Center workers are also striking on Thursday; Boston Museum of Fine Arts workers went on strike on Wednesday; and bus drivers in Minneapolis are saying that they’re prepared to strike over low pay and safety concerns. Meanwhile, Kellogg’s workers are on the seventh week of their strike, and the company has filed a lawsuit against the union claiming that strikers are blocking the entrance to the plant.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • House Votes to Censure Paul Gosar Over Video Depicting Him Killing Ocasio-Cortez

    Rep. Paul Gosar rides a subway to the U.S. Capitol Building on November 17, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    The House has voted to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) Wednesday, sending a harsh rebuke to the far right representative for sharing a video last week depicting an anime version of him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and attacking President Joe Biden.

    The House voted 223-207 to censure Gosar and remove him from his committee assignments. Gosar had been seated on the Natural Resources Committee and the House Oversight Committee, which broadly oversees the government and internal congressional affairs. Ocasio-Cortez currently also serves on the latter committee.

    Only two Republicans, Representatives Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois), voted for the censure after Republican leaders whipped representatives to vote “no” on the resolution earlier on Monday. One Republican, Rep. David Joyce (Ohio) voted “present.”

    A censure is the second-harshest punishment that a member of the House can receive, after expulsion, and is meant to disgrace the representative in question. Its use is exceedingly rare; only 23 representatives have been censured since the 19th century. Removal from committee assignments can have a disciplinary influence on a member and their party, sending a message by stripping a member of some of their voting power. (Seats on the Oversight Committee, moreover, are coveted for the group’s jurisdiction over a broad range of issues.)

    “It is a sad day in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong and instead starts to venture off into a tangent about gas prices and inflation,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “What is so hard about saying this is wrong? This is not about me, this is not about Representative Gosar, but this is about what we are willing to accept.”

    “As leaders in this country, when we incite violence with depictions against our colleagues, that trickles down into violence in this country,” she continued, condemning Republicans for dismissing the video as a joke or lighthearted. “And that is where we must draw the line independent of party, identity, or belief. It is about a core recognition of human dignity and value and worth.”

    Indeed, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) attempted to minimize Gosar’s responsibility by saying it was the representative’s staff, not Gosar himself, that had authorized the video. McCarthy later equated Gosar’s actions to that of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California), who publicly supported the movement for Black lives.

    This is a willfully incorrect comparison: Gosar’s video was about inciting murder of a fellow lawmaker; last year’s protests were about stopping police violence against Black and oppressed people.

    Other Republicans have lied, saying that Gosar has apologized for the debacle. But Gosar has not apologized, and has only made excuses for the video over the past week during interviews and on the House floor.

    “I explained to them what was happening. I did not apologize,” the Republican recently said in an interview. “I said this video didn’t have anything to do with harming anybody,” Gosar continued, even though the video very clearly depicts him and fellow extremist Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) slashing and killing Ocasio-Cortez.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the censure as an “emergency” ahead of vote on Wednesday, saying that the issue is of immediate importance to “the lives of our members.” Other Democrats have also condemned Gosar’s action, with House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-New York) calling it “vile, hateful, outrageous, dangerous and inciting to violence.”

    Pelosi further condemned the video during the House vote on Wednesday, saying, “We cannot have a member joking about murdering each other or threatening the president of the United States.” The Speaker also emphasized that the threat against Ocasio-Cortez was particularly concerning because it was a threat against a woman of color.

    Other Democrats have called for Gosar to be expelled, which is also an extremely rare punishment in the House. Only five members have ever been expelled through a chamber vote, with the most recent member being Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) in 2002, who was convicted for bribery.

    Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Tuesday that expelling Gosar would be the ideal scenario, and that it would happen “in a perfect world.”

    “If he was telling the truth, he would have apologized by now. It’s been well over a week,” she said. “He not only has not apologized, he not only has not made any sort of contact or outreach — neither he nor the Republican leader of the party — but he has also doubled down.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • GOP Representative Brags About Infrastructure Funding Despite Voting Against It

    Rep. Gary Palmer leaves the House Republican Conference meeting in the Capitol on December 5, 2017.

    This week, Alabama Republican Rep. Gary Palmer had touted funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill that recently passed the House and was signed into law. He bragged about funding for a project in Alabama that would partly encircle Birmingham and “[build] a better future for the Birmingham metro area,” he said in a statement.

    But Palmer voted against the infrastructure bill, despite calling getting funding for the project “one of my top priorities.”

    Indeed, Palmer joined the 200 other Republicans who voted against the bill in the House earlier this month despite having cosponsored a proposal to finish the Northern Beltline, which has been criticized by Indigenous and environmental groups for plans to raze forests and potentially pollute and destroy vital tribal waterways.

    Democrats like Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) pointed out Palmer’s hypocrisy. In response to a tweet from Palmer promoting the funding, Swalwell said, “You mean the funding you voted against? That funding?”

    A spokesperson for Palmer responded by saying that, if the funding for the project had been brought as a separate bill, he would have voted for it. As it was, “the bill was full of problems,” the spokesperson said.

    The funding for the Alabama project, however, has been framed by media and lawmakers as a win for the state within the relatively small bill. The infrastructure bill allocates $550 billion in new spending for 11 Appalachian states. Alabama and West Virginia will claim about half of that, reports E&E News, with most of the $369 million for Alabama going toward the beltline.

    For a highway project that’s reliant solely on funding from the federal government’s Appalachian Development Highway System, it would seem that voting for the funding would be a priority for Palmer. But, even if Palmer wanted to vote for the bill, he may have feared stepping away from the party or appearing to support a bill originally proposed by President Joe Biden, standing apart from the vast majority of the rest of the GOP.

    Indeed, the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill have faced ridicule from other GOP members. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Michigan) said that he received several death threats over his vote after extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) posted his office number on Twitter, referring to the Republicans who voted for the bill as “traitors.” One voicemail was particularly violent and vitriolic, and threatened the lives of Upton, his family and his staff, according to a recording of the message.

    The GOP has also been considering formal punishments for members who voted for the bill, including stripping them from their committee assignments.

    Palmer’s brag isn’t the first time that Republicans have taken credit for provisions bills that they’ve ultimately voted against. Many Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California), touted provisions of the stimulus package passed in March, including popular provisions such as funds for struggling restaurants. But every single Republican in Congress voted against the bill, which has helped to push poverty levels to record lows in the country.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Sanders Announces He’s Voting No on $778 Billion Defense Bill

    Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally in front of PhRMAs Washington office to protest high prescription drug prices on September 21, 2021.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) announced on Tuesday that he’s planning to vote against the Senate’s defense bill that would authorize a towering $778 billion for defense for fiscal year 2022.

    Sanders lambasted the defense budget in a statement, pointing out that it’s about $37 billion more than Donald Trump’s 2020 defense budget and $25 billion more than President Joe Biden’s proposed defense budget. “All this for an agency, the Department of Defense, that continues to have massive fraud and cost overruns year after year and is the only major government agency not to successfully complete an independent audit,” he said.

    “As a nation, we need to get our priorities right,” Sanders said. “I will vote ‘NO’ on the National Defense Authorization Act.”

    The Vermont senator also pointed out that the Senate is tacking on $250 billion for so-called competitiveness in technology production and another $52 billion for microchip companies. Acknowledging that there is a microchip shortage, Sanders said “you just don’t hand out corporate welfare to a handful of very profitable companies. You make sure there are some strings attached so the taxpayers don’t get ripped off.”

    With these additions, the bill would cost over $1 trillion “with very little scrutiny,” Sanders pointed out.

    He also took issue with a portion of the bill that gives $10 billion to Jeff Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin, calling it a “handout” and criticizing it as “unbelievable.” Congress had previously proposed a similar contract for the company earlier this year after the company lobbied hard to receive the money. Congress ended up splitting the money between Blue Origin and SpaceX.

    The Senate was scheduled to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Wednesday, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said that the vote will be delayed for further negotiations. The NDAA typically passes on a bipartisan basis, as it is expected to this year. Sanders habitually votes against the NDAA year by year, but his vote is never needed to pass the bill.

    The likely passage of the bill comes at a time when Congress is negotiating a social spending bill that would cost $1.75 trillion over ten years — or about a fifth of the amount in spending over one year that the current defense bill proposes.

    So-called deficit hawks like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) have said that they are withholding support for the already massively watered down bill until the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) evaluates the bill. However, Gottheimer and Manchin have raised no qualms over the defense bill’s price tag; Manchin will likely vote to authorize the spending, as he always does, and Gottheimer voted to pass the bill earlier this year.

    Instead, with the CBO often exhibiting bias against progressive policies like some of the provisions in the reconciliation bill, supposed deficit hawks are likely using the CBO score as an excuse to potentially withhold their votes for the bill. With the bipartisan infrastructure bill — which does add to the deficit — signed into law, and progressives lacking leverage, there is little motivation left for conservative Democrats to support the reconciliation package.

    Sanders pointed out conservative Democrats’ hypocrisy on Tuesday. “Many of my colleagues tell the American people, day after day, how deeply concerned they are about the deficit and the national debt. They tell us that we just don’t have enough money to expand Medicare, guarantee paid family and medical leave, and address the climate crisis to the degree that we should if we want to protect the well-being of future generations,” he said.

    “Isn’t it strange how even as we end the longest war in our nation’s history concerns about the deficit and national debt seem to melt away under the influence of the powerful Military Industrial Complex?” Sanders continued.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Beto O’Rourke Officially Announces Run to Unseat Gov. Greg Abbott

    Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke speaks during the Georgetown to Austin March for Democracy rally on July 31, 2021, in Austin, Texas.

    Democrat Beto O’Rourke has officially launched his campaign for governor of Texas, challenging Gov. Greg Abbott in a time when the extremist governor has been leading a right-wing charge to slash rights and suppress marginalized groups in the state.

    O’Rourke is a leading Democratic candidate in the race for the state that is undergoing quick population growth, with many of the new residents being nonwhite. He served as a representative for El Paso in Congress for six years and in 2018 lost his bid to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, an election that nonetheless launched O’Rourke into national prominence.

    If he were elected, he would be the first Democrat to hold the governor’s office since 1995, nearly 30 years ago. This would break a nineteen-year streak of Republicans controlling the state legislature and governorship, and potentially usher in the long-vaunted blue state status for Texas.

    O’Rourke criticized Abbott in a video announcing his campaign on Monday, saying that Texans were “abandoned by those who were elected to serve and look out for them” during winter storm Uri earlier this year and other crises. He highlighted priorities like expanding Medicaid and marijuana legalization, and panned Abbott for “extremist” policies that he’s put in place.

    The challenge comes as Abbott’s approval ratings have plummeted to record lows amidst an especially difficult year for Texas. The right-wing firebrand oversaw a devastating energy crisis in February, pushing climate denial in the press despite the fact that it was the climate crisis that largely caused the winter storm to begin with.

    Later in the year, the governor led the charge in implementing some of the harshest voter suppression laws in the country as a backlash to Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election — laws that voting rights advocates say would disproportionately affect poor and nonwhite communities. He pushed hard for anti-trans legislation, culminating in a bill he signed late last month that bars transgender students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity and potentially endanger trans students’ lives with ensuing mental health impacts.

    Perhaps most infamously, Abbott signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion ban into law that went into effect in September, banning most abortions in the state and effectively overturning rights afforded by Roe v. Wade. It allows vigilantes to sue anyone who has assisted a person in obtaining an abortion, placing a huge chilling effect on abortion providers. Backlash to this law has been fierce, and Abbott’s supposed reasons for supporting the law have been flimsy at best, and actively harmful at worst.

    O’Rourke, though not an extremist far-right figure, has baggage of his own, however — moreso than when he ran for senator in 2018, as the Texas Tribune points out. Only about 35 percent of respondents in a recent survey said that they view O’Rourke favorably, while half of respondents said that they had an unfavorable opinion of him.

    That poll, from October, showed O’Rourke trailing Abbott in a hypothetical matchup by 9 points. A more recent poll showed more optimistic results for the Democrat, showing O’Rourke only behind by 1 percentage point, which is considered a tie because it’s within the poll’s margin of error.

    O’Rourke’s record as a public figure is checkered at best. As Susie Aquilina wrote for Truthout in 2019, among El Paso activists, “he is best remembered for his support to transform downtown by driving out low-income residents and demolishing immigrant neighborhoods.” As a city councillor, O’Rourke allied with wealthy developers in gentrifying Mexican neighborhoods in the city.

    The Democratic establishment favorite has also been criticized for standing for very little during his 2020 presidential campaign outside of platitudes and flowery rhetoric. He offered few concrete policy ideas to back up his speeches, often delivered from atop a table or a counter. Democrats say this time around, O’Rourke should focus his campaign on positioning himself against Abbott.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • House Democrats Plan to Pass $1.75 Trillion Reconciliation Bill This Week

    President Joe Biden speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House November 12, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    As President Joe Biden is set to sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill into law on Monday, House Democrats are aiming to pass the reconciliation bill before Congress goes into recess for Thanksgiving.

    Democrats in the House feel like they’re on the verge of a breakthrough in negotiations this week after plans to tie the infrastructure and reconciliation bills fell apart thanks to the efforts of conservative Democrats and corporate lobbyists. But a Senate vote may still be weeks away as right-wing holdouts Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) have still yet to commit to voting for the bill.

    Instead, the Senate will focus on the massive defense authorization bill this week, according to a letter to colleagues from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York). The bill is slated to give the Pentagon $725 billion for next year, spending a total of $778 billion on defense.

    Still, Democrats say that the reconciliation bill, which could potentially include prescription drug price negotiation, paid leave, child care funding and coverage for hearing under Medicare, will pass before Christmas. It’s unclear which of these proposals will make it through additional negotiations, as Manchin and Sinema, along with conservative representatives like Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey), have already altered the bill nearly beyond recognition over the past few months.

    Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is scheduled to sign the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act this afternoon, a bill that progressives and experts say is inadequate to address the infrastructure and climate issues that the nation faces.

    In hopes of boosting his approval ratings, Biden will sign the bill at a signing ceremony. Despite being a supposed win for the president, the infrastructure bill has not yet delivered the approval boost that officials have hoped for; a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted just as Congress passed the infrastructure bill found that Biden’s approval ratings are continuing a months-long downward trend, with only 41 percent of those polled saying that they approve of Biden’s job performance.

    That same poll largely found majority support for the bipartisan infrastructure and reconciliation bills. Sixty three percent of those polled said they supported the infrastructure bill; 58 percent said they were supportive of the reconciliation bill. Throughout this year, polling on various forms of both bills had similar results, showing that most Americans supported the investments and the original $3.5 trillion price tag.

    Thanks to months of negotiations from Manchin and Sinema, the reconciliation bill has been cut in half to $1.75 trillion over ten years — meaning that reconciliation bill spending per annum will amount to a little under a fifth of the spending that is slated for defense over the next fiscal year. Despite successfully slashing the reconciliation bill, however, Manchin and Sinema still have yet to commit to voting for the bill.

    Even though Manchin has already gotten the Clean Electricity Payment Program thrown out, successfully sabotaging the country’s main mechanism to cut emissions over the next decades, he reportedly still has reservations about climate portions of the bill.

    The coal baron has said that he won’t support any proposals that would regulate the fossil fuel industry. He is now working to get a proposal to regulate methane out of the bill, even though Democrats already shoved a $775 million oil and gas subsidy into the methane proposal to appease him. It’s unclear if he’s also fighting for the subsidy to be pushed out, though Manchin has been fighting for at least $121 billion in subsidies for the bloated, polluting and climate denying industry.

    As negotiations drag on, Democrats have found themselves facing potentially long odds of winning the midterm elections, especially following this month’s defeats in places like Virginia. To avoid losing ground in 2022, progressive lawmakers say that Democrats need to appeal to the public directly by standing behind massively popular proposals like prescription drug price negotiation.

    “Democrats need to reassess their strategy,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) told The Hill. “We need to have legislation that actually, forcefully delivers for working people.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Democrats File to Censure Gosar Over Video Showing Him Killing Ocasio-Cortez

    Rep. Paul Gosar attends a news conference outside of the Capitol on July 22, 2021.

    On Friday, Democrats filed a resolution to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) over a video he tweeted this week depicting an anime sequence of him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and attacking President Joe Biden.

    The resolution condemns the video for its “hateful and false” depiction of asylum seekers at the southern border and points out that depictions of and allusions to violence can lead to actual violence, as demonstrated by the Capitol attack on January 6. The lawmakers also highlight that violence against women, especially women of color, can discourage women from seeking office or other authority positions. The resolution then calls to censure Gosar, a move that would remove him from his committee assignments in an attempt to rebuke the right’s violent tendencies.

    The Democrats called the video a “clear cut case for censure” and said that Gosar using “his official congressional resources in the House of Representatives to further violence against elected officials goes beyond the pale.” They also called out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) for staying mum on the issue, saying that the minority leader’s silence is “tacit approval and just as dangerous.”

    The resolution comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) called for Gosar to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee over the video. “Threats of violence against Members of Congress and the President of the United States must not be tolerated,” she said.

    Rep. Jackie Speier (D-California) led the resolution effort, and was joined by nine Democrats, including Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts). The effort has been cosponsored by 19 representatives, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota).

    Although the rest of the GOP has failed to condemn the video, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) has also called for Gosar to be censured, not only over the video but “for his continued indefensible activities.” Cheney, a longtime supporter of American militarism and war propaganda, is no saint herself — but in recent months, she has been breaking from the GOP as a less extremist Republican than the rest of the caucus.

    Cheney’s statement is likely referring to Gosar’s alleged participation in planning the January 6 attempted coup. Over the past year, Gosar has been a leader in spreading former President Donald Trump’s election lies, even facing calls to resign from his own family.

    As a result of the video, Gosar has also been facing calls to resign or be expelled from fellow members of Congress. “There must be accountability for the heinous attacks on my sister [Ocasio-Cortez]. We must not normalize or tolerate threats of violence against women — especially by members of Congress” wrote Pressley on Twitter on Friday. “Rep. Gosar must be censured, investigated and expelled.”

    It’s unlikely that Republican leaders will take action on the issue, however. McCarthy’s silence has been especially revealing, as he is the one who holds the power to reprimand or punish members of his caucus. As Ocasio-Cortez pointed out, she has faced vitriol from Republican members of Congress before — and every time, the representatives have faced no consequences for their behavior.

    Increasingly, the right appears to be embracing violence and harassment against their political opponents as a strategy of intimidation. Republican Rep. Fred Upton (Michigan) recently shared a voicemail in which a caller from outside of his state threatened his life and the lives of his family and staff over his “yes” vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The call, and several others like it, came after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) posted his office number on Twitter, Upton said.

    New audio released this week shows — yet again — that Trump himself has also embraced this violence. In March, Trump said that it was “common sense” that his militant followers were chanting “hang Mike Pence” on January 6, because they had to supposedly “protect” the election from being certified.

    The glorification of violence is a central pillar of fascism, and Gosar’s attempt to normalize the violence portrayed in the video is a disturbing display of the right wing’s radicalization. Even after facing considerable backlash for the video, Gosar dismissed the criticism. “Congressman Gosar cannot fly,” his office said in a statement making light of the video. Although the January 6 attempted coup ultimately failed in its mission, the right wing’s violence and anger has only increased since then, as commentators had predicted.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Most Millionaires Get Average Tax Cut of $16k a Year With SALT Cap Increase

    Rep. Josh Gottheimer speaks with reporters on the steps of the House of Representatives on November 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    A new analysis shows that conservative Democrats’ tax reform plan will give a large tax cut to a majority of the country’s millionaires — despite the conservatives’ insistence that the reconciliation bill cost the government as little revenue as possible.

    The analysis from the Tax Policy Center shows that about two-thirds of people making over $1 million a year would get a net tax cut from the reconciliation plan, with an average of about $16,800 in cuts. Just under 80 percent of people making between $500,000 and $1 million a year, meanwhile, will see a tax cut of around $8,500 per year.

    This is largely due to the state and local taxes (SALT) deduction cap increase that conservative Democrats like Representatives Josh Gottheimer (New Jersey) and Tom Suozzi (New York) have recently shoved into the Build Back Better Act. The lawmakers have been insistent that the increase — which raises the amount that taxpayers can deduct based on state and local taxes from their federal taxes to $80,000 — would benefit the middle class.

    However, the Tax Policy Center finds no such thing. “Despite what its promoters say, raising the cap to $80,000 would provide almost no benefit for middle-income households,” wrote the Tax Policy Center’s Howard Gleckman. According to the analysis, those households would see tax savings of only $20 for 2021.

    Other analyses of the SALT cap increase find similar results. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) wrote earlier this week that a household with an income over $1 million a year would receive ten times more money from the SALT increase than middle-class families would receive from the child tax credit expansion in the bill, for instance.

    But Gottheimer and Suozzi have been doggedly fighting for the SALT cap increase, hinging their support of the reconciliation bill on its inclusion. Previously, they wanted to repeal the cap completely, and rejected a plan from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) to repeal the cap only for people making less than $400,000 a year.

    Instead, as a supposed compromise, the current proposal lifts the cap from $10,000 to $80,000 — allowing some wealthy taxpayers to pay even less in taxes than the already -low rates given to them by Donald Trump and Republicans in 2017.

    An analysis by CRFB earlier this week found that the SALT deduction cap proposal would result in lower tax collection over time, even though the cap would revert back to $10,000 in 2027. It would cost $285 billion during the five years it would be increased, the analysis finds — and in the meantime, the bill would add $200 billion to the deficit overall. Meanwhile, an earlier analysis of a plan to raise the cap to $72,500 found that the plan would be one of the costliest parts of the reconciliation bill.

    It’s ironic that the cap increase would cost the government revenue. Conservative Democrats like Suozzi and Gottheimer have insisted upon the SALT cap increase while also threatening to withhold their votes for the reconciliation bill if the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that it would add to the deficit. Notably, the CBO has frequently shown bias against progressive policies.

    The inclusion of the cap increase reveals conservative Democrats’ real priorities for the reconciliation bill. While Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) has whinged for months about critical climate proposals and child care proposals like the child tax credit, going on and on about the deficit, he has had no complaints about the SALT deduction cap raise that would primarily benefit the rich.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.