15 January 21
Desperate to Avoid Desperation
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15 January 21
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RSN: William Boardman | Liz Cheney Has a World Class Sense of Dark Humor
William Boardman, Reader Supported News
Boardman writes: "Liz Cheney is on the right side of Trump's second impeachment. She has a long way to go to get on the right side of history. Sadly, she's closer than most of the rest of the Republican Party."
hen Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, announced that she would vote to impeach President Trump, she framed it as a “vote of conscience,” not a political vote. Really? There’s some sort of meaningful distinction between a vote of conscience and a political vote? Trying to make that distinction is the essence of cynical manipulation.
When Cheney, the third ranking member of the House Republican leadership, announced that she would vote to impeach President Trump, she went against higher ranking Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who continue to hold the president above reproach. Cheney is reportedly planning to challenge McCarthy for the Minority Leader post. Other Republicans have called for her to step down from her post. She says she’s not going anywhere. This is all shuck and jive as unprincipled Republicans compete to take the party in different unprincipled directions.
Here’s the context: Wyoming has just one at-large seat in Congress, held by Liz Cheney since 2017. Her father, Dick Cheney, held the same seat from 1979 to 1989, before rising to Secretary of Defense and later Vice President.
History is hip deep on all sides these days, often invoked with annoyingly hyperbolic rhetoric from all sides. Liz Cheney’s public statement of January 12 (below in its entirety) is just one example of the overwrought prose coming at us from all political directions:
On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.
Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.
I will vote to impeach the President.
Rhetorical flourishes aside, Cheney’s description of the event comports with the available evidence so far. Her vote to impeach this president is honorable and justified. But her fundamental judgment is off the rails. To say that “There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution” is simply unsupportable unless you have a very strange hierarchy of beliefs (or an extremely dark sense of humor).
Does Cheney really believe Trump’s action is worse than President Bush (and VP Cheney) lying the US into an unjustified war on Iraq that killed more than 4,000 US soldiers, thousands more allied soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians, promising to bring “democracy” to a country still in chaos almost twenty years later? Was destroying a modern, sovereign state (albeit a dictatorship) on bogus war claims really less of a betrayal than Trump’s feckless criminal passivity? What Trump did was worse than war crimes?
Does Cheney actually claim that Trump’s incitement of a mob on January 6 was worse than the Bush-Cheney regime’s establishment of a global program of torture, kidnapping, black sites, and the unlawful prison camp at Guantanamo? Does she seriously argue that Trump has exceeded these crimes against humanity that have gone unaddressed and unpunished?
Does Cheney seriously argue that Trump’s unleashing of his supporters on the Capitol is definitively worse than Bush-Cheney’s unleashing of the National Security Agency to spy on Americans after 9-11?
Does Cheney truly assert that Trump’s invitation to violence is even close to the program of political assassination by drone instituted under Bush-Cheney? How is violating any semblance of due process of law in order to murder mere suspects, even Americans, not a greater betrayal of the Constitution than Trump’s sedition? Official US drone murder has continued, uninterrupted, since Bush-Cheney initiated it, becoming too common to cause official concern any more.
There’s more than a little irony in Cheney’s present posturing. Less than two years ago she was suggesting that US law enforcement officials may have committed treason by investigating President Trump’s Russian connections. It “sounds an awful lot like a coup and it could well be treason,” Cheney said of the investigation that was successfully stonewalled by the White House.
Maybe Cheney is trying to position herself to take advantage of fractures in the Republican Party. Maybe she has higher office in mind. Or maybe she’s just another psychically numb traditional Republican.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” Cheney claims – not lying the country into war, not war crimes, not a torture regime, not crimes against humanity, not assignation by drone, not even mass surveillance of Americans. Her father was a perpetrator in all of this.
Liz Cheney is on the right side of Trump’s second impeachment. She has a long way to go to get on the right side of history. Sadly, she’s closer than most of the rest of the Republican Party.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Rep. Jason Crow, D-CO, comforts Rep. Susan Wild, D-PA, while taking cover as protesters disrupt the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. (photo: Tom Williams/AP)
ALSO SEE: Capitol Rioters Communicated Using Military Hand Signals,
Law Enforcement Official Says
Some Democrats in Congress Are Worried Their Colleagues Might Kill Them
Benjy Sarlin, NBC News
Sarlin writes: "After last week's deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, members of Congress are expressing something once unthinkable: that some of their own colleagues may be endangering their lives. Not in a rhetorical sense, but in a direct and immediate way."
House members openly accuse far-right representatives of threatening their health and safety after the Capitol riot.
"It's the most poisonous I've ever seen," Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said in an interview. "There's the overall sense that maybe if some of them have guns — and likely the ones who are more into conspiracy theories and QAnon with the pedophilic satanic rings — are we safe from them?"
Since the deadly riot Jan. 6, lawmakers have suggested — not, so far, backed up by evidence — that far-right colleagues may have helped plan or guide the attack. There are particular concerns about some newly elected members who have espoused extremist views, including comments supportive of the QAnon lie that accuses perceived enemies of Trump of being part of a child-abusing cult.
One House freshman is pushing to carry firearms on Capitol grounds, and another recounts being armed during the attack, further putting their colleagues on edge. With the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., security officials have installed metal detectors outside the House floor, causing tension among some Republicans and effectively suggesting that members themselves may pose a danger.
Democrats are outraged at 147 Republicans who they say abided by the rioters' calls and voted to overturn the election results even after the violent attack, which left five people dead and forced lawmakers to hide in their offices and safe rooms.
But, Beyer said, the issue "that has the greater emotional impact is the sense that there's perhaps actual physical danger from our colleagues."
With lawmakers traumatized, hundreds of members of the National Guard sleeping in congressional hallways and warnings from authorities about continued threats, suspicion and rumor are running rampant.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has said she feared for her life, in part because she doubted the motives of unnamed colleagues who were sheltering with her.
"There were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers, and frankly white supremacist members of Congress, in that extraction point who I have felt would disclose my location and would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, etc.," Ocasio-Cortez, a highly visible progressive and frequent target of conservative media, said in a speech Tuesday streamed live on Instagram.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., has said she saw lawmakers holding tours around the Capitol the day before the attack, which she said she believes may have been part of a "reconnaissance" effort for the rioters. There is no evidence of such wrongdoing, and Sherrill has not publicly disclosed any names. But she and over 30 other Democrats have signed on to a letter asking authorities to investigate the claim.
"I was flat on the ground as other members were calling loved ones because they thought that might be the last phone call they made," Sherrill said Wednesday on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show." "To imagine that colleagues of mine could have aided and abetted this is incredibly offensive, and there is simply no way they can be allowed to continue to serve in Congress."
Raising the temperature further is the threat of Covid-19, as members continue to contract the virus amid resistance among some Republican lawmakers to wearing masks.
Several members have tested positive for Covid-19 since the attack, including Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., 75, a cancer survivor, who blamed GOP colleagues for refusing to wear masks while sheltering in tight quarters during the attack. Other Democrats have made similar accusations.
"It's very disturbing that [it's] this combined threat — the threat from within and the threat from without," said Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-N.H.
A trio of GOP freshmen have drawn particular attention and concern from colleagues: Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Some lawmakers have suggested that Boebert, a Second Amendment advocate and past QAnon sympathizer, may have deliberately revealed Pelosi's location during the attack on Twitter. Boebert also tweeted "Today is 1776" the morning of the rally.
The concerns are not limited to Democrats. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., called Boebert "culpable" in the attack in an interview with National Journal, citing her tweet about Pelosi.
Boebert has denied any involvement in the assault, including claims that she sought to draw attention to Pelosi's whereabouts, saying her tweet was posted after Pelosi had moved on and did not mention her secure location. In a statement, she told NBC News that she is "not a follower or believer of QAnon and I have repeatedly disavowed it."
Boebert has also resisted new metal detectors in her high-profile push to carry guns through the Capitol. Members are not allowed to have guns on the House floor.
The metal detectors have become a culture war flashpoint; Boebert and other Republicans refuse to go through them at times. Pelosi announced Wednesday night that she would fine members who evade the metal detectors up to $10,000, writing in a statement that "it is tragic that this step is necessary, but the Chamber of the People's House must and will be safe."
Cawthorn, who spoke at a pro-Trump rally in Washington before the Capitol siege, has said he was carrying a firearm during the riot.
"Congressman Cawthorn exercises his 2nd Amendment rights as well as privileges accorded to him as a member of Congress," his spokesman, Micah Bock, said in an email. "Congressman Cawthorn seeks to abide by all known Capitol Police regulations."
Cawthorn has also faced scrutiny for his call to "lightly threaten" lawmakers who did not support overturning the election results. A spokesman said he meant finding primary challengers for those lawmakers. In October, his campaign website accused a reporter of taking a job "to work for non-white males," like Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who it said aim to "ruin white males running for office."
Cawthorn has denounced last week's violence and denied any racist intentions in his comments. Bock said any member uncomfortable around Cawthorn "hadn't met him yet" and would find him "friendly and amiable."
Greene, who has clashed with members over wearing masks, supported Trump's efforts to overturn the election and explicitly promoted QAnon more than any other national elected figure. She once described Trump's presidency as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out."
Greene's spokesman, Nick Dyer, denied suggestions that she supports QAnon. He said the allegation that she had endangered colleagues by not wearing a mask in a safe room during the attack was "ridiculous," saying she had tested negative for Covid-19 two days before.
"She has nothing to do with QAnon," Dyer said. "She doesn't support it. She doesn't follow it. She believes it's disinformation."
It's hard to find historical precedent for this level of visceral worry about danger among lawmakers.
Joanne Freeman, who is a historian at Yale University and the author of "The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War," likened the atmosphere to the decades before the Civil War, when fistfights often broke out on the House floor and a Northern senator was caned by a Southern House member.
Freeman cautioned against drawing too many direct parallels, as it was a more violent time in America across the board. But, she said, the violence in Congress both reflected and encouraged violence outside its walls: It took place as slave owners were brutalizing Black Americans and engaging in limited warfare with abolitionists in the territories.
"Everything that happens in the Capitol and Congress has a symbolic representative nature, and that's some of what we saw this week and some of what we're responding to," Freeman said.
Two lawmakers, Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., and freshman Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., both claim that some GOP colleagues voted to overturn the election results or against impeaching Trump out of fear that their families' lives may be put in danger. Other Republicans urged against impeachment in part to avoid inciting further violence, effectively conceding that pro-Trump extremists pose a continuing threat.
Meijer said in an appearance on MSNBC that he and other members were buying body armor.
"It's sad that we have to get to that point, but our expectation is that someone may try to kill us," he said.
Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University who studies how democracies slide into authoritarianism, said the atmosphere was disturbingly similar to those in governments in which dissident politicians live in fear of death threats, including fears that pro-regime extremists might target them with tacit support from government leaders or state security.
"In the atmosphere of threat, a lot of people quit," she said. "By the time you're at the endgame, you only have the people who say they refuse to be bullied and will risk their lives and those that are so bullied they can't even open their mouths."
Workers protest outside the Amazon delivery hub in Hawthorne, California. (photo: Valérie Macon/Getty)
Billionaires Add $1 Trillion to Net Worth During Pandemic as Their Workers Struggle
Michael Sainato, Guardian UK
Sainato writes: "Billionaires in the US have increased their net worth by more than $1 trillion during the coronavirus pandemic, while many of their US workers have struggled with coronavirus risks in workplaces, for little to no extra pay to work in hazardous conditions, and millions of other Americans have struggled to survive on unemployment."
Companies’ attempts at hazard pay have been paltry and fleeting as employees are threatened for protesting working conditions
The Amazon CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, added more than $70bn to his net worth during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which is now nearly $185bn.
As Amazon’s sales have soared, workers at Amazon and Amazon-owned grocery chain Whole Foods have protested against unsafe working conditions and the pressures to keep up with demand.
Several workers who participated in or led protests at Amazon over working conditions have alleged they were fired in retaliation and Amazon is fighting federal complaints alleging at least two of the firings violated US labor laws.
Profits and stockholder shares have soared through 2020 by billions of dollars, but Amazon has only provided a fraction of those extra earnings in hazard pay and bonuses to workers, according to an analysis conducted by the Brookings Institution.
Amazon ended hazard pay in June 2020, and instead have provided sporadic one-time bonuses to workers during the pandemic. On average, Amazon workers have seen a $0.99-an-hour pay bump during the pandemic, compared with Bezos’s hourly wealth increase of $11.7m.
“What they considered hazard pay was just for show,” said an Amazon warehouse employee in Baltimore, Maryland who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We couldn’t see a difference unless we were willing to work almost 60 hours a week. Several of us had no choice because we’re the breadwinners of our family. It’s infuriating that we live in fear every day because of minimal efforts to protect us, while executives take in tons of money while sitting safely at home.”
Jessica Oneto, a Whole Foods employee for four years in Redwood City, California, quit in October due in part to burnout from working conditions during the pandemic.
“They gave us hazard pay for maybe a couple months. It was only $2 and they literally took it away as the pandemic got worse. One of the biggest companies couldn’t afford to keep it up?” Oneto said.
Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla Motors, saw his wealth surge by more than $140bn during the coronavirus pandemic and surpassed Bezos as the wealthiest person in the world with a total net worth of $195bn.
Tesla’s share prices have soared during the coronavirus pandemic, but workers for the company have been subjected to a Covid-19 outbreak at the Fremont, California, plant earlier this year when Musk defied local shutdown orders to reopen the plant and restart production.
Musk sent out an internal email to all employees implying they would lose unemployment benefits if they didn’t show up to work in defiance of the order, and at least two workers who took unpaid leave due to coronavirus fears for themselves and at-risk family members received termination notices for not showing up to work.
Salaried employees at Tesla had their pay reduced by 10% to 30% from mid-April to the end of June 2020.
“While people in cubicles stay home to work, we can’t do that and we don’t get any hazard pay,” said a Tesla employee at the Fremont plant who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “Nothing has changed. Musk can afford to do so much more and he doesn’t. I find it sickening to see how much Elon Musk’s wealth has grown while we take all the risks. All we get is a ‘thank you so much’ email.”
Another Tesla employee in Fremont cited ongoing mistreatment toward Black workers at Tesla amid several lawsuits alleging discrimination at Tesla, which Tesla has disputed.
“Musk has not once addressed this issue in his workplace or supported Black Lives Matter,” said the worker. “No hazard pay or bonus. They gave all regular workers their regular raise, but being that I’m maxed out at my position I didn’t get anything.”
Billionaire Bill Gates has seen his wealth increase by nearly $18bn through 2020, to $131bn. Though his initial fortune stems from co-founding Microsoft, Gates’s net worth has continued to climb through investments; his trust owns significant holdings in companies such as Amazon and his investment company Cascade Investments holds a more than 34% stake in the waste management company Republic Services.
During the pandemic, Republic Services approved $2bn in stock buybacks and paid out $387.1m in dividends to shareholders, but the company’s sanitation workers have not received any hazard pay or bonuses, even as residential trash has increased significantly due to widespread business closures.
“They gave us a couple $25 gift cards early in April or May but that was it,” said Yogi Miller, a sanitation worker for Republic Services in the Akron, Ohio, area. “During this time, workers would like to see a little bump in their pay as many people have spouses who have been laid off during this and now they’re a one income family. If we stopped picking up trash for a week or two, people would realize how essential it is the work we do.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (photo: Tom Williams/Getty)
AOC Will Not Be Cowed by the Right
Hadas Thier, Jacobin
Excerpt: "Last week's attack on the Capitol put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other left lawmakers in great danger. But instead of cowering in fear, she delivered a defiant speech on Tuesday - and laid out an alternative vision rooted in solidarity and improving the lives of millions of workers."
Last week’s attack on the Capitol put Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other left lawmakers in great danger. But instead of cowering in fear, she delivered a defiant speech on Tuesday — and laid out an alternative vision rooted in solidarity and improving the lives of millions of workers.
n Tuesday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) took to Instagram Live to describe her experience of last week’s siege on the US Capitol in harrowing detail. Not only did AOC and other lawmakers have to contend with the armed, Confederate flag–wielding mob in the Capitol, but, as AOC pointed out, there was no safety among her so-called colleagues either. “There were QAnon and white supremacist sympathizers and frankly white supremacist members of Congress . . . who I had felt would have disclosed my location.”
Ocasio-Cortez is no stranger to death threats from the far right, misogynistic abuse from right-wing Republicans, and insults from the president himself. In the face of these attacks, she has remained consistent and defiant in backing policies to improve the lives of millions.
Yet the siege on the Capitol exposed AOC and others to another level of danger. Regardless of debates on the Left about how well-coordinated the attacks were, or whether they represent an advance or defeat for the far right, there is no doubt that last week’s attack — egged on by Trump, Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, and others — posed a mortal danger to lawmakers, and to left lawmakers in particular.
Liberals and conservatives have since joined hands in calling for an expanded national security state and new terror laws. But on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez took a different tack.
She went on the offensive not only against Trump and the far-right mob, but every mainstream politician and corporate leader that emboldened the far right. She derided Republican cabinet members who belatedly resigned as “cowards.” She told Confederate sympathizers in Congress to leave public life in shame. She exposed the “blue lives matter” rhetoric for what it is — not a concern over law or anyone’s lives, but a preservation of white supremacy.
Most importantly, she insisted that the far right won’t win. “White supremacists will never, ever live in a world where they will see their fantasies come true, which is why they rely on violence.”
This was important not just for the Right to hear, but for the Left. Instead of abdicating anti-Trumpism to a liberal leadership, AOC has put forward a confident, inspiring call to action for the Left. Rather than cowering in fear, or giving the national security state still more power, we need to advance an alternative vision that forefronts humanity, solidarity, and policies that concretely improve people’s lives.
In her nearly hour-long speech, AOC connected Republicans’ prioritization of their own short-term gains over the long-term health of democracy with a system built on short-term benefits and long-term catastrophe.
That’s everything. When we prioritize this quarter’s profits over long-term economic well-being for all people. That’s why they’re paying people less than a living wage. Same thing with climate change. We’re clinging on to the system of fossil fuels because of short-term profits that it bears. Even though we know it’s allowing for the long-term destruction of our planet.
Ocasio-Cortez modeled what a fighting left alternative to Trumpism can look like, one that is rooted in our shared humanity but that makes no apologies or offers quarter to the Right. We would do well to take that spirit into our organizing efforts, and to build the kind of Left that can bury Trumpism once and for all.
Workers demonstrate for a $15 minimum wage. (photo: Steve Rhodes)
Biden's Plan to Raise the Minimum Wage to $15 Will Help Workers and Save Taxpayers $100 Million a Year
Juliana Kaplan, Business Insider
Kaplan writes: "President-elect Joe Biden's newly unveiled $1.9 trillion stimulus package includes one important economic measure - raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour."
That pay bump could be hugely consequential for millions of workers. The federal minimum wage, which hasn't changed since 2009, is currently $7.25 — less than half of what the new wage would be.
That means over 20 million workers could get a raise — and a new study finds the pay bump could also be a boon for taxpayers.
The study, which comes from the UC Berkeley Labor Center, found that the country's current low minimum wage costs taxpayers more than $100 billion a year. That's because nearly half of the working families who would benefit from the pay bump rely on at least one safety net program, such as SNAP or Medicaid.
Those programs fill in the gaps for millions of Americans, and 42% of the $254 billion spent annually on safety net programs goes toward families who would now get a raise.
"Many low-wage workers are in service occupations where they have a higher risk of exposure to COVID-19, but have not seen pay increases during the pandemic," study coauthor and chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center Ken Jacobs wrote in a statement to Insider. "When minimum wage jobs don't pay enough, these workers often turn to public safety net programs to make ends meet."
Jacobs said that raising the minimum wage would help bring savings to those public safety net programs, which could prove helpful as states work toward recovering from the pandemic recession.
And, as Jacobs noted, many essential workers rely on those programs; so a raise in their wages would materially benefit both those workers and the programs themselves.
"President-elect Biden specifically noted that 'Too many families are unable to afford childcare, while early educators earn wages so low that they can't support their own families,'" Jacobs said. "Our new report found that half of childcare workers and 6 out of 10 homecare workers are paid so little that their families rely on one or more public safety net programs."
As Insider's Marguerite Ward reported in August, the United States was already facing a childcare crisis — and it could lead to an exodus of women from the workplace.
Some cities and states have already raised their minimum wage to be $15 per hour — or put in place plans to gradually increase to that amount — but a new national federal minimum wage would make $15 a country-wide requirement.
President-elect Biden has long been a proponent of increasing the federal minimum wage to $15, doubling down on his support during October's presidential debate. At the time, President Donald Trump argued that a wage hike could hurt employers — but, as Insider's Joseph Zeballos-Roig reported in an analysis, raises to the minimum wage haven't been shown to impact employment.
Biden would also end the tipped minimum wage and the 'subminimum' wage for disabled workers, CNBC reported. The tipped minimum wage is a lower minimum wage for workers in tipped professions, such as restaurant servers. The current national tipped minimum wage is $2.13 per hour in direct wages. Under the subminimum wage, disabled workers can legally earn under the minimum wage. Both types of wages have been scrutinized for their negative impact on workers.
"Business owners welcome President-elect Biden's call to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 because they know we can't build a strong economy on a minimum wage that pays workers too little to live on," Holly Sklar, CEO of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, said in a statement to Insider.
"Businesses depend on customers who make enough to buy what they are selling, from food to clothes to car repairs. We're in the longest period in history without a minimum wage raise, and that's bad for business as well as workers."
The announcement comes as fast food workers in at least 15 cities go on strike for a $15 federal minimum wage. The workers are striking on what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 92nd birthday.
Immigrants in Tijuana, Mexico, listen to names being called from a waiting list to claim asylum at a border crossing in San Diego. (photo: Elliot Spagat/AP)
Biden Promised to Stop All Deportations for 100 Days After Taking Office. Activists Are Holding Him to It.
Nidhi Prakash and Adolfo Flores, BuzzFeed
Excerpt: "Days ahead of his inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden is facing pressure from immigrant rights groups to make good on his campaign promise to stop all deportations for 100 days as soon as he takes office."
"The incoming Biden administration has a huge responsibility to fulfill to do what past administrations have failed to do."
On Thursday, two national immigrant rights groups, Make the Road New York and Mijente, plan to launch a digital ad campaign urging Biden to enact a moratorium on deportation, the latest move from advocates as they ramp up pressure on the incoming administration. The nearly two-minute video will feature images of immigrant rights protests over the past four years.
Activists are anxious to see Biden not only undo the Trump administration’s hawkish immigration agenda, but do better than former president Barack Obama, who deported a record number of immigrants during his first term, and failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform despite Democratic control of the House and Senate during his first two years.
Thursday’s campaign from Make the Road New York, a nonprofit that provides immigrants with legal advice, and Mijente, a Latino advocacy organization, asks Biden for not only a blanket moratorium on deportations but also a halt on any arrests or apprehensions of immigrants. The groups are also urging the incoming administration to investigate the Department of Homeland Security for what they describe as harmful anti-immigrant policies.
“We were motivated by the commitments by President-elect Joe Biden not just to reverse Trump’s damaging policies, but to adopt a swift moratorium on deportations to stop the bleeding in our communities,” said Javier H. Valdés, co-executive director of Make the Road New York. “We’re eager to work with his administration to make that moratorium a reality.”
Biden made the moratorium a part of his policy proposal after reporting from BuzzFeed News showed that he had privately made the commitment to a political advocacy group, Latino Victory Fund. After initially denying that they were supporting a 100-day ban on deportation, Biden’s campaign issued a statement saying they were in fact changing their policy to do so.
The Biden transition team said in a statement that the president-elect made a clear commitment and that he's a man of his word.
But some immigrant rights groups say they’re concerned Biden is already walking back his promises because of recent warnings that reversing Trump's border policies will take time, despite campaign pledges that he would immediately end the Remain in Mexico policy and start the total moratorium on deportations.
President Donald Trump’s policies have led to a growing number of people on the Mexican side of the border who are hoping to seek asylum in the US. The logistics of handling that situation — combined with fear that any policy changes will result in another surge of immigrants at the border — will be a challenge for the next administration.
Democrats have long struggled to push through immigration reforms, fearing electoral backlash as Republicans weaponize the idea of “open borders.” They also now must contend with the aftermath of Trump having inflamed racist fears of immigrants of color, a central message he pushed during his campaign and time in office.
That has energized immigration advocates who are not waiting until Biden takes office to put him on notice. On Tuesday, Jeanette Vizguerra, an undocumented immigrant who has been living in a Colorado church for two years after seeking sanctuary, risked deportation to travel to Biden's transition headquarters to also ask for a deportation moratorium on day one of his administration.
"The incoming Biden administration has a huge responsibility to fulfill to do what past administrations have failed to do," she said.
President-elect Joe Biden. (photo: AP)
Even With a 50-50 Split, a Biden Administration Senate Could Make Big Strides on Climate
Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News
Lavelle writes: "The Georgia victories have given Democrats control of the Senate. But some ardent advocates of climate action are still pessimistic about how much progress can be made with a 50-50 split, in a chamber that has been inert on climate policy for more than a decade."
Democrats’ new edge opens the door to policy tools that can push through legislation. And bipartisan action is not out of reach.
Yet even the narrow majority the Democrats now have gives them extraordinary power to elevate climate change as a major priority and to take up the more than 120 pieces of legislation that House Democrats have included in a roadmap for a transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The Democrats’ new majority also offers Biden a smoother ride for his nominees and a chance to use Congress to quickly overturn some of the Trump administration’s last-ditch gifts to the fossil fuel industry.
Biden will have an opportunity to use a budget maneuver requiring just 51 votes for passage that presidents have turned to repeatedly over the last four decades to enact major policies favored primarily by one party. The same legislative vehicle that Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Donald Trump used to ram through massive tax cuts, could help enact large portions of Biden’s $2 trillion “Build Back Better” vision for clean energy and jobs.
Perhaps most significant, Democrats now can test the possibilities for bipartisan action on the world’s most important environmental crisis. There was no prospect for bipartisan agreement on climate when President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) held sway.
But now that Trump will be gone and McConnell will be in the minority, Congress has its first real opportunity to confront the scientific consensus for cutting carbon emissions to net zero by mid-century. Biden’s embrace of that goal—far more ambitious than any set by President Barack Obama—comes at a time when climate impacts have become severe, and clean energy and other solutions are more economically viable than they ever have been.
“You have a broader and deeper movement for climate action, and I think you have a realization that there’s common purpose across different goals and values that weren’t as extensively aligned” even a decade ago, said Derek Walker, vice president for climate at the environmental group EDF Action.
To give just one example, red and purple states like Texas and North Carolina are among the top wind and solar energy states, providing bipartisan support for renewable energy incentives included in Congress’ year-end Covid-19 relief package. McConnell allowed some—but not all—of the proposed clean energy provisions in the package after receiving pressure from other GOP members.
With many of those Republicans still in Congress, and McConnell stripped of his majority leader power, climate advocates see an opportunity to enact their agenda if it is packaged as jobs-creation and economic stimulus and included in the larger coronavirus relief package that undoubtedly will be the first thing on Biden’s legislative agenda. “This can be a great bridging-the-partisan-divide issue,” argues Walker.
Even those keenly aware of the difficult politics of the Senate were not able to suppress their enthusiasm after the victories by Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff became clear last week. “The age of incrementalism is over,” tweeted Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.)
The Power of a Simple Majority
Nothing with the name “Green New Deal”—the sweeping climate and economic justice plan embraced by Markey, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—is going to make it through a 50-50 Senate. The label has become poison for Republicans, and most legislation still requires 60 votes for passage under the Senate’s filibuster rule. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), incoming chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, is dead-set against abolishing the filibuster and against the Green New Deal, as well, meaning that coal state Democrat and other conservatives and moderates in Biden’s own party will be a force to be reckoned with in any effort to pursue sweeping climate legislation.
But a Democratic majority in the Senate (beginning as soon as the Georgia vote is certified and no later than Jan. 22) will ensure a strong start to Biden’s effort to enact his climate agenda.
With the tie-breaking vote of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Biden has the simple majority he needs to put in place nominees to restore the environmental regulations dismantled by Trump. For example, before the Georgia elections, Republicans had been mounting opposition to Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, Biden’s appointee to run the White House Office of Management and Budget, an agency that plays an important role in the cost-benefit analysis of regulations. Now, “there’s much less of a risk of a delay in considering those nominations, which could have caused a drag on the momentum and prevented the new administration from going at the pace we know is needed,” said Walker.
Biden also needs only a simple majority in the Senate to approve his judicial nominees, and he will early on have an opportunity to shape the court that hears the most cases on federal regulation: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Biden’s choice of Judge Merrick Garland, who has served on that court for 24 years, to serve as his Attorney General will leave a vacancy on that key court.
Another tool that can help propel the Biden climate agenda in the closely divided Senate is a Newt Gingrich-era law that was designed to discourage last-minute rulemaking by outgoing administrations. Under the law, Congress can vote by simple majority to reverse any rule finalized in the final 60 working days of the previous Congress. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who has chaired the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, has said the law was high on party leaders’ agenda as a method of overturning just-finalized Trump rules.
The law, known as the Congressional Review Act, was little used until the start of the Trump administration, when the Republican Congress reversed 15 regulations finalized during President Obama’s final months in office. Now the Trump administration may have its last efforts to solidify a deregulatory legacy—with 30 consequential rules finalized since August that result in weaker environmental, health and worker protections, according to tracking by the group Public Citizen—unraveled by the same law.
There is a catch to using the CRA, however: Once Congress uses it to reverse a rule, the government is barred from drafting any regulation that is “substantially the same,” an undefined term that could create a legal risk for Biden. For example, the Trump administration decision to loosen regulation of the potent greenhouse gas methane at oil and gas operations was published in the Federal Register in September—making it eligible for overturning under the review act. But a Congressional repeal could offer foes of regulation a hook on which to hang a legal challenge of any new, strong methane rules by the Biden administration.
Democrats are far more likely to aim the Act at measures that the Biden administration hopes to wipe off the books entirely, like the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s move this month to limit the use of certain scientific studies in decision-making. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has said flatly that the rule is a minor “housekeeping” matter, not eligible for the CRA, but legal experts disagree. “The idea that you could take one of the most important regulations ever done in environmental law, one that could conceivably lead to tens of thousands of additional premature deaths every year, and call it a ‘housekeeping’ measure—it’s preposterous,” said Richard Revesz, director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law.
But in addition to sweeping away Trump’s anti-climate actions—something that will not be done by Congress but by Biden’s EPA, Department of Interior, and other executive agencies, Biden will need to partner with lawmakers to put his own climate plan in place. And that will require Democrats to strategize about how much of the Biden climate agenda to push through Congress through the budget process and how much to pull moderate Republicans into a coalition to create bipartisan legislation that might have more impact and staying power.
A Way Around Divisive Legislation
For 40 years, the Senate has provided an avenue for presidents to circumvent the filibuster: Major policy that has implications for taxation or spending can be included in budget reconciliation packages that need just 51 votes for passage.
Republicans repeatedly have used reconciliation to pass major tax cuts and other policy changes. For example, the Trump tax cut package in December 2017 opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, on the premise that royalties from the leases on federal land would bring in federal revenue. “Obamacare,” President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform law, originally passed the Senate on a 60-to-39, party-line vote during Obama’s first year in office, when Democrats briefly held a Senate supermajority. But after the party’s hold on the Senate eroded by one, with the election of a Republican to fill the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, important amendments to the law were passed through budget reconciliation.
Because Biden’s $2 trillion climate plan involves unprecedented government spending to spur a clean energy transition, climate activists are examining how many of those goals could be achieved through a reconciliation bill. Climate action items that could be included in budget reconciliation include measures like block grants to states that enact 100 percent clean energy programs or extension of federal tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles. (Currently, there are no more tax credits available for purchasers of GM or Tesla EVs, under a ceiling previously enacted by Congress.)
Budget reconciliation is only permitted once in each fiscal year, but Biden will get an extra bite at the apple in his first year in office. Since Congress never passed a budget resolution for fiscal year 2021, Democrats could put a package together early in the Biden presidency before turning to a fiscal year 2022 bill, which probably would be reconciled in the fall.
But budget reconciliation will only work for measures that Biden can pass without losing a single Democratic vote, which makes it an unlikely vehicle for many potential climate solutions, including putting a price on carbon through a tax or other mechanism. Even action to reduce federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industry—a move Biden has committed to that has clear budget implications—would be a hard sell with Manchin and other Democrats from fossil fuel states.
“Every senator has a veto power, which is an extraordinary obstacle,” said Paul Bledsoe, a strategist for the Progressive Policy Institute who served as a staffer for Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee early in President Bill Clinton’s administration, when the party similarly had a narrow hold on the majority. Bledsoe argues that it will be much easier to pass incentives through reconciliation than to withdraw tax breaks. And any hope of passing a carbon tax through budget reconciliation in 2021 is quixotic, he said.
“Any energy taxes at all are out of the question—a non-starter,” said Bledsoe. “And the reason is primarily economic—you don’t raise taxes during a recession.”
Bledsoe and many others who have worked for climate policy on Capitol Hill over the last decade believe that Biden’s first moves on climate policy in Congress will be an effort to craft legislation that can win over the moderates in both the Democratic and Republican parties, especially on key issues like infrastructure and farm policy.
Bipartisan Action on Climate Not Out of the Question
Given the Republican party’s success in blocking climate policy during the Obama administration, and its support for the Trump administration’s climate retreat, many ardent climate advocates remain skeptical that Biden can win over a sufficient number of GOP votes while staying true to his ambitions for climate action.
The youth-led climate action group Sunrise Movement reached out to nearly 800,000 Georgia voters in an extensive get-out-the-vote effort on behalf of Warnock and Ossoff, a campaign in which they focused on the importance of removing McConnell as Senate Majority Leader. Now they argue that Biden should not allow his goals to be lowered in an effort to garner 60 votes.
“First, Democrats must abolish the filibuster,” wrote Sunrise Movement Executive Director and co-founder, Varshini Prakash, in a statement after the Georgia Senate wins. “Then, and only then, can Congress get to work passing bold and historic legislation to create millions of good jobs and putting a halt to the climate crisis.”
But since Manchin made clear after the November election that he would not vote to abolish the filibuster, depriving Democrats of the 51 votes they would need to change the Senate rules, many advocates of climate action are focused on how to win Republican votes without diluting the Biden climate plan.
For example, Trump promised to move forward with a big transportation project funding bill so often that his White House’s frequent declarations of “Infrastructure Week” with no real policy push forthcoming, became a running joke. But there was bipartisan support for infrastructure spending; early in the last Congress, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously passed a $259 billion transportation bill that included climate provisions for the first time, including spending for electric vehicle infrastructure and support for other steps to reduce carbon emissions from highways, ports and other transportation sectors. McConnell never allowed the bill to come to a vote in the full Senate.
But Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who will take over as Senate Majority Leader, has vowed to use infrastructure spending to address climate change. Schumer has proposed spending almost half a trillion dollars over the next decade to spur a transition to electric vehicles, with payouts to consumers who trade in gas guzzlers, styled after the “cash-for-clunkers” program that was part of the Obama administration’s early economic stimulus plan.
Climate advocates see similar potential for bipartisan action that would direct payments to farmers for taking action to reduce carbon emissions, as well as incentives for forest preservation and tree planting. In fact, Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis have released a 500-page report detailing potential legislation reaching into every corner of the U.S. economy with new investments, renewable energy standards, protection of lands and environmental justice. The committee chairwoman, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), said she plans to push for enactment of the proposals, which have drawn on more than 100 hearings on climate in the House during the last Congress. Castor has consistently said that she believed that many of the ideas in the report—-including investments in next-generation nuclear technology and carbon removal technology—would have GOP support.
“Bipartisanship on climate shouldn’t be about splitting the difference, or sacrificing your goals,” said Jeremy Symons, an environmental consultant who has long lobbied for climate action on Capitol Hill on behalf of environmental groups. “It should be about finding ways for smaller groups of senators to break out with novel ideas on how to achieve ambitious action. The real breakthroughs will be around finding things that Democrats and Republicans can both support that achieve big results.”
Clean energy research and development spending included in the Covid-19 relief package, an idea crafted by Manchin and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), is one example of such bipartisan collaboration, although most climate advocates agree that a much bigger investment is needed.
Some believe that the tumult of the past few weeks, including the siege on the Capitol by Trump supporters, will have some Republicans looking for a way to separate themselves from the president’s policy legacy, even though they are reluctant to go along with Democrats’ drive to impeach him.
For example, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) argued the day after the insurrection that Republicans should pursue compromise legislation with Biden on climate change as one step toward “not worrying about base politics as much, and standing up to that base.”
Heather Zichal, a former top Obama aide and Biden campaign advisor, who just took over as chief executive officer of the American Clean Power Association, a new renewable energy advocacy group, says she believes the change of leadership in the Senate, as well as in the White House, will offer a chance for a new start on climate.
“I am very hopeful that as we have this new Congress, as we have a new administration—without this sort of Trump bully pulpit—we do have a moment to hit reset,” she said.
And many climate advocates think that Biden, as a 36-year veteran of the Senate, is uniquely positioned to find out how much Congress might achieve on climate with Trump and his supporters out of power.
“This election has changed the politics of climate change significantly, and nobody’s really tested yet the degree to which progress can be made getting Republicans and Democrats together,” Symons said. “One of the great question marks is, without Mitch McConnell standing in the way, what does the path forward look like?”
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