RSN: FOCUS: Charles Pierce | This Is the Other Shoe Dropping From When John Roberts Gutted the Voting Rights Act

 

02 March 21 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News FOCUS: Charles Pierce | This Is the Other Shoe Dropping From When John Roberts Gutted the Voting Rights Act Charles Pierce, Esquire A new case coming before the Supreme Court underlines the importance of passing election reform and voting-rights protections. ver since Chief Justice John Roberts attained his lifelong goal of gutting the Voting Rights Act, declaring the Day of Jubilee back in 2013, those of us who did not celebrate the Day of Jubilee have searched the sky for signs of the other shoe. Over the weekend, the sky was darkened by the descent of a well-turned wingtip. From the New York Times: The provision has taken on greater importance in election disputes since 2013, when the court effectively struck down the heart of the 1965 law, its Section 5, which required prior federal approval of changes to voting procedures in parts of the country with a history of racial and other discrimination. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts’s majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision, Shelby County v. Holder, said Section 2 would remain in place to protect voting rights by allowing litigation after the fact. “Section 2 is permanent, applies nationwide and is not at issue in this case,” he wrote. But it is more than a little opaque, and the Supreme Court has never considered how it applies to voting restrictions. Well, I feel better knowing that. It’s hard to imagine a worse time for this Court to be “studying” that part of the VRA that’s been on life support for almost eight years. All over the country, faced with the unpopularity of their ideas and the consequences of their unquestioned devotion to a vulgar talking yam, Republican state legislators are engaged in an unprecedented war on the franchise. The party has been committed to voter suppression ever since William Rehnquist was rousting Hispanic voters in Arizona in the early 1960s, but it’s positively manic on the subject now. And, as the former president* made clear, Target A is now the For The People Act—aka H.R. 1 and S. 1—a huge defibrillator for American democracy. The provisions of the act are like an endless loop of conservative nightmares. • Modernize Voter Registration • Automatic Voter Registration • Same-Day and Online Registration • Protect Against Flawed Purges • Restore the Voting Rights Act • Restore Voting Rights to People with Prior Convictions • Strengthen Mail Voting Systems • Institute Nationwide Early Voting • Protect Against Deceptive Practices The former president* railed against this measure briefly in his extended episode at CPAC on Sunday. Of course, he couldn’t identify the bill. Nor could he cite any of its specific provisions, but that’s because he doesn’t know anything about anything. But he’s entirely opposed to that of which he knows nothing. Trump ’24! Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress are racing to pass a flagrantly unconstitutional attack on the first amendment and the integrity of our elections known as HR 1. Do you know what HR 1 is? It’s a disaster. Their bill would drastically restrict political speech, empower power the federal government to shut down decent. And turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan political weapon. As opposed to the toothless waste of space it is now, one supposes. Now, the former president* doesn’t know anything about anything, but the battle lines over this bill extend deeply into conservative politics. The misdirection is already underway, and the usual suspects are hard at work explaining how helping more people vote more easily is contrary to modern constitutional government. (I almost wrote, “contrary to the Founders’ wishes,” but, let’s face it, they weren’t big fans of an extended franchise, either.) The WSJ will never stop being hilarious on this stuff. The bill also strips state legislatures of their role in drawing congressional districts, replacing them with commissions that are ostensibly independent. In practice commissions have turned out mostly to favor Democrats, as in New Jersey and California. If states want such commissions, so be it. But this is an attempt to impose one Pelosi standard from coast to coast. The independent commissions have “turned out mostly to favor Democrats” because Republican majority state legislatures have made a partisan hash out of redistricting for two decades now. And the Pelosi Standard sounds like a paperback you buy at the airport. This is a fight that is worth winning, now, with the Democrats in control of the presidency and the Congress, because it might be the last chance to rehabilitate representative democracy in this country. And out there a little ways is still John Roberts, dancing to the Day of Jubilee. READ MORE Contribute to RSN Update My Monthly Donation

POLITICO NIGHTLY: The GOP is the party of half-Trump

BY SAM STEIN Presented by The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) With help from Renuka Rayasam and Myah Ward BREAKING — President Joe Biden is withdrawing Neera Tanden’s nomination to be his budget director, he said in a statement this evening. STIMULUS RESPONSE — Not all that long ago, Donald Trump was arguing for a $2 trillion Covid relief bill with $2,000 stimulus checks. Weeks ago, he pinpointed the GOP loss of the Georgia Senate seats on Mitch McConnell’s refusal to consider the measure. Now Biden is pushing a massive stimulus bill of roughly the same size and with similar direct payments. And Republicans seem certain to oppose it en masse. How could that be? The answer is, at once, simple. Being the opposition party carries certain responsibilities. But it also says a lot about the state of the post-Trump GOP. The Republican Party, with notable exceptions, is content to have Trump remain its nominal leader. But it seems uninterested in holding on to the economic populism that Trump once embodied. “Biden’s plan is the most popular thing Congress has done in 14 years,” said Saagar Enjeti, the co-host of The Hill’s Rising and a sort of pied piper of the neo-populist conservatives. “You have to understand how remarkable this is. We are talking about a bill with 60 percent Republican support. And we have an entire party united in opposition against that. At some point, you have to be like: ‘What the hell is going on here?’” It’s impossible to pin Trump’s political appeal on any one feature or action. But it’s certainly fair to say he executed on an ambitious idea: that he could pry working class white voters further away from the Democratic Party. He did it with a mix of anti-immigrant demagoguery, not-so-subtle race baiting, and largely performative acts that traditional Republicans didn’t attempt, like fashioning himself a friend of unions, picking fights with corporations, vowing to protect entitlements, and flirting with support for a minimum wage hike. Post-Trump Republicans appear far more comfortable extolling the cultural elements of Trumpism than the economic ones. That’s been evident in the Covid relief fight, during which members have made mostly hamfisted attempts to frame the legislation as a partial Big Tech bailout while falling back on decrying it as a “socialist wish list.” It was also evident throughout the CPAC confab this past weekend in Orlando. Speaker after speaker scorned Big Tech, mocked the news media, questioned the integrity of U.S. elections, quite literally screamed about “cancel culture,” and seem fixated on affirming the gender identity of Mr. Potato Head. On occasion, they framed the future Republican Party as a working class one (blue jeans and beers, as the Cancun-deprived Ted Cruz put it). But rarely did they take the unorthodox economic positions Trump relished taking. Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla. | Getty Images That included Trump himself, who made only a few half-hearted attempts to revive the populist themes that worked for him in the past. Biden’s immigration bill, he said at one point, was a “corporatist, Big Tech attack on hardworking citizens of every race, religion, color and creed.” Trumpism, he later defined, was about great trade deals and “support for the forgotten men and women who have been taken advantage of for so many years.” And that was the totality of it. For a party hoping to reclaim power, it’s a notable bet on the potency of grievance and culture wars. Twelve years ago, Republicans fashioned a different path out of the political wilderness. At the 2009 CPAC gathering, a backlash to the bank bailout was brewing. A Friday morning panel featuring a trio of young GOP House members was titled: “Bailing Out Big Business: Are We All Socialists Now?” The keynote speaker on Saturday, Rush Limbaugh, went out of his way to praise a new phenomenon known as the Tea Party as a reactionary force against bailouts. Biden isn’t bailing out the banks (though, technically, neither did Obama — he extended the TARP authorities that passed under George W. Bush). And, for that reason, he may provide less fodder for the current crop of Republicans. But what stands out is not just the absence of populist attacks against the current president, but how uncertain the current Republicans are about the posture they ought to be taking. Last week, when it became clear that a $15 minimum wage would not be included in the Covid-relief bill, several senators offered alternative approaches. One of them was Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — perhaps the national Republican most committed to a Trump-like populist approach — who said he’d support a $15 minimum wage for workers of corporations that had $1 billion or more in annual revenue. For good measure, he called it “The Blue Collar Bonus.” A few days later, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked about the general concept. “I think it’s stupid,” he said. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Here’s a fascinating history of side parts. Reach out with news and tips at sstein@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @samstein and @renurayasam. A message from The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL): Long term care providers are fighting to keep residents safe. While the vaccine is an important step, our work is not over. We must stand with frontline workers and continue to provide the resources they need to keep up the fight: https://saveourseniors.org   AROUND THE NATION THE MASKS ARE OFF — Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi lifted statewide mask mandates and other Covid restrictions today, allowing all of their businesses to operate at full capacity. A senior administration health official told POLITICO that the White House believed the Texas and Mississippi announcements — posted on Twitter within 30 minutes of each other — were a “coordinated effort” by Republican governors, and that it expected to see similar moves in the coming days even as cases remain elevated throughout the country. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is up for reelection next year, but his political consultant told Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam that the order wasn’t an effort to gain national attention ahead of the next presidential election. “He has done nothing secretly or publicly to get anything prepared for 2024. This is a media myth,” Dave Carney said. “If Gov. Abbott was interested in running for president, he would have accepted an invitation to CPAC and to the winter meeting of the RNC.” EMPIRE STATE OF MIND — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is in hiding while the state’s attorney general launches an independent investigation into multiple allegations of sexual harassment. Renu Slack chatted with Albany Playbook writer Anna Gronewold today about what’s next. This conversation has been edited. Does this come as a surprise to people who knew Cuomo or was his behavior an open secret? It’s no secret that Andrew Cuomo is a hard-charging boss who enjoys wielding power. But I think there have been two reactions to the allegations this week. The first is disbelief: People have heard or seen him behave in uncomfortable or awkward ways over the years, but never thought it would rise to the level of sexual harassment. The other is more ominous. It’s “of course.” Meaning that they’ve heard these stories multiple times and would be entirely unsurprised if more accounts emerge. What’s the chatter among Democrats — do they want him to step down? That’s tricky to boil down to a single reaction. There are certainly Democrats who want him to step down. That group is growing, but it’s so far mostly further-left progressives in the legislature who were already dissatisfied with his decades-long rule. I saw a Clubhouse room with some of these folks titled “Andrew Cuomo is a monster and it is time to go.” Not subtle. Top Democrats in the Legislature and the state’s congressional delegation have held off going that far. On various levels they’ve broadly criticized the behavior reported and said they fully support the investigation that the attorney general’s office is launching. Still, the state legislature just announced they reached a deal to take back some of his emergency pandemic powers. They were looking at it before this stuff, but I think the general dissatisfaction gave them a push. Any sense of whether he might try to thread the needle by not stepping down but not running for a fourth term? I think if Cuomo steps down it means he has seen some sort of polling or hard evidence that there is no way he can survive this. But I think another one, two or five stories could be that trigger. If the next week is anything like the one we just had, some hard choices will probably have to be made over at the executive mansion.   DON'T MISS "THE RECAST": Power dynamics are changing. "Influence" is changing. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is our new, twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy, and power in America. And POLITICO is recasting how we report on this crucial intersection, bringing you fresh insights, scoops and dispatches from across the country, and new voices that challenge "business as usual." Don't miss out on this important new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     FIRST IN NIGHTLY OPENING BELL — Biden is tapping a federal agency to facilitate vaccinations for teachers and child care workers. He is using his bully pulpit to push states to get shots into teachers’ arms by the end of the month. The administration is even considering creating a “school reopening” czar. And newly minted Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will launch his tenure on Wednesday with a visit to elementary schools that have successfully reopened, in a high-profile event with First Lady Jill Biden. The extraordinary new measures are part of an intensified administration-wide push to open schools, as the Biden White House hurtles toward a 100-day self-imposed deadline to return children to the classroom, Emily Cadei and Natasha Korecki writes. For weeks, the Biden administration has pegged school reopenings to two necessities: confirmation of its Education secretary and advancing a massive Covid-19 rescue package. But with the White House on the cusp of clearing both those hurdles, there is still no expectation it would be enough to trigger children’s return to the classroom. Instead, Cardona, whom Vice President Kamala Harris swore in as Biden’s Education secretary this evening, inherits a boiling political cauldron. Before today’s announcements, some unions were demanding vaccinations. Even with the new initiatives, it could take weeks for teachers’ to develop full immunity, depending on the type of vaccination used. Beyond that, the administration is still trying to overcome muddled messaging early on regarding its reopening goals. And there are complicated, local disputes that are out of the White House’s control.       WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden accelerates vaccination timeline after manufacturing deal: Merck will manufacture doses of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine under an agreement that will move up the timeline for offering shots to most Americans by nearly two months , Biden announced today. “This country will have enough vaccine supply ... for every adult in America by the end of May,” Biden said in remarks delivered at the White House. — U.S., EU slap Navalny sanctions on Russia: Brussels and Washington imposed new sanctions against senior Russian officials today , delivering a one-two punch at the Kremlin over the poisoning attack and jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. — From Providence to Commerce: The Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of confirming Gina Raimondo as secretary of Commerce, tasking the former Rhode Island governor with a key role in reviewing the Trump administration’s trade policies. — Gensler: SEC should consider corporate political spending disclosures: Gary Gensler, Biden’s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, signaled that the agency would raise pressure on corporations to disclose their political spending activities. — Justices seek compromise on voting-rights laws: Several members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed to search for a middle ground today in the most significant Voting Rights Act case the justices have taken up since the court struck down a critical part of that landmark law eight years ago. — Labor watchdog backs calls for binding Covid-19 workplace safety standard: The Labor Department’s independent watchdog recommended that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration consider issuing Covid-19-specific safety rules employers would be required to follow, saying that would better protect Americans from exposure to the coronavirus. TALKING TO THE EXPERTS THE WAGE FORWARD — With the path toward boosting the minimum wage precarious, Nightly’s Myah Ward and Renu reached out to a group of experts to ask them about alternative proposals that the Biden administration should consider to help the working poor. The responses have been edited. “The single most important support the Biden administration can offer the working poor is to expand their choice of schools for their children, and break the government school monopoly on educational opportunities for those in our inner cities and our poorest neighborhoods.” — Arthur Herman, senior fellow, Hudson Institute “It is important that members of Congress and the Biden administration continue to fight for an increase in the federal minimum wage. Any parent relying only on their full-time, full-year federal minimum wage income to raise a child is doing so in poverty. “The Biden administration’s focus needs to be on shepherding the American Rescue Plan into law. The bill’s proposals will dramatically cut child poverty and provide needed help to families with and without children. Looking forward, two important priorities need to be paid sick leave and a national paid family leave program. Paid time off is another way to support those working in low-wage jobs. And while we are decades behind the rest of the world, the country is ready for a national paid family leave plan.” — Betsey Stevenson, labor economist at the University of Michigan and former member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers “A better way to support the working poor is for the government to provide workers with cash subsidies, possibly in the form of refundable tax credits. Unlike a minimum wage increase, that approach would not cause job losses. For example, Congress could increase the child tax credit, the child and dependent care tax credit, and the earned income tax credit. The Covid relief reconciliation bill moving through Congress would increase those credits on a temporary basis for 2021.” — Alan Viard, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute “The Biden Administration should support ‘Baby Bonds’, federal job guarantee, universal health care, increased federal education funding for low-income communities and student loan forgiveness. Low-income people spend a higher percentage of their income contributing to consumption (the largest portion of GDP) and along with all workers are the drivers of economic stability and growth. Only when the bottom half see growth instead of stagnation and break the cycle of poverty will we see progress for all.” — Carycruz Bueno, research associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University “The Earned Income Tax Credit has been the most successful non-elderly anti-poverty program. Unlike the minimum wage, it is pro-work, supplementing the earnings of low-income families via a refundable tax credit (even if you have no tax liability you get a check for the full credit). “The EITC could be improved in two ways. First, the marriage penalty should be reduced by increasing the income at which the EITC starts to phase out and making the phase out slower. “Second, the EITC for a non-custodial parent should be enhanced by setting the maximum EITC equal to 50 percent of that for a one-child family and matching the phase-out incomes and rates for custodial and non-custodial parents. These approaches are better than a minimum wage hike because they do not harm small businesses and hiring, and are targeted much more carefully on the poverty population.” — Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and chief economist of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002 “Here are three items that Congress and the White House can consider from a tax perspective that could help lower-income workers, with a focus on longer-run reforms: “Simplifying and reforming the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. “Providing certainty in the tax code by proactively tackling upcoming tax changes over the next few years. For example, on the business side, making the soon-to-be phased-out full expensing provisions permanent would be pro-growth, boosting after-tax incomes for workers. On the individual side, these tax changes under the TCJA expire in 2025. “Improving the tax system for gig economy workers and other contractors who have lower and variable incomes. Some ideas for helping these workers include providing a simplified expense deduction, lowering reporting thresholds and making them consistent, and allowing gig economy platforms to voluntarily withhold income and self-employment tax on workers’ behalf.” — Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation “Cancel student debt. Black and first-generation college students are more likely to take on debt to get through school, are more likely to default. Canceling student loan debt is also in the interest of intergenerational fairness and would open up greater possibilities of homeownership and enhance the ability to start a family. “Federal child allowance paid monthly. This is already in the current fiscal package and is estimated to have a huge impact on child poverty. It will be a very big deal for millions of working class families. “An affordable public health care option. Lower-income workers are far more likely to lack health insurance and therefore more likely to rack up debilitating bills in the event of illness or injury. A public option would also reduce the burden on small employers who lack bargaining power to cover their employees with affordable health care plans. Providing low cost health insurance would eliminate one of the greatest sources of economic insecurity and leading causes of personal bankruptcy.” — Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives and former economist at the Federal Reserve Board   JOIN WEDNESDAY FOR A PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW WITH NRCC CHAIR TOM EMMER : House Republicans surprised many observers in November flipping 15 seats and defeating several Democratic freshmen who delivered the House majority in 2018. Then the Jan. 6 insurrection set off an internal battle within the GOP, including among top House leaders. Join Playbook co-author Rachael Bade for a conversation with Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, to discuss his strategy for the 2022 midterm elections, President Donald Trump's role in the party, and the continued fallout from the assault on the Capitol. REGISTER HERE     THE GLOBAL FIGHT EU VS. ITS MEMBERS — The EU is short on coronavirus vaccines, but today the European Commission faced an even shorter supply of answers to rising complaints from national capitals starting to look elsewhere for coronavirus inoculations. In just the last few days, Denmark, Austria, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have joined Hungary in breaking ranks with the EU’s vaccination strategy by going beyond Europe’s borders for doses. In the process, they’ve unleashed a devastating barrage of criticism directed at the EU, saying their citizens simply can’t wait for the Commission to get its act together. Confronted with the assault, the Commission today pleaded once again for understanding but offered no immediate solutions, other than to insist that it was confident in its approach. “The production and delivery of vaccines is a project that comes with a lot of obstacles,” spokesperson Stefan De Keersmaecker said at the midday news conference. “I think we have developed a successful vaccine strategy.” EU national leaders, however, increasingly beg to differ. “Total shitshow,” German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz reportedly said of the EU vaccine program. NIGHTLY NUMBER 95 The number of yes votes in the Senate, which confirmed Cecilia Rouse tonight as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. She will be the first Black person to serve in that role in the body’s 74-year history. PARTING WORDS VERNON JORDAN’S CREED — Vernon Jordan during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary was facing the same exquisite pressures that many African Americans were, POLITICO founding editor John F. Harris writes. As a veteran civil rights leader, he had been waiting for decades for the kind of triumph Barack Obama’s victory would represent. At the same time, he had known Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton since the late 1970s. There was no real doubt that he would endorse her, and genuinely mean it. Michelle Obama, as Jordan later recounted the story, was a bit sour about the choice. “Michelle,” he said, “I’m too old to let race get in the way of friendship.” Race, friendship, and intense ambition to be a player at the highest levels of American political and corporate power were the three great themes of Jordan’s life, which began with a modest boyhood in segregated Atlanta, survived an assassination attempt by a racist gunman at 44 and ended at age 85 on Monday at his home in an elite enclave of Washington. A message from The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL): Nearly 100% of nursing homes have completed their second COVID-19 vaccine clinic. But until all long term care residents and staff are vaccinated, our fight is far from over. Long term care providers need additional resources, such as hiring more staff and increasing funding, in order to continue to best serve our nation’s greatest generation: https://saveourseniors.org/   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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RSN: Rep Ro Khanna: Democrats Should Ignore the Senate Parliamentarian and Pass $15 Minimum Wage Hike

 

 

02 March 21

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02 March 21

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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Rep Ro Khanna: Democrats Should Ignore the Senate Parliamentarian and Pass $15 Minimum Wage Hike

Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "'I don't know any part of this country where someone can survive on $7.25,' Ro Khanna says."

he House of Representatives has voted to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package that includes an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour, which could now be stripped out in the final bill after the unelected Senate parliamentarian found it does not comply with budget rules. Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have also said they’ll oppose the measure. Congressmember Ro Khanna of California says the parliamentarian “misruled” in this case and that Democrats should pass the wage hike anyway. “I don’t know any part of this country where someone can survive on $7.25,” he says. “There is precedent for not listening to the parliamentarian’s advice, and we are hopeful that the vice president, or whoever is in the Senate chair, will do that.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

In a party-line vote, the House voted Saturday to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, which includes $1,400 stimulus checks to people who make less than $75,000 a year, as well as funding for expanded unemployment insurance, vaccination programs, school reopenings, and more relief for small businesses.

The package also includes a measure to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour, over five years, which could now be stripped out as it heads to the Senate after the unelected Senate parliamentarian ruled it does not comply with budget rules around reconciliation. In response to the Senate parliamentarian declaring last week that including that $15-an-hour minimum wage increase in the package goes against the rules of reconciliation, Senators Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden say they’ll push for an amendment to penalize large companies that pay workers less than $15 an hour. Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have also said they’ll oppose the $15-an-hour minimum wage, despite the fact that the people of their states support it. The White House said Biden would respect the parliamentarian’s decision, but progressives are pushing back on this.

For more, we go to Ro Khanna, Democratic congressmember from Silicon Valley in California.

Your response to what happened? And explain exactly what this part of the bill is, that you passed in the House. And what is going happen in the Senate?

REP. RO KHANNA: Amy, at the heart of what Democrats stand for, it’s giving working-class Americans, middle-class Americans a raise. The minimum wage is at $7.25. I don’t know any part of this country where someone can survive on $7.25. The bill we passed says it needs to be raised to $15. It’s a gradual raising. The $15 isn’t until 2024. Many states already have $15 laws. As you pointed out, this is popular in both blue states and red states. Florida passed recently a $15 minimum wage.

The reality is that we will not be able to get this done unless we do it through reconciliation or eliminating the filibuster. We simply don’t have 10 Republican votes. And that’s why we believe that we need to have this part of the reconciliation package in the Senate.

The parliamentarian, though a person, in my view, of integrity, misruled or gave a false opinion in this case. I believe the minimum wage clearly has a budget impact. If you raise people’s wages, they will pay more taxes. It certainly has more of a budget impact than the repeal of the ACA had, which the parliamentarian had ruled in order in reconciliation.

This is why ultimately the decision belongs to the Senate chair — that is either the vice president or someone the vice president designates. There is precedent for not listening to the parliamentarian’s advice. And we are hopeful that the vice president, or whoever’s in the Senate chair, will do that in this case.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that, Congessman Khanna. Explain exactly what can happen and what that precedent was, a previous vice president.

REP. RO KHANNA: So, Parliamentarian Robert Dove — it’s worth listening to his entire testimony; it’s on YouTube video — basically explains that Hubert Humphrey often disregarded the parliamentarian when he was vice president. Nelson Rockefeller, in 1975, famously disregarded the parliamentarian to bring the threshold required for overcoming a filibuster from 67 votes, which is what it used to be, down to 60 votes. So, we see clearly that there is a pattern of the vice presidents overturning or disregarding the parliamentarian, especially when there are procedural issues regarding the filibuster. The vice president here can do the same thing, or whoever is in the Senate chair, and that would allow the $15 minimum wage to be in the Senate package.

Now, people say, “Well, you already have a couple senators who are going to vote against it anyway.” First of all, people often say one thing. It’s very different to vote against the president’s first major initiative. I don’t think they will sink the entire COVID deal over this issue. Secondly, if we are even going to have compromise or negotiation with senators who may disagree with the $15, we first have to rule it in, so they have an incentive to negotiate, understanding that it can be part of the reconciliation package.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have people like Raphael Warnock, who won but has to run again in two years, from Georgia. It’s wildly popular in Georgia, $15 an hour. You have Mark Kelly, Arizona. It’s popular in Arizona. He also runs again in two years. The significance of these congressmembers — these senators, like Manchin, where it’s popular in West Virginia — he’s now proposing a $11-an-hour minimum wage — but that this is bipartisan, multipartisan, $15 an hour is supported across the country?

REP. RO KHANNA: It is. And it’s a moral issue. I think people recognize the extraordinary wealth generation that we’ve seen, especially in the pandemic, where districts like mine, in Silicon Valley, many have done extraordinarily well because of the digitization of the economy, made trillions of dollars, that we can afford in this county for every person to make at least a $15 wage, that that can be and should be the floor. This is one of the few issues that has broad support across the political spectrum. And it is something that we must deliver on because of our core principles and because it will help us mobilize people that we need to continue to maintain our majority and continue to succeed politically.

AMY GOODMAN: What that means — right? — for Democrats to maintain the majority, is respond to what most people want. I think Politico shows 76% of Americans, more than three-quarters of Americans, back the overall bill, including 60% of Republicans. But not a Republican voted for it. And that goes larger than the $15 an hour. But I wanted to ask you about what other means of getting that passed, if it’s stripped out of the Senate bill.

REP. RO KHANNA: There are really only two means of getting $15. One is to make sure that it’s in reconciliation. If it’s not in this reconciliation, it would have to be in a second reconciliation. But at any point, that requires disregarding the parliamentarian, because the parliamentarian is not going to change their view on whether minimum wage should be in reconciliation. So, either you have to overturn the parliamentarian or you have to eliminate the filibuster; otherwise, there is simply not a path to getting $15 minimum wage.

AMY GOODMAN: And what does eliminating the filibuster mean?

REP. RO KHANNA: Eliminating the filibuster means that it would take a 51-vote — 51 votes to pass any major bill in the Senate. And right now, of course, it takes 60 votes.

Adam Jentleson has a brilliant book which explains — and I didn’t understand the history of the filibuster, but he explains that it was actually an invention of Calhoun, who used the 60-vote requirement to do the bidding of the slave states. And then it was invoked time and time again in the civil rights era to block civil rights legislation. And as I pointed out, actually, it’s ironic that Nelson Rockefeller overrules the parliamentarian to try to lower the impact of the filibuster from 67 votes to 60 votes.

But this history of the filibuster being tied to Jim Crow is important and highlights why we need to overturn it. Reverend Barber has said — I was talking to him recently — this is a moral issue of our time. The people who are often most affected with low wages are Black and Brown, many women. This is an issue of justice. And we cannot let these procedures stand in the way — illegitimate procedures stand in the way of what is just and right.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the $15-an-hour proposal will die if it’s not included in the Senate law — in the Senate bill?

REP. RO KHANNA: Well, Amy, I’m never going to concede defeat, and we will continue to fight. The next fight then would be: Let’s make sure it’s in the next reconciliation.

But I think this is a moment to act. This is our best chance, for the reasons you mentioned. There are a lot of good things in this bill. They have aid for state and local governments, aid to help schools open, aid for vaccination, aid for children in poverty. And so, in a bill that is so popular, that is our best chance of having minimum wage part of it, at the height of the president’s popularity, approval, in his first hundred days. It is always the best chance to get meaningful legislation.

One point: While the bill is tremendous in many ways, and I voted for it, and I will vote for the final package, whatever is in it, but the important thing is that the $15 minimum wage is not just one year. It represents a move toward structural change in this country about an economy that isn’t working for people. And that’s really the question: Do you believe that we need structural change in America for those left behind? I do.

AMY GOODMAN: Ro Khanna, I want to thank you for being with us, Democratic congressmember from California, member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

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Bernie Sanders. (photo: Mary Altaffer/AP)

ALSO SEE: Progressives Won't 'Accept' a Loss on $15 Minimum Wage

Sanders Vows to Force Vote on $15 Minimum Wage
Alexander Bolton, The Hill
Bolton writes: "Sanders on Monday declared he would not back down on his signature wage initiative after Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled last week that a provision setting the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour would not be eligible under special budget rules Democrats are using to avoid a filibuster while passing their coronavirus relief bill."

enate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says Democrats should “ignore” the recent ruling of the Senate parliamentarian and is vowing to force the Senate to vote this week on an amendment to set the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour.

Sanders on Monday declared he would not back down on his signature wage initiative after Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled last week that a provision setting the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour would not be eligible under special budget rules Democrats are using to avoid a filibuster while passing their coronavirus relief bill.

“My personal view is that the idea that we have a Senate staffer, a high-ranking staffer, deciding whether 30 million Americans get a pay raise or not is nonsensical. We have got to make that decision, not a staffer who’s unelected, so my own view is that we should ignore the rulings, the decision of the parliamentarian,” Sanders told reporters.

Sanders added, “Given the enormous crises facing this country and the desperation of working families, we have got to as soon as possible end the filibuster.”

“We cannot have a minority of members define what the American people want,” he said.

Sanders said he will force a vote on an amendment raising the federal minimum wage this week.

“To the best of my knowledge, there will be a vote on the minimum wage, and we’ll see what happens,” he said. “I intend to offer the bill that will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and we’ll see how the votes go.”

“If we fail in this legislation, I will be back,” he warned. “We are going to keep going.

“We are going to raise that minimum wage very shortly to $15 an hour,” he said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another leading Senate progressive, on Monday said she favors a vote to overrule the parliamentarian.

“I agree,” she said.

But Warren said the Senate filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to pass most controversial legislation, is the biggest obstacle facing President Biden’s agenda.

“Understand, the only reason that we're in this mess is because of the filibuster. If we would get rid of the filibuster, then we wouldn't have to keep trying to force the camel through the eye of the needle,” she said.

“Instead, we would do what the majority of Americans want us to do, and in this particular case, that's raise the minimum wage,” she added.

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New York governor Andrew Cuomo makes what has been described as an unwanted advance on Anna Ruch at a wedding reception in September 2019. (photo: Anna Ruch cellphone)

Third Cuomo Accuser Comes Forward: 'Can I Kiss You?'
Matt Flegenheimer and Jesse McKinley, The New York Times

The young woman’s account follows two separate accusations that Gov. Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed two female state employees.

nna Ruch had never met Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo before encountering him at a crowded New York City wedding reception in September 2019. Her first impression was positive enough.

The governor was working the room after toasting the newlyweds, and when he came upon Ms. Ruch, now 33, she thanked him for his kind words about her friends. But what happened next instantly unsettled her: Mr. Cuomo put his hand on Ms. Ruch’s bare lower back, she said in an interview on Monday.

When she removed his hand with her own, Ms. Ruch recalled, the governor remarked that she seemed “aggressive” and placed his hands on her cheeks. He asked if he could kiss her, loudly enough for a friend standing nearby to hear. Ms. Ruch was bewildered by the entreaty, she said, and pulled away as the governor drew closer.

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The U.S.-Mexico border wall. (photo: Getty Images)

Border Barrier Boondoggle
Jonathan Thompson, High Country News
Thompson writes: "By the end of Trump's term, his administration had completed construction of about 450 miles of barrier, none of which was concrete and all of which was demonstrably pregnable, at a cost at least five times that of the existing barriers."

 would build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Donald Trump said in 2015 as he announced his presidential run. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” During the campaign, Trump offered more details. His wall would span the entire length of the border, or nearly 2,000 miles, it would be fashioned with concrete — not unlike the Berlin Wall — and would be “impregnable” and “big and beautiful.”

It didn’t quite work out that way. By the end of Trump’s term, his administration had completed construction of about 450 miles of barrier, none of which was concrete and all of which was demonstrably pregnable, at a cost at least five times that of the existing barriers. Mexico did not pay a dime for it. And the “beautiful” part? That, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.

When Trump first promised to build the wall along the border, he apparently didn’t realize that his predecessors had already constructed hundreds of miles of barriers. It all started in 1996, when President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act. Fences were constructed in urban areas, such as Nogales and San Diego, with the intention of driving border crossers into the desert, where they could be more easily apprehended — but also where they were at greater risk of dying of heat-related ailments.

A decade later, President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006, authorizing the construction of 700 miles of barriers. As a result, 652 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers already lined the border, mostly between El Paso and San Diego, by the time Trump was elected. All the evidence, however, suggests that it did very little to stop undocumented migration, in part because at least two-thirds of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. arrived on visas and then overstayed them.

Besides, no wall is truly impregnable, as Trump himself indicated in a speech on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, when he said: “Let the fate of the Berlin Wall be a lesson to oppressive regimes and rulers everywhere: No Iron Curtain can ever contain the iron will of a people resolved to be free.” Oddly enough, “iron curtain” may be the most accurate description of Trump’s new segments of the wall.

On the day of his inauguration, President Joseph Biden signed an executive order halting further construction. Now, many observers are urging him to go further and dismantle the barrier, as well as try to repair the damage done. Or, as President Ronald Reagan put it in 1987, “Tear down this wall!”

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U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn was surrounded at Emanuel AME Church on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019, by supporters of a legislative effort to close the so called 'Charleston Loophole.' (photo: Wade Spees/Post and Courier)

With Hope in Democrat-Led Congress, SC's Clyburn Reintroduces 'Charleston Loophole' Bill
Maayan Schechter, McClatchy DC
Schechter writes: 

his time facing a House and Senate held by Democrats, South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn will try again to get a measure passed that would require a completed background check before buying a gun.

The U.S. House passed a similar measure to close the so-called “Charleston loophole” in 2019, only for it to stall in the Republican-controlled Senate shortly after. But with two chambers controlled by Democrats and President Joe Biden in the White House, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives could find a path to success much easier this time.

House Majority Whip Clyburn’s proposal — called the Enhanced Background Checks Act — would extend the time frame law enforcement has to complete a background check before a gun can be purchased from three to 10 days. But if a review is not completed in 10 days, the buyer could request a faster review to start an FBI investigation.

Under current law, a seller can move forward with a gun sale if the background check hasn’t been completed within the three day time frame, known as a “default proceeds” sale, what many refer to as the “Charleston loophole.”

Clyburn’s bill allows the sale to process should the faster review not get done within the 10 days.

With 60 co-sponsors, the legislation is expected to get a vote in the full House next week, Clyburn’s office said.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, plans to file a companion measure in his chamber.

“Enacting common-sense gun control measures is a priority for President Biden and this Democratic Congress, and this legislation is a good first step,” Clyburn said in a statement. “A large majority of Americans, including gun owners, support universal background checks. This legislation is needed to keep weapons out of the hands of those who should not have them and save lives.”

Nearly six years after the mass shooting of nine Black churchgoers, that included a state senator, at Charleston’s historic “Mother” Emanuel AME Church, Democrats have tried and failed to pass more restrictive gun measures. Republicans have been unwillingly to back more restrictive national gun laws that they say would infringe on their Second Amendment rights.

Attempts to pass similar measures in the South Carolina State House also have failed to gain traction.

In June 2015, self-professed white supremacist Dylann Roof bought a gun he used to kill nine Black parishioners weeks before the killing. Normally subject to a three-day FBI waiting period for a background check to be completed, those weeks came and went before authorities determined Roof should have been ineligible to buy a weapon. Roof had a record of illegal drug possession, but a mix-up in the records and miscommunication did not surface the charge within the three-day period, and Roof was able to buy the gun.

Extending the background check time frame from three to 10 days with the additional request for review option would give authorities enough time to ensure people like Roof do not get their hands on weapons, supporters say.

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A candlelight vigil for Jamal Khashoggi. (photo: Anadolu Agency)

WaPo Publisher: Biden Set to Give Saudi Crown Prince "One Free Murder" Pass on Khashoggi
Fadel Allassan, Axios
Allassan writes: 

ashington Post publisher Fred Ryan on Monday accused President Biden of giving Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a "'one free murder' pass" after U.S. intelligence confirmed that he personally approved the killing of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Why it matters: Biden has faced criticisms that the U.S. response to the finding — which includes sanctions on entities implicated in the murder but not on Bin Salman directly — does not square with his campaign pledge to make the Saudi regime “pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”

• The sanctions fall "far short of honoring" Biden's promise, Ryan wrote in a Post op-ed out Monday.


• "American voters took Biden at his word that he would reestablish the United States as a champion of human rights and not allow exceptions based on personal relationships or strategic needs of the moment."

Background: Khashoggi was a prominent Saudi journalist and royal insider who became an outspoken critic of MBS in 2017.

• He fled Saudi Arabia in 2017 and went into self-imposed exile in Virginia, where he wrote columns for the Washington Post that were frequently critical of the regime.


• His grisly murder in 2018 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sparked worldwide outrage.

What he's saying: Ryan called on further action from the Biden administration to "show the world that there is stability and continuity in upholding our enduring principles."

• "We should not make exceptions to favor one brutal dictator over another based on favors they do for us or fears that they might not always respond as we would like them to," Ryan wrote.


• "How can we be a credible champion of human rights when we demand accountability in one country and are willing to look the other way in another?"

The bottom line: Ryan writes: "There is no legal, moral or logical reason to apply sanctions to the lower-level players in this conspiracy, who were following orders, while letting the criminal mastermind get away without consequence."

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Pollution from a factory. (photo: Science Focus)

Fossil Fuel Emissions in Danger of Surpassing Pre-Covid Levels
Jillian Ambrose, Guardian UK
Ambrose writes: 

International Energy Agency data shows steady climb over second half of 2020

he world has only a few months to prevent the energy industry’s carbon emissions from surpassing pre-pandemic levels this year as economies begin to rebound from Covid-19 restrictions, according to the International Energy Agency.

New figures from the global energy watchdog found that fossil fuel emissions climbed steadily over the second half of the year as major economies began to recover. By December 2020, carbon emissions were 2% higher than in the same month the year before.

The return of rising emissions began only months after Covid-19 triggered the deepest slump in carbon dioxide output since the end of the second world war, and threatens to dash hopes that the world’s emissions might have peaked in 2019.

Dr Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said: “We are putting the historic opportunity to make 2019 the definitive peak of global emissions at risk. If in the next few months governments do not put the right clean energy policies in place, we may well be returning to our carbon-intensive business as usual. This is in stark contrast with the ambitious commitments made by several governments one after the other.”

The IEA was one of many influential groups to call on global governments to put in place plans to use green energy policies as an economic stimulus in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. However, a Guardian investigation revealed that only a small number of major countries began pumping rescue funds into low-carbon efforts such as renewable power, electric vehicles and energy efficiency last year.

The agency’s first ever report to record monthly carbon emissions by region found a strong correlation between countries that put in place economic stimulus packages with a net environmental benefit – such as France, Spain, the UK and Germany – and those that have kept a lid on the carbon emissions rebound.

Meanwhile, the countries that had made the smallest contributions to green economic stimulus measures, such as China, India, the United States and Brazil, recorded steep carbon rebounds in the second half of last year as their economies began to reopen.

“This is a clear signal that governments did not put as many green energy policies in their economic recovery packages as they should have. We warned that if the policies were not put in place, we would go back to where we were before the crisis – which is what is happening today,” he said.

China was the first major economy to emerge from the pandemic and lift restrictions, and the only major economy to grow last year, causing its emissions in the last month of the year to climb 7% higher than the levels in December 2019. Its emissions fell 12% below 2019 levels in February last year, but for the year as a whole China’s carbon emissions were 0.8% above 2019.

In India and Brazil, the monthly carbon emissions recorded for December were both 3% higher than at the end of 2019, a stark increase from the depths of lockdown restrictions in April last year, when India’s emissions were 41% lower than in 2019 and Brazil’s 23% lower than the year before.

The EU also reached an emissions nadir last April of 22% below 2019 levels, and emissions remained 5% lower than the year before by December, in part due to ongoing restrictions on travel to help limit the spread of Covid-19 and its variants.

Birol said it was “not too late” for governments to prevent remissions from rebounding to higher levels than before the coronavirus pandemic, “but it is becoming a very daunting task”.

“Governments of all countries, and especially major economies such as the US, China, India, Europe and Japan, need to include clean energy policies in their economic recovery packages,” he said.

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