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Leaked Audio of Sen. Joe Manchin Call With Billionaire Donors Provides Rare Glimpse of Dealmaking
Lee Fang and Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Excerpt: "West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in a private call on Monday with a group of major donors, provided a revealing look at his political approach to some of the thorniest issues confronting lawmakers."
Manchin urged big-money donors with No Labels to talk to Sen. Roy Blunt about flipping his vote on the commission in order to save the filibuster.
est Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in a private call on Monday with a group of major donors, provided a revealing look at his political approach to some of the thorniest issues confronting lawmakers.
The remarks were given on a Zoom teleconference session that was obtained by The Intercept.
The meeting was hosted by the group No Labels, a big money operation co-founded by former Sen. Joe Lieberman that funnels high-net-worth donor money to conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. Among the gathering’s newsworthy revelations: Manchin described an openness to filibuster reform at odds with his most recent position that will buoy some Democrats’ hopes for enacting their agenda.
The call included several billionaire investors and corporate executives, among them Louis Bacon, chief executive of Moore Capital Management; Kenneth D. Tuchman, founder of global outsourcing company TeleTech; and Howard Marks, the head of Oaktree Capital, one of the largest private equity firms in the country. The Zoom participant log included a dial-in from Tudor Investment Corporation, the hedge fund founded by billionaire Paul Tudor Jones. Also present was a roster of heavy-hitting political influencers, including Republican consultant Ron Christie and Lieberman, who serves as a representative of No Labels and now advises corporate interests.
The meeting was led by Nancy Jacobson, the co-founder of No Labels.
The wide-ranging conversation went into depth on the fate of the filibuster, infrastructure negotiations, and the failed effort to create a bipartisan commission to explore the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, and offers a frank glimpse into the thinking of the conservative Democrat who holds the party’s fate in his hands.
Manchin told the assembled donors that he needed help flipping a handful of Republicans from no to yes on the January 6 commission in order to strip the “far left” of their best argument against the filibuster. The filibuster is a critical priority for the donors on the call, as it bottles up progressive legislation that would hit their bottom lines.
When it came to Sen. Roy Blunt, a moderate Missouri Republican who voted no on the commission, Manchin offered a creative solution. “Roy Blunt is a great, just a good friend of mine, a great guy,” Manchin said. “Roy is retiring. If some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him, that’d be nice and it’d help our country. That would be very good to get him to change his vote. And we’re going to have another vote on this thing. That’ll give me one more shot at it.”
Regarding Blunt, Manchin appears to be suggesting — without, perhaps, quite explicitly saying so — that the wealthy executives on the call could dangle future financial opportunities in front of the outgoing senator while lobbying him to change his vote. Senate ethics rules forbid future job negotiations if they create a conflict of interest or present even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Manchin, notably, doesn’t suggest that the donors discuss a job, but rather says that people who Blunt may later be working with would be likely to have significant influence, reflective of the way future job prospects can shape the legislative process even when unspoken.
The commission, Manchin tells No Labels, is important in its own right, necessary to determine how security failed and what former President Donald Trump’s role was in the riot, if any. But it’s also critical to maintaining support for the filibuster. The January 6 commission got 56 votes, four short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster — a thorough embarrassment for those like Manchin who claim bipartisanship is still possible in the divided Senate chamber.
Manchin told the donors he hoped to make another run at it to prove that comity is not lost. He noted that Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who missed the vote, would have voted for it had he been there, meaning only three more votes are needed. “What I’m asking for, I need to go back, I need to find three more Republican, good Republican senators that will vote for the commission. So at least we can tamp down where people say, ‘Well, Republicans won’t even do the simple lift, common sense of basically voting to do a commission that was truly bipartisan.’ It just really emboldens the far left saying, ‘I told you, how’s that bipartisan working for you now, Joe?’”
During the Zoom event, Manchin’s Senate office appeared in the background. It is against campaign finance ethics rules to solicit funds while in a federal building, but Manchin did no solicitation beyond the broad suggestion that donors help out Republicans who switch their votes on the commission. Rather, the group talked openly about how much money it planned to raise, and how — and on whom — it would spend that cash.
Sam Runyon, a spokesperson for Manchin, said that the meeting was not a fundraiser. “Senator Manchin was discussing the issue of money in politics and the impact campaign donations have on Senators and members of Congress. He was not soliciting donations for himself or anyone else,” Runyon told The Intercept.
Margaret White, co-executive director of No Labels, said the same. “The group who engaged with Senator Manchin is motivated by a concern about the future of our nation,” she said in a statement. “This was not a fundraising call and any suggestion to the contrary is a false and obvious attempt to undermine Senator Manchin because he is one of the rare leaders in Washington who refuses to just toe the party line. It’s often a lonely place to be. No Labels is proud to stand with him.”
The group is passionately supportive of the filibuster, and when multiple donors quizzed Manchin on his stance on it, the senator displayed an openness to reform that is at odds with his latest public statements.
Last spring, he said that he could be supportive of a “talking filibuster” that required the minority to hold the floor, rather than putting the onus on the majority. After an uproar from Republicans, he penned a Washington Post op-ed saying that he would not “weaken or eliminate” the filibuster, which optimists noted left room for reforms that strengthened it in spirit, by forcing more bipartisanship.
In June, he told CNN, when asked if he was committed to maintaining the 60-vote threshold, that he wanted to “make the Senate work,” a sentiment he repeated each time he was pressed. Once again, he followed it up with an op-ed, this time in the local Charleston Gazette-Mail, saying that he had no intention of weakening the filibuster.
Manchin’s openness for filibuster reform on the call is notable given it flew in the face of many attendees’ hopes. Asked about a proposal to lower the threshold to beat back a filibuster to 55 votes, he said that it was something he was considering, but then quickly referred back to his earlier idea of forcing the minority to show up on the Senate floor in large enough numbers to maintain a filibuster.
“That’s that’s one of many good, good suggestions I’ve had,” he said of lowering the cloture total from 60 to 55. Manchin went on to discuss the last time the cloture threshold was lowered, in the 1970s.
“I looked back … when it went from 67 votes to 60 votes, and also what was happening, what made them think that it needed to change. So I’m open to looking at it, I’m just not open to getting rid of the filibuster, that’s all,” he said.
Manchin acknowledged that publicly he had drawn a line at 60, but said that he was open to other ideas. “Right now, 60 is where I planted my flag, but as long as they know that I’m going to protect this filibuster, we’re looking at good solutions,” he said. “I think, basically, it should be [that] 41 people have to force the issue versus the 60 that we need in the affirmative. So find 41 in the negative. … I think one little change that could be made right now is basically anyone who wants to filibuster ought to be required to go to the floor and basically state your objection and why you’re filibustering and also state what you think needs to change that’d fix it, so you would support it. To me, that’s pretty constructive.”
As an example, Manchin said that he was prepared to specify his objections to S. 1, the For the People Act. In the voting rights and democracy reform bill, he said, he opposed automatic voter registration because some rural voting locations don’t have internet access to check a voter’s eligibility. He also opposed a provision in the bill that restricted a state’s ability to purge voter rolls, which he said would make the rolls less reliable. And he expressed reservations related to some of the campaign finance reform provisions, arguing they needed to apply equally to labor and business.
“I’m telling you why I’m against something. So I’m going to send to [No Labels leaders] Margaret [White] and to Nancy [Jacobson], everybody on the voting thing, what I support, and the voting changes that need to be made and what I oppose in S. 1. So at least I’m saying I’m against it for this reason, and here’s the things I think can make a piece of legislation better. I think we all should do that. We should be responsible for that,” he said.
Those specific objections, notably, were absent from a second Charleston Gazette-Mail opinion column written by Manchin last week, stating his opposition to the For the People Act. In the piece, Manchin argued that the bill was done in a “partisan manner” and that he objected to such a sweeping bill that is “solely supported by one party.”
The column made no mention of Manchin’s specific concerns about preserving the ability to purge voter rolls and same-day registration — the objections that were given to No Labels and its audience of wealthy donors.
The Zoom call also featured a lengthy discussion about campaign money. “As far as the members of Congress, I mean, we did over 500,000 for [Rep.] Brian Fitzpatrick, which took us two weeks to put that together,” Jacobson said on the call, adding that the group planned to raised and direct some $20 million in “hard” dollars this cycle, referring to money that goes directly to a member of Congress’s political action committee; that means the member of Congress has control over it, rather than having to rely on an outside super PAC.
“It’s dollars that they control, hard money dollars,” said Andrew Bursky, another co-founder of No Labels and the founder and managing partner of private equity firm Atlas Holdings. “I will tell you that I participated in the last cycle, when we handed out checks to a number of our members of the House in the range of $50,000. And in many cases, they went there, the fact that was the single largest check they received, overall in their campaigns.”
It would be illegal for an individual donor to give a $50,000 check, though the money could theoretically be bundled from multiple donors.
The Intercept has previously reported on No Labels’ sprawling network of PACs, used to elect allied lawmakers and congressional candidates, that go by names such as Patriotic Americans, No Labels Action, Govern or Go Home, Progress Tomorrow, United Together, United for Progress, and Citizens for a Strong America. The combined campaign funds helped secure the victory of No Labels-backed candidates across the country in recent election cycles.
“Think about joining the House: You’re there for 730 days, unless you pick the leap year, and maybe you get 731,” said Bursky. “And for the vast majority, those days, you’re spending four hours on the telephone, dialing for dollars. And so what this does — aside from sending the very strong message that there are folks who will have your back if you take tough votes that by partisan nature that may not be popular within your party — it also in real life frees them to do more work, because it’s spending less time raising those funds.”
“So it’s powerful. And there’s just no question that we have had and we continue to have an impact,” he added.
Later in the call, Bursky, while helping Manchin field questions from the Zoom audience, noted that No Labels hoped to mobilize many more donors around pivotal votes.
“We’ve been working hard to build a coalition. Most recently, the Chamber of Commerce has agreed to lock arms with us,” said Bursky. “We’re building out the No Labels Team One Thousand,” he said, referencing a group of donors who could be tapped to give anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 a year in support of No Labels candidates.
The Zoom talk also focused on the national infrastructure bill, a sweeping set of proposals to pour investments into broadband, sustainable housing, electric vehicles, transportation, research, workforce development, manufacturing, and community-based care for the elderly and disabled. The Biden administration has called for a slew of tax hikes to pay for the legislation.
Manchin has been at the center of the negotiations, pushing for a pared back infrastructure program in exchange for Republican votes. GOP lawmakers have pushed back against many of the tax proposals of the bill; their resistance is echoed by many on Wall Street who fear higher corporate rates.
Manchin talked at length about paring back the initiative and bringing Republicans on board. He also zeroed in on the energy-related provisions, including opposition to direct funds for electric vehicle charging locations and the need to finance carbon sequestration plants to enhance coal-fired power plants.
“I’m not going to sign off on reconciliation, giving up on bipartisanship until you give it a try,” said Manchin, eschewing the procedural motion that would allow Democrats to pass the infrastructure legislation without any Republican votes.
While many of the attendees celebrated Manchin’s remarks for his bipartisan fervor, some hailed his policy positions as beneficial to incumbent business interests.
Lynn Schenk, a former Democratic lawmaker from the San Diego area, spoke up on the call, thanking the West Virginia senator for his remarks in opposition to direct federal funding for electric vehicle charging stations.
Schenk noted that she had just left the board of Sempra Energy, the utility company based in Southern California. The private sector, Schneck said, is “all ready to do the electric vehicles and all the kinds of things that you were mentioning, so please stay with it, because that is the way for us to go forward,” said Schenk.
Manchin concurred, saying that the government never built gas filling stations for the rollout of Henry Ford’s Model T automobiles. The shift to electric cars should be no different, Manchin argued. The government, he said, should instead offer low-interest loans and other tax incentives to the private sector to build out infrastructure.
White, the No Labels co-executive director, said in her statement to The Intercept that thinking of those in attendance as peddling influence misunderstood the situation. “No Labels believes America urgently needs a two-party infrastructure solution,” she said. “Senator Manchin has been courageously working to forge such an agreement and he was briefing a group of our supporters on progress with his colleagues in both parties. Our community from all over the country would likely not be recognized or understood by Beltway reporters or influence peddlers.”
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Emancipation Day celebration in Richmond, Virginia, 1905. (photo: Library of Congress)
Slavery Didn't End on Juneteenth. Here's What You Should Know About This Important Day
Sharon Pruitt-Young, NPR
Pruitt-Young writes: "It goes by many names. Whether you call it Emancipation Day, Freedom Day or the country's second Independence Day, Juneteenth is one of the most important anniversaries in our nation's history."
On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, who had fought for the Union, led a force of soldiers to Galveston, Texas, to deliver a very important message: the war was finally over, the Union had won, and it now had the manpower to enforce the end of slavery. The announcement came two months after the effective conclusion of the Civil War, and even longer since Abraham Lincoln had first signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but many enslaved black people in Texas still weren't free, even after that day.
That was 156 years ago. Here are the basics of Juneteenth that everyone should know.
What Juneteenth represents
First things first: Juneteenth gets its name from combining "June" and "nineteenth," the day that Gen. Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, bearing a message of freedom for the slaves there. Upon his arrival, he read out General Order Number 3, informing the residents that slavery would no longer be tolerated; all slaves were now free and would henceforth be treated as hired workers if they chose to remain on the plantations, according to the Juneteenth website.
"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer," the order reads, in part.
But while former slaves had the option of staying on their plantations as workers, it's perhaps unsurprising that many did not and instead left in search of new beginnings or to find family members who had been sold away.
"It immediately changed the game for 250,000 people," Shane Bolles Walsh, a lecturer with the University of Maryland's African American Studies Department, told NPR.
Enslaved black people, now free, had ample cause to celebrate. As Felix Haywood, a former slave, recalled: "Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes ... just like that, we were free."
Slavery did not end on Juneteenth
When Gen. Granger arrived in Galveston, there still existed around 250,000 slaves and they were not all freed immediately, or even soon. It was not uncommon for slave owners, unwilling to give up free labor, to refuse to release their slaves until forced to, in person, by a representative of the government, historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in his explainer. Some would wait until one final harvest was complete, and some would just outright refuse to submit. It was a perilous time for black people, and some former slaves who were freed or attempted to get free were attacked and killed.
For Confederate states like Texas, even before Juneteenth, there existed a "desire to hold on to that system as long as they could," Walsh explained to NPR.
Before the reading of General Order Number 3, many slave owners in Confederate states simply chose not to tell their slaves about the Emancipation Proclamation and did not honor it. They got away with it because, before winning the war, Union soldiers were largely unable to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation in Southern states. Still, even though slavery in America would not truly come to an end until the ratification of the 13th Amendment, the Emancipation Proclamation still played a pivotal role in that process, historian Lonnie Bunch told NPR in 2013.
"What the Emancipation Proclamation does that's so important is it begins a creeping process of emancipation where the federal government is now finally taking firm stands to say slavery is wrong and it must end," Bunch said.
People have celebrated Juneteenth any way they can
After they were freed, some former slaves and their descendants would travel to Galveston annually in honor of Juneteenth. That tradition soon spread to other states, but it wasn't uncommon for white people to bar black people from celebrating in public spaces, forcing black people to get creative. In one such case, community leaders in Houston – all of whom were former slaves – saved $1,000 to purchase land in 1867 that would be devoted specifically to Juneteenth celebrations, according to the Houston Parks and Recreation Department. That land became Emancipation Park, a name that it still bears.
"'If you want to commemorate something, you literally have to buy land to commemorate it on' is, I think, just a really potent example of the long-lasting reality of white supremacy," Walsh said.
Nevertheless, black Americans found a way to continue to celebrate and lift each other up. Early on, Juneteenth celebrations often involved helping newly freed black folks learn about their voting rights, according to the Texas State Historical Association. Rodeos and horseback riding were also common. Now, Juneteenth celebrations commonly involve cookouts, parades, church services, musical performances and other public events, Walsh explained.
It's a day to "commemorate the hardships endured by ancestors," Walsh said. He added, "It really exemplifies the survival instinct, the ways that we as a community really make something out of nothing. ... It's about empowerment and hopefulness."
And there's reason to be hopeful. After literal decades of activists campaigning for change, Congress has approved Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
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William Barr. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
Trump DOJ Takes Extreme Measures to Another Level
Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
Johnson writes: "In the spring of 2006, top Justice Department officials were considering an extraordinary next step in a bribery investigation of a sitting House member."
Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had huddled at least twice with senior FBI officials, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and Steven Bradbury, who led Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, before signing off on a raid of then-Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson’s congressional office — an unprecedented action that would shake the political establishment to its core.
Inherent in the criminal investigation were the raw political implications of a Republican administration taking on a Democratic lawmaker.
Indeed, Gonzales, who did not tip the Bush White House to the plan, McNulty and FBI Director Robert Mueller privately vowed to resign if the White House had ordered the seized evidence returned to Jefferson.
“Any decision to go after a lawmaker is a big deal,” Gonzales said, recently recounting the 15-year-old episode that now appears almost restrained in light of the Trump Justice Department’s decision to secretly seek the phone records of two Democratic congressmen as part of a 2018 leak investigation.
While the two cases involved sitting members of Congress, serious questions remain about whether the Justice Department departed from strict scrutiny traditionally afforded law enforcement actions involving elected officials in favor of partisan political interests of the Trump White House.
It is immediately unclear what specific information Justice was seeking in its pursuit of communications involving House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., as part of the investigation, which was closed and did not result in any allegations of wrongdoing by the congressmen.
Former top Justice officials have indicated they either were not briefed or not aware of the requests for communications data. William Barr has indicated that he was not aware of the requests, according to a person familiar with the former attorney general. Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did not respond to inquiries from USA TODAY, but CNN reported that Rosenstein has told associates that he was not aware of the Justice action. Jeff Sessions, Trump's first attorney general, could not be reached for comment.
"I think it's a stretch to think that nobody was kept in the loop on an investigation of this sort with such a high profile," said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami. "I find it hard to believe."
Yet, with some former officials distancing themselves from the department's contentious action, a more disquieting scenario has been raised.
"Assuming that they (the former leadership) didn't know about it, what happened here could have involved a rogue element outside the normal lines of authority and that is a terrible place to be," Gonzales said. "That is very scary to consider."
'Weaponization of justice'
Last week, the Justice Department’s independent watchdog announced that it was launching a broad investigation into whether the Trump administration and its two attorneys general improperly seized the phone records of the House Democrats, their staff and journalists from the Washington Post, New York Times and CNN as part of the leak investigation.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said investigators would look beyond the subpoenas to “other legal authorities (used) to obtain communication records … in connection with recent investigations of alleged unauthorized disclosures of information to the media by government officials.”
“The review will examine the Department’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures,” Horowitz said, “and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations. If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider other issues that may arise during the review.”
While the inspector general's investigation proceeds, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday he had instructed Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco to "strengthen the department’s existing policies and procedures for obtaining records of the Legislative branch."
"Consistent with our commitment to the rule of law, we must ensure that full weight is accorded to separation-of-powers concerns moving forward," Garland said.
Democrats, meanwhile, have vowed to launch their own investigations of the Justice action, signaling that they will call Barr, Sessions and other other Justice officials to testify.
Schiff and other lawmakers have long said that Trump used the Justice Department to punish his perceived political enemies, calling the subpoena requests "yet another example of Trump's corrupt weaponization of justice."
There has been no determination of whether the subpoenas were improper. But given Trump's campaign to discredit his political enemies, notably Schiff, former federal prosecutor Weinstein said it is difficult to uncouple politics from the law enforcement action.
"I think you have to at least consider that politics are attached to this," Weinstein said.
'No question this guy was corrupt'
Never before had the FBI raided the congressional office of a sitting lawmaker, but that's what Justice officials were proposing – and girding for – in the corruption case of William Jefferson in 2006.
From the U.S Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Va., the FBI, and Justice's Criminal Division to the attorney general's suite at Main Justice, a cadre of officials weighed the merits of such an extraordinary action, knowing there would be blowback.
"We knew it was going to be controversial," said McNulty, who then served as the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, adding that he could recall no disagreement that the action was "necessary in the context of the investigation."
At the time, prosecutors were in the midst of a long-running bribery investigation that had famously uncovered $90,000 in cash stashed in the congressman's home freezer months before.
"There was no question that this guy was corrupt, but we wanted to make sure that we ran all of the traps," said one former official involved in the investigation. "There was no question about the need to go forward, but we wanted to make sure we did it by the book."
That extensive consultation, however, did not short-circuit the political firestorm when FBI agents arrived at Jefferson's office, with the congressman finding an unlikely ally in then Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert, R-Ill., who contended that the FBI had overstepped its authority, violating the Constitution's separation of powers clause.
Although Jefferson ultimately was convicted in the corruption case, a federal appeals court ruled that the congressional office search had violated the Constitution.
McNulty, now a college president, has incorporated the Jefferson episode in a class he teaches on the Constitution.
While the former deputy attorney general said that there are still many unanswered questions related to the subpoena requests for the lawmakers' phone data, he was satisfied with the level of deliberation involved in the Jefferson inquiry.
"Every now and then, the Department of Justice is going to have to make a decision that raises a significant constitutional question," McNulty said. "And sometimes they may get it wrong."
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Immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. (photo: Eric Gay/AP)
The US Can Again Grant Asylum to Domestic Violence Survivors After the Attorney General Tossed Out a Trump Administration Decision
Adolfo Flores and Hamed Aleaziz, BuzzFeed
Excerpt: "The Justice Department on Wednesday threw out a decision by former attorney general Jeff Sessions that made it virtually impossible for immigrants to win asylum because they were fleeing domestic violence in their home countries."
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Armed homeowners Mark and Patricia McCloskey, standing in front their house along Portland Place confront protesters marching to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson's house in the Central West End of St. Louis. (photo: Laurie Skrivan/AP)
St. Louis Couple Who Brandished Guns at Black Lives Matter Protesters Plead Guilty
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Two wealthy American lawyers who earned notoriety by pointing guns at Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists marching past their mansion have pleaded guilty to misdemeanour charges, a court official has said."
A Missouri court fines Mark McCloskey and his wife, Patricia, for pointing an assault rifle and handgun at Black Lives Matter protesters last year.
Mark McCloskey, who ran across his lawn and threatened protesters with an assault rifle in the incident last year, was fined $750 on Thursday for fourth-degree assault, said Tom Gross, spokesman for the 22nd Circuit Court in St Louis, Missouri.
His wife Patricia McCloskey was fined $2,000 for misdemeanour harassment after brandishing a handgun at the protesters.
Both had originally been charged with felony misuse of weapons after they were seen in video footage and photographs barefoot on their lawn in front of their palatial home, waving their guns and shouting as the peaceful protest march against police abuse and racism passed by on June 28, 2020.
There was no evidence that either had been threatened by the protesters.
The couple became a symbol of the gap between conservative white Americans and Black people seeking justice.
But conservatives in the state defended their actions and the state’s governor, Mike Parson, declared he would pardon them if they were convicted.
The couple became Republican heroes in the hotly fought presidential election last year, warning that Democrats would take away Americans’ gun rights.
“Make no mistake: No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America,” Patricia McCloskey said in a video the two made for the August Republican national convention that nominated Donald Trump for a second term as president.
In May, Mark McCloskey announced he was running for one of Missouri’s seats in the United States Senate.
In a campaign video he highlighted the incident, while exaggerating the threat the couple faced.
“When the angry mob came to destroy my house and kill my family, I took a stand against them,” he said. “I will never back down.”
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Women shout slogans during a demonstration against the Colombian government's proposed tax reform, in Bogota, on May 1. (photo: Fernando Vergara/AP)
The Growing Movement to End US Complicity in Colombia's Human Rights Abuses
Cruz Bonlarron Martinez, In These Times
Bonlarron Martinez writes: "On April 28, thousands of Colombians poured into the streets to protest Colombian President Iván Duque's so-called Sustainable Solidarity Law - a package of regressive taxes, created at the behest of Colombia's creditors, that would have increased the cost of food and basic services."
Activists are calling on Congress to freeze funding to the country’s repressive security forces, and House progressives have taken note.
n April 28, thousands of Colombians poured into the streets to protest Colombian President Iván Duque’s so-called Sustainable Solidarity Law — a package of regressive taxes, created at the behest of Colombia’s creditors, that would have increased the cost of food and basic services. Under pressure, Duque withdrew the proposal on May 2, but the paro nacional (national strike) highlighted the country’s growing inequalities and what many perceive as the failure of the Colombian government to address them.
In recent weeks, Colombia’s estadillo social (social outburst) has given way to a low-intensity civil conflict that has pitted police, military, paramilitaries, and vigilantes against workers and protesters alike. The human rights organization Indepaz reports that these forces have killed at least 70 people while injuring and disappearing many more. The conflict itself comes less than five years after a controversial peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that has only exacerbated the country’s political divide after being
At the height of the demonstrations in late May, Colombia’s vice president and minister of foreign affairs, Marta Lucía Ramírez, made a multi-day visit to the United States in an effort to repair her country’s tarnished image abroad. During the visit, she met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Organization of American States (OAS), and various U.S. officials to reaffirm support for Colombia’s security forces — and to procure much-needed Covid-19 vaccines. But many in Washington, D.C., including key members of Congress and several non-governmental organizations, are starting to question whether the United States should continue to finance a Colombian security apparatus that flagrantly abuses human rights.
Criticism of U.S. foreign policy in the Beltway
“The United States has been the number one trainer in human rights for the Colombian police,” says Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, the director for the Andes of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), one of the leading organizations advocating for Human Rights in Latin America. “The U.S. has been promoting the Colombian police as an example to be used in Central America and other parts of the world. So all of this is contrary to what they should be doing.”
Sánchez-Garzoli, who is based in Washington, D.C., has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of Colombia’s client-state relationship with the United States. She maintains that by supplying weapons to the Duque government (and those of his predecessors), the United States has facilitated human rights abuses on the part of Colombia’s military and national police.
“The only way Colombia is gonna listen is if it fears having its aid cut off or frozen,” Sánchez-Garzoli says. “The only way you’re gonna get police reform is if the United States steps in, because Colombia hasn’t listened to the UN or the OAS. If you want to push Colombia to stop the violence, you need U.S. involvement.”
Capitol Hill has begun to take notice. On May 14, following demonstrations in Colombia and the United States, 55 members of Congress signed a letter to Secretary of State Blinken urging the State Department to pressure Colombia’s security forces to deescalate, to suspend direct assistance to Colombia’s national police, and to freeze arms sales to Colombia’s riot police, among other measures.
Progressive Democrats have repeated calls to defund Colombian security forces in the weeks and months since. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D‑N.Y.), whose district has a significant Colombian population, said in a May 24 town hall that the Biden administration should follow the Leahy Law, which prohibits the United States from providing aid to any foreign security force that commits human rights abuses with impunity. During a tense exchange with Blinken on June 7, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D‑Tex.) even claimed that the State Department has shown a bias against left-leaning governments in Latin America by giving right-wing governments like Colombia’s the “kid-glove treatment.”
Rep. Mark Pocan (D‑Wis.), who was himself held captive by the FARC while backpacking along the Colombian-Panamanian border, and which he claims allows him to see different perspectives on the conflict, issued the following statement to In These Times:
The Colombian National Police’s violent repression of protests has killed dozens of Colombians, with even more that have ‘disappeared.’ This violence cannot be supported by U.S. aid, so along with my colleagues Representatives McGovern, Grijalva, & Schakowsky, we led a letter of over 50 of our colleagues to demand Secretary Blinken suspend U.S. direct assistance to Colombian National Police. Specifically, we want an end to U.S. commercial sales of weapons, equipment, services, or training to ESMAD riot police and to freeze any grants or sales of riot or crowd control equipment to Colombian police until clear human rights benchmarks are established and met. If the United States is providing aid to our allies, we have a duty to ensure that aid is not being used to abuse human rights or kill civilians.
The diaspora takes to the streets
Outside of Congress, a protest movement is slowly gaining force. Since the end of April, the Colombian diaspora has taken to the streets in major U.S. cities including New York, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
In South Florida, which has long been a haven for some of the most reactionary forces in the Latin American community, Colombianos Progresistas de Florida (Progressive Colombians of Florida) gathered hundreds of Colombian Americans in downtown Miami on May 8 to rally support for Colombia’s national strike and call for an end to state repression. A month later, more than 300 people from across the country marched on Washington, D.C., to protest Colombia’s human rights abuses, as well as U.S. role as the Duque régime’s chief enabler.
Cesar Bowley Castillo and María Camila Driaza Guzmán, two Colombian diaspora activists in Los Angeles and members of the newly formed collective Colombia Despierta LA, believe these demonstrations are just the beginning. As Bowley Castillo tells it, these kinds of demonstrations have encouraged groups like Colombia Despierta to make more structural demands like the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement, the cancelation of Colombia’s foreign debt, and an end to the U.S. military’s presence in the country. He says that the nascent movement also seeks to form broader coalitions with the struggle for Palestinian liberation, Black Lives Matter, and the Indigenous Alliance.
“The idea was to bring visibility and awareness of what’s happening in Colombia, and to provide a platform so the paro (strike) has a more international [audience],” says Driaza Guzmán of the recent protests. “[They] let people understand the implications of U.S. [foreign policy] back home.”
On May 19, activists from such groups as Colombia Despierta LA and Colombianos en Los Angeles succeeded in pushing the Los Angeles City Council to issue a resolution denouncing Colombia’s human rights violations and calling for the federal government to enforce the Leahy Law. It’s a victory they hope will inspire other cities across the country.
Applying pressure to the Biden administration
On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden promoted himself as the architect of Plan Colombia — a U.S. military aid package that Congress itself admits has failed to combat the narcotics trade, and has created gross human rights abuses. (These abuses included a “false positives” scandal in which the Colombian military murdered innocent civilians and dressed them up as guerrillas in an effort to record higher casualty counts and receive bonus pay.)
But Biden has shown a willingness to embrace more progressive policies when it comes to domestic issues like pandemic relief. Advocates like Sánchez-Garzoli hold out hope that a burgeoning protest movement can persuade his administration to change course on Colombia as well.
“For 20 years, the U.S. Congress has approved money for Colombia [and its peace process],” Sánchez-Garzoli says. “For that investment not to go to hell, Congress has to speak out about the human rights abuses happening now. Colombia is on the brink of another type of civil war. There [have to be] efforts to cut and condition aid.”
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A 2021 study estimated that shark and ray populations are down 70 percent in the last 50 years, mainly due to overfishing. (photo: SharkSider)
Senate Bans Shark Fin Trade and Addresses Forced Labor and Illegal Fishing
Tiffany Duong, EcoWatch
Duong writes:
ast week, on World Oceans Day, the U.S. Senate took two major legislative steps to support our oceans for the future: banning the commercial shark fin trade in the U.S. and addressing forced labor and Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act (S. 1106) — a bill that targets the U.S. trade in shark fins — passed as part of a broader legislative package known as the United States Innovation and Competition Act (S. 1260). Similar legislation passed in the House of Representatives in the last legislative session and has been introduced in the House this session (H.R. 2811). It currently has more than 130 bipartisan cosponsors, Scuba Diver Life reported.
The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act makes it illegal to possess, buy, sell or transport shark fins or any product containing shark fins, except for certain dogfish fins. There is an exception for shark fins lawfully taken with a license or permit under certain circumstances. Violators will be penalized under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, with a maximum civil penalty of the greater of $100,000 for each violation or the fair market value of the shark fins involved.
The legislative move comes after studies about shark and ray populations highlighted a decline of more than 70 percent over the last 50 years. According to Oceana, over 73 million sharks are killed and traded annually. Demand for shark fin soup, especially in Asia, incentivizes overfishing and shark-finning — the act of removing a shark's fins at sea and throwing its body back overboard to drown, starve, bleed to death or get eaten. A Nature article, published earlier this year, listed overfishing as the primary cause and noted that three-quarters of species in this "functionally important assemblage" are now threatened with extinction. The researchers in the Nature study encouraged strict prohibitions and precautionary science-based catch limits to avoid population collapse and ensuing disruption of the ecological functions they serve.
The new bill aims to "close a loophole" that many advocates blame for the death of millions of sharks annually. According to Oceana, even though shark finning is illegal in U.S. waters, fins can still be bought, sold, and transported throughout the United States. Shark Stewards, a shark advocacy group, said "the USA contributes to the global decline of sharks" because "tons of shark fins from Latin America to Africa routinely pass through U.S. ports for report to Hong Kong, China and SE Asia." The group cited a National Resources Defense Council report from 2020 that estimated that fins from roughly 900,000 sharks passed through U.S. ports between 2010 to 2017.
Oceana reported that fins are often imported from countries that have inadequate protections in place for sharks and/or that violate international treaties to protect endangered species. Because of this, many shark advocates have been lobbying for years to close the trade loophole and to get the U.S. out of the business of shark fins completely.
Stefanie Brendl, executive director of shark advocacy group Shark Allies, told EcoWatch, "This bill is necessary and represents definite progress. We wholeheartedly support its passage and ask everyone in the conservation community to do the same." Brendl, a long-time advocate for shark conservation, noted positively that the legislation will "largely takes the US out of the fin trade" and that a series of global fin bans could collectively be the "best pathway to make an impact."
But, not everyone agrees. According to Seafood Source, the fishing industries in the U.S. have traditionally opposed bans, citing the country's successful management of shark fisheries.
"The United States has some of the best-managed shark fisheries in the world. Our laws and regulations prevent overfishing while maximizing commercial fishing opportunities and the economic value of our shark fisheries," Former National Marine Fisheries Service assistant administrator Chris Oliver said in a 2020 statement, the seafood industry report cited. "Part of our science-based management is allowing fishermen to sell both the meat and fins of sustainably harvested sharks."
Oliver argued that U.S. fin sales bans would not benefit management in U.S. waters and would have little impact on global trade.
Shark researcher and fisheries management expert David Shiffman has similarly advocated against blanket nationwide bans on the sale of shark fins. In 2017, Shiffman wrote in the journal Marine Policy about a prior, similar bill. He said, "While the proposed federal, nationwide ban's stated goal of conserving threatened shark populations is laudable and necessary, such a policy is misguided because it would A) undermine decades of progress made towards ensuring sustainable shark fisheries in the United States and around the world, B) likely have a negligible direct effect on global shark mortality, and C) contribute to the misconception that demand for shark fin soup is the only threat facing shark populations worldwide."
The scientist instead emphasized prioritizing policies that focus on sustainable shark fisheries management to achieve shark conservation.
Still, Brendl, of Shark Allies, said the trade ban was still "a really important development." She told EcoWatch, "Most legislation is not perfect, and compromises are often necessary to move the needle... No single piece of legislation will be the end-all solution... "
"Anything that slows down the fin trade will potentially help save millions of sharks. A key element will be if and how this will be enforced," she added.
Her non-profit advocacy group focuses on shark and ray conservation specifically by calling for an end to shark finning, the global trade of shark fins and products, including COVID-19 vaccines, that are made using sharks.
The second ocean-minded move the Senate undertook was to amend part of the United States Innovation and Competition Act to better address forced labor and Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. They cited concerns over whether seafood imported into the U.S. was legally caught and responsibly sourced, Scuba Diver Life reported.
Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (MP-AL), who reintroduced the trade ban, applauded the actions in a statement. He said, "The strong, bipartisan support for this legislation sends a clear message that we have to pay more attention to protecting the Earth's oceans and the life within those oceans... Ultimately, all life on Earth depends on the health of the oceans."
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t’s a funny thing how folks always want to know about the War,” mused Felix Haywood about that central fixation of American memory. Haywood had been born in slavery some fifteen years before the Civil War near San Antonio, Texas. “The war weren’t so great as folks suppose,” he told his interviewer, a member of the Federal Writer’s Project collecting testimony from surviving ex-slaves in the late 1930s. “Sometimes you didn’t knowed it was goin’ on. It was the endin’ of it that made the difference.”
