On Monday (9/23) the president* copped publicly to an impeachable offense, Charles Pierce noted at Esquire.com. “Yes, he called the head of the Ukraine. Yes, he wanted the president’s help in smearing Joe Biden for the purposes of getting re-elected to the office he’s done so much to disgrace. This is not news. The president* and his half-mad bobo of a personal lawyer have been ’fessing up for three days now, and daring the custodians of 243 years of democratic republicanism to stop them. By the afternoon, he was accusing Biden of being ‘corrupt’ while meeting with the president of Poland and the gaslight was at full wattage. And…”
From the New York Times:
“Seeking to apply political pressure to Republicans who have so far been unwilling to criticize Mr. Trump, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, warned that Republicans would be complicit in Mr. Trump’s actions if they failed to demand that the White House release a transcript of a call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and subpoena a related whistle-blower complaint. Doing otherwise, Mr. Schumer wrote in a letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, would show Republicans to be ‘silent and submissive, shying away from this institution’s constitutional obligation to conduct oversight.’”
From Politico:
“A growing number of freshman Democrats in swing districts are rethinking their stance against impeachment after President Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure Ukrainian officials for his own political gain — a shift that could put real pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to act after months of resistance.”
And from NBC News:
“In a letter to colleagues, Pelosi said the administration “will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation” if acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire fails to provide the complaint when he testifies in front of the House Intelligence Committee (9/26). The complaint reportedly centers around Trump’s July conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during which Trump is accused of pressuring Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son Hunter’s role at a Ukrainian energy company.”
Pierce noted, “There are four things that should be apparent to everyone.
“First, the president* and his administration* are willing to run their bluffs and spread their bluster until he brings the temple down on his own head. They are not going to cooperate. They are not going to provide documents. They are not going to respond to subpoenas.
“Second, the Republicans in Congress are completely with the program and utterly hopeless as possible allies, and the Republicans in the administration* are a hapless chorus of cowards.
“Third, the Department of Justice is utterly corrupt and utterly in the bag for a renegade presidency*.
“Fourth, any action against this president* is going to have to come from the Democrats, and it’s going to have to be fierce and unilateral. They are going to have to stop caring about “dividing the country.” They are going to have to stop caring whether or not Max Rose gets reelected in 2020. They are going to have to come out, fiercely and unilaterally, against international bribery and extortion from the Oval Office as legitimate strategies in domestic political campaigns. What might happen is no longer relevant. The crisis is what is happening, right now, in plain view.
“Once again, we have to draw strength from Ulysses S. Grant in the Wilderness:
‘Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.’
“This should not be that difficult. Clock’s ticking.”
TRUMP’S LABOR NOMINEE, SCALIA, IS HIS FATHER’S SON. The Senate Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions Committee was expected to vote on the nomination of Eugene Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to be the next secretary of labor as we went to press. A long-time employment lawyer, Scalia has a robust track record in pushing back on policies intended to make workplaces safer, more accommodating, and more accessible, particularly for workers with disabilities, Taryn Williams wrote at TalkPoverty.org (9/23).
During the course of his career, Scalia has denied the science behind repetitive stress injuries, prevented UPS drivers injured on the job from having the ability to form a class to sue, and — most outrageously — insisted that an employee at Ford Motor Company should soil herself at work rather than be allowed the privacy to work from home.
In the Ford case, Scalia defended the company against a claim that it had failed to accommodate a person with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The plaintiff had requested telework as a reasonable accommodation, which the company refused and countered with an offer to move the employee’s cubicle closer to the restroom.
When the plaintiff explained that simply standing up could trigger a loss of bowel control, Scalia argued that they should have taken “self-help steps such as using Depends (a product specifically designed for incontinence) and bringing a change of clothes to the workplace.” In other words, when an employee asked for support, Scalia argued that she should wear a diaper and be ready to change her pants.
“Scalia’s nomination has the potential to set back disability employment policy by decades,” wrote Williams, who noted that she has lived with inflammatory bowel disease for 34 years, and requested and received the accommodations cited in this case. “It’s not unusual for me to need quick access to a bathroom four, six, or eight times during a workday,” she wrote. “The Department of Labor has a critical role in driving policy on disability employment, helping make the workplace safer and more accessible, and helping move the needle away from subminimum wage employment.
“It might be easy to dismiss this administration’s nomination of Scalia as just one more dangerous appointment competing for our attention. That’s not what I see here. What I see is a nominee who endangers every worker’s right to reasonable accommodations. Not just the 3 million Americans who live with bowel disease, but the more than 60 million Americans with disabilities who depend on the ADA to protect them from discrimination by employers.”
TRUMP’S ‘REBUILDING AND EXPANDING’ STEEL INDUSTRY HAS ‘REAL PROBLEMS.’ Donald Trump’s favorite tough-guy theme with his China tariffs is how he’s making “Pennsylvania and USA more prosperous/secure by bringing Steel and Aluminum industries BACK,” Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos (9/23)
Back in January, Trump claimed, “Tariffs on the ‘dumping’ of Steel in the United States have totally revived our Steel Industry. New and expanded plants are happening all over the U.S. We have not only saved this important industry, but created many jobs. Also, billions paid to our treasury. A BIG WIN FOR U.S.”
Then in April, “The forgotten voters of the 2016 Election are now doing great,” he crowed in April. “The Steel Industry is rebuilding and expanding at a pace that it hasn’t seen in decades.”
Totally revived! Many jobs! Billions paid! So much for that. The price of steel peaked in the summer of 2018 and has been in decline since. Prices for steel are now lower than they were before the initial tariffs were imposed. Car-making and construction is down, so demand is down and “three of the largest steel companies in the country—US Steel, Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics and Nucor—all warned their financial results would be worse than projected in the third quarter.”
“US Steel’s got some real problems,” New York City-based steel industry analyst Charles Bradford said. That’s an understatement. Wall Street analysts predicted it would lose 6 cents a share this quarter. US Steel says it’s going to be 35 cents. “ArcelorMittal’s not doing so well either,” Bradford continued. “The steel industry’s got some real problems.”
Any day now, expect Trump to demand a big socialist bailout for the rust belt like he has the grain belt.
TRUMP LOST FARM VOTES OVER CHINA TRADE WAR. NOW CLIMATE CHANGE MAY COST HIM MORE. Between Trump’s trade war with China, in which tariffs have cut soybean sales to the lowest level since 2002, and Trump’s controversial policies of issuing biofuel exemptions to many oil refineries, causing the closure of some farm biodiesel producers, Trump’s support among farmers has dipped, Sher Watts Spooner noted at DailyKos (9/22). According to a poll from Farm Journal, Trump has lost nearly 10 points in support from farmers since July—from a 53% strong approval rating to a 43% approval rating.
Those are still good numbers, but the more erosion there is in the Trump farm vote, the less likely it is that he can recapture some of the Midwest states that gave him an Electoral College win in 2016 (despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million). From a story on the Farm Journal poll:
According to Pro Farmer policy analyst Jim Wiesemeyer, President Trump realizes support in farm country is dwindling.
“Opinion polls are signaling some trouble for President Trump,” he says. “A ‘Fox News’ poll showed Trump slipping even among groups that have long been his supporters. Trump’s support is weakening in key areas, including non-college educated whites, rural voters and small-town voters.”
Trump’s approval ratings have taken a hit across the country, and farm states are no different. For instance, according to the August statewide tracking polls from Morning Consult, Trump’s approval rating in Iowa has dropped by 18 percentage points since he took office. Only 44% of voters there approve of Trump, while 53% disapprove. His approval rating in Wisconsin has dropped by 19 points, with a 42% positive/55% negative rating. In Michigan, which he won by the slimmest of margins, he’s taken a 21-point hit, with another 42% positive/55% negative rating.
Among other states that voted for Trump but appear flippable, is Ohio, where Trump’s approval rating has dropped 19 points, to 46% positive/51% negative. In Pennsylvania, his approval also has dropped 19 points, to 44% positive/53% negative.
It’s no secret that farmers are being screwed by Trump’s policies on trade — farm loan delinquencies and farm bankruptcies are at a six-year high. Now, you can add environmental policies to the list: A bipartisan group representing some 10,000 farmers and ranchers is now backing—of all things—the Green New Deal. Because they believe it’s ultimately the only way to save their farms and ranches.
WARREN TAKES FIRST LEAD IN IOWA POLL. The latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll (9/21) — the most closely watched of all Iowa polls — found Elizabeth Warren taking the lead in the first Democratic nominating contest with 22%, followed by Joe Biden at 20%. Bernie Sanders was third with 11%, followed closely by Pete Buttigieg at 9%. Kamala Harris rounded out the top five with 6% support. (Of the top five candidates, Warren was the only candidate to see her support grow since June.)
Steve Benen wrote at MaddowBlog (9/23) it’s worth noting that in the same Iowa poll, local Democrats were asked for their first and second choices, which matter a great deal given the way the state’s caucus system is structured. When first- and second-choice preferences are combined, Warren’s advantage over Biden is even more striking: 42% to 30%. Sanders is further back at 21%, followed by Buttigieg’s 18%.
In keeping with the recent trend, the Alaska Republican Party became the latest state GOP to officially cancel its Republican presidential primary, which had been scheduled for April. Several state parties have taken similar steps to protect Donald Trump from possible embarrassment against primary rivals.
With some evidence of Texas becoming more competitive, Republican officials are making it easier for Green Party candidates to qualify for the ballot, with the obvious hope that the move will undermine Democratic support.
Though it’s difficult to know if this is a stunt, Cory Booker’s campaign manager wrote in a new memo to staff and supporters that the New Jersey senator’s presidential campaign may come to an end without another $1.7 million before the end of the quarter. (The third quarter ends 9/30.)
Booker’s campaign has struggled nationally. He averages just under 3% support in polls, according to Real Clear Politics. His Senate seat is up in 2020 and he has until March 30 to file for re-election.
SANDERS, BIDEN LEAD FIELD OF FIVE CANDIDATES IN DOUBLE DIGITS WITH LATINO SUPPORT. Bernie Sanders’ hoarse voice during the third Democratic debate in Houston did not prevent his message from attracting Latinos registered to vote in 2020. A national poll by Univision News, after the debate, found Sanders is now favored among Hispanic registered voters by two points (in a virtual tie with former vice president Joe Biden).
Sanders and Biden, with 27% and 25% respectively, also emerged as the candidates who performed best in the debate. Elizabeth Warren follows closely with 23%, according to the poll conducted in partnership with Latino Decisions and North Star Opinion. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.8%.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ALLOWS PORK SLAUGHTERHOUSES TO HAVE FEWER USDA INSPECTORS, FASTER PRODUCTION LINES. The Trump administration will allow pork plants to reduce the number of Department of Agriculture line inspectors assigned to them and run their slaughter lines without any speed limit under a new rule intended to modernize an antiquated inspection system, NBC News reported (9/17). But the changes have alarmed consumer advocates who believe the rule will make food less safe and endanger workers.
The new rule will let factory workers, rather than USDA inspectors, remove unsuitable carcasses and trim defects in plants that opt into the new inspection system. USDA inspectors will still examine the carcasses, but they will be stationed farther down the line, and off-line inspectors will be roaming the factory to conduct other kinds of safety checks.
“This regulatory change allows us to ensure food safety while eliminating outdated rules and allowing for companies to innovate,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in unveiling the new rule.
The USDA estimates that the change will reduce the total number of USDA inspectors at pork plants by 40%, saving about $8.7 million a year.
Consumer advocates fear that factory workers will not be as well trained or independent as USDA inspectors, and that they could miss critical signs of disease and contamination, endangering the public.
“This rule puts industry profits ahead of public health,” said Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy for the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group. He called the rule “a recipe for food safety disaster.”
The Obama administration made a similar change to modernize poultry inspections in 2014, but decided against raising the maximum line speed limit after an outcry from worker safety advocates. The Trump administration, by contrast, is doing away with speed limits altogether in pork plants that participate in the new inspection system.
Debbie Berkowitz, a former Labor Department official under the Obama administration, says the change will harm workers who are already laboring under dangerous conditions in traditional plants, which are currently allowed to process up to 1,106 hogs per hour.
The rule “will lead to an increase in serious and often crippling injuries to tens of thousands of slaughterhouse workers, who already endure exceedingly harsh conditions to provide cheap pork to American consumers,” said Berkowitz, a program director at the National Employment Law Project, a research and advocacy group. “The Trump administration is rigging the rules against our nation’s packinghouse workers and sacrificing their health to benefit narrow corporate interests.”
Advocates also criticized the USDA for moving forward with the rule amid a probe by the agency’s inspector general, who is examining whether the USDA used faulty data and hid information about the new rule’s impact on worker safety.
The USDA is developing similar changes to beef inspections.
HATE GROUP THAT SUED OVER BEING CALLED HATE GROUP LOSES LAWSUIT. A federal judge has tossed out a lawsuit filed by a hate group that in January sued a top civil rights organization over being designated a hate group. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) accused the Southern Poverty Law Center “of conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act when they designated it as a hate group in 2016,” AP reported (9/17). “The judge, however, said the suit improperly attempts to ‘shoehorn’ a defamation claim into the framework of a RICO case.”
It’s a fact that CIS has circulated writings by racists and other deplorables for years now, Gabe Ortiz noted at DailyKos (9/23). Back in 2017, the hate group’s leader, Mark Krikorian, admitted that his group “occasionally” distributed “pieces by writers who turned out to be cranks,” but a deeper dive by SPLC found “occasionally” actually meant 2,000 times, and “cranks” actually turned out to be anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers.
These anti-immigrant ringleaders have also found a friend in the Trump administration, and several have been placed in top government posts, including agencies whose purposes include advocating for immigrants and refugees.
When it comes to this unsuccessful lawsuit, Krikorian “said in an email … that the group hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal,” AP continued, and the SPLC “stands by its listing of CIS as an anti-immigrant hate group,” as it should. “We will continue to call out their hate and bigotry whenever we see it,” interim president Karen Baynes-Dunning said.
ACLU ASKS FED JUDGE TO BLOCK ONGOING FAMILY SEPARATION AT BORDER. The American Civil Liberties Union was back in court (9/20) to again call on a federal judge to block the Trump administration from forcibly separating migrant families at the southern border, Gabe Ortiz noted at DailyKos (9/23>. ACLU attorneys said that more than 1,000 families have been ripped apart since Judge Dana Sabraw’s June 2018 court order, “for the most minor crimes” and for reasons as petty as a dirty diaper.
Sabraw’s 2018 order allowed a child to be removed from the parent if the parent posed a danger, but “imposed no standards or oversight over those decisions,” ProPublica reported last year, leaving those decisions in the hands of border agents with no child welfare expertise who themselves have a track record of child abuse. They, of course, have also abused Sabraw’s exemption.
“We’ve had instances of fathers separated from their children because the last time the father was in the US years ago, he got a ticket for driving with an expired license,” said Texas Civil Rights Project attorney Efrén Olivares. “He was arrested, and therefore now has a criminal conviction on his record, and that is the justification for the separation.” Officials have also separated families based on outright lies. In June, asylum-seeker Adolfo was reunited with his two kids after 184 days of separation, torn apart based solely on a lie that he was in a gang.
But in court (9/20), “Deputy Assistant Attorney General Scott Stewart pushed back on the notion that the government should have to follow a rigid policy on when to separate,” The San Diego Union-Tribune reported, “underscoring the complexity of the border and the need to make quick decisions on limited information.” But separating a family should never be a “quick decision,” and that decision certainly shouldn’t rest in the hands of border agents alone.
“We’re talking about permanent trauma to these children for no real reason,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. Reported Law 360, “Every child expert and doctor with whom Gelernt has spoken agrees that separation is ‘basically child abuse, you’re terrorizing these little children,’ he said.” During a House hearing last week, a career official with the US Department of Health and Human Services testified that family separation inflicted “extraordinarily severe” trauma on kids, and this trauma is ongoing.
So are the separations. “The judge took the entire matter under submission and will issue a ruling later,” The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote. But with separation and trauma at the hands of reckless border officials ongoing, a decision that favors children and their families can’t come soon enough. “What we have are parents losing children when they are perfectly capable and not a danger,” Gelernt said.
COLLEGE GRADS OWE $29,200 IN STUDENT DEBT, MORE THAN EVER. College graduates in 2018 are even deeper in debt than prior classes, signaling that the student loan crisis is swelling, CNBC reported (9/19).
Two in 3 college graduates in 2018 had borrowed for their education. The average graduate owed $29,200, up from $28,650 in 2017, according to a report by The Institute for College Access & Success.
“Colleges, states and the federal government all have an important role to play in reducing the burden of student debt to increase equity in college opportunity,” said Debbie Cochrane, executive vice president of the institute.
Outstanding education debt in the U.S. is projected to swell to $2 trillion by 2022, eclipsing credit card and auto debt. Nearly 30% of student loan borrowers are in delinquency or default.
Some states are harder hit than others. College graduates in Connecticut are $38,650 in the hole, for example, compared with $19,750 in Utah.
There are signs students are taking on other forms of debt to cover the soaring cost of attending college. (One year at a nonprofit, four-year private college, including tuition, room and board, currently costs $48,510, compared with $22,240 in the 2000-2001 academic year.)
About 17% of 2018 graduates hold private student loans, up from 14% in 2016. These loans can come with interest rates as high as 14%.
Meanwhile, the average student also carries more than $900 in credit card debt, according to research by Sallie Mae. More than 8% of people with credit cards between the ages of 18 and 29 are 90 days delinquent or more.
NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS ARE DOWN 29%. North America’s skies have nearly 3 billion fewer wild birds than in 1970, a comprehensive study shows, AP reported, via Charles Pierce (9/19).
The bird population in the United States and Canada was probably around 10.1 billion nearly half a century ago and has fallen 29% to about 7.2 billion birds, according to a study in the journal Science (9/19).
“People need to pay attention to the birds around them because they are slowly disappearing,” said study lead author Kenneth Rosenberg, a Cornell University conservation scientist. “One of the scary things about the results is that it is happening right under our eyes. We might not even notice it until it’s too late.”
Every year University of Connecticut’s Margaret Rubega, the state ornithologist, gets calls from people noticing fewer birds. And this study, which she wasn’t part of, highlights an important problem, she said.
“If you came out of your house one morning and noticed that a third of all the houses in your neighborhood were empty, you’d rightly conclude that something threatening was going on,” Rubega said in an email. “3 billion of our neighbors, the ones who eat the bugs that destroy our food plants and carry diseases like equine encephalitis, are gone. I think we all ought to think that’s threatening.”
The experts place a great deal of the blame for the disappearance of wild birds on this continent on the destruction of various habitats. Also, on the unfortunate tendency of birds to fly into windows. And, of course, on cats.
Experts say habitat loss was the No. 1 reason for bird loss. A 2015 study said cats kill 2.6 billion birds each year in the United States and Canada, while window collisions kill another 624 million and cars another 214 million. [In case you’re wondering, wind turbines kill about 300,000 birds per year.]
People can do their part by keeping cats indoors, treating their home windows to reduce the likelihood that birds will crash into them, stopping pesticide and insecticide use at home and buying coffee grown on farms with forest-like habitat, said Sara Hallager, bird curator at the Smithsonian Institution.
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2019
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