Dispatches

GRASSROOTS ORGANIZERS HELP PROGRESSIVES WIN.

After taking back the US House in November with an unprecedented number of women and people of color, grassroots organizations helped progressive candidates score important wins in Chicago’s municipal elections and in Wisconsin.

Six progressives­—Andre Vazquez, Jeanette Taylor, Matt Martin, Byron Sigcho, Daniel La Spata, and Maria Hadden—are joining the Chicago City Council, and a seventh—Rossana Rodriguez—is ahead by a razor-thin margin as absentee ballots are counted. The number of aldermen with left politics in the City Council has more than doubled as a result of this election, and as many as six of them (should Rodriguez win) are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. Will Tanzman, executive director of The People’s Lobby and Reclaim Chicago, wrote in TheNation.com (4/5).

Two of these newly elected aldermen—Daniel La Spata and Andre Vasquez—are leaders of the People’s Lobby and Reclaim Chicago, which was born out of a partnership between the People’s Lobby and National Nurses United to build a movement for racial, economic and environmental justice.

The People’s Lobby/Reclaim Chicago, ONE People’s Campaign and Jane Addams Seniors in Action have built people-powered electoral operations in wards across the city: they recruit candidates, train volunteers, and canvass voters at their doors, over text message, and on the phone, Mehrdad Azemun wrote at OurFuture.org (4/4).

Since January, ONE People’s Campaign racked up a stunning 16,433 door knocks and 500+ volunteer shifts in targeted wards. They helped fuel wins of Vasquez, the son of undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Matt Martin and they joined forces with Jane Addams Seniors in Action to help Marianne Lalonde, a 32-year-old scientist, push incumbent Alderman James Cappelman into an election that had to wait for late mailed-in ballots to be counted.

Rossana Rodriguez, supported by the People’s Lobby in the 33rd Ward, narrowly led incumbent Deb Mell, who was appointed in 2013 to fill the seat held by her father.

As of April 5, In the 46th Ward Cappleman was about 50 votes ahead of Lalond. In the 33rd Ward Alderman Deb Mell is trailing Rossana Rodriguez by about 20 votes. And in the 5th Ward, Leslie Hairston is fighting off a strong challenge from community activist William Calloway, who’s about 150 votes behind.

Should they win, Marianne and Rossana will enter a City Council that has already been remade by people’s organizations: they will join the already victorious Daniel LaSpata of the 1st Ward, who like Vasquez is the product of The People’s Lobby/Reclaim Chicago candidate pipeline, Maria Hadden of the 49th Ward, who was endorsed by all three Chicago-area People’s Action member groups, Jeanette Taylor of the 20th Ward, backed by The People’s Lobby volunteer power), incumbent Alderman Carlos Rosa, and other progressives.

And in Bloomington, Ill., Jenn Carillo, the daughter of immigrants from Mexico and a member of People’s Action national staff, beat a 20-year incumbent, and Jeff Crabill also won. Both were endorsed by ONE People’s Campaign, whose operations span from Chicago to downstate Illinois, Azemun noted.

Wisconsin is an essential battleground state: in November, the state elected a Democratic Governor, Tony Evers, throwing out GOP incumbent Scott Walker and reversing the trend that helped elect Donald Trump in 2016, Azemun noted. The state’s GOP-controlled legislature, however, sought to severely limit Evers’ powers before he took office, in measures that have since been ruled unlawful.

That’s why many are rightly alarmed by the prospect that right-wing Brian Hagedorn might be elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, where he could help annul these rulings and restore the GOP’s lame-duck legislation. Hagedorn leads the race by less than 0.5% over Lisa Neubauer, so a recount is expected.

Yet elsewhere in the state, candidates backed and trained by Citizen Action of Wisconsin scored substantial victories. After thousands of door-knocks, phone calls and text messages, seven of the group’s co-op members were elected to office, including the new mayor of Green Bay, Eric Genrich, who was a founding member of the Citizen Action Northeast Cooperative.

Other newly elected Citizen Action of Wisconsin members include Green Bay school board member Kristina Shelton, Eau Claire city council members Catherine Emmanuelle, Kate Beaton, and Laura Benjamin, Shorewood Village Trustee Tammy Brockhorst and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Danielle Shelton.

Also in Milwaukee, a slate of five pro-public education candidates endorsed by Citizen Action were all elected. The city’s school district has been ground zero for school privatization schemes, and nearly 30,000 students are enrolled in publicly subsidized private schools, which funnel funds away from public schools but are not held accountable to the same quality standards.

Now all eyes turn towards Philadelphia’s city elections on May, which promise more strong victories for the #PeoplesWave, Azemun wrote. “But we know each and every step towards taking back our democracy can never be taken for granted: they are thanks to the tireless efforts of the People’s Action.”

TRUMP TO REPUBLICAN JEWS: ISRAEL’S NETANYAHU IS ‘YOUR PRIME MINISTER.’ When US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in February complained about “political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” referring to pro-Israel groups, Republicans demanded that she be censured for anti-Semitism, and many Republicans refused to support a resolution that condemned all “hate speech,” including speech that targets Muslim. But when Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas (4/6), he repeatedly referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he has strongly supported, as “your prime minister.”

His phrasing sparked a critical response from the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee.

“Mr. President, the Prime Minister of Israel is the leader of his (or her) country, not ours. Statements to the contrary, from staunch friends or harsh critics, feed bigotry.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted: ”Mr. President, words matter. As with all elected officials, its critical for you to avoid language that leads people to believe Jews aren’t loyal Americans.”

Trump has closely allied with Netanyahu as he broke the UN deal to stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967. Trump also stopped payments of more than $200 million set aside to assist Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza and he has not raised any objections to Netanyahu’s proposal to annex communities of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank from Palestine if Netanyahu wins another term as Israeli’s leader.

Trump also mocked Rep. Omar in the speech, a day after a man proclaiming that he “loves the president” was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Omar.

“A special thanks to Rep. Omar of Minnesota,” Trump told the Republican Jewish Coalition. “Oh, I forgot,” he smirked as some audience members booed. “She doesn’t like Israel. I forgot. I’m so sorry. No she doesn’t like Israel, does she? Please, I apologize.”

Patrick Carlineo, 55, of upstate New York was arrested (4/5) after allegedly calling the Muslim congresswoman a “terrorist” and vowing to put a “bullet in her [expletive] skull” in a March phone call with a member of Omar’s Washington staff, according to a statement by the US attorney’s office for the Western District of New York.

When he was arrested Carlineo “stated that he was a patriot, he loves the president, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government,” according to the criminal complaint against him.

Trump slammed Omar as he boasted in his speech that the bond between the US and Israel “has never been stronger” and argued that Democrats “aren’t fighting for Israel in Congress.” Casino magnate and mega-Trump donor Sheldon Adelson wore a red yarmulke with the president’s name emblazoned on it.

TRUMP’S CRUELEST IMMIGRATION POLICIES MAY BE YET TO COME. Donald Trump’s most racist, anti-immigrant West Wing aide is in the midst of consolidating his power over immigration policy, and the nation should be bracing for the worst, Kerry Eleveld noted at DailyKos.com (4/8). From the initial roll-out of Trump’s fatally flawed first Muslim ban to forced family separation, Stephen Miller has championed nearly every one of Trump’s cruelest and most incompetently implemented immigration policies to date. But now, with a string of firings at the Department of Homeland Security leaving the agency’s hierarchy littered with “acting” titles, Miller, in all his incompetent glory, will be left to come up with the most draconian policies yet in pursuit of fulfilling Trump’s No. 1 campaign promise: reducing immigration.  

Miller’s aspirations for dominating Trump’s border policy reportedly didn’t stop with gettinh now-ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen fired. CNN reports that Miller is also eyeing director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Lee Cissna, and the department’s general counsel, John Mitnick. As it stands now, the following positions at Homeland Security are currently occupied by “acting” leaders:

• Deputy secretary
• ICE director
• FEMA director
• Secret Service director
• DHS inspector general
• Customs/Border Patrol director

Naturally, Trump likes it that way. “It’s easier to make moves when they’re ‘acting,’” Trump said in early February when he was asked about the dearth of Senate-confirmed appointees holding important positions in his administration. Translation: I like the chaos of being able to do any damn thing I want to do. And in the past couple weeks, Trump has wanted to take on health care (as if the GOP had a chance in hell of navigating that) and shut down the border (whatever the cost to average Americans and the economy).

GOP leaders and administration officials managed to talk him off of both ledges, leaving Trump casting about for a policy, a purpose, and a post-Mueller villain heading into his 2020 re-election campaign. Apparently, Nielsen bore the brunt of trying to explain to Trump that shutting down the border, refusing entry to asylum seekers, and implementing a new super-charged family separation policy were all bad ideas, not to mention illegal in some cases. Not that Nielsen is any saint after presiding over Trump’s original child kidnapping policy, but with her exit, Trump will be unleashed to pursue all of his worst instincts, fueled by Miller’s sadism.

TRUMP’S TAX SCAM STILL UNPOPULAR, WITH FEW SEEING PROMISED CUT. A week before Tax Day, the Republican tax scam is just as unpopular now as it was after it passed, because most people aren’t feeling the benefits Donald Trump and fellow Republicans insist they got, Joan McCarter noted at DailyKos.com (4/8).

Just 17% of people believe their taxes will go down, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found, compared to 28% who believe they’ll pay more, 27% who think they’ll pay about the same, and 28% who are unsure. While the Tax Policy Center says that eight in 10 Americans actually did receive a tax cut in 2018, the cuts were so small that most people didn’t notice them. The bottom 60% of households getting that cut actually saw a difference of less than $1,000 over last year, whereas the top 1% definitely felt it: They saved more than $51,000 on average.

The tax changes also resulted in much smaller refunds, or in people who are used to getting refunds finding out that they actually owe money this April. Of course, Republicans — 30% or more — are more likely to believe they are getting a tax cut than anyone else. Trump’s hardcore supporters are the most onboard — 36% say they have seen a tax cut.

One day after DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned from her post, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked one of her most sinister policies targeting asylum seekers, Rebekah Entralgo noted at ThinkProgress (4/8).

US District Judge Richard Seeborg issued a preliminary injunction against Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) — also known as “Remain in Mexico” — a policy that would force non-Mexican asylum seekers to live in Mexico while their immigration cases are pending in the US. The injunction was to go into effect April 12.

Seeborg concluded that the immigration law MPP hinges on does not apply to asylum seekers and, as ThinkProgress previously reported, lacks proper protection for vulnerable asylum seekers.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SAYS IT COULD TAKE 2 YEARS TO REUNITE MIGRANT FAMILIES. Thousands of families separated at the US southern border may have to wait as long as two years to be reunited, the Trump administration said in a court filing (4/5).

The filing comes nearly four months after government inspectors released a report revealing for the first time that the Trump administration had separated thousands more children from their families than previously estimated, Jason Links noted at ThinkProgress (4/7).

Armed with that report, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully convinced US District Judge Dana Sabraw of Southern California that these families should be included in a class action lawsuit the organization had filed against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. At the time, a lawyer for the Department of Justice warned that this would “blow the case into some other galaxy of a task.”

According to the court filing, the government plans to complete a statistical analysis of 47,000 case files involving children referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, to determine which children were likely to have been caught up in the Trump administration’s border separation policy. After that is completed, they will manually review the case files surfaced by the data analysis, a laborious and time-consuming process.

As CNN reported, Trump administration officials have identified a number of factors that will make the process of reunification an arduous and prolonged ordeal. These include the fact that the additional separated children had all been released from custody to live with sponsors, and that the US Customs and Border Protection agency “didn’t start tracking separated families as a searchable data set in its records before April 19, 2018.”

WHITE HOUSE BALKS AT COMPLYING WITH TAX LAW. Democrats finally demanded the Treasury Department to hand over copies of Donald Trump’s personal and business tax returns (4/3), but acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said they’d never get them.

The documents could reveal details about how he makes money and how much tax he pays — meaning they could expose conflicts of interest and possible tax dodging. His own former lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress in February that Trump has used fraud to avoid paying taxes over the years.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) asked for the documents under a federal law that gives the Ways and Means chairman the explicit power to ask for any American’s private tax information. The law has existed since the 1920s as a check on corruption in the executive branch of government.

Democrats expect Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to defy the law and fight them in court.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the top Republican on the committee, called Neal’s request an abuse of power, even though Republicans used the same law to obtain and disclose private tax information in 2014, when they were conducting oversight of the IRS.

A day after Mulvaney, on Fox News Sunday (4/7), vowed that congressional Democrats would “never” see the president’s tax returns, “Nor should they,” he added, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) acknowledged on Fox News (4/8) that, under the law, he and Neal have the right to see Trump’s tax returns. “As chairman of the finance committee we could have opportunity to see those too,” he told Fox & Friends, referring to Section 6301(f)(1) of the tax code, which explicitly gives chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, and the Joint Committee on Taxation the right to receive any American’s tax returns upon request, Josh Israel noted at ThinkProgress (4/8).

“If you need to write legislation, then maybe you need some information from people that are avoiding taxes or using tax loopholes, or maybe not finding a way to get out and you want to change the laws. That is the only reason you should be asking for tax returns,” Grassley said.

Trump boasted in one of the 2016 presidential debates that he avoided paying federal taxes at all in some years, claiming, “That makes me smart.” He subsequently signed a 2017 tax bill that likely further reduced the tax burden that he, his companies, and his family owe to the US Treasury. And he has vaguely proposed additional tax cuts that could also impact his own bottom line.

As a candidate, Trump initially promised to publicly release his tax returns, and he repeatedly said throughout his 2016 campaign that he was waiting to do so until after the completion of a “routine audit” by the IRS. Three years after those initial remarks, he repeated that claim — though no law prevents a person under audit from making their tax returns public.

“I’m under audit,” he said, speaking to reporters during a tour at the US-Mexico border (4/5). “When you’re under audit, you don’t do it. But I’m under audit. Other people are under audit, and nobody would do it when you are going through an audit. And I always go through audits.”

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HIGH CO2 LEVELS SIGNAL RECEDING COASTS. The last time carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were as high as they are today, sea levels were 60 feet higher and it was so warm that trees grew in Antarctica, Joe Romm wrote at ThinkProgress (4/6).

Current CO2 levels of 410 parts per million (ppm) were last seen on Earth three million years ago, according to the most detailed reconstruction of the Earth’s climate by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in Science Advances.

The in-depth analysis of plant fossils and sediments reveal that such CO2 levels were last seen in the late Pliocene Epoch, a time when there were no ice sheets covering either Greenland or West Antarctica, and much of the East Antarctic ice sheet was gone. Temperatures were up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer globally, at least double that at the poles, and sea levels were some 20 meters (65 feet) higher.

“This is an amazing discovery,” Jane Francis, director of the British Antarctic Survey, told the UK Guardian. “They found fossil leaves of southern beech. I call them the last forests of Antarctica.”

While the discovery is remarkable, it’s implications are dire. “Twenty metres of sea level rise would have a major impact on our all our coastal cities,” Francis warned.

The good news is the temperature rise will take several decades, and tens of feet of sea level rise will take hundreds of years. That means the choices we make now can affect the rate of rise and determine whether we blow past 65 feet of sea level rise to beyond 200 feet, Romm noted.

But the bad news is that each threshold of higher temperatures and sea levels is all but irreversible, so absent very aggressive action over the next decade, tens of feet of sea level rise will be unstoppable.

Even worse, the climate policy agenda President Trump is pushing — actions that include rolling back US laws that reduce carbon pollution and abandoning the Paris climate agreement — would lock us in to such high CO2 levels, and sea levels would rise a foot per decade in just a few decades.

AMERICANS BORROWED $88 BILLION FOR HEALTH CARE. Americans borrowed an estimated $88 billion over the last year to pay for health care, according to a survey by Gallup and the nonprofit West Health, the New York Times reported (4/2).

The survey also found that one in four Americans have skipped treatment because of the cost, and that nearly half fear bankruptcy in the event of a health emergency.

There was a partisan divide when respondents were asked whether they believed that the American health care system is among the best in the world: Among Republicans, 67% of respondents said they believed so; that number was 38% among Democrats.

But Democrats and Republicans had similar responses about putting off medical treatment. Asked if they had deferred treatment because of the cost, 27% of Democrats said they had, compared with 21% of Republicans and 30% of independents.

Respondents from across the political spectrum also reported pessimism about their leaders’ abilities to reduce health care costs. About 70% of respondents said they had no confidence in their elected officials to bring prices down. And 77% said they were concerned that rising health care costs would damage the American economy.

“Our data shows an American public that’s beaten down from this really serious issue,” said Dan Witters, a senior researcher at Gallup.

DHS REASSIGNS DOMESTIC TERROR ANALYSTS. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly reassigned intelligence analysts who were part of an agency unit focused on combating domestic terrorism.

The Daily Beast reported (4/2) that a team of analysts focused on homegrown extremists were reassigned to different teams within the Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) department.

DHS officials told the news outlet that the analysts would remain focused on domestic terrorism while working in different positions.

“I&A has invested heavily in interagency relationships to enhance analysis on Homeland threats, including domestic terrorism, where I&A lacks access to relevant case data and information held by other federal agencies,” David Glawe, head of Intelligence and Analysis, told the Daily Beast.

In a subsequent statement to The Hill, Glawe dismissed the notion that the change in assignments is a sign of decreased commitment to fighting homegrown terrorists.

“The idea presented by some that we have cut our commitment to defeating all forms of radical ideology — including white supremacist and domestic terrorist — is patently false and the exact opposite of what we have done,” Glawe said. “The Office of Intelligence and Analysis has significantly increased tactical intelligence reporting on domestic terrorists and homegrown violent extremists since 2016.”

But local law enforcement officials told the Daily Beast that communications from I&A have reduced in number over the past year as DHS appears to be shifting priorities away from dealing with domestic terror threats.

“It’s changed with the new administration. It doesn’t seem to be as robust, as active, as important — it is important, I’m sure, but it’s not a priority,” Sgt. Mike Abdeen of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told the news outlet. “It doesn’t seem like engagement, outreach, and prevention are seen as a priority as we used to see in the past. There were roundtable meetings in the past, there was more activity, more training, more seminars. Now it seems like it’s gone away.”

TRUMP LABELING IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARD ‘TERRORIST’ COULD IMPERIL US FORCES. The White House announced (4/8) that the US would designate a branch of Iran’s armed forces as a foreign terrorist organization, a move experts say could pave the way for military conflict with Iran.

At a press conference announcing the decision Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the designation was “a direct response to an outlaw regime and should surprise no one.” Pompeo cited numerous cases of the IRGC’s involvement in terrorism, including its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment building in Saudi Arabia, and the 2011 attempt to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The designation puts the IRGC on par with such terrorist groups as Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Iran responded in kind, announcing Monday that it “has labeled American military forces as terrorist organization,” according to Iranian state-run TV.

The White House’s decision to label the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization creates an extraterritorial criminal liability for individuals who provide material support to the group.

“It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism,” the White House statement said.

This could have wide-reaching consequences, as the IRGC owns hundreds of private companies. As the New Yorker reported in 2017, even the Trump Organization had indirect business ties with the IRGC when it helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan — and knew of those ties while Trump was running for president.

The goal, oft-repeated by Pompeo, is to get Iran to behave like a “normal” country. But the designation hampers Iran’s attempts to reach this “normalcy” by US standards, by curbing Iran’s own attempts to rein in the force.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has, over the years, tried to limit IRGC reach in Iran domestically, an effort for which there is broad support inside the country.

“Now that the US is engaged in this pressure campaign, it makes it difficult for anyone domestically to take steps toward this goal because you’re now being seen as aligned with the US,” said Ariane M. Tabatabai, an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

Trump has defied his own intelligence agencies in branding the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. Officials at the Pentagon and the CIA have said the designation could empower hardline Iranian officials to take action against the US.

“The Pentagon and the CIA — the two agencies with the most skin in the game in the Middle East — have long warned of the risks in designating the IRGC a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” Cullis said.

“The Trump administration appears to have taken today’s action not in spite of those risks but rather precisely because of them – hoping to invite Iranian retaliation and foment a military conflict with Iran.”

Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, noted that Iraqi Shiite militias close to the IRGC are essentially the hosts and protectors of some 5,000 US troops who remain in Iraq.

Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called (4/6) for the Iraqi government to expel US troops from Iraq as soon as possible, lest they become entrenched. Iraqi PM Adel Abdul Mahdi is on a state visit to Iran. Iran is proposing dozens of joint projects, despite the US increasingly severe sanctions on Iran.

When ISIL took over 60% of Iraqi territory in 2014, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for Iraqis to mobilize against the terrorist organization. Many Shiites took this call to mean they should form militias, since the formal Iraqi army had collapsed.

The Shiite-led Iraqi government reached out to the IRGC for help with training and logistics, and the IRGC appears to have sent a small number of troops into Iraq.

The formal Iraqi military is still small and week, and the Shiite militias are increasingly powerful, having formed civilian political parties, and having done well in elections.

TRUMP HAS PASSED 9,451 FALSE/MISLEADING CLAIMS. Donald Trump had passed 9,451 false or misleading claims as of April Fool’s Day (4/1), his 801st day in office, the Washington Post Fact Checker reported. Only 200 days earlier, on his 601st day in office, Trump had exceeded 5,000 false or misleading claims. That’s a pace of 22 fishy claims a day over the past 200 days, a steep climb from the average of nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in Trump’s first year in office.

From The Progressive Populist, May 1, 2019

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