Dispatches

TRUMP LAWSUIT TO BLOCK CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT READS LIKE HIS TWEETS.

Donald Trump and his companies filed a federal lawsuit (4/22) seeking to block a congressional subpoena for some of the president’s financial records, maintaining that House Democrats instead should be spending their time on passing legislation that the president likes.

The lawsuit — filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia by Trump and various Trump-owned companies — seeks “declaratory and injunctive relief” against a subpoena approved by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for Trump’s accounting records.

The filing has a familiar ring to anyone who has read Trump’s Twitter feed, Josh Israel noted at ThinkProgress (4/22). “The Democrat [sic] Party, with its newfound control of the US House of Representatives, has declared all-out political war against President Donald J. Trump. Subpoenas are their weapon of choice,” it begins.

Trump’s filing then asserts that Congress’ subpoenas are not legitimate, because House Democrats are focused on an agenda that is not what he would like:

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family. Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing asserts that Congress has the power only to legislate, and that investigations are legitimate “only insofar as they further some legislative purpose,” and that there is no legislation that could result from the subpoena.

In the 1990s, the Republican majority on the Senate Special Whitewater Committee used its subpoena power repeatedly in a massive investigation of a failed Arkansas land deal involving Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both parties have frequently done oversight of the executive branch, and used their subpoena power to do so.

George Yin, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, told ThinkProgress that it is rare for the judiciary to step in and block a congressional subpoena based on lack of a legitimate legislative purpose. “In 1880, the Court refused to enforce the Congressional subpoena because the investigation related — as the court interpreted it — to a purely private matter, the influence of a bankruptcy on a private company,” he said. “The Supreme Court looked at that and said, ‘We don’t see any legislative function, any new laws your thinking of creating that would be furthered, we can’t even imagine what you’d write.’ And because it was two private parties, there was no oversight function.”

But the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas for Trump’s accounting records were issued with a much different official rationale: “To determine whether he has undisclosed conflicts of interest that may impair his ability to make impartial policy decisions, to assess whether he is complying with the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution, and to review whether he has accurately reported his finances to the Office of Government Ethics and other federal entities.”

In a statement to ThinkProgress, Cummings wrote, “The President has a long history of trying to use baseless lawsuits to attack his adversaries, but there is simply no valid legal basis to interfere with this duly authorized subpoena from Congress. This complaint reads more like political talking points than a reasoned legal brief, and it contains a litany of inaccurate information. The White House is engaged in unprecedented stonewalling on all fronts, and they have refused to produce a single document or witness to the Oversight Committee during this entire year.”

Aaron Scherb, legislative affairs director for Common Cause, agreed. “I think, in fact, oversight is one of the key constitutional requirements of Congress,” he told ThinkProgress. “We’ve seen in previous congresses, a complete failure of oversight, failing to uphold constitutional responsibilities so it’s refreshing that the current House is fulfilling its constitutional duties. Never has there been in a president in his administration with so many financial conflicts of interest. ” He also noted there is a clear precedent for Congress examining past presidents’ financial ties.

House Democrats picked up 40 seats in the November midterm election and gained a majority, in part based on their promise to significantly expand congressional oversight of the Trump administration — and despite House Republicans warning that a change in party control would lead to oversight and subpoenas of Trump’s financial records. That argument did not convince the American voters in 2018, so now Trump will try his luck with the federal judiciary.

MODEST PROJECTIONS ABOUT NAFTA 2.0 ECONOMIC GAINS MAKES PASSAGE UNLIKELY. The US International Trade Commission (ITC) released a study on the potential economic impact of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that projects minuscule economic gains in real GDP of $68.2 billion, or 0.35%, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch reported (4/18).

The highest projected gains in wages, employment and output are all less than 0.5% – with most figures much lower. Undergirding a large share of those tiny gains is an assumption that locking in lengthy intellectual property monopolies and freezing environmental and consumer safeguards leads to economic gains and no downsides.

But Lori Wallach, Trade Watch executive director, said new monopoly protections for pharmaceutical companies that will keep drug prices high, and a failure to adopt stronger labor and environmental standards, will likely make it difficult to get Congress to approve the agreement.

The report projects that, over time, the agreement would add 175,800 jobs, which is less than one-fifth of what the US government has certified as lost to the original NAFTA. See Public Citizen’s detailed analysis of findings at TradeWatch.org.

The minuscule projected gains in this long-awaited official government assessment contradict Donald Trump’s grandiose claims that it will lead to “cash and jobs pouring into the US” and reinforces congressional Democrats’ views that absent more improvements, the revised deal won’t stop NAFTA’s ongoing damage.

“The ITC’s past trade-pact projections have been so entirely wrong — in direction, not just in scale — that today’s findings of minuscule gains would have limited effect on the debate had Trump not set such a high bar by overselling this as a new species of trade deal that would miraculously reverse NAFTA’s decades of damage,” said Wallach.

“This report does nothing to alter the reality that the prospects for a NAFTA 2.0 vote rely largely on whether the administration engages with congressional Democrats and then with Canada and Mexico to improve the text signed last year,” Wallach said.

That congressional Democrats, unions and others who have outright opposed past pacts seek improvements rather than the deal’s demise reveals there is a path to build broad support. But absent removal of new monopoly protections for pharmaceutical firms that lock in high drug prices and strengthened labor and environmental standards and enforcement, the deal is not likely to garner a majority in the US House of Representatives. Indeed, all four of the trade deals Congress enacted in the past decade required changes to their texts after the pacts were signed in order to pass the House.”

SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND WILL REACH ZERO IN 2035, TRUSTEES SAY. The Social Security Trustees announced (4/22) that they expect the Social Security trust fund to reach exhaustion in 2035, a year later than they predicted last year.

When Social Security was “reformed” in 1984, the fund was expected to last until 2050, but a recession in 1991 made things look worse. By the mid-’90s, the trustees were predicting trust fund exhaustion by 2030, Kevin Drum noted at MotherJones.com (4/22).

But then the dotcom boom was followed by the housing boom and predictions got rosier. But then came the Great Recession and predictions once again got gloomier. Finally, we split the difference during the long, modest expansion of the Obama years, Drum noted. That brings us to the present, and at this point it looks like the trust fund really will run out of money around 2033-35.

Social Security Works noted that the 2019 Trustees Report projects Social Security’s cumulative surplus to be $2.9 trillion. It shows that Social Security is fully funded until 2035, 93% funded for the next 25 years, 87% funded over the next 50 years, and 84% funded over the next 75 years.

Republicans have no plans to save Social Security, except for cutting benefits. Democrats have proposed to protect and expand Social Security benefits, in part by changing or eliminating the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax, which is $132,900 for 2019. Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has proposed to retain the tax break until income reaches $250,000, then resume taxing income over $250,000. He said that would allow Social Security to increase benefits and extend the program’s solvency for the next 60 years.

EARTH DAY FOUNDER THINKS WE’RE CLOSE TO POLITICAL BREAKTHROUGH ON CLIMATE. Denis Hayes, the principal national organizer of the first Earth Day, in April 1970, said (4/22) the upcoming 50th anniversary next year will be “the largest, most diverse action in human history.” The goal is to engage three billion people around the world with a focus on climate change.

Thanks to a resurgence in youth-led climate activism, Hayes told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that “2020 will be for climate what 1970 was for other environmental issues.”

The mobilization of young people demanding aggressive policies to address climate change has made Hayes especially optimistic that next year will be a watershed moment for the movement. From global school strikes led by Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg to the Green New Deal, led by the youth-based Sunrise Movement and 29-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), young people across the globe are making it clear they will not accept inaction, Joe Romm said at ThinkProgress (4/22).

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Hayes said that if he had one message to deliver to the young people today pushing for big change like the Green New Deal, it would be: “Don’t let anyone tell you what’s impossible.”

Back when Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) chose him to organize the first Earth Day, Hayes was only 25 years old, and most of the people working with him on the first Earth Day were even younger.

“Most social movements are powered by youth,” he told reporters.

So even though President Donald Trump has “taken a wrecking ball to international climate treaties,” denied well-established climate science, “appointed the two worst EPA administrators in history,” and “pledged to resuscitate the dead coal industry,” Hayes said, “I’m confident that the end is in sight.”

That’s because “America can turn on a dime” when people demand change. It happened with marriage equality, said Hayes, it happened when the world came together to save the ozone layer in the 1980s, after the discovery of the ozone hole — and it happened a half century ago.

The 20 million Americans who turned out in April 1970 for Earth Day “catapulted the environment from a second-tier issue to top-tier issue in politics,” Hayes explained. The result was that pro-pollution members of Congress were defeated that fall, and “powerful laws that had been unthinkable in 1969 became unstoppable by the end of 1970.”

Within five years of the first Earth Day, “America had passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act,” fuel economy standards for cars, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and several other laws. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established, and lead was banned in both paint and gasoline.

Today, Hayes noted, awareness and concern about climate change are at their highest level ever, particularly among young people. Indeed, a February survey revealed that concern about climate change among all voters — including conservative Republicans — had hit its highest level ever. The Green New Deal in particular has sparked a national conversation, and 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have embraced climate action as a top-tier issue.

That’s why Hayes said he is working to mobilize an “army of digital natives,” young people connected online as part of the Vote Earth global initiative. The goals are to register one million young and new voters around the world, and to educate and activate all voters to favor climate candidates in key elections around the world, including the US presidential election.

WARREN STUDENT DEBT CANCELLATION PLAN HELPS MOST VULNERABLE. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) announced a new plan to provide complete student loan debt relief to 42 million Americans. Her proposal is geared toward supporting the most vulnerable Americans, in particular non-white families who have less access to higher education, Zack Ford reported at ThinkProgress (4/22)..

Under Warren’s plan, everyone making $100,000 or less would receive $50,000 in student loan forgiveness. Those earning more would receive progressively less forgiveness, up to $250,000 in income, with no forgiveness for people earning more than that.

Warren’s campaign said the plan would erase all student debt for more than 75% of Americans still paying off loans.

After relieving a generation of debt, Warren’s plan would also introduce universal, free higher education by providing the opportunity for all Americans to attend a two-year or four-year public college without having to take on any debt to cover costs.

As Warren laid out in a Medium post, her plan specifically targets inequities that disproportionately affect black and Latino families, and offered solutions to rectify these inequities. For example, nearly half of all for-profit college undergraduates are students of color, and almost all of them took out loans. Most of those who did not complete their program defaulted on those loans. As such, she would phase out any federal dollars going to for-profit colleges “so they can no longer use taxpayer dollars to enrich themselves while targeting lower-income students, servicemembers, and students of color and leaving them saddled with debt.”

Warren also noted that black students were more likely to need federal student loans and more likely to owe more on those loans after 12 years. Her plan also creates a $50 billion fund to support historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) so that they can provide affordable educations comparable to other schools in their area. States that show improvement in enrollment and graduation rates for lower-income students and students of color would also receive increased federal funding.

The plan would be paid for by Warren’s proposed Ultra-Millionaire Tax on the country’s 75,000 families with fortunes of $50 million or more. While Warren has previously proposed this tax in her capacity as a senator, her debt relief proposal remains a campaign promise.

TRUMP UNPOPULARITY SPREADS TO BATTLEGROUND STATES. FiveThirtyEight’s average of five leading polls taken in the first few days after the release of the redacted version of Robert Mueller’s report to Congress showed Trump’s popularity relatively unchanged, at 41.2% approval and 53.8% disapproval for all respondents (4/22).

Among likely or registered voters, Trump had 42.1% approval and 53.2% disapproval.

Since his inauguration, Trump’s approval ratings have plunged among the three key battleground states that furnished Trump his margin of victory in 2016 and were surveyed by Morning Consult. As of 3/1, Trump’s net approval rating in Michigan has dropped 19 points since his inauguration, to 42% approval and 53% disapproval. In Wisconsin, Trump’s net approval has dropped 18 points, to 42% positive and 54% disapproval. In Pennsylvania, his net approval has dropped 17 points, to 45% approval and 52% disapproval.

Other potential swing states include Ohio, where Trump’s net approval has dropped 20 points, to 45% approval and 51% disapproval, and Florida, where Trump’s net approval has dropped 24 points, to 47% approval and 49% disapproval. His ratings have plunged 16 points in Texas, but he still hangs onto a 4-point net positive in the Lone Star State, with 50% approval and 46% disapproval.

Trump has never had a national approval rating average higher than 47.8% among the FiveThirtyEight poll compilation, in his inauguration week. He’ll need those Russian millions if he has to run ads in Lubbock next year.

TRUMP & PENCE TWEETED ABOUT NOTRE DAME FIRE BUT IGNORED 3 BLACK CHURCHES BURNED IN LOUISIANA. The fire that devastated France’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral (4/16) drew expressions of sorrow and sympathy from around the world, including from US lawmakers, Eugene Scott noted at the Washington Post (4/16). “The edifice has stood, in some capacity, for eight centuries and is one of the most-visited houses of worship in the world,” he wrote.

President Trump tweeted about the fire twice: “So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris,” he tweeted (4/15). Later, “God bless the people of France!”

Vice President Pence also shared his thoughts and prayers. He tweeted that “it is heartbreaking to see a house of God in flames.”

But neither man had responded to the recent fires that destroyed three predominantly African American churches in Louisiana, Scott noted.

After the publication of Scott’s piece, Alyssa Farah, a spokeswoman for Pence, reached out to the Fix with a statement from the vice president.

“When tragedy strikes in places of worship, people of all faiths unite. Our hearts go out to the members of the congregations of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, St. Mary’s Baptist Church, and Greater Union Baptist Church who were victims of arson. No one should be in fear in a house of worship. Justice must be carried out on the perpetrator,” the statement said.

On April 16, state authorities charged Holden Matthews, a 21-year-old white man and the son of a local sheriff’s deputy, with hate crimes in the Louisiana church attacks, which occurred in late March and early April. He was earlier charged with arson. Holden has pleaded not guilty.

Of course, the churches in Louisiana are significantly younger than Notre Dame. But they also have a rich history and played a significant role in St. Landry Parish’s black community. At least one hosts a cemetery containing graves of black people enslaved in Louisiana.

“My church has a lot of history,” the Rev. Gerald Toussaint of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, which is more than 140 years old, told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. “I don’t understand it. What could make a person do that to a church?”

Greater Union Baptist Church is also more than 100 years old, according to Pastor Harry Richard, whose grandfather was one of the congregation’s founders.

In the wake of the Notre Dame fire, veteran journalist Soledad O’Brien tweeted about this. “So far no zillionaires have stepped forward to offer to bail them out,” she wrote, a reference to French billionaires pledging hundreds of millions of euros toward Notre Dame’s restoration.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton made an appeal on behalf of the Louisiana churches (4/16). “As we hold Paris in our thoughts today, let’s also send some love to our neighbors in Louisiana. Three historically black churches have burned in recent weeks, charring buildings and scattering communities. If you can, contribute to rebuilding funds here.

A week later, the Louisiana churches’ GoFundMe campaign had brought in $2.15 million, exceeding its original $1.8 million goal. The day the Notre Dame fire broke out, it was around $300,000.

“I guess in conjunction, they decided not to leave us out. It feels awesome,” Freddie Jack, president of the Seventh District Baptist Association, told MarketWatch.

The three Louisiana church buildings are beyond repair, each with insurance policies less than $500,000 that cannot cover the rebuilding costs, Jack said.

GLOBAL ECONOMY COULD SAVE $160 TRILLION BY SHIFTING TO RENEWABLES, ELECTRIC CARS. Imagine a world where 85% of all electricity comes from renewable sources, there are over one billion electric vehicles on the road, and we are on track to preserve a livable climate for our children and future generations.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reported this week that such a future is not merely possible by 2050, but thanks to plummeting prices in key clean energy technologies, the cost of saving the climate has dropped dramatically, Joe Romm reported at ThinkProgress (4/11).

In fact, according to IRENA’s new report, the most cost-effective strategy to achieve a “climate-safe future” — keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — is an accelerated energy transition to renewables and energy efficiency coupled with electrification of key sectors like transportation.

This Renewable Energy Roadmap (REmap) scenario “would also save the global economy up to USD 160 trillion cumulatively over the next 30 years in avoided health costs, energy subsidies and climate damages.”

At the same time, IRENA reports, “every dollar spent on energy transition would pay off up to seven times.”

IRENA’s reference case scenario, which incorporates current commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, foresees flat energy-related CO2 emissions for the next three decades.

But those emissions must be reduced by 70% to have a good chance of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The REmap scenario achieves more than 90% of the necessary reductions through renewable energy and energy efficiency.

The centerpiece of this strategy is taking advantage of the plummeting cost of renewable energy — especially wind and solar power — to transform the electricity sector. As the IRENA report notes, “in the Power sector, solar and wind energy are on the path to dominance.”

SEN. RICHARD BURR LEAKED TRUMP-LINKED TARGETS OF FBI PROBE TO WHITE HOUSE. Buried in the Mueller report was evidence that the Trump White House received highly sensitive information from Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the US targets of the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which Burr had received during a confidential briefing by James Comey, “Hunter” noted at DailyKos (4/18).

“On March 9, 2017, Comey briefed the “Gang of Eight” congressional leaders about the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference, including an identification of the principal U.S. subjects of the investigation. Although it is unclear whether the President knew of that briefing at the time, notes taken by Annie Donaldson, then McGahn’s chief of staff, on March 12, 2017, state, “POTUS in panic/chaos ... Need binders to put in front of POTUS. (1) All things related to Russia.” The week after Comey’s briefing, the White House Counsel’s Office was in contact with SSCI Chairman Senator Richard Burr about the Russia investigations and appears to have received information about the status of the FBI investigation.”

In a footnote, the report says that the “White House Counsel’s Office was briefed by Senator Burr on the existence of ‘4-5 targets.’” From notes taken by Donaldson, those targets were Flynn (“DOJ looking for phone records”), Comey, Manafort, Carter Page, and “‘Greek Guy’ (potentially referring to George Papadopoulos, later charged with violating 18 USC 1000 for lying to the FBI).”

Those were indeed the five Trump campaign and administration targets whose actions would become a cornerstone into the investigation into collusion between Russian government efforts to undermine the US election and potential Trump campaign connections to those acts.

That seems to be a shocking new development: Only months after Trump’s inauguration, Sen. Burr used his position as Gang of Eight member to inform the Trump White House of just which members of Trump’s own inner circle were the identified “targets” of the FBI’s Russia investigation—just as that criminal and counterintelligence investigation was getting off the ground.

Then, Burr’s first statement on the release of the redacted Mueller report praises Barr for redacting “material that would compromise intelligence sources and methods” and “ongoing DOJ prosecutions,” which Hunter said was “Amazing.”

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2019

Populist.com