Dispatches

REP. JAMIE RASKIN BLOWS UP REPUBLICAN LIES ABOUT ALLEGED BIDEN CORRUPTION. As House Republicans gear up to impeach President Joe Biden, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has released a thorough statement debunking the supposed basis for an impeachment, Laura Clawson noted at Daily Kos (9/11).

“House Republicans constantly insist that they are investigating President Biden, and not his adult son,” Raskin said in the statement. He continued:

“In that case, we can form an obvious judgment on their investigation: it has been a complete and total bust—an epic flop in the history of congressional investigations. The voluminous evidence they have gathered, including thousands of pages of bank records and suspicious activity reports and hours of testimony from witnesses, overwhelmingly demonstrates no wrongdoing by President Biden and further debunks Republicans’ conspiracy theories.”

Fear not: Raskin has the receipts. Among the 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records, more than 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, and multiple witnesses interviewed, including two former business associates of Hunter Biden, Republicans have found:

• No bank records showing payments to the president.

• No suspicious activity reports alleging potential misconduct by the president or involvement in his son’s business dealings.

• No witnesses testifying to misconduct by the president.

But none of that has stopped Republicans like House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer from claiming that the opposite is true. “We’ve got a President of the United States who’s taken millions and millions of dollars from bad people and bad countries around the world,” Comer has claimed, according to Raskin’s statement, but Comer has no actual evidence of that.

In fact, as Raskin shows, lots of Republicans know Comer hasn’t found anything meaningful. Here are just a few examples:

• Breitbart editor Emma Jo-Morris criticized Chairman Comer for promoting bribery allegations against President Biden even though he has “not shown [proof] to the public,” while Steve Bannon also lambasted Chairman Comer for failing to provide evidence to support his bribery allegations, saying of Chairman Comer, “You’re not serious. It’s all performative.” ...

• Rep. Don Bacon acknowledged that Republicans have failed to prove any wrongdoing by President Biden, “If you wanna get any progress in the Senate, you’re gonna have to show not potential wrongdoing, but wrongdoing. I don’t think we’re there yet.” Rep. Bacon also said that he thinks “we need to have more concrete evidence to go down” the impeachment inquiry path.

• Sen. Ron Johnson conceded that Republicans have not found any “direct evidence” or “hard proof” of wrongdoing by President Biden. ...

• Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said, “I don’t know what the basis of this call for impeachment is. It just sounds like a lot of noise to me.” Sen. Capito also responded “I do not” when asked if she thinks there is evidence to support an impeachment.

• Sen. Mitt Romney acknowledged, “I haven’t seen any evidence” that meets the “constitutional test for impeachment.” ...

• An anonymous GOP lawmaker offered the following assessment to CNN: “There’s no evidence that Joe Biden got money, or that Joe Biden, you know, agreed to do something so that Hunter could get money. There’s just no evidence of that. And they can’t impeach without that evidence. And I don’t I don’t think the evidence exists.”

It goes on. Those are six of the 19 bullet points Raskin assembles to show that even many prominent Republicans don’t think Comer has assembled enough evidence to impeach Biden.

“This is a challenge for the media (or the non-right-wing media, anyway): Report on House Republican claims with the truth first and foremost, and make clear the fact that their lies are lies from the start. So far, it’s not doing so hot. When House Republicans move forward with impeachment, the traditional media is going to need to raise its game,” Clawson concluded.

CAN SENATE REPUBLICANS STOP HOUSE EXTREMISTS FROM HELPING PUTIN? There’s a widening rift between Republicans in the House and Senate, and continued support for Ukraine is right in the middle of it. Or, looked at another way, the pro-Putin bloc of House extremists is determined to end aid to Ukraine and even shut down the government to do so, even if it means endangering the House Republican majority and the prospects for a GOP majority in the Senate, Joan McCarter noted at Daily Kos (9/7).

Back in July, 70 House Republicans went on record as opposing any more aid to Ukraine, voting for an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act introduced by Republican chaos agent Rep. Matt Gaetz. That amendment was soundly defeated by the majority of Republicans and all Democrats. So it was kind of a freebie and an opportunity to posture for those opposing Republicans: They knew it wouldn’t pass. But that also means that the Freedom Caucus extremists are going to keep pushing for Putin. They’ve declared that defunding Ukraine is just one of their outlandish demands in exchange for allowing us to have a functioning federal government. That demand comes with a blatant threat to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The unspoken message is: Give in to us or we’ll force a vote on your speakership.

For his part, McCarthy has predictably been all over the map on Ukraine, telling whoever he’s talking to what they want to hear. He ran for the speaker job on the premise that he would cut off Ukraine funding. When he was in Israel this spring, he insisted, “I support aid for Ukraine,” and added, “We will continue to support—because the rest of the world sees it just as it is.” At the same time, he keeps repeating there will be “no blank check” for Ukraine.

Lining up against McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has laid down his own marker: Ukraine aid, and opposition to Russia, must continue. He’s got the majority of Republicans with him, but there are still obstacles he has to navigate as well.

With just 23 days to pass funding legislation before the expiration of the fiscal year, the only way to get it done is to buy time in the form of a continuing resolution, a stop-gap bill that extends the current funding for the weeks or months it takes Congress to pass all of the appropriations bills for 2024. That’s a must-pass bill for the majority of both House and Senate members—Democrats and Republicans alike.

The solution is to combine the supplemental aid to Ukraine that President Joe Biden has asked for with the continuing resolution, and to add something plenty of Republicans want and need for their districts to the mix: disaster relief. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing its own emergency—it’s nearly out of money and the natural disasters keep coming. To add some more sweetener for Republicans, the administration added border security funding to the $40 billion supplemental funding request.

As of now, Senate Republicans are cheering for the $16 billion in disaster relief Biden wants. But they are also making noises about how it should not be tied to anything else as they try to score political points against Biden. Case in point: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R).

“President Biden is holding Floridians, and other Americans, hostage by tying critical domestic disaster relief to foreign military aid,” Rubio said. His fellow Floridian, Sen. Rick Scott, chimed in, “There’s no logic behind tying disaster aid to anything else, and doing so only causes inexcusable delays that hurt Floridians and every other American who may face a disaster.”

As sitting senators, both of them know very well why foreign aid and domestic disaster relief have to be tied together. They know how much time it takes to get anything done in the Senate, and thus the necessity of lumping all the important stuff together to meet a crucial deadline. They also know very well that McCarthy is predisposed to give in to the nihilistic bomb throwers who seemingly want to help Putin in every way they can, including defunding Ukraine and destabilizing the US with a catastrophic shutdown.

Even Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican and Donald Trump sycophant, sees that. “No problem at home gets better if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wins,” he told The Washington Post. “We have needs for our own military. We have needs for states that suffer disasters. And I think it’s prudent to continue to support Ukraine,” he added. When push comes to shove, that’s likely where the majority of Senate Republicans will end up landing.

BIDEN’S SIGNATURE ECONOMIC POLICY IS PAYING OFF. It’s been a year since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, and there are already a lot of wins to celebrate, Laura Clawson noted at Daily Kos (8/29).

The Biden administration announced the first 10 drugs for Medicare price negotiations. They treat many conditions common in seniors, including diabetes, heart conditions, strokes, kidney disease, and arthritis, and the plan is that more medications will join the price negotiation list in the coming years—if pharmaceutical industry lawsuits and Republican judges don’t block it. If Medicare does start negotiating drug prices, the government is expected to save $98.5 billion over a decade, with price reductions trickling down to insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for some individuals.

Medicare would not be moving toward negotiating drug prices if Democrats had not passed the IRA. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. They’re using control of the House to try to repeal parts of it, but a KFF poll found more than 80% support for Medicare negotiating drug prices, a cap on insulin prices, and a limit on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for people on Medicare. That included strong majority Republican support.

Drug costs aren’t the only provision of the IRA that benefits Americans. On the anniversary of the law’s signing, CNN reported on a Treasury Department analysis finding that clean energy investments are being made in counties that particularly need economic help. IRA offered incentives for private investments in clean energy manufacturing, which has led to more than $110 billion in such investments. According to the Treasury Department, more than 90% of the investments announced so far are in counties with below-average weekly wages, more than 80% are in counties with college graduation rates below the national average, and around 65% are in counties with above-average poverty and child poverty rates.

These are places that need the help—and though many of them are deep red, they are getting it thanks to a law passed by Democrats over unified Republican opposition. For instance, CNN reported, Mingo County, West Virginia, is going to be the site of the nation’s largest clean ammonia production facility, which will be built by Adams Fork Energy and CNX Resources. That will bring 2,000 construction jobs to a county with a more than 30% poverty rate and a civilian labor force participation rate of 36.8%, in contrast with a national rate of over 60%.

In other benefits of the IRA, hold times were way down at the Internal Revenue Service this tax season.

We’re already seeing Republicans claiming credit for projects made possible by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which most of them opposed. Now that the IRA, which they are actively trying to undo, is having these effects, they’re going to have to decide if they can stomach bragging about jobs that come from clean energy. Make no mistake, though: Democrats did this. They passed a law that’s going to lower Medicare drug costs and create more than 1.5 million jobs in clean energy over the next decade. Republicans didn’t want that. Now we just need to make sure voters know that when they’re deciding between a Democrat and a Republican, the choice is between Medicare drug price negotiation and investment in local economies, or the opposite.

WHY REPUBLICANS WANT TO DEFUND IRS. Here’s all you need to know about Republicans and back taxes: If Hunter Biden is behind on his taxes, it’s the worst crime in the world and worthy of a congressional probe spanning three House committees. If anyone else is dodging their taxes, that’s just smart, Mark Sumner noted at Daily Kos (9/11).

Getting millionaires and billionaires to actually pony up what they owe requires the IRS to wade through pages of documentation created by the best tax-dodging attorneys on Earth. This requires funding, so the Inflation Reduction Act added nearly $80 billion to IRS budgets over the next decade specifically so they could focus more attention on those who are taking home over $400,000. Republicans have done their best to raise the hysteria level, with Sen. Chuck Grassley going on Fox News to say, “Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person in Iowa with these?”

Now we know why Republicans were really so frightened. On Sept. 8, the IRS announced a “sweeping effort” to improve tax fairness. And that effort starts with going after the wealthiest tax-dodgers in the nation.

The IRS is prioritizing what it calls “cases in the High Wealth, High Balance Due Taxpayer Field.” These are taxpayers with incomes over $1 million who owe more than $250,000 in back taxes. The IRS estimates that there are about 1,600 individuals in this category.

There are other categories of taxpayers who will also be coming in for scrutiny:

• Construction contractors who pay multiple subcontractors.

• High-income earners who use foreign bank accounts.

• Large transactions using digital currency.

Notice that none of these looks like the average taxpayer, or like that “small business person” who Grassley thinks they’ll be coming after with AK-15s. It’s also worth noting that these new funds are paying for accountants, who rarely do their math using semi-automatic rifles.

There’s a good reason that the IRS is checking up on these groups: Because they cheat. A lot.

The IRS says they’ve found a lot of contractors creating shell companies so they can pretend to be paying subcontractors while secretly funneling the money back to themselves. Those people with overseas bank accounts have a real habit of hiding income. And previous audits of those who depend heavily on digital transactions have found a potential 75% noncompliance rate.

So the IRS is coming after rich people who are known to be behind in their taxes, and groups who are going out of their way with shell companies, foreign accounts, and digital currency to hide their real income. All of which sounds … pretty darn reasonable.

And it certainly raises a question: Why are Republicans so anxious to stop these audits?

RED STATE PROFS ARE EYEING THE EXITS. The increasingly assertive involvement of Republican lawmakers in affairs of higher education has spurred concerns about “brain drain” — talented scholars choosing to leave their states or not considering employment there. Now, new statistics from a survey of faculty members in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas back up those fears: Two-thirds of respondents said they wouldn’t recommend academic work in their state to colleagues. About a third said they were actively considering employment in another state, while 20% have interviewed elsewhere since 2021, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported (9/7).

The survey was sponsored by state conferences of the American Association of University Professors in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas, along with the United Faculty of Florida and the Texas Faculty Association unions. The results, those organizations say, are proof of widespread dissatisfaction with political incursions into diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and tenure, among other areas. About 80% of respondents described their state’s political atmosphere surrounding academe as poor or very poor, and roughly 60% said their institution’s administration had not adequately defended academic freedom and tenure in the past two years.

More than 4,200 faculty members across the four states filled out the survey, the results of which were released Sept. 7. Salary and the local political climate were the top reasons cited for seeking another job, with concerns about academic freedom, tenure, and DEI work also topping the list. About 30% of respondents said they worried about shared governance, LGBTQ+ issues, and reproductive-health and abortion access.

Recent legislative action in Texas and Florida informed those responses, the survey’s organizers told reporters. In Texas, a bill banning public colleges from having DEI offices or staff and from requiring diversity statements and diversity training, among other measures, takes effect on Jan. 1, 2024. That bill was signed into law in June by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) along with a second measure that empowers governing boards to adopt policies allowing tenured faculty members to be fired for reasons like “professional incompetence” or “conduct involving moral turpitude” and took effect on Sept. 1. In recent months, two high-profile controversies have roiled the Texas A&M University system — the botched hiring of a prominent Black journalist and the suspension of a faculty member accused of making disparaging comments about Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R).

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation prohibiting public institutions from spending money on DEI programming and from offering general-education courses that “distort significant historical events,” teach “identity politics,” or are “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.” DeSantis also appointed six new trustees to the Board of Trustees at New College of Florida; the board’s subsequent firing of the president and chief diversity officer and efforts to dismantle New College’s gender-studies program have drawn widespread criticism.

WALL STREET DONORS REPORTEDLY PUSHING BIDEN TO FIRE FTC HEAD. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s efforts to challenge corporate consolidation across the U.S. economy—from gaming to pharmaceuticals to semiconductors—have drawn vocal outrage from industry-backed Republican lawmakers and other mouthpieces for big business, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (9/11).

And now, according to the Financial Times, some of the Democratic Party’s Wall Street donors are privately calling on President Joe Biden to fire Khan if he wins reelection in 2024.

“Anybody talking to dealmakers over the past year or so will have noticed that barely anyone has been capable of hiding their loathing for Khan,” wrote FT’s James Fontanella-Khan. “In private, financiers accuse her of being anti-American and against business. Several Wall Street donors to the Democratic Party are using their position of influence to quietly lobby Biden to drop Khan if he gets reelected, according to people briefed on the matter. That’s how badly they want her out of the FTC.”

Wall Street spent over $74 million in support of Biden in 2020 and industry executives—at the urging of the president’s team—have hosted fundraisers this year for his reelection campaign.

Under Khan’s leadership, the FTC has taken legal action against several prominent merger proposals—including Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, a case the agency paused after recent court defeats. The FTC has also helped rewrite pro-consolidation merger guidelines that were established during the Reagan era, launched a probe into Big Tech’s cloud computing businesses, and proposed a ban on exploitative non-compete agreements.

Additionally, as soon as this month, the FTC is expected to file a major antitrust lawsuit against the online retail behemoth Amazon, which Khan has long argued is a monopoly.

The Khan-led FTC’s proactive approach to taking on entrenched power that has worsened inequality and harmed workers has predictably angered corporate America and its GOP allies in Congress, who used a recent hearing to attack Khan as a “bully.”

Some of the Republican Party’s most outspoken critics of Khan are funded by Big Tech.

The Wall Street Journal’s right-wing editorial board has also taken on a major role in fueling the outrage, running dozens of pieces this year attacking Khan’s work.

FT’s James Fontanella-Khan argued that the widespread “animus” toward Khan in corporate America “might indicate she is having an impact despite the setbacks.”

“Khan has an egalitarian vision of competition law that seeks to improve the well-being of citizens beyond their roles as consumers,” he added. “The Amazon case will be a big test.”

ROLLING MEDICAID PURGE CALLED ‘LARGEST CONCENTRATION OF HEALTH INSURANCE LOSS’ IN US HISTORY. States across the US have stripped nearly 6 million people of Medicaid coverage over just the past several months, creating what one healthcare activist and researcher described as “the largest concentration of health insurance loss in American history.”

“This is happening in red states like Texas, Utah, or Idaho, where we expect this brutal Medicaid retrenchment,” Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-author of “Health Communism” and co-host of the popular “Death Panel” podcast, said in a statement, Jake Johnson reported at CommonDreams (9/8).

“But there are huge amounts of procedural disenrollments happening … in Rhode Island and California and New Mexico,” noted Adler-Bolton. “This is a year-long process, and it’s just getting started. It’s moving slowly, and it’s more dangerous this way. This process is rolling, so the data is slow. We’re not going to have a full picture of how to compare states against each other for months and months.”

The latest data compiled by KFF—which includes publicly reported figures from 48 states and Washington, D.C.—shows that at least 5.7 million people have lost Medicaid coverage since April, when states began eligibility checks and disenrollments that were paused during the coronavirus pandemic.

A bipartisan deal reached by Congress and approved by President Joe Biden late last year lifted the pandemic-era continuous coverage requirements that prevented states from kicking people off Medicaid during the public health emergency. The policy led to record Medicaid enrollment, and its termination could cause upwards of 15 million people—including millions of children—to lose coverage under the program.

According to KFF, 73% of the people disenrolled from Medicaid so far have lost coverage for procedural reasons—such as a failure to return paperwork on time or jump through other, often confusing, bureaucratic hoops—not because they were deemed ineligible due to their income or other factors.

“High procedural disenrollment rates are concerning because many people who are disenrolled for these paperwork reasons may still be eligible for Medicaid coverage,” KFF explained earlier this week. “Some states, such as Maine, have temporarily paused procedural terminations for some enrollees while the states address problems in the renewal process that lead to increased procedural disenrollments.”

“Many of these individuals did not receive any notice of denial, leaving them unaware of their coverage termination.”

Texas has removed more people from Medicaid than any other state, disenrolling around 617,000 in just a few months.

Late last month, the state’s entire Democratic congressional delegation implored the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to intervene and ensure that Texas’ Republican-dominated government complies with federal rules to “prevent the catastrophic loss of coverage.”

The Democratic lawmakers, led by Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar, cited a July whistleblower letter that issued dire warnings about Texas’ Medicaid purge.

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2023

Populist.com