March, 15 2011, 01:43pm EDT
Reform Groups Call on President Obama to Move Quickly to Nominate Five New FEC Commissioners to Fix Rogue, Dysfunctional Campaign Finance Enforcement Agency
WASHINGTON
In a letter sent to President Barack Obama today, eight reform organizations expressed "our grave concern about the dysfunctional Federal Election Commission which is spectacularly failing to meet its statutory responsibilities to administer and enforce the nation's campaign finance laws."
The reform organizations included Americans for Campaign Reform, Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Democracy 21, League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.
According to the letter from reform groups:
As a result of its failures, the FEC itself has become a national campaign finance scandal.
Solving this scandal, in the first instance, rests in your hands and in the statutory power you have to appoint FEC Commissioners.
As a 2009 Washington Post editorial explained about the FEC:
The commission was designed to have power shared equally between the two parties, so that neither would have the upper hand in taking potentially politically inspired action against the other. This unusual setup has often produced 3-3 splits between Republican and Democratic appointees. But those deadlocks have tended to arise sporadically, and in ideologically or politically charged cases, not in run-of-the-mill enforcement actions.
That's no longer true. The three Republican appointees are turning the commission into The Little Agency That Wouldn't: wouldn't launch investigations, wouldn't bring cases, wouldn't even accept settlements that the staff had already negotiated. This is not a matter of partisan politics. These commissioners simply appear not to believe in the law they have been entrusted with enforcing.
The FEC problems described in the Washington Post editorial in 2009 remain true today.
The reform groups' letter continued:
As of April 30, 2011, the terms of five of the six current FEC Commissioners will have expired and you will be in a position to nominate five new Commissioners for the agency. By statute, none of the five current Commissioners whose terms will have expired are eligible to be reappointed.
Our organizations urge you to expeditiously exercise your powers to nominate five new Commissioners to serve on the FEC and to give the Commission a new start. We also call on you to discard the past practice of allowing party leaders in Congress, in essence, to name the FEC Commissioners, the result of which all too often has been Commissioners who either serve partisan interests or are ideologically opposed to the laws.
We also request that you begin steps now to help ensure that five new Commissioners are in place as rapidly as possible, rather than allowing the current Commission to remain in place a day longer than is necessary.
The letter pointed out the unique aspects of the FEC scandal, stating:
Over the years, there have been serious failings at the FEC caused by both Democratic and Republican Commissioners.
However, nothing in the past history of the agency compares with the current situation in which three FEC Commissioners, Don McGahn, Matthew Petersen and Caroline Hunter, who are ideologically opposed to the campaign finance laws, have paralyzed the agency by consistently blocking enforcement of the laws and repeatedly misinterpreting the laws.
The actions of these Commissioners have turned the FEC into a rogue, non-functioning enforcement agency.
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial last week aptly captured the current situation at the FEC in stating that there is "no doubt that the FEC is completely useless as a watchdog agency."
The letter continued:
Given the fact that the votes of three of the six FEC Commissioners can block any action by the agency, the regulated community has been given a blanket license to ignore the campaign finance laws. Everyone knows that as long as these three Commissioners remain on the FEC, the campaign finance laws can be violated at will and they will block enforcement actions.
This is a travesty for the American people who reasonably expect that laws that protect against government corruption will be vigorously enforced. It also is an outrageous abuse of office and an abdication of responsibility by the three Commissioners.
As an editorial in The New York Times last week stated:
The message to candidates entering the new era of unlimited big-money campaigning is clear. So long as the Republican members of the F.E.C. get their way, nobody's minding the store and anything goes. .
With 2012 in sight, more, not less, reform is urgently needed. Five of the six F.E.C. seats come up for replacement next month. The Senate's preference will be to confirm safe loyalists chosen by party bigwigs. President Obama can make a real difference if he breaks the tradition by selecting truly independent watchdogs as the two parties' nominees - ones committed to enforcing the law - and fights for their confirmation.
The letter from reform groups continued:
Earlier this month, the dysfunctional state of the FEC was demonstrated once again.
According to a BNA Report (March 4, 2011), the FEC professional staff found through audits that the Kansas Republican party and a unit of Georgia Democratic party each had improperly used campaign funds.
Three Commissioners voted to support the FEC staff's findings in both cases. The three obstructionist Commissioners, however, voted to reject the staff's recommendations in both cases and thereby blocked findings that the Republican and Democratic Party committees each had committed campaign finance violations.
This is not an isolated instance. It is but one of numerous examples of a destructive pattern and practice on the part of the obstructionist Commissioners who have repeatedly blocked efforts by the FEC professional staff to enforce the campaign finance laws.
The letter stated about the current FEC Commissioners:
While the terms of five Commissioners will have expired as of April 30, 2011, and none of them are eligible for reappointment, all of these Commissioners will be able to remain on the Commission indefinitely until replacements are sworn in to take their seats.
Three of the FEC Commissioners are already in lame duck status as holdovers, including two whose terms expired nearly two years ago and one whose term expired nearly four years ago. The terms of two other Commissioners will expire on April 30 and, like the three lame duck Commissioners, they are not eligible for reappointment.
These circumstances provide a unique opportunity for you to nominate five new Commissioners and take steps to fundamentally change what is commonly recognized as the worst functioning government agency in Washington.
It is essential that you nominate new Commissioners based on merit, skills, qualifications, experience, background and professional reputation. It is also essential that the nominees have a basic commitment to enforcing the campaign finance laws as written by Congress and interpreted by the courts. Individuals who are ideologically opposed to the campaign finance laws must not be given the responsibility to enforce these laws.
The letter continued:
One possible approach to nominating FEC Commissioners based on merit would be to establish a bipartisan advisory group of distinguished individuals who could find and recommend potential qualified nominees for each available seat on the Commission. This would be similar to the way that some Senators use outside advisory groups to surface the names of potential nominees for a judgeship.
You could then choose nominees based on these recommendations, in compliance, of course, with the statutory requirement that no more than three members of a political party can serve on the Commission at the same time.
We are well aware that in nominating FEC Commissioners based on merit and qualifications you would create a conflict with congressional leaders who are accustomed to choosing the Commissioners themselves.
Given the completely dysfunctional state of the FEC that has resulted from a business-as-usual appointments process, however, and given the enormous damage that has been done as a result to our campaign finance laws which protect against corruption, it is essential to end this national scandal by moving forward with a new approach to nominating Commissioners and with five nominees to fill the vacancies on the FEC.
The letter concluded:
If you proceed to nominate new Commissioners based on merit and qualifications, then it would be up to the Senate to address the FEC scandal. Each Senator would be faced with a clear choice: vote to confirm new FEC Commissioners selected on the basis of merit and qualifications or vote to take personal responsibility for perpetuating a scandal that is severely damaging the nation's anti-corruption campaign finance laws.
We recognize that nominating new Commissioners may well lead to Senate filibusters against the nominees. If it does, that is a battle that must be fought.
The effort to remake the FEC and restore the integrity of our campaign finance laws cannot begin until you nominate new Commissioners. Our organizations strongly urge you to expeditiously nominate five new FEC Commissioners.
Thank you for your consideration of our views.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Holocaust Survivor Tells Student Anti-Genocide Protesters: 'Just Keep Doing It'
"There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism," said Stephen Kapos. "If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt."
Apr 25, 2024
A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel's war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they're on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.
Stephen Kapos, 86, was 7 years old in 1944 when he was separated from his family during the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Hungary. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust but Kapos survived and moved to the United Kingdom after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who "demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel." They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, "This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!"
"As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don't give up," Kapos said in video published by Double Down News. "We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail."
Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel's bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an "antisemitic mob."
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
He said he is also protesting "the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism."
Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
"There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism," Kapos asserted. "If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt without any doubt and I think it is imperative to assert opposition and even some degree of disadvantage and risk if you want to be guilt-free when history judges what's happening."
Kapos and his comrades are part of a long history of Holocaust survivors speaking out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
Long before today's growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that "the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid" and that "the Israeli government's actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family's experiences under Hitlerism."
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that "what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation" was "almost identical" to "what was done to the German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
Holocaust survivors who stand up for Palestinian rights have been condemned by critics as "antisemites" and "self-hating Jews" who, in Meyer's case, allegedly abused his status as a Holocaust survivor.
Kapos, who has experienced such slurs, is undaunted and says he has no plans to stop protesting. During a recent rally in London he vowed, "I'll keep doing it as long as the bombing and apartheid and the injustice is going on."
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'A Moral Crisis': Wars Fuel Spike in Global Hunger as Arms Giants Rake in ​Record​ Profits
"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits."
Apr 25, 2024
A report published Wednesday found that the number of people around the world suffering acute hunger surged to 282 million last year amid the intensifying climate crisis and military conflicts—including Israel's assault on Gaza—that have further enriched weapons manufacturers.
The Global Report on Food Crises estimates that 281.6 million people in 59 countries faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023, an increase of 24 million compared to the previous year.
2023 marked the fifth consecutive year that global hunger has worsened, according to the new report, which found that Gazans account for 80% of the people facing imminent famine globally. Dozens of people in the Gaza Strip, mostly children, have starved to death in recent weeks as Israel continues to bomb the territory and impede the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid.
The report, a collaborative project of more than a dozen organizations including the World Food Program (WFP), said military conflict was the "primary driver affecting 20 countries with nearly 135 million people in acute food insecurity—almost half of the global number."
"The Sudan faced the largest deterioration due to conflict, with 8.6 million more people facing high levels of acute food insecurity as compared with 2022," the report found.
Extreme weather events fueled by the continued burning of oil, gas, and coal "were the primary driversin 18 countries where over 77 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, up from 12 countries with 57 million people in 2022," the document added.
"When we talk about acute food insecurity, we are talking about hunger so severe that it poses an immediate threat to people's livelihoods and lives," said Dominique Burgeon, director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Liaison Office in Geneva. "This is hunger that threatens to slide into famine and cause widespread death."
Emily Farr, global food and economic security lead at Oxfam International, said in response to the new figures that "the global hunger crisis is fundamentally a moral crisis."
"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits, including the same aerospace and defense corporations helping to fuel conflict, the main driver of hunger," said Farr. "The top 100 arms companies have hoarded nearly $600 billion in revenues just in 2022—enough to cover the U.N. global humanitarian appeal almost 13 times."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity."
Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's assault on Ukraine have been a major boon for the global weapons industry, propelling arms makers to record profits as governments ramp up orders for tanks, howitzers, missiles, and other lethal military equipment.
"This is a form of corporate welfare not only for the largest weapons manufacturers, like Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics, which have seen their stock prices skyrocket, but also for companies that are not typically seen as part of the weapons industry, such as Caterpillar, Ford, and Toyota," the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) noted in a recent analysis.
Late last year, AFSC created an online database that allows users to see which companies are profiting from Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
WFP's global hunger report was released on the same day U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure containing tens of billions of dollars in additional military assistance for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
Reutersreported Thursday that Lockheed Martin and RTX—major arms manufacturers—"stand to profit" from the aid package's "$95 billion of mostly new weapons funding."
"The United States needs to buy and restock 'Tomahawk, AMRAAM, Coyote, SM-6,' RTX's CFO Neil Mitchill told Reuters in an interview, listing a long-range cruise missile, an air-to-air missile, a small drone, and a ground-based missile that can be used for air defense," the outlet noted. "In most cases, the U.S. has either sent the munitions to Ukraine or used them to defend Red Sea shipping lanes."
Farr said Wednesday that "we cannot drastically change course without a global awakening."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity," said Farr. "Governments must also rehaul our global food system, tax the rich to invest in the public majority—the small farmers, workers, and vulnerable communities—and support green economies."
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'Everyone Should Celebrate': FCC Restores Net Neutrality Rules
"Today marks the last day that internet service providers can continue to put profit over people," said one advocate.
Apr 25, 2024
Open internet advocates on Thursday applauded the Federal Communications Commission's long-anticipated vote to revive net neutrality rules and reestablish FCC oversight of broadband.
The 3-2 vote along party lines to reclassify broadband as a public service under Title II of the Communications Act came seven months after FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced the push in the wake of the U.S. Senate confirming Commissioner Anna Gomez.
Commissioner Geoffrey Starks joined Rosenworcel and Gomez to launch the rulemaking process last year and finalize the policy change on Thursday. Commissioner Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington both aligned with the powerful telecom industry by opposing the effort to prevent internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful online content.
Demand Progress Education Fund senior campaigner Joey DeFrancesco said the revival "has been desperately needed" since former FCC Chair Ajit Pai—an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump—led the "disastrous decision" in 2017 to gut a 2015 agency policy codifying the principle that has been foundational to the internet since its inception.
"Internet access is not a luxury, but a necessity to participate in society and survive in our modern economy," DeFrancesco stressed. "The FCC's new rule will ensure the commission has the full ability to expand broadband and the authority to ensure access to an open internet."
"The FCC's vote today returns the internet to the American people."
Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron declared that "everyone should celebrate today's FCC vote."
"Public support for net neutrality is overwhelming, and people understand why we need a federal watchdog to protect everyone's access to the most essential communications platform of our time," he noted. "The FCC heard the outcry and did its job: delivering on promises to stand with internet users and against big telecom companies and their trade groups, which have spent untold millions of dollars to spread lies about net neutrality and thwart any oversight or regulation."
Aaron praised Rosenworcel and her staff for leading the restoration effort, as well as Starks and Gomez for working with her to reverse the Trump FCC's move and ensure "that the agency can once again protect internet users whenever big phone and cable companies like AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum, and Verizon attempt to harm them."
"Big cable and phone companies won't be able to pick and choose what any of us can say or see online. Net neutrality is a guarantee that these companies will carry our data across the internet without undue interference or unreasonable discrimination," he emphasized. "This is what democracy should look like: Public servants responding to public sentiment, taking steps to protect just and reasonable services and free expression, and showing that the government is capable of defending the public interest."
Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner and current Common Cause special adviser, was similarly enthusiastic, saying that "if I weren't out of the country today, I would be personally at the FCC jumping up and down, saluting the majority for reinstituting the network neutrality rules that were so foolishly eliminated by the previous commission."
"Our communications technologies are evolving so swiftly, affecting so many important aspects of our individual lives, that they must be available to all of us on a nondiscriminatory basis. And they must advance the public interest, protecting consumers, fostering competition, and providing us all the news and information we need as we fight to maintain our democracy," he continued. "We still have much to do; but today, let's celebrate a huge step forward."
The vote notably comes during an election year—and as Democratic President Joe Biden, a net neutrality supporter, is gearing up for a November rematch against Trump.
"The internet is crucial to civic engagement in the United States today. It functions as a virtual public square where social justice movements organize and garner support," said Common Cause's Ishan Mehta. "The FCC's vote today returns the internet to the American people."
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, also piled on the praise, proclaiming that "today marks the last day that internet service providers can continue to put profit over people."
"We are thrilled that the FCC now has the authority it needs to protect consumers, promote the exercise of First Amendment rights online, and ensure that everyone has access to high-quality, affordable internet," she said. "However, we urge the commission not to exercise its authority to preempt consistent state laws that grant consumers additional protections."
John Bergmayer, legal director at Public Knowledge, also celebrated the vote while stressing that the commission's work is far from over. In addition to warning of court fights to come, he said that "broadband providers will continue attempting to rebrand their old plans for internet fast and slow lanes, hoping to sneak them through."
"The FCC will need to diligently enforce its rules," Bergmayer argued, "including clarifying that discrimination in favor of certain apps or categories of traffic 'impairs' and 'degrades' traffic that is left in the slow lane, and that broadband providers cannot simply take apps that people use on the internet every day and package them as a separate 'nonbroadband' service."
"The FCC must also ensure that practices that are not expressly prohibited but still unreasonably interfere with the ability of end users to freely use the internet, or of edge providers to freely compete, are disallowed," he added. "These practices include discriminatory zero-rating and network interconnection practices."
Like Leventoff, he also recognized the vital role of states with stricter policies, saying that those "with excellent net neutrality and broadband consumer protection statutes, like California, can be a nationwide model for other states and the FCC to adopt to strengthen their own rules."
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