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Bruce Mirken,
Media Relations Coordinator,Â
510-926-4022
The announcement of President Obama's two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission provides an opportunity to accelerate the FCC's investigation of AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile, the Greenlining Institute said today, urging the commission to look closely at claims made by AT&T regarding the deal's impact on jobs.
"These two nominees can help the commission move aggressively to scrutinize claims being made by AT&T, and in particular to closely examine both public and confidential claims the company is making regarding jobs," said Greenlining Institute General Counsel Samuel S. Kang.
President Obama formally nominated Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Varadaraj Pai as FCC commissioners Monday night, shortly after AT&T gave the FCC a two-page letter accompanied by a 19-page redacted filing addressing the jobs impact of its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile.
Greenlining filed a memo today (available online here) with the California Public Utilities Commission addressing the deal's impact on jobs, and will be filing a response to AT&T's latest FCC filing shortly.
"AT&T's arguments about the jobs issue have either been incomplete or veiled in secrecy, so the material they've filed privately needs the most exacting scrutiny," said Kang. "For example, the company has talked about infrastructure investment that will supposedly create jobs, but has said nothing about the net impact on jobs after taking into account the investments that T-Mobile won't be making and the resulting loss of employment. The FCC must examine every claim down to the last decimal point. So far we have every reason to think this will be a bad deal for American communities."
"This fight has been going on for 240 years," said Likhts'amisyu Clan Wing Chief Dsta'hyl of the Wet'suwet'en Nation. "Now, we are all 'prisoners of conscience' because of what the colonizers have done to us."
Amnesty International on Wednesday made what it called the "unprecedented decision" to designate as Canada's first-ever "prisoner of conscience" an Indigenous leader convicted for actions taken while defending his people's land against a fracked gas pipeline.
Likhts'amisyu Clan Wing Chief Dsta'hyl of the Wet'suwet'en Nation was arrested in 2021 for violating a court order to not obstruct the construction of TC Energy's Coastal GasLink liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline. The hereditary chief is currently under house arrest for contempt of court.
"The Canadian state has unjustly criminalized and confined Chief Dsta'hyl for defending the land and rights of the Wet'suwet'en people," Amnesty International Americas director Ana Piquer said in a statement Wednesday. "As a result, Canada joins the shameful list of countries where prisoners of conscience remain under house arrest or behind bars."
"With the utmost respect for Chief Dsta'hyl's critical work to protect Wet'suwet'en land, rights, and the environment we all depend on, Amnesty International demands his immediate and unconditional release and urges Canada to stop the criminalization of Wet'suwet'en and other Indigenous defenders during a global climate emergency," she continued.
"Indigenous peoples are on the frontlines of climate change and will face disproportionate harms if humanity fails to move on from burning fossil fuels," Piquer added. "States must hold up, not lock up, Indigenous land defenders like Chief Dsta'hyl and follow their lead towards a healthier, more sustainable future for all."
According to Amnesty:
Based in part on witness testimony of four large-scale Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) raids on Wet'suwet'en territory marked by the unlawful use of force... Wet'suwet'en land defenders and their supporters were arbitrarily detained for peacefully defending their land against the construction of the pipeline and exercising their Indigenous rights and their right of peaceful assembly. The rationale for the land defenders' detentions was violating the injunction order (an order which Amnesty International has determined is not in conformity with international law and standards) which makes their detentions arbitrary.
In June and July 2022, the [British Columbia] Prosecution Service decided to charge 20 land defenders with criminal contempt for allegedly disobeying the injunction order to stay away from pipeline construction sites. Seven of the 20 land defenders pleaded guilty because of restrictive bail conditions, as well as the familial, psychological, and financial impacts that the criminal trial process was having on them. Five others had the charges against them dropped.
Canadian authorities, including the RCMP, have answered nonviolent Wet'suwet'en land defense with armed officers including snipers who employed heavy-handed removal tactics. Scores of Wet'suwet'en land defenders, including four hereditary chiefs, have been arrested and charged, as have journalists and legal observers. In December 2021, Coastal GasLink dropped charges against two journalists who were arrested while covering a previous militarized police raid.
In 2022, the Gidimt'en—one of the five clans of the Wet'suwet'en Nation—filed a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council detailing how their territory and human rights are being violated by Canadian and British Columbian authorities in service of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The 416-mile conduit carries fracked gas from Michif Piiyii (Metis) territory in northeastern British Columbia to an export terminal in coastal Kitimat, on the land of the xa'isla wawis (Haisla) people.
The Gidimt'en filing noted that "ongoing human rights violations, militarization of Wet'suwet'en lands, forcible removal and criminalization of peaceful land defenders, and irreparable harm due to industrial destruction of Wet'suwet'en lands and cultural sites are occurring despite declarations by federal and provincial governments for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples."
The heavy-handed persecution of the Wet'suwet'en sparked solidarity protests throughout Canada and beyond that focused on the pipeline's impact on First Nations tribes, the environment and climate, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Likhts'amisyu Clan members—whose presence in what is today northern British Columbia long predates the existence of Canada—claim they have not been consulted on the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which traverses land that does not belong to the Canadian government.
Dsta'hyl and other Wet'suwet'en leaders argued that they were enforcing ancient tribal trespassing laws. Ironically, they ended up charged with trespassing. During their trial last year, Dsta'hyl and other Likhts'amisyu chiefs asserted that they were fulfilling their duty to protect Wet'suwet'en land—or yintah—by enforcing their traditional trespass law.
In finding Dsta'hyl guilty of contempt of court this February, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen declared there was no way of "harmonizing colonial law and Indigenous law," which he said "cannot comfortably coexist in the circumstances."
Dsta'hyl said Wednesday: "I've been convicted for protecting our own land while Wet'suwet'en laws have been sidelined. The end goal for us in this struggle is the recognition of Wet'suwet'en law in Canada, and it's unfortunate that the Crown is digging in their heels instead."
"This fight has been going on for 240 years," he added. "We have been incarcerated on the reserves where they have turned us into 'Status Indians.' Now, we are all 'prisoners of conscience' because of what the colonizers have done to us."
"Congress has an obligation to act as a check and ensure that the president does not become a king," an expert said in praise of Schumer's move.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday introduced legislation that would establish that the president and vice president don't have immunity from prosecution—an effort to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Trump v. United States that grants presidents broad immunity when they break the law.
The No Kings Act, which has 34 co-sponsors from the Senate's Democratic caucus, would stipulate that Congress, and not the Supreme Court, determines whom federal law applies to. It comes as the latest Democratic response to the July 1 ruling, decided 6-3 along ideological lines, that gave former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump "absolute immunity" for "core" presidential duties and "presumptive immunity" for other official acts.
"Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court's ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
"With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation—and a constitutional authority—to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch," he added.
Progressive advocacy group Public Citizen praised Schumer for introducing the bill.
"The framers of the Constitution never intended the executive branch to be immune from legal recourse, and they would have seen this decision as an invitation for presidents to become tyrants," Lisa Gilbert, the group's co-president, said in a statement. "Congress has an obligation to act as a check and ensure that the president does not become a king."
The Founders were explicit: no man in America shall be a king.
But the MAGA Supreme Court threw out centuries of precedent and anointed Trump and subsequent presidents as kings above the law.
That's why I'm introducing the No Kings Act to crack down on this dangerous precedent.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 1, 2024
The Supreme Court's immunity decision caused outrage among Democrats, who viewed it as blatantly partisan—three of the six assenting justices were appointed by Trump, and all six were appointed by Republicans—and a threat to democracy, given the way it could erode accountability in the country's highest office. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "the president is now king above the law."
The impact of the immunity ruling on the four criminal cases against Trump—he's been convicted in one and another has since been dismissed—is not fully clear but it's generally believed to strengthen his defense and complicate prosecutors' efforts.
Last week, Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.) proposed a constitutional amendment to establish that "there is no immunity from criminal prosecution for an act on the grounds that such act was within the constitutional authority or official duties of an individual." The proposal has 70 Democratic co-sponsors.
On Monday, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, called for sweeping Supreme Court reforms—a monumental move that progressives had pushed him to make for years—in an op-ed in The Washington Post. He started his argument, which included a call for term limits and a constitutional amendment, by citing the immunity ruling. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, quickly backed the plan.
None of these efforts have a strong chance of passage in the short term. Constitutional amendments generally require a two-thirds majority in Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
The No Kings Act wouldn't face such a high bar, but passage is unthinkable so long as the Republicans control the House of Representatives. Moreover, if passed, the Supreme Court would in all likelihood strike the bill down.
To forestall that issue, Schumer has written into the bill "jurisdiction stripping" measures that would remove the Supreme Court's authority to render the legislation unconstitutional, and allow only lower courts in the District of Columbia to handle a legal challenge. Such jurisdiction stripping has been seldom used in the past and would likely be highly controversial.
Jurisdiction stripping has never happened till it does, and is a false promise until it isn't. https://t.co/lGYfLxdyQs
— Samuel Moyn 🔠(@samuelmoyn) August 1, 2024
Even if the Democrats don't see immediate legislative results, the messages that their proposals send could resonate with voters. Polling from Navigator Research released on Tuesday indicated that a solid majority of Americans disagreed with the Supreme Court's immunity decision.
"The ultra-wealthy would get hefty handout while families suffer. We can't let that happen," said Sen. Martin Heinrich, the chair of the Joint Economic Committee.
An economic analysis of the far-right Project 2025 agenda crafted by at least 140 former Trump administration officials shows that the plan would result in higher taxes on working-class Americans and "corporate welfare" for the rich and large businesses.
Conducted by the Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), the new analysis notes that Project 2025's sprawling "Mandate for Leadership" would establish a "two-rate individual tax system of 15% and 30% that eliminates most deductions, credits, and exclusions."
Such a system, according to the JEC, "would force many middle-class families to pay thousands of dollars more in tax payments."
"Together, these changes to tax rates would mean that a family of four earning $90,000 per year would have paid roughly $2,300 more in taxes last year," the JEC found. "If the Child Tax Credit was also eliminated, this family would have paid roughly $6,300 more. Meanwhile, millionaires would pay a lower top tax rate."
The analysis also points to Project 2025's push for a "national sales tax," a highly regressive proposal endorsed by dozens of Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives.
A national sales tax would "force working families to pay more at the grocery store, gas pump, and any other place they buy
goods or services," JEC said Thursday, noting that past GOP proposals "would have hiked the cost of essentials like groceries and housing—usually exempt from state and local sales taxes—by 30%."
Meanwhile, Project 2025 calls for reducing the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 18%. According toThe Washington Post, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's advisers have discussed slashing the tax rate to as low as 15%, and the president himself has told leading executives and his wealthy campaign donors that he intends to push for additional tax cuts if he wins another four years in the White House.
"It would force Americans to pay more at the grocery store, strip workers of overtime pay, and raise taxes on working families."
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), chair of the JEC, said in a statement that "Republicans' Project 2025 is bad for America," as "it would force Americans to pay more at the grocery store, strip workers of overtime pay, and raise taxes on working families."
"The ultra-wealthy would get hefty handout while families suffer," Heinrich added. "We can't let that happen."
The JEC analysis also highlights Project 2025's proposed assault on worker protections, noting that the far-right plan would make "fewer workers eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay"; allow "children to work in hazardous occupations such as factories, meatpacking plants, and sawmills"; and gut National Labor Relations Board enforcement.
Other broad, potentially destructive reforms advocated by Project 2025—which is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation—are eliminating the Federal Reserve's mandate to pursue full employment and abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, long a target of corporate America and their Republican allies in Congress.
Recent polling data indicates that Project 2025 is unpopular with U.S. voters and becomes even more so once they are informed about the far-right initiative's proposals.
That could explain why Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025 in recent weeks, claiming he has "no idea who is behind it" despite the close involvement of a number of prominent figures who served in his administration, including former Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought.
An unnamed former senior adviser to Trump toldNew York magazine last month that "it's totally false he doesn't know what P25 is."
"Privately, he is of course talking to Heritage, and [Heritage president] Kevin Roberts has reportedly even met with Trump on P25," the ex-adviser said.