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For Immediate Release
January, 12 2015, 03:15pm EDT
Monday January, 12 2015, 03:15pm EDT
Contact:
Michael Briggs (202) 224-5141
Sanders Warns Disability Benefits Face Cuts
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned today that benefits for the disabled and their children could face a 20 percent cut next year if the Senate follows the lead of House Republicans.
"Around 11 million Americans, including nearly 2 million children with a disabled parent, rely on Social Security to help keep them out of poverty," said Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned today that benefits for the disabled and their children could face a 20 percent cut next year if the Senate follows the lead of House Republicans.
"Around 11 million Americans, including nearly 2 million children with a disabled parent, rely on Social Security to help keep them out of poverty," said Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.
A new House rule creates a legal obstacle course that would make it harder to shift funds from the Social Security retirement account, which has a big surplus, to the smaller disability account. Such transfers have been done routinely in the past under both Republican and Democratic presidencies, including four times under President Ronald Reagan.
Without a transfer to shore up the disability fund, Social Security Administration experts say the disability program will run short of money next year and there will be only enough to cover 80 percent of scheduled benefits.
"Instead of working to strengthen Social Security for all, the House Republicans' new rule puts America's most vulnerable at risk," Sanders said.
Sanders joined Senate Democratic leaders who today sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urging him not to adopt the same rule as the House.
"Holding hostage the Social Security benefits of any American, particularly those of the 9 million Americans with disabilities who are at risk in the coming years, is an untenable proposition," the letter said.
LATEST NEWS
'Shakedown': Chip Giants to Pay Trump Admin 15% of Revenue From China Sales in 'Unprecedented' Deal
"Is that the art of the deal, or the sort of rubbish you expect from backward authoritarian regimes?" asked one financial writer.
Aug 11, 2025
In a deal that is being called "unprecedented," two computer chip manufacturers have agreed to give the United States government 15% of their revenues from exports to China.
The Financial Times reported Sunday that Nvidia and AMD "agreed to the financial arrangement as a condition for obtaining export licenses for the Chinese market that were granted last week, according to people familiar with the situation, including a U.S. official."
For months, the Trump administration had been blocking these computing giants from exporting their most advanced computer chips to China, including Nvidia's coveted H2O chips, which are used to develop artificial intelligence—a move applauded by the administration's China hawks.
But that blockade was apparently broken this past Wednesday when Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, visited the White House on Wednesday to cut a deal with President Donald Trump.
It is not clear at this moment how the Trump administration intends to use the money, but experts told FT that such a "quid pro quo arrangement" lacks any peer in recorded history, as "no U.S. company has ever agreed to pay a portion of their revenues to obtain export licenses."
Columnist James Thomson noted the peculiarity of the deal in Australia's Financial Review magazine, referring to it as the latest "shakedown" by the Trump administration of corporations seeking its favor:
What we've seen in the past week has been extraordinary. First, Apple chief executive Tim Cook comes to the Oval Office to kiss the ring after Trump threatened to smash iPhones sales with huge tariffs earlier this year; Cook agreed to invest $US600 billion in U.S. infrastructure and even gave Trump a 24-carat gold gift in an excruciatingly awkward exchange.
A few days later, Trump suggested the chief executive of Intel, Lip-Bu Tan, was "conflicted" because of his ties to Chinese business. With Tan reportedly set to visit the White House on Monday night, the pattern looks pretty clear: Trump threatens to hurt a business in some way, and the business does a deal to get back in his good graces.
Is that the art of the deal, or the sort of rubbish you expect from backward authoritarian regimes?
The arrangement is also potentially unconstitutional, as Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids the levying of export taxes.
But while the contours of this specific deal are unusual, the philosophy behind it is quintessential to how the Trump administration has operated over the past seven months.
Trump has applied similar tactics to his trade war with the rest of the world, stating plainly that countries have "given" the United States money in exchange for lower tariffs.
As part of the agreement made in July, Trump described in a CNBC interview receiving "a signing bonus from Japan of $550 billion—that's our money. It's our money to invest, as we like." Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick described Japan as a "financier and banker" that would pour money into projects at Trump's discretion.
His deal with the European Union has similar contours, with the E.U. agreeing to purchase $750 billion worth of American energy along with the vague promise to "invest" another $600 billion in the United States.
Bulwark and MSNBC commentator Sam Stein noted the opacity of these deals in a post on X: "Where is it going? To our Treasury? How is the [White House] saying it will account for it? Not minor details."
William Aceves, a law professor at the California Western School of Law, described Nvidia and AMD's deal as the most recent form of corporate capitulation to the Trump administration in comments to The Washington Post.
"We have already seen many situations where entities—including corporations, universities, and law firms—would rather accept hefty fines or settle lawsuits than challenge the administration in court. And, significantly, this has occurred even in cases where the administration's actions or allegations have little merit," he said. "It would appear that this is the cost of doing business with the administration."
Trump Plan to Deploy National Guard in DC Called 'Giant, Red Trial Balloon'
"Trump's move to mobilize the National Guard against Americans in D.C. is another telltale sign of his authoritarian ambitions," said Democratic Illinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh.
Aug 11, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to send up to 1,000 members of the National Guard to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C. this week in a move that critics are warning is another step toward authoritarian rule.
In a post on his Truth Social page on Monday morning, Trump framed the decision to deploy the National Guard as necessary to combat crime in the nation's capital.
"Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today!" Trump claimed. "Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER!"
However, the president's claim that the National Guard is needed to protect Washington, D.C. residents from purportedly unprecedented criminal violence does not hold water given that the city has seen a dramatic fall in crime recently. As noted by CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane, violent crime in Washington, D.C. has fallen by 26% over the last year, highlighted by total homicides declining by 12% year-over-year.
In analyzing the news, some legal analysts were quick to label Trump's latest move a power grab that was wholly unjustified by the facts on the ground.
Joyce Vance, the former United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, argued on her Substack page that Trump's decision to plow ahead with deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. shows he "is going full bore to push the power of the presidency, even if it means ignoring actual statistics on crime that contradict his stated justification for acting in the nation's capital."
Vance added that Trump's actions in this instance also need to be understood as part of a broad sweep by the president to seize more power for the executive branch.
"In case you're wondering, just six months into his second term, Trump holds a commanding lead in the number of executive orders issued," she wrote. "These statistics from The American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara show the totals for each president in light blue, so, in the first six months of his second term, Trump has signed 186 orders, compared to a four-year total of 162 for Joe Biden."
Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck explained on his own Substack page that Trump does have some significant powers when it comes to deploying the D.C. National Guard in the nation's capital, although he said that the law clearly prevents him from "federalizing" the city as he has threatened to do in the past.
"The president does have two important authorities when it comes to 'local' law enforcement in the District of Columbia: He can use the (small) D.C. National Guard in circumstances in which he probably couldn't use any other military personnel; and he can require the use of [the Metropolitan Police Department] 'for federal purposes' for up to 30 days," he wrote. "That's not nothing, but it also isn't anything close to some kind of federal takeover of the nation's capital."
To actually do a federal takeover of Washington, D.C., Vladeck continued, the president would need to get an act passed through Congress that would almost certainly be filibustered in the U.S. Senate.
Legal experts weren't the only ones alarmed by the planned Trump National Guard deployment.
Karen Attiah, a columnist for The Washington Post, warned her Bluesky followers against writing off the deployment as an effort by the president to distract from his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
"Threats of the militarization of cities—including D.C., which has been fighting for self determination for generations—isn't a 'distraction,'" she said. "It's a massive, giant, red trial balloon for what an American president can do [in] YOUR city... I need people to wake up."
Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois, similarly warned that Trump's National Guard deployment could be a blueprint for the rest of America.
"Trump's move to mobilize the National Guard against Americans in D.C. is another telltale sign of his authoritarian ambitions," she wrote on Bluesky. "But at some point signs of authoritarianism stop being signs and become symptoms of an autocratic regime. We're far past that point now."
US More Isolated Than Ever as Australia Says It Will Recognize Palestinian Statehood
"Australia's decision helps build the historic global momentum to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East," said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong.
Aug 11, 2025
Australia on Monday became the latest ally of the United States to announce its intention to recognize Palestinian statehood, leaving the U.S. more isolated on the issue than ever as it continues to unequivocally support Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip.
In a joint statement, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said Australia will recognize Palestinian statehood at next month's United Nations General Assembly gathering, a decision that came after the United Kingdom, Canada, and France made similar announcements in recent weeks.
"Australia's decision helps build the historic global momentum to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East," said Albanese and Wong. "The Netanyahu government is extinguishing the prospect of a two-state solution by rapidly expanding illegal settlements, threatening annexation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and explicitly opposing any Palestinian state."
Australia will recognize a state of Palestine in September at the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said https://t.co/oOV7Hklv5X pic.twitter.com/tCCsD8wXYG
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 11, 2025
Australian supporters of Palestinian rights welcomed the government's decision while demanding more concrete action to withdraw the nation's support for Israel as it decimates and starves Gaza's population.
"Recognition is completely meaningless while Australia continues to trade, to supply arms, to have diplomatic relations, and to diplomatically protect and encourage other states to normalize relations with the very state that is committing these atrocities," said Nasser Mashni, president of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.
"Palestinian rights are not to be gifted by Western states," Mashni added. "They are not dependent on negotiation with or behaviour or approval of their colonial oppressors. Nor are they the crumbs to be thrown to Palestinians by Western states in lieu of taking the real action they are legally bound to take."
The U.S. and other nations that have refused to recognize Palestinian statehood are out of step with the overwhelming majority of the international community. Most U.N. member countries—147 out of 193—recognize a Palestinian state.
But under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has not only declined to recognize a Palestinian state—it has threatened at least one ally for moving in that direction. Last month, as Common Dreams reported, Trump said the Canadian government's conditional plan to recognize Palestinian statehood "will make it very hard" to reach a bilateral trade deal.
So far, a congressional effort to pressure Trump to recognize Palestinian statehood has garnered paltry support.
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is leading a letter to the president arguing that "this tragic moment has highlighted for the world the long overdue need to recognize Palestinian self-determination."
"Just as the lives of Palestinians must be immediately protected," the draft letter states, "so too must their rights as a people and nation urgently be acknowledged and upheld."
Just 18 Democratic lawmakers have signed on to the letter, according to Khanna.
"Every Dem should sign," he wrote on social media last week.
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