May, 12 2017, 03:00pm EDT

Harvard Prof. Tribe Joins the Call For an Impeachment Investigation
Leading Constitutional Scholar Joins the Legal Advisory Board of National Impeachment Campaign
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, one of the nation's most prominent constitutional scholars, has joined the Legal Advisory Board of the Campaign to Impeach Donald Trump Now, a growing national movement for an impeachment investigation of President Trump. The campaign, launched on Inauguration Day and led by two public interest organizations - Free Speech For People and RootsAction.org, is calling on Congress to start this investigation based on the President's direct and ongoing violations of the two anti-corruption provisions of the US Constitution and based on the President's apparent interference with a criminal investigation by firing FBI Director James Comey.
"It is now up to Congress to save the Constitution by initiating impeachment proceedings," says Professor Tribe. "Trump can't say 'You're fired' to the House of Representatives."
Nearly one million Americans from across the country have already joined the campaign at www.impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org. In addition, nine communities, including Los Angeles, California, have passed resolutions calling for this impeachment investigation, and many other communities are expected to vote on such resolutions in the coming weeks.
Other members of the campaign's Legal Advisory Board include: Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig; former Montana Supreme Court Justice James Nelson; University of Tulsa Law Professor Tamara Piety; former Temple University Law Professor David Post; George Washington University Law Professor Catherine Ross; Cornell University Law Professor Steven Shiffrin; and Vermont Law Professor James Gustave Speth. The biographies of the Legal Advisory Board Members can be found here: https://impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org/who-we-are-2/.
Impeach Donald Trump Now, a non-partisan campaign led by Free Speech For People and RootsAction.org, is pressing for an impeachment investigation of President Trump, based on his direct and ongoing violations of the U.S. Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause and Domestic Emoluments Clause,as well as based on the President's apparent interference with a criminal investigation by firing FBI Director James Comey. To join our campaign, read our proposed Impeachment Resolution, or to learn more, visit: www.ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to renew our democracy and our Constitution for the people, not big money and corporate interests.
RootsAction.org is an online initiative dedicated to galvanizing Americans who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights, civil liberties, environmental protection -- and defunding endless wars.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
LATEST NEWS
Iraq War Costs Could Hit Nearly $3 Trillion by 2050: Report
The Costs of War Project said the U.S.-led invasion and occupation "caused massive death, destruction, and political instability," killing hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions more.
Mar 15, 2023
As the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq approaches, a leading research institute on Wednesday said that "the total costs of the war in Iraq and Syria are expected to exceed half a million human lives and $2.89 trillion" by 2050.
The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs said that "this budgetary figure includes costs to date, estimated at about $1.79 trillion, and the costs of veterans' care through 2050."
According to the project:
March 19-20, 2023 marks 20 years since United States forces invaded Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, under the false claim that his regime was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing war, in which U.S. ground presence peaked in 2007 with over 170,000 soldiers, caused massive death, destruction, and political instability in Iraq. Among the consequences was the increase of sectarian politics, widespread violence, and the rise of the Islamic State militant group with its terror attacks throughout the Middle East.
Though the U.S. government officially ended its Iraq War in 2011, the repercussions of the invasion and occupation as well as subsequent and ongoing military interventions have had an enormous human, social, economic, and environmental toll. An estimated 300,000 people have died from direct war violence in Iraq, while the reverberating effects of war continue to kill and sicken hundreds of thousands more.
The new report includes estimates for Syria, which the United States began bombing during the Obama administration after Islamic State militants rose to power amid the destabilization and power vacuum caused by the Iraq invasion and Syrian civil war. Including Syria, the Costs of War Project says between 550,000-580,000 people have been killed since March 2003, and "several times as many may have died due to indirect causes such as preventable diseases."
"More than 7 million people from Iraq and Syria are currently refugees, and nearly 8 million people are internally displaced in the two countries," the publication notes.
University of Oxford professor and Costs of War Project co-director Neta C. Crawford, who authored the report, said in a statement that "the Bush administration was convinced and assured the American people and the world that the war would have few casualties of all kinds—civilian and military—and would lead to quick victory."
"As the Costs of War Project has documented consistently, these optimistic assumptions are confronted by a record of death, high and ongoing costs, and regional devastation," she added.
Those ongoing costs include a recent $397.5 million budget request from the Biden administration to fight what's left of Islamic State.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'I Will Burn the Session to the Ground' Over Anti-Trans Bill, Says Nebraska Democrat
"If you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body," said state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, who has filibustered for three weeks to block a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for youth.
Mar 15, 2023
The Nebraska state Senate's 90-day legislative session reached its halfway point on Wednesday, but not a single bill has been passed yet thanks to a filibuster that was begun three weeks ago by state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh in a bid to stop Republicans from "legislating hate" against transgender children across the state.
Cavanaugh (D-6) was horrified to see an anti-transgender rights bill advance to the Senate floor in late February and was determined to keep it from passing into law, as at least nine other anti-LGBTQ+ bills have in state legislatures so far this year.
The so-called Let Them Grow Act (Legislative Bill 574) would bar transgender and nonbinary people under the age of 19 from obtaining gender-affirming healthcare.
Republicans hold 32 seats in the state Senate compared to Democrats' 17, but it takes 33 votes to overcome a filibuster.
"The children of Nebraska deserve to have somebody stand up and fight for them."
So Cavanaugh has spent every day in session since the bill arrived on the Senate floor introducing dozens of amendments to other pieces of legislation, slowing the Senate's business to a crawl and taking up every hour of debate time permitted by the chamber's rules—at times speaking at length about unrelated topics including her favorite foods and movies.
"If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful, painful for everyone, because if you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body," Cavanaugh told her colleagues during one debate session. "I have nothing, nothing but time, and I am going to use all of it."
"I will burn the session to the ground over this bill," she added.
The Let Them Grow Act, like a number of the approximately 150 anti-LGBTQ+ bills that have been introduced in other states so far this year, would prohibit gender-affirming surgical procedures, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers for minors.
Gender-affirming care for minors is supported by the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, with the latter organization noting in a 2018 policy statement that many transgender youths experience fear of discrimination by providers and "lack of continuity with providers" as a result of limited access to gender-affirming care.
A study by the University of Washington found that youths who received gender-affirming care were 73% less likely to experience suicidality and 60% likely to suffer from depression than those who did not obtain care.
Cavanaugh also told the Associated Press Wednesday that 58% of transgender and nonbinary youths in her state seriously considered suicide in 2020, according to a 2021 survey by the Trevor Project, and more than 1 in 5 said they had attempted suicide.
"The children of Nebraska deserve to have somebody stand up and fight for them," Cavanaugh told the AP.
Speaking to "The New Yorker Radio Hour" last week, the senator said some of her Republican colleagues have privately told her they are frustrated with their own party's agenda as GOP leaders including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump wage attacks on transgender children.
"What has been expressed to me is a frustration over discussing policies like this instead of discussing policies that most of them ran to be here discussing. This is what a culture war looks like apparently," said Cavanaugh. "What I'm asking of them is to rise up and say that, if this really isn't who they are, rise up and say that and stop having private conversations with me telling me how much you don't like the bill, how much you don't want to be focusing on this issue, and rise up and say something about it. I'm challenging them."
LGBTQ+ advocacy group OutNebraska told the AP that Cavanaugh has embarked on a "heroic effort."
"It is extremely meaningful when an ally does more than pay lip service to allyship," said executive director Abbi Swatsworth. "She really is leading this charge."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is Scary': Financial Industry Panic Spreads as Credit Suisse Teeters
"Is this the next financial crisis unfolding? It feels like it may be—and all because of reckless increases in interest rates by central banks," argued one political economist.
Mar 15, 2023
A vanishingly short period of relief in U.S. and global markets was shattered Wednesday after the scandal-plagued Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse announced that its auditor identified "material weakness" in its financial reporting and the firm's largest investor—the Saudi National Bank—said it wouldn't inject more cash to bolster the company.
As its share price plunged, Credit Suisse intensified concerns about its financial health—and broader alarm about the stability of global markets—by pleading with the Swiss National Bank and the regulator Finma to issue public statements of support for the lender, which controlled roughly $580 billion in assets at the end of last year.
"The bank said it is working to address the problems [with its financial reporting], which 'could require us to expend significant resources,'" The Washington Postreported Wednesday. "It cautioned that the troubles could ultimately impact the bank's access to capital markets and subject it to 'potential regulatory investigations and sanctions.'"
The fresh crisis at Credit Suisse, which comes just days after two U.S. banks collapsed, compounded fears that seemingly isolated problems at individual financial institutions could signal a deeper systemic threat with far-reaching implications for the interconnected global economy.
"This is scary—financial markets are now betting on Credit Suisse failing—and no one can pretend there will not be a fallout from that," Richard Murphy, a professor of accounting practice at Sheffield University Management School in the U.K., wrote Wednesday, pointing to the soaring price of the bank's five-year credit default swaps, which prompted flashbacks to the 2008 global financial crisis.
"Is this the next financial crisis unfolding? It feels like it may be—and all because of reckless increases in interest rates by central banks," Murphy added.
Experts and analysts have argued that—along with years of deregulation—the U.S. Federal Reserve's rapid interest rate hikes contributed to the fall of California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which sold its bond portfolio at a major loss last week after it declined in value due to the Fed's actions.
While U.S. lawmakers have lambasted SVB for poor risk management, the firm was hardly alone in taking on large bond holdings when interest rates were low only to watch them lose value precipitously as central banks jacked up rates to combat high inflation.
"Investors said Credit Suisse's problems were a reminder that Europe's banks also had large holdings of bonds that had been hammered by rising interest rates," the Financial Timesreported.
As The American Prospect's David Dayen put it Wednesday, "As long as interest rates keep rising, more banks will be exposed."
"Credit Suisse is in principle a much bigger concern for the global economy than the regional U.S. banks which were in the firing line last week."
Just a week ago, it appeared that Fed Chair Jerome Powell was bent on continuing to raise interest rates even amid mounting warnings about the potentially devastating impacts on millions of workers whose wages and jobs are on the line.
But faced with growing panic in the financial sector, Powell is now widely expected to step on the brakes—at least temporarily—at the Fed's policy meeting next week. Powell is himself a former investment banker, and Wall Street lobbies the Fed on a range of issues.
Reutersreported Wednesday that "expectations for the U.S. central bank's next move have swung wildly in recent days, after the sudden failure of two regional banks late last week triggered alarm about the health of the banking system and raised doubts about how much further the Fed may take what has been an aggressive fight against stubbornly high inflation."
Turmoil at Credit Suisse, which insists its balance sheet is "strong," will likely cement the case against further Fed rate hikes in the near future, analysts suggested.
The Treasury Department is reportedly monitoring news at Credit Suisse, whose U.S. arm is overseen by the Fed.
"Credit Suisse is in principle a much bigger concern for the global economy than the regional U.S. banks which were in the firing line last week," Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist with Capital Economics, wrote in a research note on Wednesday. "Credit Suisse is not just a Swiss problem but a global one."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular
SUPPORT OUR WORK.
We are independent, non-profit, advertising-free and 100%
reader supported.
reader supported.