May, 22 2017, 08:15am EDT
Berlin and Beijing United on Climate in the Age of Trump
BERLIN
German Environmental Minister Barbara Hendricks and Chinese Special Climate Envoy Xie Zhenhua jointly held a press conference at the opening of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, where the two ministers stressed the importance of implementing the Paris commitments and urged the US to stay in the Paris Climate Agreement.
Karsten Smid of Greenpeace Germany said:
"It is a positive signal that China and Germany want to step up to the plate in taking shared leadership in accelerating international climate action. In order to make this a really convincing initiative, both countries must accelerate their transition away from coal to renewable energy. "
Li Shuo, Climate Policy Advisor Greenpeace East Asia said:
"There is no better way of reflecting the zeitgeist of international climate action than strong cooperation between China and Germany. Through their collective efforts of building new leadership and moving towards renewable energy, the two countries can highlight to the world the direction of travel. In committing to the Paris spirit, a new coalition of willing is taking up the mantle of climate leadership."
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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House Dems, GOP Team Up to Expand Warrantless Spying on Americans
"The House has voted to allow the intelligence agencies to violate the civil rights and liberties of Americans for years to come," said the ACLU's senior policy counsel.
Apr 12, 2024
The U.S. House on Friday passed legislation to expand a major mass spying authority after voting down a bipartisan push to attach a search warrant requirement to the
heavily abused surveillance law.
The bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years passed by a vote of 273-147, with 59 Democrats and 88 Republicans voting no. More Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans.
With Section 702 set to expire next Friday, the legislation now heads to the U.S. Senate.
"Despite a litany of abuse—improper snooping on protesters, lawmakers, thousands of campaign donors, and journalists—the House today wrote the FBI and intelligence agencies a blank check to keep misusing FISA Section 702," said Jake Laperruque, deputy director on surveillance at the Center for Democracy & Technology.
"This bill's only 'reform' to U.S. person queries is simply codifying agency rules that have already proven grossly inadequate at stopping abuse of FISA 702," Laperruque added. "If this bill becomes law, in two years Congress will be back debating this same issue, no doubt with even more examples of law enforcement abusing the backdoor search loophole to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans."
"The FBI has invaded the privacy of members of Congress, a state court judge who reported civil rights violations by a local police chief, Black Lives Matter protesters, and more."
The measure's final House passage came after a handful of closely watched amendment votes.
One amendment led by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus would have required U.S. intelligence agencies to obtain a search warrant before surveilling Americans' communications under Section 702, which allows the federal government to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country without a warrant.
Americans who communicate with people overseas regularly have their correspondence—including emails, texts, and phone calls— hoovered up by U.S. intelligence agencies under Section 702.
The Biden White House aggressively opposed the warrant requirement, trotting about familiar talking points claiming the amendment would endanger U.S. national security. Attorney General Merrick Garland and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan both called members of Congress personally to pressure them to vote against the protection demanded by civil liberties advocates.
The amendment vote closed with a 212-212 tie, meaning it failed.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, accused the White House and House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) of "truly shameless misrepresentations" of the amendment.
"Opponents branded the notion that the government should need a warrant to read Americans' communications—the core of the Fourth Amendment and the guiding principle for searching Americans’ private correspondence for more than 200 years—as 'extreme,'" Goitein wrote on social media.
Turner claimed requiring a warrant to collect Americans' communications would allow the Chinese Communist Party, Hezbollah, and Hamas to "fully recruit in the United States."
"Many members who tanked this vote have long histories of voting for this specific privacy protection, including former Speaker Pelosi, Representative Lieu, and Representative Neguse," Demand Progress policy director Sean Vitka said in a statement. "They did so alongside a smear campaign by the House Intelligence Committee, led by Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Himes, which was defined by deceptive statements and outright lies. All eyes now turn to the Senate, but Americans will not forget this stab in the back by the House."
In a floor speech ahead of Friday's vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the chair of the CPC and a leading supporter of the Biggs amendment—said that "every single day, the FBI conducts an average of 500 warrantless searches of Americans' private communications, resulting in over 278,000 searches in one year alone."
"The FBI has invaded the privacy of members of Congress, a state court judge who reported civil rights violations by a local police chief, Black Lives Matter protesters, and more," Jayapal continued. "We cannot pass this bill without additional protections."
Jayapal was among the 59 Democrats who voted no on final passage.
Privacy is a constitutional right — and warrantless searches of U.S. persons violate that right. It’s that simple.
The House must pass my amendment to close the warrantless search loophole and protect Americans’ privacy rights. pic.twitter.com/AmqEeLr025
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) April 12, 2024
After voting down the warrant requirement, the House approved an amendment led by Turner that the Brennan Center warned would force "U.S. businesses to serve as surrogate spies."
"This amendment would enable the largest expansion of surveillance on U.S. soil since the Patriot Act," the group said. "Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of 'electronic communications service provider,' it would allow the government to force ordinary U.S. businesses to assist the government in conducting Section 702 surveillance."
"Although the amendment exempts hotels, libraries, restaurants, and a handful of other types of establishments," the Brennan Center added, "an enormous range of businesses could still be conscripted into service, including grocery stores, department stores, hardware stores, laundromats, barber shops, fitness centers, and countless other locations Americans frequent—even the offices in which they work."
The House also
passed an amendment that would allow U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct suspicionless searches of immigrants' communications without a warrant.
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said in a statement that "by expanding the government's surveillance powers without adding a warrant requirement that would protect Americans, the House has voted to allow the intelligence agencies to violate the civil rights and liberties of Americans for years to come."
"The Senate must add a warrant requirement and rein in this out-of-control government spying," said Hamadanchy.
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GOP Affirms 2025 Tax Plan If Trump Wins: More Giveaways to the Rich
"There are 20 years of data showing trickle-down economics doesn't work, yet today will still be a whole lot of revisionist history and wishful thinking on the singular largest failure of fiscal policy in recent memory," said Rep. Richard Neal.
Apr 12, 2024
As House Republicans prepare for Donald Trump's possible White House return by plotting to expand the billionaire and corporate tax cuts that were the cornerstone of the former president's first administration, congressional Democrats and advocates for working Americans warned Thursday that a second Trump term would bring more of the same inequality-exacerbating policies.
The GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing Thursday on "expanding the success" of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—widely derided by opponents as the "GOP Tax Scam." Republican committee members couched a policy that the Center for Popular Democracy said "delivered big benefits to the rich and corporations but nearly none for working families" as "relief to help hardworking American families."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the committee's ranking member, pushed back during Thursday's hearing, noting that "in the last three decades, Republicans have skyrocketed the deficit with trillions in tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, always with the same result: the top 1% benefits while nothing trickles down for workers."
Neal continued:
In 2017, Ways and Means Democrats saw the GOP corporate tax giveaway for what it was: a scam. We knew that their Tax Scam would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and well-connected. We knew that it wouldn't pay for itself. We knew that big corporations, not their workers, would feel the most benefit. Six years since the GOP Tax Scam was signed into law, we've been proven right on every count. It didn't pay for itself, it didn't increase revenue, and it didn't increase wages.
A recent study whose authors included [Joint Committee on Taxation] economists—let that sink in—found that ALL of the corporate gains from TCJA went to shareholders and high-paid executives, with absolutely nothing flowing to workers. Fifty-six percent of the tax cuts enriched shareholders, and the remaining 44% lined the pockets of execs. Zero percent went to workers. ZERO!
"There are 20 years of data showing trickle-down economics doesn't work, yet today will still be a whole lot of revisionist history and wishful thinking on the singular largest failure of fiscal policy in recent memory," Neal added. "If workers and the middle class are actually your priorities, putting them ahead of big corporations and billionaires is the only way."
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)—who also sits on the committee—agreed, asserting on social media that "the Trump tax cuts were a huge 'success' if you were a billionaire or an executive at a large corporation. They made out like bandits, with a huge amount of the benefits from the GOP tax law going to the wealthiest. Now Republicans want to give the superrich even more tax cuts."
Trump is open about this. At an exclusive fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week, he shouted out his "rich as hell" supporters, telling them, "We're gonna give you tax cuts, we're gonna pay off our debt."
That's the same debt that soared by around $8 trillion during Trump's term—largely as a result of his tax cuts. Meanwhile, U.S. billionaires have collectively gotten $2.2 trillion richer since the GOP tax cuts took effect.
With many provisions of the TCJA set to expire at the end of 2025, progressives are underscoring what's at stake in this November's elections.
"Today the American people got a preview of what's in store for them next year if the Trump Tax Scam expires under conservative leadership," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said following the House hearing. "The conservative playbook for the 2025 tax fight is coming into focus, and we can be sure it includes more giveaways for the wealthy and corporations."
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'Lawless Con Man' Leonard Leo Defies Senate Subpoena Over Supreme Court Gifts
"This subpoena is a direct result of Mr. Leo's own actions and choices," said Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin.
Apr 12, 2024
"Incredible," said one journalist on Friday of right-wing legal activist Leonard Leo's reasons for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee as the panel investigates conservative Supreme Court justices' relationships with Leo and other Republican operatives and donors.
The Federalist Society co-chairman told The Washington Post that the subpoena was "politically motivated."
"I am not capitulating to [committee Chair Dick Durbin's (D-Ill.)] lawless support of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and the left's dark money effort to silence and cancel political opposition," said Leo, who has lobbied for the appointments of far-right judges to federal benches, in a statement.
The subpoena came over four months after the committee voted along party lines to subpoena Leo and billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow following numerous reports about luxury travel and gifts they and others bestowed on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
ProPublica revealed last June that Leo organized a luxury fishing trip to Alaska for Alito, with lodging and private jet travel paid for, in 2008. The trip was not included on Alito's federally required financial disclosure forms, continuing a pattern that ProPublica first reported on last April with several luxury vacations, real estate transactions, and other financial gifts to Thomas that were paid for by Crow.
Durbin said Thursday that the subpoena was issued because of the "blanket refusal to cooperate" with the investigation that Leo has displayed since last July.
"His outright defiance left the committee with no other choice but to move forward with compulsory process. For that reason, I have issued a subpoena to Mr. Leo," said Durbin. "Mr. Leo has played a central role in the ethics crisis plaguing the Supreme Court and, unlike the other recipients of information requests in this matter, he has done nothing but stonewall the committee. This subpoena is a direct result of Mr. Leo's own actions and choices."
The ethics violations revealed by ProPublica's reporting forced the Supreme Court last fall to adopt a code of conduct for the first time, modeled on the rules followed by judges on lower federal courts.
But ethics watchdogs labeled the code a "toothless PR stunt" and a "cover-up for Clarence Thomas," as it did not include an enforcement mechanism and provided the justices with discretion over recusal decisions.
Debt relief advocates called on Alito to recuse himself last year from two cases pertaining to Biden's student debt cancellation program, citing the reporting on Leo's gifts to the justice. The plane Alito took to Alaska was owned by billionaire investor Paul Singer, who has financially backed groups that lobbied the court to overturn Biden's plan.
The court struck down the debt relief program last June.
Like former President Donald Trump, said Alex Aronson, former chief counsel for Judiciary Committee senior member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), "the other man most responsible for shaping our Supreme Court's runaway majority is a lawless con man and crook."
Caroline Ciccone, president of government watchdog Accountable.US, said Friday that "Supreme Court billionaire matchmaker Leonard Leo" is the force behind "a full-blown corruption crisis has plagued the high court for over a year, undermining its credibility and plummeting public trust in the court to record lows."
"Today's subpoena is a critical step toward accountability, and toward ensuring that our high court adheres to the highest possible ethics standards," said Ciccone. "As a result of the strong leadership of Chairman Durbin and the Judiciary Committee, we can now begin to get to the bottom of the corruption crisis pervading the Supreme Court."
With Leo refusing to comply with the subpoena, Democrats would need to hold a vote in the closely divided Senate to seek enforcement.
Former Trump aide Peter Navarro was found guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and reported to a federal prison last month to serve his four-month sentence.
"Leonard Leo thinks he's above the law just like Navarro did," said one attorney. "We'll see if he's right."
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