December, 20 2017, 12:15pm EDT
Reps. Ellison, Jayapal, Pocan and Cicilline Introduce Antitrust Legislation
WASHINGTON
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-RI) yesterday introduced the 21st Century Competition Commission Act (H.R. 4686), which would fund the creation of a new body charged with investigating the impact of corporate mergers and increasing market concentration. The representatives' bill would model the new commission on the Temporary National Economic Committee that existed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration.
"Monopolistic corporations have grown so big and powerful that they have hijacked our democratic process and our daily lives, leading us to a new Gilded Age," said Rep. Ellison. "This sweeping bill aims to analyze all the ways monopolization has made our economy worse for working families, and help our government use existing antitrust laws to fix it."
"Robust anti-trust laws help protect everyday people and ensure that hardworking Americans have good wages, and that businesses are incentivized to improve consumer services and provide competitive prices," said Rep. Jayapal. "I'm proud to cosponsor the 21st Century Competition Commission Act. If Republicans are serious about protecting Main Street, not Wall Street, they will join us in passing this bill to simply assess the scope of America's market concentration problem."
"This bill is an important step in the anti-monopoly movement," Said Lina Khan of Open Markets Institute. "The first TNEC, and similar investigations such as the Pujo and Pecora hearings, helped expose the extremity of America's concentration problem. They prompted public officials and private parties to bring hundreds of lawsuits enforcing the antitrust laws, based on the information that these commissions uncovered. This effort will similarly fuel critical reforms."
Rep. Keith Ellison has represented the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives since taking office on January 4, 2007. The Fifth Congressional District is the most vibrant and diverse district in Minnesota with a rich history and traditions. The Fifth District includes the City of Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.
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Salvadoran Court Decried for Letting Case Against 'Santa Marta 5' Continue
"It is outrageous that the judge is allowing this trial to go forward despite the lack of any evidence of a crime," said one observer.
Apr 10, 2024
Human rights defenders on Wednesday condemned a Salvadoran court's decision to uphold what critics say are politically motivated murder and illicit association charges against five environmental activists.
Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega were arrested in January 2023 and accused of murdering María Inés Alvarenga—an alleged collaborator with the U.S.-backed Salvadoran regime that killed approximately 75,000 civilians during a 1979-92 civil war—when the men were Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) rebels.
Defenders of the "Santa Marta Five" have highlighted not only the Salvadoran government's failure to show any proof of the men's guilt, but also the fact that perpetrators of civil war-related crimes are protected under a 1992 amnesty agreement between the government and FMLN.
"It is outrageous that the judge is allowing this trial to go forward despite the lack of any evidence of a crime," said John Cavanagh, a senior adviser at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.
"The international community stands strong with the five leaders of the successful fight against mining, and we will join Salvadoran water defenders to continue to fight with them for justice in this case," he added.
Advocates for the five defendants have also noted how a "state of exception" imposed as part of right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's war on drug gangs has eroded due process and other rights. As Common Dreams has reported, tens of thousands of people have been arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned under the crackdown. More than 130 of them have died in state custody.
Some critics say it's no coincidence that the Santa Marta Five—who played a key role in winning a 2017 ban on metals mining in El Salvador—have been targeted by Bukele's government, which is taking steps to reverse the historic prohibition. Environmental activists have found themselves in the crosshairs.
Vidalina Morales, who heads the environmental and human rights group Association of Economic and Social Development (ADES)—where Santa Marta Five member Pacheco worked— toldAtmos earlier this year that by arresting the Santa Marta Five, Bukele's administration is "sending us a message."
"They want to open the path for these mining projects to come back," she explained. "They want to criminalize the social movements in this country."
"This is the life we're living in El Salvador," Morales added. "We feel so much fear for our lives and the lives of our families."
Viviana Herrera, the Latin America program coordinator at MiningWatch Canada, said Wednesday that "there is a well-documented pattern of criminalization across the Americas, where environmental defenders are slapped with unfounded charges in an effort to silence their opposition to mining and prevent their life-affirming work protecting water for future generations."
"We firmly denounce today's Santa Marta case ruling," she continued. "All five water defenders played pivotal roles securing an historic ban on metal mining in El Salvador, and this ruling is a clear threat to the rights of all Salvadorans who are protecting their water and environment."
"We express our heartfelt sorrow with the five water defenders and their families," Herrera added, "and will continue to call for the charges to be dropped until they are free."
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After Missouri Executes Brian Dorsey, Cori Bush Says Abolish Death Penalty
His case, the congresswoman said, "demonstrates the systemic rot of our criminal legal system, which not only fails to prevent violence but actually enables violence itself."
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Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush renewed her demand for an end to the death penalty nationwide after her home state of Missouri executed 52-year-old Brian Dorsey on Tuesday evening.
"There is no place in a humane society for state violence. Gov. Mike Parson could have saved Brian Dorsey's life by granting clemency, but he chose to uphold his legacy as the 'Deadly Governor' by denying Mr. Dorsey mercy," Bush said in a statement.
Bush and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had written to Parson last week urging the Republican to spare Dorsey's life.
Others who recently tried to prevent Dorsey's execution included family members, five of the jurors who sentenced him to death, over 70 current and former correctional officers, and former Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael Wolff, who previously upheld his sentence.
\u201cI spent 27 years working in corrections .... I believed that the whole purpose of \u2018corrections\u2019 was to rehabilitate people. I knew Brian Dorsey for many years, and I can say without hesitation that he was completely rehabilitated.... Brian\u2019s execution doesn\u2019t make sense to me.\u201d— (@)
The right-wing U.S. Supreme Court also declined to intervene. Dorsey was injected with a single dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre and pronounced dead at 6:11 pm local time, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
"Dorsey took a few deep breaths as the drug was injected, then several shallow, quick breaths," The Associated Pressreported Tuesday. "At one point he raised his head from the pillow and blinked hard. After several seconds, all movement stopped."
Based on advice from private counsel hired by the Missouri State Public Defender to defend him, Dorsey pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for killing his cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Benjamin Bonnie, at their home on December 23, 2006.
"Had counsel investigated and completed an expert evaluation of their client, they would have learned that Mr. Dorsey was not guilty of first-degree murder, as he was neurologically incapable of deliberation," a lawyer for Dorsey wrote in a recent legal filing.
Bush—who is among dozens of congressional Democrats who have advocated against capital punishment—expressed alarm that Dorsey was killed "despite serious concerns about his state of mind when he committed the offense and the legal representation he was provided."
His case, she said, "demonstrates the systemic rot of our criminal legal system, which not only fails to prevent violence but actually enables violence itself."
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One progressive lawmaker complained of "whiplash" Wednesday as presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attempted to distance himself—and his own stated abortion policy proposals—from the Arizona Supreme Court's reinstatement of a 160-year-old abortion ban.
A day after the high court upheld a ban on abortion care from the moment of conception, with no exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest, the former president agreed with a reporter that the state had gone "too far" and that abortion law in Arizona will "be straightened out."
As U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) noted, on Monday Trump clearly said he believes states should be empowered to determine their own abortion laws, as well as saying he is "proudly the person responsible" for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022—clearing the way for state abortion bans.
"Now that Arizona turned the law back to 1864, he says it shouldn't be up to the states?" asked McGovern.
As President Joe Biden's reelection campaign pointed out, the Arizona Supreme Court cited Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the decision that overturned Roe, 22 times in its decision to reinstate the 1864 law.
"One person is responsible: Donald Trump," said the Biden campaign.
Bans like Arizona's, said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, are "the Republican plan."
"This is Donald Trump's plan," said Epting. "They can't run from it. They can't hide from it. And they can't lie to voters about it."
Trump—who lied at least 30,573 times while in office—claimed on Wednesday that he would not sign a national abortion ban if Congress sent one to his desk.
While Democratic politicians have called out the Republican this week, "mainstream outlets are misleadingly sanitizing the language of Donald Trump, this time by obscuring evidence that he would sign a national abortion ban," Media Matters for America researchers highlighted Tuesday.
Right-wing judges and legislators have moved full steam ahead with pushing for abortion bans and restrictions, even as it has become increasingly clear that forced pregnancy is unpopular with Americans.
Pew Research's latest survey in Arizona found that 49% of adults believe abortion care should be legal in most or all cases, while 46% said it should be illegal.
An AP-NORC poll found last year that 64% of adults believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The survey was taken after several women in states with so-called "exceptions" to abortion bans suffered physical and mental health harms after being denied abortions despite health complications.
Like Trump, Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake tried Tuesday to denounce the state Supreme Court ruling, but several critics reminded the public that she spoke in favor of the 1864 law in 2022. Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), whose district Biden won in 2020, quickly posted a statement on social media calling the decision a "disaster for women and providers."
Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich said the ruling "should make Trump squirm," considering his stated support for each state's right to decide their own abortion policies and his "proud" ownership of the Dobbs ruling.
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