June, 17 2021, 01:10pm EDT
Indigenous Women Leaders Resisting Line 3 Invite Secretary Deb Haaland to Minnesota "Honor the Treaties!"
Today, Indigenous women leaders resisting Enbridge's Line 3 sent a letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, inviting the Secretary to visit northern Minnesota and learn more about the impacts of the Line 3 pipeline project within Indigenous communities and for natural resources.
WASHINGTON
Today, Indigenous women leaders resisting Enbridge's Line 3 sent a letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, inviting the Secretary to visit northern Minnesota and learn more about the impacts of the Line 3 pipeline project within Indigenous communities and for natural resources.
The Line 3 tar sands pipeline is currently under construction, and is set to cross more than 200 waterways and cut through the 1854 and 1855 treaty territory where Anishinaabe people retain the right to hunt, fish, gather medicines, and harvest wild rice. As stated in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land."
The invitation highlights concerns Indigenous leaders have with the pipeline project including violation of Treaty Rights, the violation of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and negative impacts for wild rice, local waterways, and Indigenous communities:
"The Line 3 pipeline project poses a significant threat to water, Indigenous Treaty rights, and worsens the global climate crisis. Line 3 is being constructed in Minnesota on Indigenous lands without consent from local tribes and public officials, and without a federal environmental review...So far, President Biden and the Army Corps of Engineers haven't listened to our voices -- we are hoping they will listen to yours."
The invitation was sent by Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation), Giniw Collective; Winona LaDuke (White Earth Nation), Honor the Earth; Taysha Martineau (The Fond Du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), Camp Migizi; Sasha Beaulieu (Red Lake Nation), Red Lake Treaty Camp; Simone Senogles (Red Lake Nation), Indigenous Environmental Network and RISE Coalition; and Joye Braun (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), Indigenous Environmental Network.
If built, the Line 3 pipeline would unlock CO2 emissions equivalent to 50 coal plants, and cost society more than $287 billion in climate impacts in just its first 30 years of operation. In additional to the climate impacts, the signatories also highlight the use of water by Enbridge to build the pipeline while Minnesota is experiencing unprecedented heat:
"In the most severe drought we have seen in this time, Enbridge plans to take 630 million gallons of water from the fish and the wild rice. All of this puts our pristine ecosystems on the verge of collapse, with significant impacts on federally protected areas including major waterfowl production areas, and forested areas."
On June 7, over 2,000 people participated in the Indigenous-led Treaty People Gathering, a mobilization to stop Line 3. Prior to the gathering, more than 300 organizations nationwide sent a letter to President Biden urging him to take Presidential Action to halt the pipeline project.
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a solutions-based organization established to engage women worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, trainings, and movement building for global climate justice.
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48,000+ Democrats Vote 'Uncommitted' in Deep-Blue Washington
"Tonight's numbers show that President Biden's current policies towards Gaza and Palestine are not in line with his voting base."
Mar 13, 2024
More than 48,000 voters and counting marked "uncommitted delegates" on their ballots in Washington state's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, far surpassing organizers' expectations and further showing that President Joe Biden's unconditional support for Israel's war on Gaza has angered significant chunks of his base.
Washington is one of several U.S. states that have adopted universal mail-in voting, so final results from Tuesday's contest aren't expected until later this week. But with 80% of the vote tallied thus far, organizers of the grassroots uncommitted campaign have more than quadrupled their goal of 12,000 votes—which was twice the number of uncommitted votes in Washington in the deep-blue state's 2020 Democratic primary.
Organizers said they campaigned for just two weeks ahead of the primary and spent $20,000. They predicted a surge in "uncommitted" votes in the coming days, given that progressive ballots in Washington are "notoriously late."
"Tonight's numbers show that President Biden's current policies towards Gaza and Palestine are not in line with his voting base," said Rami Al-Kabra, a lead organizer and spokesperson for Uncommitted WA. "Democratic voters want a permanent cease-fire and an end to America's unconditional funding of Israel's military."
While tens of thousands of Democrats voted uncommitted, Biden handily won his party's primaries in Washington, Georgia, and Mississippi on Tuesday, officially securing enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. Former President Donald Trump won the number of delegates needed for the GOP nomination, setting the stage for a 2020 rematch.
"Being uncommitted to Biden for as long as the violence in Gaza continues is a popular sentiment among Democrats everywhere, including in one of the bluest states in the nation."
Uncommitted organizers have stressed that Biden's continued backing of Israel's assault on Gaza risks eroding key elements of his base ahead of the high-stakes November contest against Trump, who has expressed support for the mass killing of Palestinians.
Data for Progress polling released last month shows that 77% of Democratic voters—67% of voters across the political spectrum—want the Biden administration to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. Thus far, Biden has only supported a temporary halt to the fighting while sending Israel billions of dollars worth of lethal weaponry.
Since more than 100,000 Michiganders voted uncommitted in their state's Democratic presidential primary last month—securing 11 delegates to the party's convention—the effort to send a message to Biden and pressure him to dramatically change course on Gaza has spread to states across the country, from Minnesota to Massachusetts to Hawaii.
"Washington proved that being uncommitted to Biden for as long as the violence in Gaza continues is a popular sentiment among Democrats everywhere, including in one of the bluest states in the nation," Faheem Khan, lead organizer of Uncommitted WA, said in a statement. "Thousands of volunteers across the country helped us achieve these results, all within just a few days' time. Mobilizing so many people so quickly would not be possible if support for the Uncommitted movement wasn't so widely and passionately felt."
"Voters have strongly rejected Biden's funding of Israel's war in Gaza at the polls," said Khan. "Washington is proof that they will continue to do so until the Biden administration changes course and calls for a permanent cease-fire and stops their unchecked funding of Israel's genocide with our tax dollars."
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Report Exposes US Corporations That Pay Their Execs More Than They Pay in Taxes
"Both kinds of corporate misbehavior—underpaying taxes and overpaying executives—ultimately make working families the victim through smaller paychecks and diminished public services."
Mar 13, 2024
Top executives at dozens of major, profitable U.S. businesses received more in total compensation in recent years than their companies paid in federal taxes, underscoring the twin outrages of skyrocketing CEO pay and rampant corporate tax dodging.
A report published Wednesday by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) identifies 35 profitable U.S. corporations that paid their top executives more than they paid the federal government in taxes between 2018 and 2022. The list of companies includes Ford, Netflix, NextEra Energy, and Tesla—whose CEO, Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world.
ATF and IPS found 64 companies that paid their top five executives more than they paid in taxes in at least two of the five years examined.
Tesla, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies and loans, paid nothing in federal taxes during the period examined by the new report, as the electric car company carried forward losses from previous years to offset the $4.4 billion in U.S. profits it made between 2018 and 2022—the first five years of the Trump-GOP tax law that slashed rates for the rich and corporations.
Additionally, the report points to Tesla's apparent use of "accounting schemes" such as "shifting American profits to offshore tax havens."
Meanwhile, in 2018, Tesla's board gave Musk a staggering $2.28 billion pay package, which was at the time "the largest compensation plan in public corporate history." (In 2021, the ratio of Musk's compensation and that of the median Tesla employee was roughly 18,000 to 1.)
"In the intervening years, with the rise in the price of Tesla shares, the value of those options has grown to an eye-watering $56 billion. It became so outlandish as compensation for a single individual that a court in corporate-friendly Delaware struck it down," the new report notes. "Even if that decision survives appeal, whatever Tesla winds up paying Musk will still be more than it pays Uncle Sam."
The other profitable companies that paid their top executives more than they paid in taxes during the five-year study period were T-Mobile, American International Group, Duke Energy, DISH Network, Principal Financial, Metlife, American Electric Power, Kinder Morgan, Dominion Energy, Oneok, Williams, Xcel Energy, FirstEnergy, NRG Energy, Salesforce, DTE Energy, Ameren, Sempra Energy, United States Steel, Entergy, AmerisourceBergen, PPL, CMS Energy, Evergy, Voya Financial, Darden Restaurants, Atmos Energy, Alliant Energy, Match Group, UGI, and Agilent Technologies.
"America's working families are cheated twice when major corporations pay too little to the federal government in taxes while paying too much to their top executives."
The new report argues it is "no coincidence" that companies notorious for paying little to nothing in federal taxes despite massive profits also grant their executives huge pay packages.
"Executives are rewarded for 'tax efficiency'—the euphemism for corporate tax dodging—which is often an easier way to raise profits than by creating goods and services more customers want to buy," the report notes. "And compliant corporate boards have more money to throw around the executive suite when their firms pay less in taxes."
CEOs are often able to make use of so-called "top hat" plans that allow them to set aside unlimited sums, tax-free, for retirement.
David Kass, ATF's executive director, said that "both kinds of corporate misbehavior—underpaying taxes and overpaying executives—ultimately make working families the victim through smaller paychecks and diminished public services."
Thanks to cuts to the corporate tax rate and persistent loopholes, the effective U.S. corporate tax rate has declined sharply in recent decades, falling from around 50% in the 1950s to 17% in 2022—depriving the government of revenue that could be used for key domestic priorities, from healthcare to housing to environmental protection.
"America's working families are cheated twice when major corporations pay too little to the federal government in taxes while paying too much to their top executives in lavish compensation packages," the study argues.
The report estimates that hiking the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% would bring in $1.3 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade.
ATF and IPS also point to the "wealth of proposals" in Congress aimed at reining in out-of-control CEO pay. Earlier this year, progressive lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced legislation that would hike taxes on corporations that pay their top executives over 50 times more than their median workers.
The bill's supporters estimate that it could raise up to $150 billion over 10 years.
"For corporations to reward a handful of top executives more than they are contributing to the cost of all the public services needed for our economy to thrive reflects the deep flaws in our public regulation of corporations," said ATF and IPS. "Rather than more tax breaks, Congress should focus on addressing these deficiencies by cracking down on the use of tax havens, eliminating wasteful corporate subsidies, and closing loopholes that further enrich wealthy corporate executives."
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'Disturbing': Intel Chair Used Schumer Protests to Push Warrantless Spying
"If any lawmakers were still on the fence and waiting for a smoking gun, THIS IS IT," said one advocate of reforming Section 702.
Mar 12, 2024
Privacy advocates issued fresh calls for changes to a historically abused U.S. spying program on Tuesday after Wiredreported that a top Republican congressman privately tried using peaceful protests as proof of the need to block long-demanded reforms.
"If you care about the First Amendment, please stop everything and read this Wired article," Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty & National Security Program, said on social media, sharing the piece.
Wired's Dell Cameron obtained a pair of presentation slides and spoke with multiple GOP staffers who attended a December 11 meeting with Rep. Mike Turner, the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
"This is ice in the heart of our democracy."
The meeting was about competing legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows warrantless surveillance targeting noncitizens located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information, but also sweeps up Americans' data—and has been misused, particularly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. One of the bills would require the FBI to get a warrant before accessing U.S. citizens' communications.
Turner—who opposes the bill with that and other reforms—reportedly displayed the slides about 15 minutes into the meeting, which latest over an hour. The first shows a photo of opponents of Israel's genocidal U.S.-backed war on the Gaza Strip protesting outside the Brooklyn residence of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). It does not note that the October 13 action was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace.
The second slide features a social media post from Washington Free Beacon staff writer Matthew Foldi that contains misinformation suggesting Hamas—which governs Gaza and is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government—was tied to a November demonstration at the Democratic leader's residence. The slides do not make clear that they were different events.
"At the outset of the presentation, he's running through slides, making his case for why 702 reauthorization is needed," one senior Republican aide told Wired about Turner's presentation. "Then he throws up that photo. The framing was: 'Here are protesters outside of Chuck Schumer's house. We need to be able to use 702 to query these people.'"
As Cameron detailed:
Jeff Naft, the HPSCI spokesperson, says the purpose of the slides was to illustrate that, even if the protesters did have ties to Hamas, they would "not be subject to surveillance" under the 702 program. "702 is not used to target protestors," he says. "702 is used on foreign terrorist organizations, like Hamas. Chairman Turner's presentation was a distinction exercise to explain the difference between a U.S. person and Hamas."
Wired's sources, who are not authorized to discuss closed-door briefings and requested anonymity to do so, describe this as a conflation of two separate issues—a tactic, they say, that has become commonplace in the debate over the program's future. "Yes, it's true, you cannot 'target' protesters under 702," one aide, a legislative director for a Republican lawmaker, says. "But that doesn't mean the FBI doesn't still have the power to access those emails or listen to their calls if it wants."
In response to Wired's reporting, Goitein—who was quoted in the piece—said on social media that "if any lawmakers were still on the fence and waiting for a smoking gun, THIS IS IT. Turner has made the stakes crystal clear. A vote to reauthorize Section 702 without a warrant requirement is a vote to allow the FBI to keep tabs on protesters exercising [First Amendment] rights."
"HPSCI leaders are reportedly trying to persuade congressional leaders to slip a Section 702 reauthorization into one of the upcoming funding bills," she pointed out. "Lawmakers must be given the opportunity to vote on Section 702 reforms, including a warrant requirement and other critical protections for Americans' civil liberties. Our First Amendment rights depend on it."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) abruptly delayed action on Section 702 last month after Turner announced that the HPSCI had provided members of Congress with "information concerning a serious national security threat," which news outlets reported was that Russia has made alarming progress on a space-based nuclear weapon designed to target U.S. satellites. Critics called it a ploy by the chair to force through the spying program and demanded his immediate resignation.
Among the groups that pressured Turner to step down last month was Demand Progress, a longtime supporter of Section 702 reforms whose policy director, Sean Vitka, was also quoted in Wired's piece and issued a statement about the "disturbing" revelations.
"This is ice in the heart of our democracy," Vitka said. "Americans' right to protest is sacred, and all the more critical given the political volatility 2024 is certain to produce. As intelligence agencies and congressional intelligence committees mislead the public about what's at stake in this fight for privacy, Chairman Turner has been secretly selling his colleagues on backdoor searches of Americans as a way to help the FBI spy on protesters without so much as a court order."
Calling for "a forceful response" from Schumer, Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), he argued that "Congress must stop letting the House Intelligence Committee dictate its agenda by secretly vetoing any meaningful reform. In the coming weeks, Congress has the opportunity to enact meaningful privacy protections that would protect protesters and all people in the United States from warrantless surveillance, specifically by closing the backdoor search and data broker loopholes."
"This discussion is one more example of why Congress must pass a warrant requirement to ensure that these searches are not subject to abuse."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, also weighed in on the reporting.
"Americans exercising their constitutional right to protest have a right to be free from warrantless surveillance. There should be no suggestion that foreign intelligence authorities can be used to target protestors; that would be counter to our core American values," Scott said. "This discussion is one more example of why Congress must pass a warrant requirement to ensure that these searches are not subject to abuse."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly demanded action, saying that "in the United States, a political leader's disagreement with the views of a protest movement does not give the government license to investigate those protesters, and Chairman Turner knows that."
"It is clear our leaders view the ability to conduct warrantless searches based on vague and unfounded claims of foreign influence as a feature of the program—not a bug," he added. "That's precisely why Congress must not reauthorize Section 702 without the fundamental reforms needed to prevent these egregious abuses."
This post has been updated with comment from the ACLU.
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