September, 15 2021, 03:14pm EDT
Corporate Democrats Won't Stop Us From Lowering Drug Prices for Everyone
WASHINGTON
The following is a statement from Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, in response to Representatives Scott Peters (D-CA), Kathleen Rice (D-NY), and Kurt Schrader (D-OR) teaming up with Republicans to block Medicare drug price negotiation in the Energy and Commerce Committee:
"It is disgusting when politicians who supported Medicare negotiation in the past switch their votes in exchange for pharma cash.
But we won't let a few bought and paid for politicians stop the overwhelming will of the people. We are going to get Medicare negotiation into the Build Back Better package, we are going to pass it into law, and we are going to lower drug prices for everyone. Any politician standing in the way of lower drug prices is on a short path to losing their job."
Social Security Works' mission is to: Protect and improve the economic security of disadvantaged and at-risk populations; Safeguard the economic security of those dependent, now or in the future, on Social Security; and Maintain Social Security as a vehicle of social justice.
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Watchdog Says Wray Should Not Assist Trump's Attack on FBI by Resigning
"FBI directors are given 10-year terms for a reason: to insulate them from political pressure," said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen.
Dec 11, 2024
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Wednesday that he will depart his post when President Joe Biden's term ends in January—a move that drew criticism from the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman pointed out that Wray's planned departure follows President-elect Donald Trump's threat to fire him.
"FBI directors are given 10-year terms for a reason: to insulate them from political pressure. To defend the vital independence of the FBI, Director Wray should not preemptively resign in face of Donald Trump's bad-faith threats to remove him," Weissman said in a statement.
Patel, who served as chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller at the end of Trump's first term, was characterized by The Associated Press earlier this year as a "trusted aide and swaggering campaign surrogate who mythologizes the former president while promoting conspiracy theories and his own brand."
Some of Patel's past statements have alarmed critics, who worry he may be willing to weaponize the agency to go after political enemies or media critics of Trump.
"We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections," he said during an appearance on former Trump advisor Steve Bannon's War Room podcast last year.
Weissman said that "if Donald Trump fires [Wray], so be it. But Wray should not aid and abet the effort to weaponize the FBI by bowing out in advance."
Weissman was not the only person to criticize Wray along these lines: "A profile in courage, Chris Wray is not. Wray bowed to political pressure; his early resignation is the easy way out. It avoids a very public conversation when Trump inevitably would have fired him," wrote Anthony Coley, an analyst at NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC.
In announcing his decision to leave, Wray said the choice "is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work," according to The New York Times.
He also struck a wistful tone. "This is not easy for me," Wray said, per the Times. "I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people."
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Doing For-Profit Tax Industry's Bidding, GOP Calls On Trump to Cancel Direct File Program
"This is the most efficient way and cost-efficient way for millions of people to pay their taxes," said one advocate.
Dec 11, 2024
Responding to the "absurd" news that more than two dozen U.S. House Republicans are calling on President-elect Donald Trump to end the Internal Revenue Service's Direct File program, Rep. Gerry Connolly came to one conclusion: "Republicans want to make your lives more difficult."
The Virginia Democrat wasn't alone in denouncing a letter penned by Reps. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) and Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) and signed by at least 27 other Republicans who called on Trump to sign a "day-one executive order" to end the free tax-filing program that allowed roughly 140,000 taxpayers to save an estimated $5.6 million in filing costs this year.
Direct File, which was introduced as a pilot program in 12 states in the last tax filing season and is set to be expanded to 24 states and more than 30 million eligible taxpayers this year, is "a free, easy way for people to file their taxes directly online with IRS," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The software allows taxpayers to keep their entire tax refund "rather than paying $150 to a sleazy tax prep company," said the senator, adding that Republicans evidently want Americans "to keep wasting money on TurboTax," the popular tax filing program run by Intuit, which reported a net income of $2 billion in 2023 and spent $3.5 million on federal lobbying the previous year. The private tax filing industry has spent decades lobbying to ensure a system like Direct File wouldn't be made available to Americans.
In the letter, the Republicans claim the Direct File system is "unauthorized and wasteful" and that "the program's creation and ongoing expansion pose a threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."
The Republican lawmakers also sent the letter to billionaire businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump's nominees to lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In the letter they claim to want to protect "hardworking Americans" from the "overreach" of the IRS, but as In the Public Interest founder and executive director Donald Cohen told Common Dreams on Wednesday, the Direct File program is "incredibly popular" with those who have used it.
"This is the most efficient way and cost-efficient way for millions of people to pay their taxes," Cohen said. "So what the Republicans want to do is make it more costly, more complicated, and more profitable for the big tax software vendors."
Cohen also questioned how Smith and Edwards could argue, as they do in the letter, that Direct File is a "clear conflict of interest."
"It is in all of our interests for the federal government to... collect taxes in the most efficient and cheapest way," he told Common Dreams.
On the contrary, he said, private tax software companies like Intuit and H&R Block are incentivized to fight against Direct File, which keeps them from collecting about $1 billion in filing fees as well as users' data.
At the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, vice president of tax policy Chuck Marr said Republicans who signed Wednesday's letter are essentially pushing for "a tax on paying taxes."
Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab and the former chief economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, argued that Direct File "does what policymakers should be in favor of: It makes a core government function more efficient and user-friendly, in a way that's accessible for everyone."
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In Wake of UN Climate Summit, Azerbaijan Targets Independent Journalists
"Azerbaijan's international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown," said a major human rights group.
Dec 11, 2024
Mere weeks after thousands of delegates descended on Baku, Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, authorities in the country arrested multiple independent journalists on charges that one prominent human rights group called "bogus."
On December 6, police arrested six employees with the independent media organization Meydan TV: Ramin Deko (Jabrailzade), Aynur Elgunesh (Ganbarova), Aysel Umudova, Aytaj Tapdig (Ahmadova), Khayala Agayeva, and Natig Javadli on suspicion of smuggling, according to a statement from Meydan TV. Another media worker, Ulvi Tahirov, was also arrested that day. All seven have been given four months pretrial detention, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a statement released December 6, Meydan TV—which is headquartered in Berlin—said that "since the day we started our activities over a decade ago, our brave journalists have been arrested, and they and their families have been subjected to persecution. Journalists who cooperate with us have been illegally banned from leaving the country, and have been surveilled by Pegasus spyware, among other forms of pressure." Meydan TV has also called the charges "unfounded" and the detention of its journalists "illegal."
Since launching in 2013, Meydan TV has become one of the most important sources of independent news in Azerbaijan, broadcasting interviews with opposition politicians and publishing investigative reporting, according to the Eurasianet, an outlet that covers South Caucasus and Central Asia.
As part of its coverage of COP29, Meydan TV addressed the scrutiny that the Azerbaijani government has engendered for its human rights record.
Members of the Azerbaijani media were also arrested last year. Reporters with Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13 were arrested in 2023 and remain in pretrial custody, and like those targeted in this most recent wave of arrests they face smuggling charges, according to Human Rights Watch.
"Having created a network of laws and regulations in Azerbaijan designed to make it virtually impossible for journalists and activists carrying out legitimate work in full compliance, the government then invokes such bogus charges as politically convenient to silence critics," wrote Arzu Geybulla, a research assistant with Human Rights Watch.
Geybulla added: "Azerbaijan's international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown, including releasing all those arbitrarily detailed, and dropping all politically motivated prosecutions."
Another rights group, Reporters Without Borders, urged the Azerbaijani government to release these journalists, as well as others that have been "arbitrarily detained."
Jeanne Cavelier, head of Reporters Without Borders' Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said that "barely a month after Ilham Aliyev's regime used the glitz of COP29 to polish its international image, it has resumed its relentless repression of journalists."
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