SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
maxine waters
102 House Democrats, Including Jeffries, Help GOP Send Crypto Bill to Trump's Desk
"Congress surrendered to the onslaught of crypto political spending and legitimized the world's biggest Ponzi scheme," said one GENIUS Act critic. "They also forfeited an opportunity to stop Trump's massive crypto grift."
Jul 17, 2025
More than 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives helped Republicans send what would be the country's first major cryptocurrency law to the desk of President Donald Trump, despite warnings that the legislation would not only further his corruption, but also "expose our financial stability, national security, and consumer protections to greater risk."
All but a dozen voting Republicans and 102 Democrats—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.)—supported the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which last month passed the Senate 68-30, with support from 18 Democrats.
If signed by the president, as is expected, the bill would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, which are pegged to the value of existing assets such as the U.S. dollar. The Trump family's World Liberty Financial has issued the stablecoin USD1.
@housedemocrats.bsky.social Shame on all of you. You have no foresight and no backbone.
[image or embed]
— Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Advocacy groups and Democrats critical of the GENIUS Act, and other bills making their way through Congress during "Crypto Week," have highlighted how the legislation would "bolster Trump's business empire while putting American interests at risk."
Leading House Democratic opposition to the GOP's package is Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who warned last week that "these bills would make Congress complicit in Trump's unprecedented crypto scam."
As Politico detailed Thursday:
Waters and other Democrats called for presidential ethics provisions to be added to the bills, pointing to the Trump family's business entanglements in the crypto industry. Trump and his sons have stakes in several crypto ventures, including a company they launched last year that issues a stablecoin and could benefit from the GENIUS bill that is now awaiting the president's signature.
But a growing bloc of the party has joined Republicans in lining up behind the digital asset industry's Washington agenda, a sign of crypto firms' ascendance as a political force. Companies in the crypto sector have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into influence efforts, and a mountain of super [political action committee] money is threatening to target lawmakers who stand in the way of the industry's goals.
After Thursday's vote, Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, declared that "today, House members piled venality onto perversion onto corruption. In approving this crypto-enabling bill, Congress surrendered to the onslaught of crypto political spending and legitimized the world's biggest Ponzi scheme."
"To add insult to injury," Naylor added, "they also forfeited an opportunity to stop Trump's massive crypto grift, some of the most heinous and flagrant corruption in American presidential history."
RM @repmaxinewaters.bsky.social slams Republicans’ UNSTABLE Act:“The UNSTABLE Act creates the appearance of a federal framework for #stablecoins, but it does not provide the Federal government with the full authority it needs.” | tinyurl.com/5t2skxvnWATCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQWy...
[image or embed]
— U.S. House Committee on Financial Services - Democrats (@ushousefsc.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 1:23 PM
In addition to sending the GENIUS Act to Trump, the House advanced two other crypto bills on Thursday: the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which would create a regulatory framework for digital asset markets, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
All Republicans present and 78 Democrats backed the CLARITY Act, while just Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Shri Thanedar (Mich.) voted alongside the GOP to pass the CBDC ban. Both of those bills still need Senate approval.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Warren Asks the Fed to Reconsider Approval of Capital One-Discover Merger
"This decision will inflict serious harm on consumers and merchants, especially low-income consumers and small businesses," wrote Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Maxine Waters.
May 05, 2025
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California are urging the Federal Reserve to reconsider its approval of an impending merger between Capital One Financial Corporation and Discover Financial Services, a tie-up that critics have warned could harm consumers.
In a letter sent last week, Warren and Waters wrote that the decision to approve the merger by the Federal Reserve "was inconsistent with the legal requirements" under the Bank Holding Company Act. They also argued that it did not include a number of relevant assessments, including how the the merger would impact the "convenience and needs of the community" or the "competitive effects on the credit card market."
"This decision will inflict serious harm on consumers and merchants, especially low-income consumers and small businesses, and threaten the stability of the U.S. financial system," states the letter, which was addressed to Secretary of the Board Ann Misback and dated May 1.
Warren is the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and Waters is the ranking member on the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
The deal was announced in February 2024 and is valued at $35 billion. A report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released right before the acquisition was announced found that the largest credit card firms charge much higher interest rates than smaller banks and credit unions.
The deal initially received some scrutiny around possible impacts to competition, but in April 2025 overcame a major obstacle when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), now under the Trump administration, decided not to challenge the merger.
The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave the deal the green light last month.
In response to the DOJ's decision not to challenge the merger, Morgan Harper, the director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote that "if the Trump administration green-lights the Capital One-Discover merger, it will be a betrayal of working-class Americans and small businesses." The American Economic Liberties Project is an anti-monopoly research and advocacy group.
"If the deal goes through, Capital One will become the largest credit card lender in the country, the first major issuer in decades to control its own payments network, and entrench its striking dominance in subprime credit card lending," Harper continued.
One noteworthy aspect of the merger, which is expected to be finalized mid-May, is that Capital One is set to acquire Discover's card network. This means the combined firm would be akin to a larger version of American Express, "a stand-alone integrated system that could use its millions of customers to push higher fees onto merchants," according to The American Prospect.
Capitol One currently uses Visa and Mastercard credit card networks, which operate an effective duopoly of global payment processing, but has said it would transition to the Discover card network, according the outlet CNET.
This aspect of the merger is without clear precedent and raises concerns about competition, according to Jesse Van Tol, the chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a group that is opposed to the deal, who spoke to The New York Times in April.
"The market power it gives them, and the opportunity it gives them to set pricing in ways that captures a lot of value for the company at the expense of the consumer, is significant," Van Tol told the Times.
In their letter, Warren and Waters alleged that the Federal Reserve failed to adequately scrutinize the competitive effect of this aspect of the deal.
"The board argued that given 'the significant, larger competitors that would remain,' and that Capital One doesn't currently own a network, there aren't any competitive concerns. The board completely missed the fact that the merger would provide Capital One with significant market power to increase interchange fees charged to merchants and reduce rewards and other benefits for consumers. It didn't grapple with the implications of vertical integration and network effects," the two wrote.
When considering the conveniences and needs of the community, Warren and Waters said in their letter that the Federal Reserve did not perform the prospective analysis required by law, and instead "focused on each bank's past performance under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)," even though "the convenience and needs of the community is a distinct legal factor, separate and apart from banks' past performance under the CRA."
The two also said that the Federal Reserve appears to not have taken into consideration relevant findings from the CFPB, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the DOJ.
Bloomberg reported last week that the Federal Reserve received the letter and plans to response, per a spokesperson.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Warn House Anti-Socialism Resolution Backed by 109 Dems Is Step Toward Slashing Safety Net
"This resolution is little about intelligent discourse and everything to do about laying the groundwork to cut Social Security and Medicare," said Rep. Mark Pocan, one of 86 House Democrats who voted against the measure.
Feb 02, 2023
More than 100 U.S. House Democrats—including some of the wealthiest members of Congress—joined with Republican lawmakers on Thursday in passing a resolution "denouncing the horrors of socialism," a largely symbolic gesture that opponents warned is nonetheless a step toward slashing Social Security, Medicare, and other safety net programs.
House Concurrent Resolution 9, which "denounces socialism in all its forms and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States," was introduced by Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), the staunchly anti-communist daughter of Cuban exiles who once interviewed then-Cuban President Fidel Castro for Telemundo.
"I think it's the best resolution that has ever been presented before the United States Congress," Salazar told Insider at the U.S. Capitol before the vote. "Our youth are being penetrated by this ideology through media and academia."
The measure—which followed the vote to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee—passed 328-86, with 14 lawmakers voting "present" and six members not voting.
One hundred and nine Democrats—many of them members of the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition—joined with every Republican lawmaker in voting to approve the resolution. Prominent Democrats who voted "yes" include: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), and House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (S.C.), all of whom played prominent roles in defeating Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaigns, which were based on popular democratic socialist policies and principles.
Many of the Democrats voting for the resolution also rank among the wealthiest members of Congress, including Pelosi, whose 2018 net worth was over $114 million, according to OpenSecrets.org; Suzan DelBene (Wash., $79 million net worth); Dean Phillips (Minn., $64 million); Scott Peters (Calif., $60 million); and Ro Khanna (Calif., $45 million). Khanna along with Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California and Rubén Gallego of Arizona, are either current or prospective candidates for U.S. Senate.
Denouncing the measure on the House floor, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.)—who voted "no"— said that "the socialism resolution is useless. It does nothing. It does not matter. Are we talking about public schools? Are we talking about roads? Are we talking about Social Security? I mean, give me a break."
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Chair Emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, invoked his experience as a capitalist to lambaste the anti-socialism resolution.
"For 35 years now I've owned a small business, giving me significantly more experience as a capitalist than the vast majority of members on the other side of the aisle. So as a capitalist, let me tell you: This resolution is plain ridiculous. It jointly condemns Pol Pot and Norway," Pocan said during floor debate, referring to the former Cambodian dictator, who was supported by the Republican Reagan administration after leading a genocidal regime that killed at least 1.5 million people.
Pocan continued:
Here's what this is really about: More and more members on the other side of the aisle are calling for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and many have referred to these programs as "socialism" throughout their existence. The other night in the Rules Committee they showed their cards. Republicans refused an amendment to declare that Social Security and Medicare is not socialism. This resolution is little about intelligent discourse and everything to do about laying the groundwork to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), another "no" vote, called out the hypocrisy of Republicans who support corporate welfare or are personal beneficiaries of social programs. Waters took aim at House Small Business Committee Chair Roger Williams (R-Texas), who summarized his support for the resolution as: "Socialism bad. Capitalism good. In God we trust."
"Mr. Williams is my friend," said Waters, "but I do wonder whether Mr. Williams views the $1.43 million he received in debt forgiveness [to be] consistent with his views on socialism? I don't get it."
After Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who voted against the measure, noted during floor debate that there have been numerous democratic socialist leaders around the world who've been "allies of America and NATO," Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) quipped, "If this resolution would just simply draw out my Democrat colleagues to just say, yes, they are in favor of socialism, maybe this is a worthwhile endeavor."
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), a former organizer from Pittsburgh's Democratic Socialists of America chapter who voted against the resolution, shrugged off Republicans' red-baiting and the New Democrat Coalition's support for the GOP resolution.
"They're going to call you socialists anyways," Lee said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Cori Bush, Progressive Lawmakers and Activists Hailed for New CDC Eviction Moratorium
"I think the message here today is clear," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "It's that everyday people can make a change. We can always demand better."
Aug 03, 2021
Pressure from progressive lawmakers and grassroots activists to extend the expired federal eviction moratorium paid off Tuesday when the Biden administration took action to shield most--but not all--U.S. renters at risk of losing their homes.
"We saw what it's like when one of the lowest-income Americans ever elected to national office challenged a Congress that is half made up of millionaires."
--Alexandra Rojas, Justice Democrats
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the new moratorium "is intended to target specific areas of the country where cases are rapidly increasing, which likely would be exacerbated by mass evictions."
Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein tweeted Tuesday afternoon that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) confirmed that the new CDC moratorium "will cover 90% of the country" and "last for 60 days."
"Schumer says, 'I particularly applaud Cori Bush,' who he says gave 'voice to the millions' at risk of eviction," Stein added.
Reacting to news of the new CDC moratorium, Bush (D-Mo.) tweeted, "Today, our movement moved mountains."
Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a statement that Bush "demonstrated exactly the kind of leadership on behalf of working people that we need to see more of in the Democratic Party."
"We saw what it's like when one of the lowest-income Americans ever elected to national office challenged a Congress that is half made up of millionaires," said Rojas. "With a little conflict and disruption of business as usual, she created a way out of 'no-way.' This isn't the end of the battle for housing rights, but a new beginning. People deserve so much more than just basic protections from evictions during a pandemic."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement that "today's extension of the eviction moratorium is life-changing news for millions of people."
"I want to thank the Biden administration for finding a way to keep people in their homes while states distribute the $47 billion in assistance that Democrats in Congress provided in the American Rescue Plan," Sanders continued. "I'm also very proud of Reps. Cori Bush, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-N.Y.] and the [Congressional] Progressive Caucus for leading the effort to push the federal government to respond directly to the needs of the working class."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) tweeted that "this couldn't have happened without the monthslong advocacy of the Congressional Progressive Caucus." The Caucus chair hailed the "committed, clear-eyed activists like Bush leading the way, galvanizing attention, and calling on D.C. to govern with moral clarity," adding that "it gets results."
After House Democrats on Friday gave up on an eleventh-hour effort to pass a bill from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to extend the moratorium just before the lower chamber adjourned for August recess, the eviction ban lapsed on Saturday, putting millions of U.S. renters at risk of losing their homes amid the worsening Covid-19 pandemic.
Rather than leave Washington, D.C. like many of her congressional colleagues, Bush, along with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), slept outside the U.S. Capitol building Friday night to demand that the House immediately reconvene to extend the moratorium.
The "Squad" members were joined over the weekend by other lawmakers and activists, who demanded that President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Schumer, and other leaders "stop playing the blame game" and "do whatever it takes" to "end this eviction emergency."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Issue Dire Warning as House Bill to Extend Eviction Moratorium Dies
"If Congress does not act now, the fallout of the eviction crisis will undoubtedly set us backwards as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravish our communities, needlessly contributing to more death and destruction."
Jul 30, 2021
House Democrats on Friday afternoon gave up on the effort to enact legislation to extend the federal eviction moratorium after failing to secure enough votes for passage, even as progressive lawmakers warned of the "death and suffering" that will likely result from millions of people losing their homes as the more dangerous Delta variant drives a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic.
"Extending the federal eviction moratorium as quickly as possible is the least we can do for those in our communities who need our help the most."
--Rep. Cori Bush
According to The Hill, two unnamed Democratic lawmakers said a possible Friday House floor vote on a bill introduced Thursday by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) that would extend the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction ban--which has been in effect since September and expires on Saturday--through the end of the year will not take place because, as one aide said, "we don't have the votes."
As the moratorium's expiration fast approached on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her leadership team were struggling to secure sufficient support for the bill "amid resistance from moderates and housing industry groups," the site reported.
The Hill continued:
House Democrats can currently only afford three defections and still pass bills on their own without any support from Republicans. Democratic sources said Friday they were short by more than a dozen votes, which proved to be insurmountable despite more than a day of persuasion attempts by party leaders.
Pelosi later proposed a compromise of only extending the eviction ban to October 18, in part to appease centrists who preferred ending the moratorium by the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The October 18 date would also coincide with the end of the public health emergency declaration issued by the Biden administration.
Waters and Pelosi disagreed about whether lawmakers would vote on the bill--the former and progressives wanted a vote, while the latter was wary of the repercussions that the exposure of a "no" vote might bring.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) attempted to pass the bill by unanimous consent, but the effort was thwarted when Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) objected.
"I just thought we should've fought harder," Waters said following the defeat.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden urged Congress to act to extend the moratorium "without delay" before the measure expires and lawmakers adjourn for summer recess.
However, Pelosi suggested that Biden could order the CDC to prolong the eviction ban long enough for states and municipalities to distribute around $47 billion in federal rental assistance that largely has yet to reach tenants and landlords.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed the president's hands are tied by a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling in which right-wing Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that "clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary" for another extension.
Progressive Democratic lawmakers--who for months have been pushing for an extension of the moratorium--on Friday renewed calls to prolong the lifesaving measure. In a letter to her House colleagues, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who formerly lived in her car with her two babies, wrote that "we cannot in good conscience leave for August recess until the federal eviction moratorium has been extended."
Speaking with Bush outside the U.S. Capitol on Friday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a video she posted on Instagram that "we're pretty pissed off" because "Congress decided to leave town" while "an estimated seven million Americans" could be at risk of eviction when the moratorium lapses.
"They didn't even try," Ocasio-Cortez said, noting that even if the effort to pass the extension bill by unanimous consent failed, "you can call a vote and make everybody put their name next to their stance."
"But because people are a little too afraid to actually communicate to the public what their stance is, people want to skip town and let this moratorium lift tomorrow," she said.
"And by the way, the White House is not innocent here either," Ocasio-Cortez continued, "because the White House had a month to let people know, and they just sent a little Post-It note... to Congress yesterday, knowing that the House was set to adjourn."
"We're here. We're not on a plane to Boca," she said. "We're here, because people need to be housed, and we need to do our job. And we're not leaving until this job is finished."
"The House... can actually vote remotely... due to Covid provisions, and they still refused," Ocasio-Cortez said of her Democratic colleagues. "What I'm not going to do is let... House Democrats hide and say that this is Republicans' fault. Because it's not.... We have a House majority right now. When Democrats have a majority, Democrats can pass laws that they really want to pass."
Amid the back-and-forth between the administration and Congress, an all-but-certainly deadly reality looms: According to recent survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 4.2 million people across the nation say they are very likely or somewhat likely to face an eviction or foreclosure in the near future. Some of them face the prospect of homelessness.
This, as the more transmissible, more potent Delta variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has become the dominant strain in the United States and infections and hospitalizations surge amid persistent vaccine hesitancy. In March, epidemiologists at the University of California, Los Angeles published research (pdf) showing that unhoused people are up to 50% more likely to die from Covid-19 than the general population.
"If Congress does not act now, the fallout of the eviction crisis will undoubtedly set us backwards as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravish our communities, needlessly contributing to more death and destruction," wrote Bush in her letter. "After the loss of nearly 600,000 Americans to this pandemic, lawmakers need to be held to the highest levels of accountability to enact legislation that protects human life."
"I know firsthand the trauma and devastation that comes with the violence of being evicted, and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent this trauma from being inflicted on our neighbors and communities," Bush added. "Extending the federal eviction moratorium as quickly as possible is the least we can do for those in our communities who need our help the most."
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Bill Described as 'Avalanche of Deregulatory Rubbish' Advances
A House committee on Tuesday took a dangerous step towards incapacitating Dodd-Frank
Sep 13, 2016
A House committee on Tuesday took a dangerous step towards incapacitating Dodd-Frank, the reform law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, by approving a new bill that, as one watchdog put it, contains "an avalanche of deregulatory rubbish that would imperil consumers and the entire financial system."
The legislation (pdf)--introduced by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and entitled the Financial CHOICE (Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs) Act--passed the U.S. House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 30-26. According to the roll call (pdf), every Democrat on the committee opposed the measure and all but one Republican--Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine--supported it.
As Common Dreams previously reported, the bill
would roll back a slew of Dodd-Frank regulations; reduce the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren; repeal the Volcker Rule that aims to stop banks from making risky bets with taxpayer-backed deposits; and prevent the Financial Stability Oversight Council from labeling insurers and other non-banks as "systemically important financial institutions"--or too big to fail--making them subject to federal constraints.
The legislation passed "after less than two hours of debate because Democrats didn't even attempt to amend it, instead rejecting it out of hand," The Hill reported. "This bill is so bad that it simply cannot be fixed," said Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), who dismissed the measure as a "highly partisan, damaging piece of legislation."
Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, described the legislation as "a gift to the Big Banks, that would extend their 'license to steal' and tear down hard-fought banking regulations, some of which have not yet been implemented."
"Constraining consumer protections is unconscionable," she continued. "Americans still suffering from the economic collapse deserve better; we deserve government watchdogs with teeth."
Notably, the vote came just days after news broke that Wells Fargo employees illegally opened millions of fake accounts to meet corporate sales targets. Connecting that event with the GOP's deregulation scheme, Waters noted, "At a time when we learn about Wells Fargo...thank you for bringing this bill forward so we can shine a light on exactly what you're trying to do in dismantling Dodd-Frank."
Sen. Warren, who previously dubbed the Hensarling bill the "Wet Kiss for Wall Street Act," is one of the lawmakers hoping to investigate the Wells Fargo scandal. In a Monday letter calling for (pdf) the testimony of bank president and CEO John Stumpf, Warren and her colleagues addressed the importance of these regulatory bodies the CHOICE Act seeks to dismantle.
Dodd-Frank, they wrote, "provides the CFPB with the authority to take action against institutions engaged in practices that violate consumer financial laws, including those practices that are unfair, deceptive, or abusive."
The Financial CHOICE Act will be reviewed by a number of other subcommittees before reaching a full House vote. But as Reuters notes, "the bill is not anticipated to receive President Barack Obama's signature if it ever reaches his desk."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Black Dems Breaking Silence on Obama--'We're Getting Tired, Y'all'
Aug 24, 2011
California Democrat Maxine Waters has had quite a bit to say on the jobs crisis lately. Despite the overwhelming support President Obama has enjoyed thus from black Americans and the Congressional Black Caucus, Waters has spared neither him nor the tea party from criticism during the summer congressional recess.
The Los Angeles representative was unhappy that the president chose to take his recent bus tour through Midwestern rural areas instead of urban centers where blacks live with double digit unemployment, twice that of the national rate. "We're supportive of the president, but we getting tired, y'all. Getting tired," Waters said at a Detroit town hall meeting the CBC held last week. "And so what we want to do is we want to give the president every opportunity to show, to show what he can do and what he's prepared to lead on," Waters continued, according to The Hill newspaper.
Then, this weekend, she had similarly sharp words for the right. "And as far as I'm concerned," she said at an event in LA Saturday night, "the tea party can go straight to hell."
Waters' remarks, coming at an official CBC event, have prompted much speculation whether the black caucus is prepared to publicly turn on the black president. CBC members largely represent districts with large black populations--and levels of unemployment at 16.1 percent, or higher.
But the CBC has largely stayed silent when it comes to criticizing the president. Some members, including Chair Emmanuel Cleaver, loudly complained about cuts in the president's budget proposal this February. Others have grumbled about both housing and financial reform. But like most Democrats, the caucus has thus far reserved it's criticism for the GOP's obstruction while promoting its own initiatives--an alternative budget, a jobs bill that would help the long-term unemployed compete fairly, a series of jobs fairs that are drawing thousands.
Waters, however, is one of the few more vocally critical members. And Illinois Democrat Jesse Jackson, Jr. says he understands her frustration.
"President Obama got 96 percent of [the black] vote but he isn't dealing with our biggest problem--unemployment--which is more than twice that of whites," Jackson told Colorlines.com in an emailed statement. "We seem to be, not in a win-win situation, but in a never-win position."
Members of the CBC have had several meetings with the president since he took office in hopes of pressing the concerns of black America. The CBC's alternative budget was meant to illustrate how Congress can better meet the needs of densely black areas with high poverty and unemployment. Still, despite the high hopes of the members, no targeted policies have come from the White House.
Jackson explains how jobs policy should be structured by drawing an analogy to battlefield medicine. "When people are injured, the principle of triage is: Help those hurt the most first; then help the next most seriously injured; and then help those who are hurt the least seriously, last."
The president is readying a major jobs speech for early September, in which he is expected to lay out a fresh suite of pre-campaign job-creation proposals. Administration officials have already signaled to the political press that those initiatives will focus on tax breaks and the president's long-discussed, but never fought-for infrastructure improvement project, which would create jobs.
Aside from the occasional frustrated outburst like Waters' last weekend--and even she later walked back her criticism of Obama for visiting rural areas--the president largely appears to continue enjoying the support of the CBC, as well as the larger Democratic caucus. The question looming over that relationship, however, is the same that looms over much of Washington now: What will happen as the "super committee" negotiations over budget cuts unfolds?
Keep ReadingShow Less
House Republicans Shred Constitution With Backdoor Proposal of Permanent War
May 11, 2011
House Republicans like to talk -- and talk, and talk -- about their regard for the founders and the Constitution.
House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Tea Party, and their circle even attempted -- in unsettlingly bumbling manner -- to read the document into the Congressional Record at the opening of the current Congress.
Now, however, with a backdoor plan to commit the United States to a course of permanent warmaking, they are affronting the most basic premises of a Constitution that requires congressional declarations of all wars and direct and engaged oversight of military missions.
The House Republican leadership, working in conjunction with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-California, has included in the 2012 defense authorization bill language (borrowed from the sweeping Detainee Security Act) that would effectively declare a state of permanent war against unnamed and ill-defined foreign forces "associated" with the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The means that, despite the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan (which GOP leaders in the House have refused to officially recognize as a significant development), the Department of Defense will be authorized to maintain a permanent occupation of Afghanistan, a country bin Laden abandoned years ago, and a global war against what remains of bin Laden's fragmented operation.
Instead of an explicit declaration of war with Afghanistan or the ill-defined global conflict, the GOP leaders has slipped language into the spending bill that simply announced theU.S. is "engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces" and that claims an old "Authorization for Use of Military Force necessarily includes the authority to address the continuing and evolving threat posed by these groups."
That's about a wide-ranging as it gets, and the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee argues that the language makes a mockery of the Constitutional requirement that Congress check and balance the executive branch and the Department of Defense when it comes to questions of extending wars.
(The language included in the spending bill) would appear to grant the President near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further congressional approval," argues Congressman John Conyers, D-Michigan. "Such authority must not be ceded to the President without careful deliberation from Congress."
Conyers and 32 House Democrats have written Armed Services Committee Chairman McKeon asking that he "immediately call hearings... so that the American people have an opportunity to consider the serious impacts that this legislation could have on our national security."
That's the right call.
Who says?
James Madison, the essential author of Constitution.
Madison observed in the founding years of the American experiment that: "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
The Madisonian impulse is kept alive today not by House leaders who claim to revere the Constitution while adandoning its principles but by those members of Congress who object to permanent war for the same reasons that thewisest of the founders did.
Here is the Conyers letter:
Dear Chairman McKeon:
We are writing concerning certain troubling provisions in H.R. 968, the Detainee Security Act of 2011, which we understand are likely to be considered as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of the Fiscal Year of 2012. Whatever one thinks about the merits of the Detainee Security Act, it is a serious enough departure from current counterterrorism policy and practice to merit consideration apart from the NDAA. Accordingly, we request that you use your chairmanship in the House Armed Services Committee to immediately hold hearings so that the public can further consider the various provisions within the Detainee Security Act.
Among the many troubling aspects of the Detainee Security Act are provisions that expand the war against terrorist organizations on a global basis. The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001 was widely thought to provide authorization for the war in Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda, the Taliban, and others responsible for the 9/11 attacks. That war has dragged on for almost ten years, and after the demise of Osama Bin Laden, as the United States prepares for withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Detainee Security Act purports to expand the "armed conflict" against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and "associated forces" without limit. By declaring a global war against nameless individuals, organizations, and nations "associated" with the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as those playing a supporting role in their efforts, the Detainee Security Act would appear to grant the President near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further congressional approval. Such authority must not be ceded to the President without careful deliberation from Congress.
The Detainee Security Act also unwisely requires that all terrorism suspects eligible for detention under the AUMF be held exclusively in military custody pending further disposition. The practical effect of this provision will be to undermine the ability of the FBI and local law enforcement to participate in counterterrorism operations, which could have serious negative impacts on national security. Moreover, in a recent hearing in the House Armed Services Committee, Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson noted that, rather than help clarify detention authority, the military custody provision in the Detainee Security Act would create serious litigation risk for the government.
The Detainee Security Act contains several additional troublesome provisions that relate to Guantanamo. The Detainee Security Act in effect requires that terrorism suspects be tried in military commissions, thereby cutting out Article III federal courts from conducting terrorism trials. This is unwise, as Article III federal courts have convicted over 400 individuals of terrorism-related offenses since 9/11. Military commissions, mired by legal problems and controversy, have convicted only six. The Detainee Security Act would also make permanent current transfer restrictions on Guantanamo detainees, further undermining the ability of the President to close the offshore detention facility. In our view, restricting the President in this way is unnecessary to promote a robust national security that keeps the American people safe.
Whatever one thinks of these various proposals in the Detainee Security Act, it is clear that they will have serious consequences and should be examined extensively. We therefore request that you use your chairmanship to immediately call hearings on Detainee Security Act so that the American people have an opportunity to consider the serious impacts that this legislation could have on our national security.
Sincerely,
Representatives John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), John Dingell (D-Mich.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Michael Honda (D-Calif.), Jesse Jackson (D-Ill.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), George Miller (D-Calif.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), David Price (D-N.C.), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and David Wu (D-Ore.).
Keep ReadingShow Less
No Place Like Home: The U.N. on America's Housing System
Mar 06, 2010
Housing is a human right. That's not a phrase you hear often in our
political discourse, even though the foreclosure crisis and recession
have made shelter an increasingly precarious resource for millions
across the country. On the most basic level, is it that unreasonable to
think human beings have a right to a roof over their heads? From a
philosophical angle, what does it mean for an individual, family, or
group not to have a place to call home, and how does that kind of
physical insecurity affect a community's ability to thrive?
An international perspective might help us square the hierarchy of needs. A United Nations Human Rights Council report on the U.S. housing system articulates the bleak realization
now dawning on a divided America: there aren't enough homes for
everyone, and depending on your racial, ethnic or economic background,
your right to shelter is rapidly crumbling down.
The report, presented by Special Rapporteur on housing Raquel Rolnik,
identifies key housing injustices: institutionalized discrimination,
poverty, a freewheeling real estate market, the bias of policymakers
who fail to see the link between homelessness and building sustainable
homes.
While
largely based on a recent tour of six cities, the study traces the
history of postwar housing segregation, from the warehousing of poor
Black families in rental tracts to the redlining of suburbia into a
white-only zone. Today, unmet needs continue to blight the housing
landscape:
In past years there were significant
cuts in low-income housing assistance programmes. Budget cuts in the
1980s resulted in the gradual erosion and poor maintenance of the
public housing system. Further subsequent funding cuts have also
significantly affected the preservation of public housing. By the early
1990s, hundreds of thousands of public housing units had become
dilapidated. Over the past decade there has been a net loss of
approximately 170,000 public housing units due to deterioration and
decay, and much of the current public housing stock needs substantial
repairs and rehabilitation. However, annual funding for public housing
fell by 25 per cent between 1999 and 2006.When federal funding is inadequate, housing agencies
reduce their own expenses. Measures have included shifting units to
tenants with higher incomes (who can be charged higher rents than
lower-income households but typically have less need for assistance),
or cutting back in areas such as security or maintenance.
The study also notes that the Section 8 housing voucher program,
despite purporting to offer residents "choice" in the housing market,
is so limited that it serves only a portion of eligible low-income
families, while the supply of affordable public housing evaporates.
Other problems are ingrained in the architecture of exclusion:
The link between housing and health was
stressed to the Special Rapporteur throughout her visit. Poor housing
conditions expose residents -- especially children -- to a number of
diseases. Most residents of public housing with whom the Special
Rapporteur spoke complained of asthma, attributed to mould from poor
maintenance of units. A resident in Los Angeles described living in
slum housing conditions with rats, cockroaches, bedbugs, deteriorated
piping and lead-based paint, and as a result developing chronic
asthma....During the mission, the Special Rapporteur observed many
families living in subsidized housing units in conditions of severe
overcrowding. This was particularly the case amongst immigrant families
in Los Angeles, and most strikingly on Pine Ridge Native American
Reservation, where it was described as commonplace to have three to
four families living in a three-bedroom house. The conditions in the
houses on the reservation were the worst seen by the Special Rapporteur
during her mission, evidence of the urgent and severe need for
additional subsidized housing units there.
Housing inequality--exacerbated by the subprime crisis and its
disproportionate impact communities of color--has a ripple effect on
other human rights to educational and economic opportunity:
The 2008 concluding observations of the Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the report of the United
States expressed deep concern that minority groups are
disproportionately concentrated in poor areas characterized by
substandard housing conditions. The Committee's recommendations on this
issue are firmly supported by the Special Rapporteur. The Committee
also stated its concern regarding the de facto racial segregation in
United States public schools. In many communities this issue is
directly linked to housing, as some public school districts are funded
by the property taxes of the local community, thus providing more
resources to schools in wealthier neighbourhoods.
As those with no homes at all reflect the worst forms of
discrimination, a racially polarized and stigmatized population that is
systematically undercounted. Despite some movement toward more
equitable treatment, policymakers continue to criminalize the homeless
and needlessly break apart families.
More than 1.5 million children in the United States
experience homelessness each year. In many cases, there are no adequate
shelter facilities where parents and children can stay together and
children are often removed from their parents and placed in foster
care. The Family Unification Program (FUP) which aims to prevent this
practice urgently needs more funds. A positive step is the resolution
introduced in June 2009 by Congresswoman Maxine Waters in the House of
Representatives on the right of children to adequate housing (H. Res.
582). While not yet adopted by Congress, this resolution recognizes the
right of children and youth to adequate housing and states that
projects that provide services to parents and other caretakers to
prevent possible homelessness of youth in crisis should be created and
maintained.
The report offers various recommendations for improving housing
stock and developing more sustainable housing and home lending
policies--such as the elimination of housing barriers facing formerly incarcerated people. One of the last suggestions is more open-ended:
Residents of public housing should have direct,
active and effective participation in the planning and decision-making
process affecting their access to housing. Residents should be seen as
essential partners working alongside the Government in transforming
public housing.
This idea embodies the core of housing as a right rather than a privilege.
Underserved communities have for decades been forced to accept the
policies handed down by bureaucrats who claim to know best where and
how the poor should live. To make housing a truly responsive and
equitable system, it requires a political framework
that respects residents as central stakeholders, entitled not only to a
place to call home, but to the power and responsibility of real
ownership.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Lawmakers, NGOs Call for Debt Cancellation
Feb 05, 2010
WASHINGTON - Three weeks after
Haiti's devastating earthquake, nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers joined with
key civil society groups here Thursday to urge the Group of Seven (G7)
leading western nations to commit to canceling all of the Caribbean
country's multilateral debt.
On the eve of Friday's
meeting by G7 finance ministers in Iqaluit, Canada, 94 members of the
House of Representatives sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner that also called for "the provision of assistance to Haiti in
the form of grants so that the country does not accumulate additional
debts."
That
call was echoed by a several non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
including Oxfam, Jubilee USA, and Avaaz, which said they plan to
deliver hundreds of thousands of individual signatures on petitions
appealing for debt cancellation from across the world to this weekend's
ministerial meeting.
"(While) the international community has
acted rapidly and generously to provide for Haiti's immediate emergency
needs," said Emma Seery, Oxfam's campaign manager, "the G7 must now
also make sure that Haiti is not left saddled with crippling debts as
it recovers and rebuilds."
"They must agree to all new financial
support being in the form of grants, not loans, and commit to a clear
plan to cancel what remains of Haiti's debt," she said.
The push
on the G7, which, in addition to the U.S., includes Canada, France,
Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the European Union (EU), comes as
Haiti struggles to clean up and begin recovering from the cataclysmic
Jan. 12 earthquake that is estimated to have killed at least 150,000
people, and possibly tens of thousands more.
In addition to
damaging much of the country's infrastructure, the quake, the most
lethal in the Americas' recorded history, also rendered nearly one
million of its nearly 10 million people homeless, creating
unprecedented challenges for the government of President Rene Preval,
humanitarian NGOs and foreign aid groups, and more than 10,000 U.S.
troops and U.N. peacekeepers.
With the vast majority of the
population living on less than two U.S. dollars a day before the
earthquake, Haiti has long been the western hemisphere's poorest
country. The quake was the latest in a series of natural disasters,
including devastating hurricanes in 2008 and again in 2009.
Last
June, 1.2 billion dollars in Haiti's external debt, including that owed
to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank,
and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), was canceled after the
Preval government completed a three-year Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (HIPC) program.
Over half of that debt had been
incurred by Haiti's dictatorships, notably the Duvalier dynasty that
ruled the country from 1957 to 1986.
But the cancellation
covered debt incurred by Haiti only through 2004. In the last five
years, the country has received new loans - some of them to help it
recover from the floods and other hurricane damage - totaling another
1.05 billion dollars.
Some two-thirds of that total is owed to
multilateral agencies, including some 447 million dollars to the IDB,
39 million dollars to the World Bank, and some 165 million dollars to
the IMF.
The remainder is bilateral debt, most of it owed to
Taiwan (92 million dollars) and Venezuela (167 million dollars). Haiti
also owes the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD) another 58 million dollars.
While the terms
of the multilateral loans are concessional - most of them carry only
nominal interest rates and can be repaid over as much as 50 years -
servicing of the IMF and IDB loans by themselves alone would normally
require Haiti to pay more than 100 million dollars over the next
decade, a sum that it can ill afford in the wake of last month's
earthquake, according to the NGOs.
Oxfam and the Jubilee USA
Network, veterans in the campaign to gain debt relief for the world's
poorest countries, began calling for comprehensive debt cancellation
immediately after the earthquake.
In the days following the
earthquake, officials at the IMF, the World Bank, and the IDB - whose
governing boards are dominated by the G7 countries - said they were
sympathetic to that appeal.
On Jan. 21, the World Bank
announced a waiver of Haiti's pending debt payment for five years and
said it would explore ways that the remaining debt could be canceled.
The IDB has said it is engaged in a similar effort and will present
alternatives for reducing or canceling the debt to its board of
governors.
On Jan. 27, the IMF, which lacks the authority to
provide outright grants, announced that it would give Haiti a 102
million-dollar loan at zero-percent interest and that would not be
subject to any of the Fund's usual performance conditions.
Last
week, all three countries reported to an emergency donors' conference
in Montreal on debt relief for Haiti, but no further announcements were
forthcoming.
In their letter, the lawmakers, who were led by
California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Florida
Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, called on Geithner to push hard on his
colleagues.
"We welcome recent statements from officials at the
multilateral financial institutions of their intentions to consider
cancellation of Haiti's remaining debts," the letter stated.
"We
urge you to use the voice and vote of the United States on the
Executive Boards of these institutions to secure cancellation of all of
Haiti's remaining multilateral debts. While arrangements are worked out
for cancellation, we urge you to support a moratorium on debt service
payments from Haiti to these institutions, without the accrual of
interest."
Melinda St. Louis, Jubilee's deputy director, said action was urgent.
"This
weekend the G7 finance ministers must respond to the mounting global
consensus to drop Haiti's debt," she said. "It's time our leaders
announced their commitment to cancel Haiti's debts once and for all,
including the new IMF loan. Debt cancellation is a critical step in the
long road to Haiti's recovery."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy