MORNING MESSAGE

Rev. Susan K. Williams Smith

What Trump And The GOP Learned From Obama

As President Trump’s impeachment unspools, news coverage is buzzing about conspiracy theories and geopolitical rivalries. But at the root of Trump’s effort to extort Ukraine was a simple motive: Trump hoped to influence our elections to preserve his power and that of his associates. That has a lot in common with something closer to home: our long and ugly history of voter suppression, which likewise aimed to preserve the power of some at the expense of others — primarily people of color. Brutal, often violent voter suppression prevailed in the 20th century. But a new wave of more sophisticated tactics surfaced after the 2008 general election, when Republicans realized the power of the resurgent black vote that had helped elect President Obama. More recently, Trump campaign workers studied the techniques that made the Obama coalition successful and greatly increased their efforts to strengthen their own grassroots organizing. Trump, ever dishonest himself, calls the American political system rigged. He is correct, though not in the way he is communicating it. His party’s intense effort to negate the African American vote is still keeping black and brown people, students, the elderly, and immigrant citizens away from the polls. It will take all of us working together, harder than ever, to overcome those obstacles. But we can and must do it.

Impeachment Vote Slated For Wednesday

Congress prepares for historic week on impeachment — live updates. CBS: “With the House poised to vote to impeach the president as soon as Wednesday, lawmakers have already begun looking ahead to a potential Senate trial in January. The House Judiciary Committee submitted a report to the House Rules Committee summarizing the articles of impeachment and the investigation into the president’s dealings with Ukraine early Sunday morning. The 685-page report is a supplement to the two articles of impeachment the Judiciary Committee approved on Friday: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Rules Committee will meet Tuesday morning to determine the length of floor debate over the articles, setting up a vote for Wednesday. Senators have already begun looking ahead to a trial in the upper chamber, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer writing a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday night demanding several witnesses be called.”

Grassroots Groups Rally Tuesday To Support Impeachment Vote

‘To Protect Our Democracy,’ Tuesday night rallies planned in all 50 states to demand Congress votes to impeach Trump. Common Dreams: “At more than 500 rallies planned for Tuesday evening, hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to call on the U.S. House to vote to impeach President Donald Trump. The rallies will take place at congressional offices and other public spaces, the night before the House is expected to vote on two articles of impeachment accusing Trump of abusing his power when he pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and obstructing Congress by stonewalling its investigation. ‘The facts are uncontested,’ organizers said Saturday. ‘An extensive investigation turned up phone records, transcripts, and first hand witness testimony that prove Trump demanded Ukraine interfere in the 2020 election on his behalf before he’d give them critical military aid or a White House meeting.’ ‘Americans from California to West Virginia are ready to hold their representatives accountable and declare that no one—not even the president—is above the law,’ they added. At least 527 events were planned for 5:30pm local time on Tuesday, with people in every state in the nation planning to rally.”

ALEC Seeks To Criminalize Civil Disobedience In Ohio

ALEC behind Ohio bill criminalizing protests against fossil fuel infrastructure. Truthout: “When anti-protest legislation pushed by oil, gas and utility interests was introduced in the Ohio state Senate this year, it met a receptive audience and passed easily on a mostly party-line vote. It has since moved to the state House, where almost one-third of legislators are ALEC members, and will likely pass at the beginning of 2020. The legislation, SB 33, is modeled after an ALEC proposal, and its corporate backers are big contributors to the Republican party and legislators in Ohio. ALEC is the corporate bill mill where state legislators and corporations meet behind closed doors to write and advocate for legislation on the environment, criminal justice, health care, and most of the other domestic issues that affect us. The bill, the “Critical Infrastructure Protection Act,” being pushed by ALEC around the country makes it a felony for protestors to trespass on energy company property, such as pipelines, refineries, and power plants. Prompted by the well-publicized stand-off at the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline in 2016, the industry’s full-court press is working. Ten states, using ALEC’s template bill, have enacted increased criminal penalties through legislation very much like SB 33.”

Iowa Caucus May Have Multiple Winners Under New Rules

Could multiple candidates ‘win’ the Democratic caucuses? New rules make it possible. Des Moines Register: “Presidential candidates have spent millions of dollars and months of their lives chasing a win in Iowa’s caucuses, but new rules adopted this year open the possibility — some insiders call it a probability — that multiple candidates could ‘win.’ Democratic insiders and campaign staffers have long acknowledged the chaos and confusion that could emerge, fretting over what it could mean for this year’s caucus as well as future ones. For decades, the winner of Iowa’s caucuses has been decided by a complicated system of state delegate equivalents, which operates kind of like the Electoral College. Unlike in the November presidential vote, though, Iowa’s tally of popular support was never released. But in 2020, the Iowa Democratic Party will publish two raw vote totals and the delegate numbers from caucus night. So one candidate could win one or both of the delegate counts but lose the popular vote. That would open a new layer of complexity as media report the results, campaigns spin them and voters in later states try to make sense of them — all in a year when the stakes have never been higher for Iowa to show it deserves to remain the first-in-the-nation presidential voting state.”

Trump Wants To Strip Disability Benefits From Social Security

‘A national disgrace’: Trump proposes Social Security change that could end disability benefits for hundreds of thousands. Common Dreams: “Activists are working to raise public awareness and outrage over a little-noticed Trump administration proposal that could strip life-saving disability benefits from hundreds of thousands of people by further complicating the way the Social Security Administration determines who is eligible for payments. The proposed rule change was first published in the Federal Register last month but has received scarce attention in the national media. Last week, the Social Security Administration extended the public comment period on the proposal until January 31, 2020. ‘The Trump administration is attacking another vulnerable population: those who are disabled and receiving Social Security Disability benefits,’ tweeted patient advocate Peter Morley, who lobbies Congress on healthcare issues. ‘This is a national disgrace.’ ‘This is not over,’ said Morley. ‘We will all need to mobilize.’ The process for receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is already notoriously complicated, and the Trump administration is attempting to add yet another layer of complexity that critics say is aimed at slashing people’s benefits. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last week, ‘those already receiving disability benefits are subject to so-called continuing disability reviews, which determine whether they are still deserving of compensation for an injury, illness, or other incapacitating problem as their lives progress.'”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Greg Chung

Mayor Pete, Get Big Money Out Of Your Campaign

What will it take to get big money out of politics? As a voter and a student, that’s what I want to know from any candidate who wants my vote, so I asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg this when he visited our campus in Iowa this weekend. Presidential hopefuls know many Iowa students will vote in the caucus. I know I will. Mayor Pete’s spent a ton of cash on ads in Iowa, trying to stand out from the crowded field of candidates. But in these ads, he also attacks Democrats who support Medicare For All and Free College For All. That irks me. These are things I know firsthand our country needs, and students like me desperately need – now. So after his stump speech, I stood in line to shake his hand, so I could ask him myself: “Does getting big money out of politics mean not taking money off billionaires and closed-door fundraisers?” Mayor Pete’s one-word answer? “No.” Mayor Pete’s response to this question struck a nerve. A video of our exchange has already been viewed more than 3.1 million times, and has been shared by dozens of outlets. We must have struck a nerve, too – because on Monday, the Buttigieg campaign did an about-face and agreed to release – for the first time – some of its donor records, and to allow press into his fundraisers. Transparency is good, and we’re glad Mayor Pete has come around to having more of it in his campaign. But responding to voters is better, so what he really needs to do is take down his misleading ads in Iowa, and stand with the candidates who support Free College For All. So I, along with my fellow members of Iowa Student Action, the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund and People’s Action, will continue to demand transparency from Mayor Pete and every candidate we meet from now until Election Day. Because anyone who wants my vote will have to earn it.

Greg Chung is a student at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he organizes his campus to be more welcoming to poor and low-income students.

House Judiciary Debates Impeachment

Judiciary Committee debates articles against Trump. NYT: “A somber but contentious debate is expected to culminate by the end of the day in a vote by the panel to send the charges to the full House, setting up a vote next week to impeach the president on charges that he abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress. For only the third time in modern history, lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee are formally considering articles of impeachment against a sitting president in a debate that underscores the deep divisions in the country. The process began on Wednesday night, with lawmakers delivering impassioned statements for or against impeaching the president. On Thursday, Democrats are putting the last touches on articles accusing Mr. Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, finalizing charges stemming from their two-and-a-half-month inquiry into what they say was a scheme by the president to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rivals. For Republicans, Thursday’s meeting — called a ‘markup’ because it gives members the opportunity to offer amendments and edits to the articles — is their last chance to try to derail the impeachment before the articles are expected to come to the House floor early next week. That is unlikely to happen in the committee, which is firmly under the control of Democrats and led by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York. Both sides expect the committee to vote along party lines by Thursday afternoon to send the articles to the full House.”

Trump Abandons Attempt To Shutter Federal Agency

After bipartisan pushback, Trump ditches effort to kill major federal agency. WaPo: “President Trump has abandoned his administration’s faltering effort to dissolve a key federal agency, a major setback in his three-year battle to keep his campaign promise to make government leaner and more efficient. The Office of Personnel Management will remain the human resources manager of the civilian workforce of 2.1 million employees, and its functions will not — for the foreseeable future at least — be parceled out to the White House and the General Services Administration. The White House hoped that shuttering the agency of 5,500 employees could serve as a blueprint for eliminating other federal offices as Trump tries to contain the size and scope of a bureaucracy he targeted as duplicative and inefficient — and rein in a workforce he views with skepticism.”

Federal Judges Block Border Wall Construction

Second federal judge blocks plan to use Pentagon funds for border wall. NPR: “A federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration may not divert $3.6 billion in Defense Department funds for construction of the wall on the southern border. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. is the second court decision in two days blocking the administration’s effort to reallocate money Congress has appropriated for other purposes. A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday, in a separate case, ruled that the administration may not use an emergency proclamation to divert funds from military construction projects. U.S. District Judge David Briones issued a permanent injunction blocking the administration’s border wall project. In his ruling, Gilliam said the administration was trying to circumvent congressional appropriations for military construction projects. He wrote that “the border barrier projects Defendants now assert are ‘necessary to support the use of the armed forces’ are the very same projects Defendants sought — and failed — to build under [the Department on Homeland Security’s] civilian authority, because Congress would not appropriate the requested funds.’ Gilliam’s ruling comes in response to two suits filed by the state of California and the ACLU on behalf of the Sierra Club.”

Trump Wants Jews Classified As A Race

Trump’s anti-Semitism executive order, explained. CNN: “President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday expanding his administration’s interpretation of race and national origin to include Judaism- a move that extends certain civil rights protections to Jews in education settings. The move is part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to combat what it considers anti-Israel and anti-Semitic movements on college campuses. But the order has ignited debate over federal funding, free speech and views about Israel, and prompted renewed questions about how Jewish people should be classified by the government. The order concerns a section of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 requiring federally funded educational institutions not to discriminate based on national origin. Under this order, colleges and universities that support or tolerate anti-Israel movements — the most prominent being Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) — could be under threat of having their funding withheld by the Department of Education. While protections from racial, color and national origin discrimination are covered under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, religious discrimination is not. In the past, the Education Department has nevertheless interpreted the law to protect students of any religion from discrimination based on shared ethnic, racial or national origin.”

NY Judge Lets Exxon Off Hook For Climate Change

Judge ruling in Exxon case ‘Sends a very dangerous signal to companies’. NPR: “A judge has handed Exxon Mobil a victory in only the second climate change lawsuit to reach trial in the United States. The decision was a blow for the New York Attorney General’s Office, which brought the case. Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court said that the attorney general failed to prove that the oil giant broke the law. ‘Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve ExxonMobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gasses in the production of its fossil fuel products,’ Ostranger wrote. But, he added, ‘this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.’ In a three-week trial, New York state prosecutors argued that the oil company had downplayed the financial risks it faces from possible climate regulation. Attorney General Letitia James said doing so made Exxon’s assets appear more secure than they really were, which in turn affected its share price and defrauded investors.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Payday Lenders Use Installment Loans To Escape Scrutiny

Paige Marta Skiba, Caroline Malone

Installment loans seem like a kinder, gentler version of their “predatory” cousin, the payday loan. But for consumers, they may be even more harmful. In fact, payday lenders appear to have developed installment loans primarily to evade increased scrutiny. While payday loans are typically around US$350, installment loans tend to be in the $500 to $2,000 range. Installment loans are often cheaper than payday loans, with annualized interest rates of around 120% in some states, compared with payday loans’ typical 400% to 500% range. But their nature means they are also rife for misuse and abuse. And any negative effects will apply to a broader group of consumers because they are deemed more “mainstream” than payday loans. If regulatory crackdowns on payday lending continue, installment lending is likely to become the bulk of lending in the small-dollar, high-interest lending market. Given the current lack of regulation of these types of loans, we hope they receive increased scrutiny.

Trump Assaults Facts To Survive Impeachment

Trump assaults facts to survive impeachment. CNN: “Donald Trump is looking to survive impeachment the same way he built his powerful presidency — by assaulting facts and seeking to expand the limitations of the office he is accused of abusing. On the day that Democrats proposed two articles of impeachment against him, the President and his courtiers laid down a fresh fog to obscure the evidence that incriminates him. The President also issued a mocking defense of his conduct at a rally Hershey, Pennsylvania, Tuesday night — arguing that the charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress are ‘not even a crime.’ ‘Everyone said this is impeachment-lite. This is the lightest impeachment in the history of our country, by far. It’s not even like an impeachment,’ Trump said. Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, reprised his role spinning his boss out of trouble, dismissing his own department’s watchdog report that debunked Trump’s repeated claim that a ‘Deep State’ coup tried to bring him down. Barr also breathed fresh life into another of Trump’s conspiracy theories — that the FBI’s Russia investigation was unjustified and rooted in political bias by Obama administration officials.”

DeVos Overruled Forgiveness Of Student Loans

Betsy DeVos overruled Education Dept. findings on defrauded student borrowers. NPR: “Documents obtained by NPR shed new light on a bitter fight between defrauded student borrowers and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. These borrowers — more than 200,000 of them — say some for-profit colleges lied to them about their job prospects and the transferability of credits. They argue they were defrauded and that the Education Department should erase their federal student loan debt under a rule called ‘borrower defense.’ DeVos disagrees: She says most student borrowers still got value from these schools and deserve only partial relief from their federal loans. Now, internal Education Department memos obtained by NPR show that career staff in the department’s Borrower Defense Unit came down firmly on the side of defrauded borrowers. Instead of limiting students’ debt relief by arguing, as DeVos does, that defrauded borrowers still got some value from their educations, these memos arrive at a different conclusion: that credits earned from Corinthian and ITT schools are essentially worthless. ‘Hundreds of unprompted student statements confirm that lack of value of an ITT education, as ITT students time and again report that their education was sub-standard and that their degree or affiliation with the school was an impediment rather than an asset as they sought employment,’ reads the Jan. 10, 2017, memo. Until now, these internal department memos have been hidden from public view. Lawmakers had previously requested access to them, but DeVos and her department refused to hand them over.”

Trump Cripples WTO To Fuel Trade War

Trump cripples W.T.O. as trade war rages. NYT: “The United States has spent two years chipping away at the World Trade Organization, criticizing it as unfair, starving it of personnel and disregarding its authority, as President Trump seeks to upend the global trade system. This week, the Trump administration is expected to go one step further and effectively cripple the organization’s system for enforcing its rules — even as Mr. Trump’s widening trade war has thrown global commerce into disarray and another tariff increase on Chinese goods set for next weekend could send markets reeling. Over the past two years, Washington has blocked the W.T.O. from appointing new members to a crucial panel that hears appeals in trade disputes. Only three members are left on the seven-member body, the minimum needed to hear a case, and two members’ terms expire on Tuesday. With the administration blocking any new replacements, there will be no official resolution for many international trade disputes. The loss of the world’s primary trade referee could turn the typically deliberate process of resolving international disputes into a free-for-all, paving the way for an outbreak of tit-for-tat tariff wars.”

Jersey City Shooters Targeted Kosher Supermarket

Suspect published anti-Semitic posts, official says. NYT: “A suspect involved in a prolonged firefight in Jersey City, N.J., that left six people dead, including one police officer, had published anti-Semitic and anti-police posts online and investigators believe the attack was motivated by those sentiments, a law enforcement official familiar with the case said on Wednesday. Investigators also found a manifesto-style note inside the shooters’ van, the law enforcement official and another official familiar with the case said. Investigators also found a live pipe bomb inside the vehicle, the law enforcement official said. The Jersey City mayor, Steven Fulop, also said Wednesday that surveillance footage indicated the two shooters had targeted a kosher supermarket where most of the carnage unfolded. Mr. Fulop said the footage revealed that after shooting the detective in the earlier encounter, the shooters slowly drove to the market. ‘The perpetrators stopped in front of there and calmly opened the door with two long rifles,’ he said.”

Ice Cap Melting Accelerates Quickly

Greenland ice melt ‘is accelerating’. BBC: “The assessment comes from an international team of polar scientists who’ve reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period. They say Greenland’s contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future. It means an additional 7cm of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone. This threatens to put many millions more people in low-lying coastal regions at risk of flooding. It’s estimated roughly a billion live today less than 10m above current high-tide lines, including 250 million below 1m. ‘Storms, if they happen against a baseline of higher seas – they will break flood defences,’ said Prof Andy Shepherd, of Leeds University. ‘The simple formula is that around the planet, six million people are brought into a flooding situation for every centimetre of sea-level rise. So, when you hear about a centimetre rise, it does have impacts,’ he told BBC News. When Imbie published its companion review of Antarctica in 2018, it found the White Continent’s contribution by 2100 was likely being underestimated by 10cm. Now, for Greenland, Imbie is saying the shortfall is 7cm. The IPCC will have to incorporate these updates when it releases its next major assessment report (AR6) of Earth’s climate in a couple of years’ time.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Thom Hartmann

Is It Time To Regulate Or Nationalize Facebook?

Has Facebook gone from merely being a destination on the internet to something so interwoven in our lives that it should now be considered part of the commons and regulated as such? Is it time to discuss taking Facebook out of private, for-profit hands? While Facebook is currently embroiled in a controversy over whether it’s wrong for it to allow Trump’s political advertising that contains naked lies, the debate over fully or partially nationalizing the platform has gotten much less coverage. Facebook was so critical to Donald Trump’s 2016 election efforts, for example, that his Facebook manager, Brad Parscale, has been elevated to managing the entire Trump 2020 effort—again, with Facebook at the center of it. Political change flows out of public dialogue. Facebook has, for many Americans, become a primary source of news as well as a social, political, and civic activity center. It controls about a third of all web traffic. If starting from scratch, it would be hard to imagine such a central nexus for such critical interactions without envisioning it as a natural commons, like a civic center or broadcasting service.

House To Unveil Articles Of Impeachment

House Democrats expected to unveil formal charges in Trump impeachment. Reuters: “Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were expected to unveil two formal charges against Donald Trump on Tuesday, moving quickly toward a momentous vote on whether to impeach the Republican president. Democratic lawmakers planned to make an announcement on articles of impeachment on Tuesday morning, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said as he left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. He did not elaborate. Pelosi’s office announced later that the House Committee officials will hold a press conference on Tuesday morning to announce the next steps in the impeachment inquiry. A senior House Democratic aide told Reuters they were expected to draft two articles of impeachment against Trump, one on abuse of power and the other on obstruction of Congress. Democrats accuse Trump of abusing the power of his office by withholding aid to Ukraine, vulnerable as it faced Russian aggression, as well as dangling a possible White House meeting to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a Democratic political rival in the 2020 presidential race.”

U.S. Border Officials Refuse Free Flu Vaccine For Migrants

US border officials deny request by doctors to administer free flu vaccine to detained migrants. Common Dreams: “A group of doctors seeking to vaccinate migrants detained by President Donald Trump’s Customs and Border Patrol were denied at the gates of the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station in San Ysidro, San Diego Monday. ‘Refusing to vaccinate is inhumane,’ tweeted Immigrant Families Together director Julie Schwietert Collazo. ‘The agency is willingly putting lives at risk of death.’ It was the latest example of what critics of the administration call the “intentional cruelty” of Trump’s immigration policies. ‘People are needlessly suffering and dying,’ said Dr. Marie DeLuca, one of the physicians who was turned away. ‘You can’t lock people up in inhumane conditions, watch them get sick, and then refuse them access to medical care.’ The doctors were supported by a coalition of immigration advocates, including the groups Doctors for Camp Closures, Families Belong Together, and Never Again Action. Monday’s action marks the beginning of a planned week of action by the doctors and others at Chula Vista. In a statement, Families Belong Together chair Jess Morales Rocketto said that recent reporting from ProPublica on the death from flu and border patrol inaction of an immigrant child in detention gave the protest added urgency. ‘This administration’s cruel immigration agenda is intentionally barring life-saving medical care from children by refusing to provide vaccines during flu season,’ said Rocketto. ‘Earlier this year, as immigration authorities sat by, 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died from the flu on the floor of his concrete jail cell.’”

Student Loans The Next Subprime Crisis

Student loans a lot like the subprime mortgage debacle, watchdog says. NPR: “Mike Calhoun is a man on a mission. He’s flying around the country, warning state lawmakers and prosecutors, sounding the alarm at conferences, and with members of Congress. He did the same thing back before the housing market crash, warning then about reckless subprime loans. ‘We projected over 2 million subprime mortgage foreclosures, and the response was we were ridiculed by the industry,’ he says. Of course, Calhoun was right. In fact, the wave of defaults and foreclosures was even worse and drove the economy into the worst recession in generations. Back then, he was watching the number of risky mortgages grow and grow. Now he’s watching student loans, ‘and there are a lot of similarities,’ he says. ‘You’ve had an absolutely explosive growth in the amount of student debt. In fifteen years it’s gone from about $300 billion to now $1.6 trillion.’ ‘Once again, it’s the mismatch between the debt and the borrower’s income, their ability to repay,’ Calhoun says. This time around it’s the government making the vast majority of the loans. That’s effectively turned the Department of Education into the country’s largest consumer lender. And, Calhoun says, more and more people can’t pay. ‘Already in the student loan world, we are seeing default levels that approach what there was in the subprime mortgage world,’ he says.”

Insurance Insider Admits Systematically Misleading Consumers

From health insurance spin doctor to truth teller. Truthout: “‘I was getting people to make decisions based on misleading information that could have life or death consequences.’ That’s Wendell Potter, the former head of public relations for CIGNA. As the executive spin doctor for one of the biggest health insurance companies in the country, he was responsible for concocting tales that enabled CIGNA to deny coverage, discredit critics, and otherwise cast the corporate health insurance machine in a positive light. That was until the numbers in his spreadsheets became actual people with real lives. What happens when a health insurance PR executive confronts the consequences of his spin? ‘What happens is the insurance company, when they’re faced with having to pay high medical bills, they often go back and look at the application that the person filled out at the time of getting the policy — Looking for any reason to cancel it so that they could avoid paying for the needed care. And by doing that, the companies avoided paying for many millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars in care that people really needed –and that in many cases would have meant the difference between life and death.’”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Andrea Flynn

What Breast Cancer Taught Me About Health Care

Every weekday for six weeks this fall, I had radiation for early-stage breast cancer. This journey has been a lesson in privilege, structural inequality and our broken social and economic systems. But even though my cancer was early stage, the treatment process was intense and took its toll. After the surgery, I had more follow-up visits with a radiation oncology team. That was followed by six weeks of radiation treatment, five days a week (which again I had to accommodate into my work schedule). Over the last five months the same questions have been plaguing me. What If I were an hourly or low-wage worker? My health condition could have lost me my job and the ability to financially support my family. What if I didn’t have a generous employer who provided paid leave? The last five months have convinced me more than ever before that this must be the year that progressives unapologetically center women. Those whose health access and outcomes are shaped by our country’s long legacy of racism and sexism and the toxic combination of both. I’m done with radiation and done with breast cancer, but I’m not done with this fight.

Andrea Flynn is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where she researches race, gender. and economic inequality.

House Presents Impeachment Evidence

Evidence to be presented on impeachment. NYT: “The House Judiciary Committee opens a new phase in the impeachment inquiry on Monday as it hears evidence presented by Democratic and Republican lawyers before moving on to consider proposed articles of impeachment against President Trump later this week. Democrats appear poised to accuse Mr. Trump of abuse of power and bribery for pressuring Ukraine to help him incriminate Democratic rivals while withholding American security aid. They also expect to charge him with obstructing the congressional investigation by defying subpoenas, blocking current and former administration officials from testifying, and trying to intimidate those who have. Less clear is whether they will include charges of obstruction of justice for trying to impede the Russia investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. In his report last spring, Mr. Mueller submitted evidence of 10 instances of possible obstruction but said he could not judge whether they were illegal. Attorney General William P. Barr, a Trump appointee, declared that the president’s actions were not illegal, but Democrats dismiss his judgment as skewed and partisan.

McKinsey Helped ICE Deport Immigrants

How McKinsey helped the Trump administration detain and deport immigrants. ProPublica: “Just days after he took office in 2017, President Donald Trump set out to make good on his campaign pledge to halt illegal immigration. In a pair of executive orders, he ordered ‘all legally available resources’ to be shifted to border detention facilities and called for hiring 10,000 new immigration officers. The logistical challenges were daunting, but as luck would have it, Immigration and Customs Enforcement already had a partner on its payroll: McKinsey & Company, an international consulting firm brought on under the Obama administration to help engineer an ‘organizational transformation’ in the ICE division charged with deporting migrants who are in the United States unlawfully. ICE quickly redirected McKinsey toward helping the agency figure out how to execute the White House’s clampdown on illegal immigration. But the money-saving recommendations the consultants came up with made some career ICE staff uncomfortable. They proposed cuts in spending on food for migrants, as well as on medical care and supervision of detainees, according to interviews with people who worked on the project for both ICE and McKinsey and 1,500 pages of documents obtained from the agency after ProPublica filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. McKinsey’s team also looked for ways to accelerate the deportation process, provoking worries among some ICE staff members that the recommendations risked short-circuiting due process protections for migrants fighting removal from the United States. The consultants, three people who worked on the project said, seemed focused solely on cutting costs and speeding up deportations — activities whose success could be measured in numbers — with little acknowledgment that these policies affected thousands of human beings.”

Southern States Take Action On HR1 Reforms

Southern states take up fight for bold democracy reforms. Truthout: “n Jan. 3 of this year, the first day of the 116th U.S. Congress, the new Democratic majority in the House introduced as its first bill a sweeping reform of the country’s elections. H.R. 1, the For the People Act, a bold package of measures aimed at improving voting access, tackling Big Money’s corrupting influence in politics, and bolstering ethics rules. The Washington Post called it ‘perhaps the most comprehensive political-reform proposal ever considered by our elected representatives.’ The wide-ranging bill, expertly led to passage in the House by lead sponsor Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Maryland) and endorsed by a broad coalition including the Communications Workers of America, NAACP, and Sierra Club, was inspired by a key insight: that in the current political moment, marked by deep voter cynicism about corruption and rigged elections, piecemeal reforms aren’t enough. What is needed, Sarbanes and other Democrats reasoned, is a far-reaching plan that outlines how all aspects of democracy can work better, and only a bill that tackles voting rights, Big Money, and ethics reform together could offer that larger vision. Taking inspiration from Congress and H.R. 1 — and eyeing recent and potential future Democratic gains in state politics — advocates are proposing far-reaching, pro-democracy agendas across the South. While these plans face an uphill battle in even friendly political environments, democracy reformers see these big-picture agendas as a chance to be proactive and go on offense after years of playing legal and political defense.”

We Knew We Were Losing In Afghanistan

A secret history of the Afghanistan war. WaPo: “A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials. The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle. In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.”

Trump Mulls Pardons For Convicted Aides

Possible pardons loom for former Trump aides. Politico: “Roger Stone’s supporters are making a pardon pitch everywhere President Donald Trump looks: Fox News, InfoWars, Twitter, even the White House driveway. Michael Flynn abruptly hired a bombastic lawyer who spouts Trump-friendly theories about FBI duplicity that are widely seen as a pardon play. Paul Manafort has kept himself on Trump’s radar from behind bars in a federal penitentiary by feeding the president’s personal attorney a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign. In any other administration, and in any other time, it’d be shocking to consider that three men with such deep personal ties to the president might get their legal troubles expunged in an election year — not to mention from a president facing impeachment proceedings. But this is not any other administration. The clemency calculations come because Stone, Flynn and Manafort — all former Trump campaign aides — know the president has repeatedly proven willing to trample over his own advisers despite warnings of political consequences. Most recently, Trump cleared the records of three armed services members accused or convicted of war crimes over the objections of several of his top military brass. ‘Like everything else with this president, you can’t look to history for precedent,’ said a person who previously worked for President Trump. ‘If he felt Manafort and Flynn and others were deserving of pardons, he’d just do it.’”

Linda Ronstadt Shuts Down Mike Pompeo At Kennedy Center

Linda Ronstadt to Mike Pompeo: Stop ‘enabling’ Donald Trump. Variety: ” Linda Ronstadt, one of this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees, had sharp words for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday night during a State Department reception for the Kennedy Center kudos. Ronstadt and Pompeo faced off in the U.S. State Department’s ornate diplomatic greeting rooms at the traditional event that precedes Sunday’s Honors gala. Some 200 guests were assembled to celebrate this year’s honorees: Ronstadt, Sally Field, Earth, Wind and Fire, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and ‘Sesame Street.’ The State Department dinner is where honorees receive their Kennedy Center rainbow ribbons. Pompeo, an embattled protector of President Trump, was enjoying his first turn as official host of the event. During the pre-dinner welcoming address, he quipped: ‘As I travel the world, I wonder when will I be loved,’ invoking the words of Ronstadt’s 1975 hit ‘When I Be Loved,’ penned by Phil Everly. Ronstadt has been an outspoken critic of Trump. When it came her turn following dinner to receive the honor and make optional remarks, Ronstadt rose to the microphone a few feet away from the host’s table and looked straight ahead. ‘I’d like to say to Mr. Pompeo, who wonders when he’ll be loved, it’s when he stops enabling Donald Trump.’ Then she sat down. The line drew immediate gasps from the audience, followed by slowly building applause, and then cheers. Among those in attendance was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who received a standing ovation from a majority of the politically divided gathering.”

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Chelsea Hoglen

Building Power And Raising Voices Of Rural Women

In rural areas of North Carolina, people get sicker, die sooner, and have less access to what they need to thrive than their counterparts in the rest of the state. Women in rural communities are most affected by these crises, and we are uniquely positioned to be a key part of the solutions. Down Home North Carolina, part of the People’s Action network and a founding member of the Rural Women’s Collaborative, is organizing working people to grow democracy and improve the quality of life, so our grandbabies inherit a state that is healthy and just. We are shifting what’s possible in rural America by building the feminist leadership of rural women and promoting values of inclusion in communal life, interdependence, care for the elderly, love of earth and humanity, dignity of all work, and protection of the vulnerable. Rural women have served as the educators, healthcare givers, nurturers, and fighters for our community for generations. Now the women of Down Home are carrying forward this torch.

House Judiciary Holds First Impeachment Hearing

How to watch the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing. CN:: “The impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump enters its next stage this week as the House Judiciary Committee holds its first hearing. The Wednesday hearing, which will feature constitutional law experts, follows a series of public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee where current and former administration officials testified as part of the House Democrat-led investigation into the Ukraine scandal. It marks a new phase in the investigation centered on Trump’s actions when he asked the President of Ukraine in a July 25 phone call to do him a “favor” and pushed for investigations into the family of a potential political rival, Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. The House Intelligence Committee has so far led that investigation, but now the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over drafting articles of impeachment, will have its time in the spotlight. Ahead of the hearing, Intelligence Committee Democrats released a report summarizing the findings in the investigation and stating that the inquiry had “uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.” The report is expected to serve as the basis for articles of impeachment. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday. It will take place in room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building.”

Phone Records Confirm Secret Ukraine Campaign

A mysterious ‘-1’ and other call records show how Giuliani pressured Ukraine. NYT: “In the two days before President Trump forced out the American ambassador to Ukraine in April, his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was on the phone with the White House more than a dozen times. Phone records cited in the impeachment report released Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee illustrate the sprawling reach of Mr. Giuliani’s campaign first to remove the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, then to force Ukraine’s new government to announce criminal investigations for Mr. Trump’s political gain. That effort accelerated through the spring and summer into a full-court press to force Ukraine’s new president to accede to Mr. Trump’s wishes or risk losing $391 million in military assistance desperately needed to hold off Russian-led forces waging a separatist war in eastern Ukraine. From March 26 to Aug. 8, as he developed an irregular foreign policy channel that eventually sidelined both National Security Council and State Department aides, Mr. Giuliani — who is not a government employee — was in touch with top-ranking officials, the newly revealed call records suggested. A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know. He reached out to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; the national security adviser at the time, John R. Bolton; Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee itself; midlevel White House officials; the Fox News host Sean Hannity; a conservative columnist; an associate who has been charged in a scheme related to Ms. Yovanovitch’s ouster; and the owner of a mysterious number, ‘-1.’”

Trump To End Food Stamps For 3.2m

Trump administration moves to end food stamps for 750,000. Bloomberg: “The Trump administration will announce a plan Wednesday to end food stamps benefits for about 750,000 Americans, issuing a new regulation that makes it harder for states to gain waivers from a requirement that beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program, according to people familiar with the matter. Conservatives have long sought cuts in the federal food assistance program for the poor. House Republicans tried to impose similar restrictions last year when Congress renewed the program but were rebuffed in the Senate. The work requirement only applies to ‘able-bodied’ recipients who aren’t caring for a child under 6 years old. The measure would be the first of three Trump administration initiatives curtailing food stamp benefits to take effect. The Urban Institute estimated in an analysis last month that the measures together would cut 3.7 million beneficiaries from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, often known by its previous name, food stamps.”

Kamala Harris Ends Presidential Run

Kamala Harris drops out of 2020 race. AP: “Kamala Harris, the U.S. senator from California, announced Tuesday that she will end her quest to be the Democratic candidate for president in 2020. ‘I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life,’ she wrote in a note to supporters. ‘My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.’ Harris, 54, announced on Jan. 21 that she was running for president, skipping the step of forming an exploratory committee. Harris previously served as California’s attorney general for eight years before being elected to the Senate. Harris started her campaign in a strong position in the polls, but her popularity quickly fell in early primary states. The first female and first black attorney general and U.S. senator in California’s history, she was widely viewed as a candidate poised to excite the same segment of voters that sent Barack Obama to the White House. She raised an impressive $12 million in the first three months of her campaign and quickly locked down major endorsements meant to show her dominance in her home state, which offers the biggest delegate haul in the Democratic primary contest. But as the field grew, Harris’ fundraising remained flat; she was unable to attract the type of attention being showered on Pete Buttigieg by traditional donors or the grassroots firepower that drove tens of millions of dollars to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.”

Dept. Of Ed Denies Loan Forgiveness To Disabled

Why student loan borrowers with disabilities aren’t getting the help they deserve. NPR: “For over half a century, student loan borrowers with a significant, permanent disability have been protected by federal law. If they can no longer work enough to support themselves, they can ask the U.S. Department of Education to erase their debts. But an NPR investigation has found that hundreds of thousands of potentially eligible borrowers — more than enough to fill a city the size of Pittsburgh — have yet to receive the relief they’re entitled to. Not only that, the Education Department told Congress earlier this year it had discharged the loans of 40% of eligible borrowers with significant, permanent disabilities. But new data obtained by NPR from a department official show the real number is much lower: Only 28% of eligible borrowers identified between March 2016 and September 2019 have either had their loans erased, or are on track for that to happen. Borrowers and advocates say the Education Department doesn’t do enough to inform borrowers like Denise of their rights, and those who do apply for help have to navigate a years-long, bureaucratic obstacle course. A department official says the department has made incremental improvements to the process since 2016: “We continue to look for ways to make the process easier to navigate for disabled student loan borrowers, while maintaining the integrity of the taxpayers dollars associated with the discharges.”

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Megan Day

The Fighter The Tenants’ Movement Needs

“I’m excited to introduce the Homes for All Act,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, “which will fulfill the promise of a homes guarantee by building 12 million new public housing and private, permanently affordable rental units — vastly expanding the available affordable housing stock, driving down costs throughout the market, and creating a new vision of what public housing looks like in the United States.” When Linda Armitage watched Omar’s video announcement on Twitter, she cried. Armitage is a seventy-seven-year-old public housing resident and member of the housing committee of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, a grassroots senior organization in Chicago. “This is what we dreamed of and worked hard for,” she says, “and here is a big piece of it in black and white.” The Homes Guarantee campaign was launched by a network of housing activists involved in the group People’s Action. The campaign has a grassroots leadership team of one hundred people who are directly impacted by the housing crisis, explains Tara Raghuveer. Omar’s bill also reflects the vision of housing organizers on the ground, Raghuveer says — and we can trace the origins of Omar’s proposal directly to tenants like Armitage themselves. “Our grassroots team was pretty unapologetic about what they wanted,” says Raghuveer: policy team members who were “ready to go to work to deliver on the grassroots vision, not vice versa.”

Read more in Jacobin Magazine

Trump Declares War On Cheese, Champagne

US threatens 100% tariffs on French cheese and champagne. CNN: “US trade officials proposed a wave of tariffs on French goods Monday as they released a report finding that a new French tax on digital services — affecting large American tech companies such as Facebook (FB) and Google — represents a barrier to trade. The list of proposed US tariffs covers dozens of products, including cheeses, beauty products, handbags and sparkling wines such as champagne. The move risks escalating transatlantic trade tensions after the United States already hit $7.5 billion worth of European goods — including French wine, Italian parmesan cheese and Scotch whisky — in October over subsidies to planemaker Airbus (EADSF). Roughly $2.4 billion in French products could be subject to the new taxes of up to 100%.”

GOP Defies Reality In Impeachment Defense

New GOP report defies reality with Trump exoneration. CNN: “A new report aimed at defending Donald Trump against Democratic claims of abuse of power represented a remarkable demonstration of the President’s greatest political achievement — the transformation of the Republican Party in his image. The 123-page document written by GOP members on three House committees formalized the President’s own cycle of distraction and denial that he used to ride out the Russia scandal. He’s using the same tactic to save his job now that he’s faced with impeachment over his political pressure on Ukraine. Trump isn’t waiting to hear the formal case against him because he doesn’t have to. Ultimately, it will make little difference since his defense was long ago unmoored from fact and is based on selling a disinformational narrative to his followers that sows confusion and devalues truth for everyone else. The report released by the President’s House Republican allies on Monday was in effect the prebuttal of a report on the Democratic impeachment investigation set to be released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Tuesday. The message of the document was less a defense of Trump on the merits but rather an endorsement of his counterfactual denials.”

GOP Rep. Hunter Pleads Guilty To Fraud

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter to plead guilty To campaign finance charge. NPR: “In a reversal, embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter is now set to plead guilty to misusing campaign donations, likely ending the California Republican’s political career. Hunter told local TV station KUSI in an interview that he has struck a deal to plead guilty to one count of illegal use of campaign funds. He’s due in federal court on Tuesday. Hunter initially denied all the charges, and his attorneys accused the prosecution of trying to unfairly embarrass him. It’s unclear what type of jail time Hunter would face or when he might resign, which is typically what happens in such situations. New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins resigned this year after pleading guilty to insider trading charges.”

Dems At Climate Summit With No Plan

Congressional Democrats arrive at Madrid climate talks, announce they still don’t have a climate plan. Gizmodo: “International climate talks kicked off on Monday in Madrid, and a delegation of House Democrats showed up to tell the world how much they care about climate change. But they actually revealed, uh, how little action they’ve actually taken to appropriately address the severity of the crisis. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the U.S. Congressional delegation for the talks (known as COP25) on Monday, including people like Representative Kathy Castor of Florida who heads the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas who chairs the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. They were there to tell the world that despite a president who’s begun the formal process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, leaders on the state and city level are taking steps so that the U.S. stays on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and meet the targets set forth in the international agreement. ‘Our delegation is here to send a message that Congress’ commitment to take action on the climate crisis is ironclad,’ Pelosi said during the event. That’s great to hear, but the truth is that the Democratic-led House hasn’t done enough to tackle the climate crisis. Indeed, as Pelosi and her colleagues made clear Monday after a reporter asked, they don’t support a Green New Deal, which is the only bill currently put forth in Congress with enough vision to stave off climate chaos. I mean, c’mon, the youth, environmental groups, badass senators and representatives, and the American public want to see this type of transformative change. And Green New Deal proponents have begun building out a vision for that change with two recently released housing plans. Yet more moderate Congress members refuse to seriously consider it. Instead, Castor announced that Democrats will be releasing a climate action plan. In March. That’s three months from now and more than a year after Democrats took back the House in the midterms.”

Loan Sharks Send Clients To Jail

They loan you money. Then they get a warrant for your arrest. ProPublica: “It’s against the law to jail someone because of an unpaid debt. Congress banned debtors prisons in 1833. Yet, across the country, debtors are routinely threatened with arrest and sometimes jailed, and the practices are particularly aggressive in Utah. (ProPublica recently chronicled how medical debt collectors are wielding similar powers in Kansas.) Technically, debtors are arrested for not responding to a court summons requested by the creditor. But for many low-income people, who are not familiar with court proceedings, lack access to transportation, child care options or time off, or move frequently and thus may not receive notifications, it’s a distinction without a difference. Reese, a 70-year-old Vietnam veteran, said he missed a hearing because he couldn’t afford to put gas in his car. Gordon, 46, said he was never personally notified of the court date. Avila and Albritton, 32, said they couldn’t take time off work. In Utah, payday lenders and similar companies that offer high-interest, small-dollar loans dominate small claims court. Loans for Less, for example, filed 95% of the small claims cases in South Ogden, a suburban city of 17,000 about a half-hour north of Salt Lake City on the interstate, in fiscal year 2018, according to state data.”

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Please consider a donation of any size to support our work: DONATE NOW