Chris Hedges's Blog, page 373

Apple Drops iPhone Bombshell on Already Reeling Stock Market

SAN FRANCISCO—Apple acknowledged on Wednesday that demand for iPhones is waning, confirming investor fears that the company’s most profitable product has lost some of its luster.

The company expects its annual revenue to fall 5 percent from the previous year’s level. That reversal of fortune could reinforce fears of a global economic slowdown.

The reckoning came in a letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook to the company’s shareholders released after the stock market closed Wednesday.

Cook said Apple’s revenue for the October-December quarter — including the crucial holiday shopping season — will fall well below the company’s earlier projections and those of analysts, whose estimates sway the stock market.

Apple now expects revenue of $84 billion for the period. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected Apple’s revenue to be about 9 percent higher — $91.3 billion. The official results are scheduled to be released Jan. 29.

Cook traced most of the revenue drop to China, where the economy has been slowing and Apple has faced tougher competition from home-team smartphone makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi. President Donald Trump has also raised new tensions between the U.S. and China by imposing tariffs on more than $200 billion in goods, although so far the iPhone hasn’t been affected directly.

China’s “economy began to slow there for the second half,” Cook said during an interview with CNBC on Wednesday afternoon. “The trade tensions between the United States and China put additional pressure on their economy.”

Cook also acknowledged that consumers in other markets aren’t buying as many of the latest iPhones, released last fall, as Apple had anticipated — a factor that could stem from a starting price of $1,000 for Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhones.

This is Apple’s darkest day during the Cook era. No one expected China to just fall off a cliff like this.

Apple’s stock plunged 7 percent to $146.40 in Wednesday’s extended trading. The shares had already fallen 32 percent from their peak in early October when investors still had high hopes for the new iPhone models. Apple’s troubles may have ripple effects on other technology companies, given investors have been bailing on the industry in recent months. The tech-driven Nasdaq composite index now stands 18 percent down from its record closing high reached in August.

Now, Apple must try to find a way to win back Wall Street’s confidence and reverse a steep decline that has erased $350 billion in shareholder wealth in just three months.

“This is Apple’s darkest day during the Cook era,” Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said. “No one expected China to just fall off a cliff like this.”

While President Donald Trump’s trade war with China isn’t helping Apple and other U.S. technology companies, Ives believes Apple miscalculated by continuing to roll out high-priced phones in China, creating an opening for rivals with less costly alternatives that still worked well.

The price gap is one reason Huawei surpassed Apple in smartphone sales from April through September last year to seize the No. 2 spot behind industry leader Samsung, according to the research firm International Data Corp.

“The question now is will Apple change its strategy or stick to its hubris,” Ives said.

To help boost iPhone sales, Cook said Apple will expand its financing plans and build upon its recent efforts to make it easier to trade in older models at its stores.

But outsiders will find it harder to see how that’s working out. In November, Apple unexpectedly announced that it would no longer disclose how many iPhones it ships each quarter, ending a long-running practice. Wall Street immediately interpreted the move as an attempt to mask a slow but steady downturn in sales.

Apple said at the time that it wanted to reduce investor focus on its iPhone division and instead highlight other promising areas of its business, including its services division that sells subscriptions for music streaming, collects app-related commissions and repairs malfunctioning devices.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro Targets Minorities on 1st Day in Office

SAO PAULO—Newly installed President Jair Bolsonaro targeted Brazil’s indigenous groups, descendants of slaves and the LGBT community with executive orders in the first hours of his administration, moving quickly after a campaign in which the far-right leader said he would radically overhaul many aspects of life in Latin America’s largest nation.

Sao Paulo’s stock market, meanwhile, jumped 3.56 percent to a record closing of 91,012 points as new Cabinet ministers reinforced the intent to privatize state-owned companies and a Brazilian arms maker benefited from Bolsonaro’s plans to loosen gun controls. Similar spikes in stock prices also occurred during the presidential campaign.

One of the orders issued late Tuesday, hours after Bolsonaro’s inauguration, likely will make it all but impossible for new lands to be identified and demarcated for indigenous communities. Areas set aside for “Quilombolas,” as descendants of former slaves are known, are also affected by the decision.

Another order removed the concerns of the LGBT community from consideration by the new human rights ministry.

In a move favorable to his allies in agribusiness, which have criticized giving large swaths of lands to the indigenous, Bolsonaro transferred the responsibilities for delineating indigenous territories from the Justice Ministry to the Agriculture Ministry. The new agriculture minister, Tereza Cristina, is part of the agribusiness caucus in Brazil’s lower house and has opposed requests from native communities.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman, said during his presidential campaign that he would stop making what he calls concessions to native Brazilians and Quilombolas.

“Less than one million people live in those places isolated from the real Brazil,” he tweeted Wednesday. “They are explored and manipulated by nonprofits. Together we will integrate those citizens and give value to all Brazilians.”

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The Justice Ministry previously handled demarcation of indigenous lands through the FUNAI agency, which also oversees other initiatives for indigenous groups such as health care, housing and language preservation. Bolsonaro’s order is raising uncertainties about FUNAI by shifting it to a new ministry for family, women and human rights that is headed by an ultraconservative evangelical pastor.

Observatorio do Clima, a network of 45 Brazilian civil society groups, criticized the executive orders, calling them “only the first step on meeting Bolsonaro’s campaign promises of dismantling environmental governance, stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and opening up indigenous lands for business.”

“The attack on FUNAI goes beyond the wildest dreams of the rural caucus, who had tried for years to pass a constitutional amendment transferring the demarcation of indigenous lands from the president to Congress,” the nonprofit said. “Bolsonaro solved the problem by transferring them directly to farmers.”

The far-right leader said last year that he also wants to annul land demarcation decisions made by previous administrations, but legal experts say recent Brazilian Supreme Court rulings could block such move.

New Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta also suggested on Wednesday that there will be spending cuts in health care for the indigenous.

“We have figures for the general public that are much below what is spent on health care for the indigenous,” he said, without providing details.

In removing LGBT concerns from the responsibilities of the human rights ministry, Bolsonaro did not name any agency to consider such issues. He has strongly criticized what he calls “gender-based ideology,” saying it is a threat to Brazil’s Christian values.

Damares Alves, the new human rights minister, did not discuss the LGBT order in her first address on the job, but the evangelical pastor has insisted over the years that “the Brazilian family is being threatened” by diversity policies.

On Wednesday, she said: “The state is lay, but this minister is terribly Christian.”

Under the new administration, Alves added, “Girls will be princesses and boys will be princes. There will be no more ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil.”

LGBT activist Symmy Larrat said she doesn’t’ expect reasonable treatment from the Bolsonaro administration.

“The human rights ministry discussed our concerns at a body called secretariat of promotion and defense of human rights. That body just disappeared, just like that. We don’t see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues,” she said.

The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Bolsonaro will later announce the closing of an agency within the Education Ministry that has been aimed at promoting diversity in public schools and universities.

New Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo indirectly criticized the LGBT community as being “those that say they are not men and women.”

Also on Wednesday, the Brazilian Press Association criticized restrictions on journalists at Bolsonaro’s inauguration. Reporters had to arrive seven hours before the events began and were forbidden to move freely in Congress and the presidential palace. Food was seized and access to bathrooms and water was limited.

“What was seen in different scenarios of Brasilia is incompatible with a democratic regime,” the association said in a statement. “Respect to the press is one of the main indicators of nations that consider themselves civilized.”

Bolsonaro’s first day in office sparked a wave of optimism in Brazil’s financial market. Stocks of Brazil’s electric-company Eletrobras soared more than 20 percent. Arms maker Taurus, one of the main allies of the new president, jumped more than 47 percent.

Bolsonaro, a fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss joint efforts regarding the leftist administrations in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Pompeo told him that Trump is “very pleased with the relationship that our two countries are on the precipice of beginning to develop.”

“He’s also confident that it (the relationship between the U.S. and Brazil) will benefit the world and the set of shared values that we believe we can together advance,” Pompeo said before leaving Brasilia for Colombia.

No Deal to End Shutdown; Trump Says ‘Could Be a Long Time’

WASHINGTON—No one budged at President Donald Trump’s White House meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, so the partial government shutdown persisted through a 12th day over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. They’ll try again Friday.

In one big change, the new Congress convenes Thursday with Democrats taking majority control of the House, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said outside the White House that there would be rapid passage of legislation to re-open the government — without funds for the border wall. But the White House has rejected that package, and Trump said ahead of the session with the congressional leaders that the partial shutdown will last “as long as it takes” to get the funding he wants.

“Could be a long time or could be quickly,” Trump said during lengthy comments at a Cabinet meeting at the White House, his first public appearance of the new year. Meanwhile, the shutdown dragged through a second week, closing some parks and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay.

Democrats said they asked Trump directly during Wednesday’s private meeting held in the Situation Room why he wouldn’t consider their package of bills. One measure would open most of the shuttered government departments at funding levels already agreed to by all sides. The other would provide temporary funding for Homeland Security, through Feb. 8, allowing talks to continue over border security.

“I said, Mr. President, Give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said afterward. “He could not give a good answer.”

Added Schumer, “We would hope they would reconsider.”

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said there’s no need to prolong the shutdown and he was disappointed the talks did not produce a resolution. He complained that Democrats interrupted Homeland Security officials who were trying to describe a dire situation at the border.

“We were hopeful that we could get more of a negotiation,” said McCarthy.

He said the leaders plan to return to the White House Friday to continue negotiations.

The two sides have traded offers, but their talks broke down ahead of the holidays. On Wednesday, Trump also rejected his own administration’s offer to accept $2.5 billion for the wall. That offer was made when Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials met with Schumer at the start of the shutdown. Instead, on Wednesday Trump repeatedly pushed for the $5.6 billion he has demanded.

Making his case ahead of the afternoon session with Democratic and Republican leaders, he said the current border is “like a sieve” and noted the tear gas “flying” overnight to deter arrivals.

“If they knew they couldn’t come through, they wouldn’t even start,” Trump said at the meeting, joined by Cabinet secretaries and top advisers, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Trump complained that he had been “lonely” at the White House during the holiday break, having skipped his getaway to Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He claimed his only companions were the “machine gunners,” referring to security personnel, and “they don’t wave, they don’t smile.” He also criticized Pelosi for visiting Hawaii.

At the Capitol on Wednesday, Pelosi said she hoped Republicans and the White House “are hearing what we have offered” to end the shutdown.

Trump contended the Democrats see the shutdown fight as “an election point” as he celebrated his own first two years in office. He promised “six more years of great success.”

The partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22. Funding for the wall has been the sticking point in passing funding bills for several government departments.

Pelosi, who is expected to become speaker on Thursday, said Tuesday that Democrats would take action to “end the Trump Shutdown” by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government.

“We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues. “Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the President’s third shutdown of his term.”

But the Republican-led Senate appears unlikely to consider the Democratic funding bills. A spokesman for GOP leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would not take action without Trump’s backing.

Even if only symbolic, passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse, believing he has public opinion and his base on his side.

The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels — with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than Trump has said he wants for the wall — through Feb. 8 as talks continued.

It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. That measure would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to Sept. 30.

___

Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Kevin Freking and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

Thom Hartmann: The GOP Is Reviving One of Its Favorite Scams

Get ready to see it on your TV. The GOP is about to kick back into Two Santa Clauses mode and restart the scam they’ve been running since Reagan.

It’ll predictably begin in the first week or two of January, probably first on “Meet the Press” and other Sunday shows that feature “serious thinkers” and only rarely challenge Republicans. It’ll simultaneously roll out on Fox, on right-wing hate radio, and in the conservative media.

And there are more than a few “Third Way” Democrats eager to go along with it.

At its core, the strategy is simple and elegant: When Republicans are in power, run up as much debt as possible, mostly by borrowing and giving that cash to the Republican donor class through tax cuts and corporate subsidies; when Democrats have political power, Republicans suddenly become hysterical about the debt and demand that Dems keep taxes low while cutting social spending.

If successful, not only will Republicans (and corporate-funded Dems) block any genuinely progressive spending legislation in 2019 or 2020, but they’ll prevent any possibility of debt-free college, Medicare for All, or a Green New Deal in the entire next presidential term, clear through 2024 or beyond.

For this remarkably successful 38-year-long GOP head-fake strategy, you can thank a guy named Jude Wanniski.

Odds are you’ve never heard of Jude, but without him Reagan never would have become a “successful” president, Republicans only rarely would have taken control of the House or Senate, and neither George Bush would have been president.

It all began in 1964, when Barry Goldwater went down to ignominious and massive defeat. Most Republicans felt doomed, among them the then-28-year-old Wanniski. They had to come up with a new message, he knew, instead of just “drugs are bad,” “school segregation is good,” and “Democrats are communists.”

But what? The GOP seemed totally out of ideas. They floated a series of initiatives through the ’60s, mostly previewing Nixon’s “War on Drugs” and their anti-Soviet rhetoric, but nothing caught fire.

Then came 1974, as Nixon went down in flames even harder than Goldwater had, and Ford would soon follow: Jude Wanniski decided he’d had enough.

It’s the Gift Economy, Stupid

Wanniski concluded that if the GOP was to have a new message, it would have to be all about the economy.

The problem for the GOP was that the Democrats, since FDR, had gotten to play Santa Claus when they passed out Social Security and Unemployment checks—both programs of the New Deal—as well as when their “big government” projects like roads, bridges, and highways were built, giving a healthy union paycheck to construction workers.

From the 1930s to the time Wanniski wrote his opus magnum in the Wall Street Journal, Democrats—who almost continuously controlled the House of Representatives where all taxing and spending must originate—kept high taxes on businesses and rich people to pay for things. This kept the national debt in decline, and kept working people happy (working-class wages were steadily going up, in fact faster than the wages of CEOs).

The net effect of these entirely reasonable policies was that the Democrats seem like a party of Robin Hoods, taking from the rich to fund programs for poor and working-class voters. Or, as Wanniski noted, Santa Clauses.

Americans loved it, Wanniski knew. And every time Republicans railed against these programs, calling for cuts to Social Security, blocking infrastructure or cutting aid to education, they lost elections.

So Wanniski decided to turn the classical world of economics—which had operated on Adam Smith’s simple consumer-demand-driven equation for seven thousand years—on its head.

Supply-Side Economics

In 1974 he invented a new phrase—“supply-side economics”—and suggested that the reason economies grew wasn’t because people had money and bought things with it but, instead, because wealthy people made things available for sale. And the way to increase “stuff,” he theorized, was to give big tax cuts to corporations and rich “investors.”

In 1976, he rolled out to the Republican Party (through the Wall Street Journal) his “Two Santa Clauses” theory, which would enable the Republicans to take power in America for the next 30-plus years.

Democrats, he said, had been able to be “Santa Clauses” by giving people things from the largesse of the federal government. Social Security, child tax credits, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food and housing assistance, subsidies of college education (student loans were largely unheard of in 1980), infrastructure, new schools and hospitals, airports and Amtrak—the list went on and on. And voters loved all that stuff.

Republicans, Wanniski said, had to come up with their own Santa Claus strategy, or they’d never seriously hold power again.

It was simple, really.

When Republicans are in power, they should be “tax-cut Santas.” Cut taxes radically, and thus drive up the national debt, without ever talking much about the debt (this latter part wasn’t in the article but was adopted later by the GOP).

When Democrats take power, though, everything changes. Republicans should scream so loud about the national debt that they’d intimidate Democrats into shooting their own Santa Claus by cutting all those benefits the American people so loved.

It was a twofer.

If the GOP could pull it off with sufficient discipline—and in the late ’70s and early ’80s their billionaire donors threw big money into think tanks and PR machines to make it happen and keep it going—the American people would always think of the Republicans as the tax-cut Santas, and the Democrats as the scrooges who were trying to keep “average voters” from having their share of the tax-cut toys under the tree.

Horse and Sparrow Economics

This new idea of “trickle-down economics” wasn’t actually new; in the late 19th century it was called “horse and sparrow economics,” on the theory that if one fed more oats to the horses, there’d be more undigested grain left over in the horse poop for the sparrows to eat. (Seriously!) But the “supply side” marketing was pure 20th-century Madison Avenue.

At the same time, Arthur Laffer was taking that equation a step further. Not only was supply-side a rational concept to build a strong economy, Laffer suggested, but as taxes went down, he drew on his napkin, revenue to the government would magically go up!

Neither concept made any sense—and time has proven both to be colossal idiocies—but together they offered the Republican Party a way out of the wilderness.

Wanniski, Laffer, Stephen Moore, and their billionaire backers convinced the Reagan campaign to embrace supply-side economics in the 1980 election, and George Herbert Walker Bush—like most Republicans of the time—was horrified. Ronald Reagan was suggesting “Voodoo Economics,” said Bush in the primary campaign, and Wanniski’s supply-side and Laffer’s tax-cut theories would throw the nation into such deep debt that we’d face disaster.

But Wanniski had been doing his homework on how to sell the scam of supply-side economics, and use it to get Republicans elected.

Two Santa Clauses Wins

And it has worked.

The last two presidents to present balanced budgets to Congress (and get them passed) were Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Clinton famously “ended welfare as we know it,” radically cutting back on LBJ’s Great Society programs that had nearly cut in half the U.S. poverty rate in the 1960s and ’70s.

While Obama was able to get through an initial stimulus in 2009 (Republicans were as panicked as Democrats), even his signature Affordable Care Act had to be revenue-neutral, or even cut the deficit, to get it through Congress.

Sunday Show Hosts

Following their Two Santa Clauses script, the GOP was talking debt, debt, debt on nearly every Sunday show, every week, for all of Obama’s eight years.

Of course, these same commentators were silent when Republican presidents were in office, and the Sunday hosts seemed oddly amnesiac.

Reagan, Bush, Bush (and now Trump) all—every one of them—proposed and signed budgets that massively increased the national debt, year after year, relentlessly.

And during their GOP presidencies, like today (until the Dems take control of the House), the “conservative” pundits mostly kept quiet about the debt, focusing instead on feigned outrage over seemingly irrelevant things like the coming “gun confiscation,” the “War on Christmas,” inner-city violence (by black people), and the “immigration crisis” that involved brown people.

Meanwhile, out of sight of the American public, the nation’s total debt grew so high that whenever the Democrats took power, the Sunday-show Republicans started screaming about the “unsustainable debt!!!”

Like Pavlov and his dog, average people would freak out and join the Republicans in demanding that Democrats “cut all that spending!”

And with the cuts, Republicans knew, the Democrats would be shooting their own Santa Clauses.

Year after year, it worked brilliantly.

Wanniski Declares Victory

Looking at the wreckage of the Democratic Party all around Clinton in 1999, in particular the “Gingrich Revolution” of 1994, Wanniski wrote a gloating memo that said, in part:

“We of course should be indebted to Art Laffer for all time for his Curve… But as the primary political theoretician of the supply-side camp, I began arguing for the ‘Two Santa Claus Theory’ in 1974. If the Democrats are going to play Santa Claus by promoting more spending, the Republicans can never beat them by promoting less spending. They have to promise tax cuts…”

Ed Crane, then-president of the libertarian CATO Institute, noted in a memo that year:

“When Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, Vin Weber, Connie Mack and the rest discovered Jude Wanniski and Art Laffer, they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. In supply-side economics they found a philosophy that gave them a free pass out of the debate over the proper role of government. Just cut taxes and grow the economy: government will shrink as a percentage of GDP, even if you [Republicans] don’t cut spending.”

The result, in addition to several Republicans winning the presidency, is clear. Today’s national debt is almost entirely the invention of the Republican Party, using Laffer and Wanniski’s strategy.*

If you’re seeing the pattern here, it’s because it’s obvious. Republicans pour on the tax cuts and spending increases, year after year, whenever they have the power to do so, to intentionally inflate the national debt.

When a Democratic president is in office, however, or even (like 2019) when Democrats control part or all of Congress and want to go big, the Republicans in on this long con scream about the debt on every show, every day.

When Jude Wanniski died, conservative George Gilder celebrated the genius of his Two Santa Claus theory in a Wall Street Journal eulogy:

“…Jude’s charismatic focus on the tax on capital gains redeemed the fiscal policies of four administrations. … He audaciously defied all the Buffetteers of the trade gap, the moldy figs of the Phillips Curve, the chic traders in money and principle, even the stultifying pillows of the Nobel Prize.”

And, indeed, Wanniski’s Two Santa Claus theory defied every tenet of rational economics, including those put forward by Nobel Prize winners.

In simple reality, his tax cuts for the rich did what they have always done over the past 100 years: they initiated a bubble economy that would let the very wealthy skim the cream off the top just before the ceiling crashed in on working people.

Will It Work Again?

The Republicans got what they wanted from Wanniski’s work. They held power for nearly 40 years, skimmed trillions of dollars out of the economy, gutted organized labor, and packed the Supreme Court and the entire federal court system.

Best of all, though, for the Two Santa Claus GOP, the years since 1981 have left such a massive national debt that some misguided “conservative” Democrats will again be clamoring to shoot Santa with cuts to education, infrastructure, health care, and other social programs.

The Two Santa Claus theory isn’t dead, and starting any day now we’ll see the Republicans crank up their debt hysteria. It’s as predictable as the seasons.

Hopefully, though, this time Democrats will point out the massive fraud perpetrated by the GOP since 1981, and begin talking about Two Santa Clauses in the media.

If they don’t, and enough “Third Way” and “New Dem” Democrats get on board with the “deficit hawks” to drag down the New Deal progressives, get ready for the second Trump term.

*For wonks who want the numbers:

The national debt, right now, at about 100 percent of GDP, is large, and servicing that debt costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year that could find better uses.

That said, though, it’s nowhere near as high as it was after World War II, when we paid it down by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and stimulating the economy with direct-benefit-to-workers programs including infrastructure, union jobs, free college education (the GI Bill), and building a social safety net. We could easily do it again.

For perspective, the national debt first began to explode in the 20th century in the first years of World War II, going from post-Great Depression 48 percent of GDP in 1942 to 70 percent of GDP in 1943.

It hit a peak of 119 percent of GDP in 1946, much higher than today, the first year after the war.

Truman and Eisenhower paid down more than half the national debt, but not by cutting spending. They left in place FDR’s 91 percent top marginal tax rate, with corporate taxes paying about a third of the total federal budget (they now pay about 9 percent).

Truman stimulated the economy with the GI Bill, sending over 7 million vets to college or journeyman training and helping them buy houses. Eisenhower got the debt down to a mere 60 percent of GDP with the stimulus of a national highway system infrastructure program (while, like Truman, keeping taxes high).

Jimmy Carter got the debt-to-GDP ratio went down to 31 percent.

When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, the nation’s debt was a mere $908 billion. He nearly tripled it, to $2.6 trillion, all while talking about the importance of a balanced-budget amendment and the vital role of “fiscal responsibility.”

And then he rolled out supply-side Reaganomics, with the national debt hitting 50 percent in 1989 with Reagan’s last budget, and exploding up to 64 percent in 1993, the last George H.W. Bush budget year.

Clinton came into office, raised taxes on the rich, and lowered the national debt to 55 percent of GDP in 2000 and 2001.

When George W. Bush came into office, Bill Clinton handed him a budget on the edge of surplus; if Bush had done nothing we would have reduced large percentages of the national debt during Bush’s next eight years.

Instead, following Wanniski’s model, Bush put two multi-trillion-dollar illegal wars and a massive trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich on the nation’s credit card, not only massively jacking the debt but crashing the economy.

Thus, the next president—Obama—had to engage in more deficit spending (in the face of Republican refusal to raise taxes on the rich and corporations), further increasing the debt. And Republicans blocked him from raising taxes.

Trump, of course, made his own $1.5 trillion addition to the national debt, and also massively increased military spending, so that next year our nation’s debt is projected to equal 108 percent of GDP or $22.7 trillion, getting us close to post-WWII levels.

Cue the deficit hawks and concern trolls.

Donald Trump Will Not Go Quietly Like Nixon

“History,” as Mark Twain reputedly remarked, “doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” As we flip the calendar to a new year, Donald Trump would be well-advised to take careful heed of Twain’s maxim.

Unless Trump suddenly discovers an untapped reservoir of self-restraint, he’s going to confront an impeachment moment reminiscent of the crisis that drove Richard Nixon from office in 1974. And with his presidency on shaky ground from the outset, a Nixon-style climax appears increasingly likely.

The historical echoes and rhymes with Nixon are clearly discernible. As veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew, who covered the Watergate scandal as a Washington correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, observed in an op-ed for the New York Times last month: “An impeachment process against President Trump now seems inescapable. Unless the president resigns, the pressure by the public on the Democratic leaders to begin an impeachment process next year will only increase.”

The public is indeed becoming increasingly fed up with Trump, much as the American people turned on Nixon in the waning days of his presidency. According to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released on Dec. 28, nearly 60 percent of U.S. voters surveyed say Trump should either be impeached and removed from office or formally censured by Congress.

As Drew also notes, the substantive case for impeaching Trump is very strong, albeit more complex than the one mounted against Nixon.

Impeachment is a two-step process: First, the House votes to impeach, then the accused federal official is put on trial before the Senate. A two-thirds vote of the upper chamber is needed to sustain an article of impeachment, resulting in removal from office.

In July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon. The first charged Nixon with nine counts of obstruction of justice for lying about his knowledge of the Watergate break-in of June 1972 and attempting to cover up the truth about the burglary. The second cited him for misusing the IRS, the FBI, the Justice Department, the CIA and members of his administration to spy on American citizens and infringe upon the constitutional rights of his assumed political enemies. The third alleged that he had, without legal justification, defied duly executed judiciary-committee subpoenas for Watergate-related documents.

Faced with near-certain approval of the articles by the entire House and subsequent conviction in the Senate, Nixon opted to resign.

Trump is vulnerable to impeachment on an even greater variety of fronts than Nixon. First and foremost, there is the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller, which may be delivered as soon as the middle of February. Even if Mueller hews to present Justice Department policy and declines to indict Trump himself for conspiring and colluding with Russian interests in the 2016 election, and obstructing justice in an effort to impede the Russia probe, he almost certainly will furnish House Democrats with powerful ammunition for impeachment.

Beyond collusion and obstruction, Trump has arguably committed impeachable offenses for misusing the presidency for personal economic gain in violation of the Constitution’s foreign and domestic emoluments clauses, as well as directing his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels and ex-girlfriend Karen McDougal in violation of federal election laws.

An emboldened House may also return impeachment articles against Trump for his unrelenting attacks on the judiciary and the media, his threats to withhold federal funds from states that have resisted his xenophobic immigration policies, his shutting down parts of the government to secure funding for his border wall, his reckless withdrawal from international treaties like the Paris Climate Agreement, and his habitual lying to the American people about policy issues large and small.

But the reason history is merely rhyming rather than repeating is that, unlike Nixon, Trump will not resign. Some of his children and his son-in-law may be indicted, the stock market may continue its tumble, the country may slide into a recession, and the Republican establishment may desert him, but he won’t follow Nixon’s lead and quit.

Trump will remain until the bitter end and seek reelection, not because he is a man of courage and principle, but because he has no other safe personal option.

If Trump resigned before 2020, he would be subject to prosecution for any federal offenses he may have committed since 2015. The statute of limitations for most federal felonies is five years. Moreover, the pardon power of a newly sworn-in President Mike Pence would do nothing to limit his exposure to numerous state prosecutions.

Nixon stepped down on Aug. 9, 1974. One month later, he was preemptively pardoned of all federal offenses arising from Watergate by his former Vice President Gerald Ford, who succeeded him as the nation’s 38th commander-in-chief. Nixon was able to recede from the limelight, disgraced but free.

Although it is likely Pence would do the same for Trump, it is well settled that the president’s authority to grant clemency and pardons is limited to federal offenses. An offense that violates a state law is not an offense against the United States.

At present, there are at least three major investigations underway in New York that ultimately could lead to criminal charges against Trump. They include investigations opened by New York City and New York state for tax fraud, as well as probes of the recently shuttered Trump Foundation for self-dealing, money laundering and illegal coordination with the Trump presidential campaign. The president could also be implicated by the district attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is looking into whether the Trump Organization falsified business records to hide his hush payments to Daniels and McDougal.

Technically, there is nothing that would prohibit New York authorities from targeting Trump right now. But apart from the somewhat comical arrest of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 by a District of Columbia police officer for driving his carriage through the streets of Georgetown at an excessive speed, no sitting president has ever been arrested by local authorities. (Grant was cited and fined.)

For reasons of what constitutional scholars call “comity,” or reciprocity, state prosecutors probably will defer indicting the president until he leaves office, even if it means their own statutes of limitations could expire.

In any event, Trump has little to gain by departing the Oval Office early and much to lose if he does. Guided by narcissism and self-interest, and backed by his dogged white nationalist base, he’ll stay put until he is either removed or defeated at the polls. Hopefully, he won’t drag the last vestiges of our diminished constitutional system with him when he goes.

 

Podcasting Offers California Inmate Unlikely Path to Freedom

OAKLAND, Calif. — In California, inmates typically are granted parole by doing good deeds or showing they have been rehabilitated by becoming pastors, drug counselors or youth advocates. For Walter “Earlonne” Woods, the path to freedom was podcasting.

Woods, 47, was recently released from San Quentin State Prison after California Gov. Jerry Brown commuted his 31-years-to-life sentence for attempted armed robbery. Brown cited Woods’ leadership in helping other inmates and his work at “Ear Hustle,” a podcast he co-hosts and co-produces that documents everyday life inside the prison.

Woods has since been hired as a full-time producer for the often funny and at times heart-wrenching podcast, which has been a smashing success since its launch in 2017. The show’s roughly 30 episodes have been downloaded 20 million times by fans all over the world.

Listeners have praised “Ear Hustle” online as “eye-opening” and “incredibly humanizing.” But for Woods, one of the most meaningful reviews came from the governor’s office when they called with the good news.

“The one thing that the lady said, you know, she told me, ‘We love the podcast in this office,’ ” Woods told The Associated Press of the commutation call from Brown’s office. “I don’t know if the governor listens, but people in his office listen. People really like what we do.”

During their podcast, Woods and fellow creator and outside co-host, prison volunteer Nigel Poor, give listeners a peek into the hardships and small joys of men incarcerated at the medium-security facility.

In interviews with the hosts, inmates discuss struggles such as finding a compatible cellmate to share a 5- by 10-foot (1.5- by 3-meter) cell, share why they take care of frogs or black widow spiders as if they were pets, or describe the impact of solitary confinement or being on death row.

Woods, an affable man with a quick smile and a sharp sense of humor, helps listeners understand prison life, while Poor brings an outsider’s perspective, asking insightful questions that at times push inmates to reflect on what put them behind bars.

The podcast offers listeners an intimate look into lives society doesn’t spend much time thinking about, said Woods, who spent 21 years behind bars.

“People get to see the car chases. They get to see the trial. But they don’t know what happens after you get to prison,” Woods said. “We’ve been able to really humanize people, and people realize that those in prison are just people who made dumb decisions.”

Brown agreed, and in his commutation letter, issued the day before Thanksgiving, the governor said Woods “has clearly shown that he is no longer the man he was when he committed this crime.”

“He has set a positive example for his peers and, through his podcast, has shared meaningful stories from those inside prison,” Brown wrote.

The podcast project started after Poor, a San Francisco Bay Area artist who has volunteered at San Quentin since 2011, approached Woods.

In 2016, Poor saw Public Radio Exchange’s Radiotopia network was sponsoring a podcast talent contest, and she asked Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s spokesman, for permission to enter. Another co-creator, Antwan Williams, who is serving 15 years for armed robbery, came on board to do its sound design.

Their pitch beat more than 1,500 contestants from 53 countries, and they received the backing of a group of radio professionals, Poor said.

“Everyone was shocked when we won, especially the prison. Lt. Robinson told me he let us enter because he never thought we would win,” she said, laughing.

“Ear Hustle” — eavesdropping, in prison slang — has found international success, with fans sending cards and letters from as far as New Zealand, Qatar in the Middle East, and Mauritius in East Africa. The free show also can be accessed in prisons throughout California and the United Kingdom. New episodes are posted every couple of weeks.

Julie Shapiro, Radiotopia executive producer, describes the podcast as a “roller coaster of emotions” that challenges what people understand about life in prison.

“People don’t expect to have something in common with those telling their stories from prison, but the details of their lives resonate with listeners because they hear these men encounter daily life in some of the same ways that we do,” Shapiro said.

The outpouring of love and appreciation for the show has grown since Woods announced on a Nov. 24 episode that Brown commuted his sentence.

The first thing Woods did after walking through the prison gates on Nov. 30 was take in the view of the San Francisco Bay and of the ocean “as far as the eye can see.” An episode featured his first moments as a free man.

Since then, he’s been noticing new styles, like women everywhere in yoga pants, and people walking through the streets with their heads bowed. He quickly realized they were looking at their smartphones, which didn’t exist when he started his sentence in 1997.

Woods has also spent time people-watching at a high-end department store, visited Disneyland and recently made eggs for the first time in two decades.

The fourth season of “Ear Hustle,” which will be released this summer, will feature stories of his re-entry to society and interviews with other inmates released after long sentences. He and Poor also plan to visit maximum-security prisons and tell the stories of prisoners there.

“There’s a lot of people that’s in there that should be out,” Woods said. “I created a podcast, but I’m not the exception.”

The Wholesale Destruction of Our Postal Service Is Already Underway

Last spring, President Trump created an inter-agency federal task force to propose structural reforms in the U.S. Postal Service.

In only two months, the task force (comprised entirely of top Trump officials) zapped out a down-and-dirty report with this key recommendation: “Prepare [USPS] for future conversion from a government agency into a privately-held corporation.”

Privatization! Are they not aware that our public postal agency is enormously popular and important to… well, to the public?

A February Pew Research poll finds that an astonishing 88 percent of Americans give the Postal Service a thumbs up. Even the president’s executive order setting up the task force conceded that the post office “is regularly cited as the Federal agency with the highest public approval rating.”

The 640,000 middle-class postal workers and letter carriers merit such kudos because they literally deliver for us. Working from 31,585 local offices, they trundle 150 billion pieces of mail a year, 4 million miles a day, to 157 million addresses across the land — from inner-city neighborhoods to back roads —  delivering all with remarkable speed.

USPS does this without taking a dime in taxpayer funds, financing its operations entirely from its sales and services to customers. This is a genuine public good linking all of America’s people together.

For decades, though, anti-government propagandists have pushed the narrative that government is inherently incompetent, wasteful, and a social evil that must to be eliminated. But the problem for these ideologues is that USPS is not only a government agency that works, but millions of folks see it working for them daily.

Therefore, to maintain the negative political narrative about public entities, the far-right corporatists are desperate to kill our public post offices.

Cornel West: We’re Staring Down Global Neofascist Rule

What follows is a conversation between Dr. Cornel West and Sharmini Peries of the Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

SHARMINI PERIES: Cornel West, I thank you so much for joining us today.

CORNEL WEST: Thank you. I salute you and the wonderful work that you do.

SHARMINI PERIES: Thank you. Now, Cornel, when I look around the world–I’ve recently been to Greece. I’ve been in Latin America with you when President Chavez was here. And the world has changed dramatically in terms of the shift to the right. And we’ve just recently seen, you know, Bolsonaro coming to power in Brazil. We have Trump here. We have Duterte in the Philippines, and the political shift to the right in Europe that’s taking place. All these changes are taking place right before our eyes, dramatically different from the last time you and I met-

CORNEL WEST: Absolutely.

SHARMINI PERIES: When there was a leftward shift in Latin America. And so I want to ask you … you’re also the author of Hope On a Tightrope, just before President Obama came to office. You’re the man behind Media Matters. You know, you have an understanding of the world like no one else I know. That’s why you’re my most favorite public intellectual of the day. So tell us your thinking of what we are facing as progressives, as revolutionary people.

CORNEL WEST: Well, I think at the present moment we’re seeing the imperial meltdown in the American empire. It takes the form of the relative eclipse of any integrity, honesty, decency, generosity, compassion among the vast majority of those who rule. You always have a prophetic slice of those who rule. And so you have both the wealth inequality on the one hand, you have the denial of the ecological catastrophe coming–or not the denial, the sense that somehow you can continually hold it back and defer. And you–and what we need is a more massive awakening of poor and working people, and people who care. People who are willing to serve something bigger than their own careers, or their own opportunity for their individual project.

We’re losing this sense of we-ness. We’re losing the sense of collective project. And we on the left, we’re so fragmented that we’re unable to come up with a language that is strong enough to create solidarity across the board. But it’s got to be solidarity in the face of empire, which means when you talk about imperial rule, when you talk about foreign policies that are preoccupied with just profit and political manipulation rather than allowing the Indigenous peoples in any parts of the world to live lives in such a way that they can flower and flourish. Which means you have to have serious discussions about the U.S. imperial role in Latin America, the U.S. imperial role in the Middle East, you have to have honest conversations about Israeli occupation of Palestinians. Honesty about the occupation of Kashmir, and Tibet. Critiques of authoritarian rulers in Africa. There has a strong moral consistency tied to political courage to tell the truth in the name of poor and working people who are catching hell. Poor and working people tend to be an afterthought.

There is a growing callousness and indifference of elites vis a vis poor and working people. They feel as if they can get away with anything with impunity, immunity, no accountability. That’s what it means to live in a right-wing moment. And that right-wing moment is taking the form of an authoritarian populism; of a chauvinistic, narrow, nationalistic populism. But it’s headed toward neofascism, and that’s what’s frightening, it seems to me.

Now, we on the left, we’re fighting, but we need much more vision. Fight. Collective action. Solidarity across the board. We’ve got to lead Dalits in India to peasants in Brazil to workers in Jamaica to workers in Nevada, New York. If we don’t have an international connection against the imperial forces that are coming at us, we’re going under.

SHARMINI PERIES: There are small efforts being made. For example, Fernando Haddad from Brazil, who ran against Bolsonaro is here at this Sanders Gathering. We have an opportunity to talk to Ada Colau, who is the mayor of Barcelona. We have some people here from Jeremy Corbyn’s organizing teams, and also people from Momentum. We have an opportunity here to have that dialogue, which is that international solidarity you’re talking about. Which seems for most people abstract.

CORNEL WEST: Yes, that’s true. That’s true.

SHARMINI PERIES: We make–we can make those connections, and we get the opportunities to meet them. But for ordinary people it’s an abstract concept. If you’re a Dalit in India, or if you’re a peasant, or in the PT–sorry, MST movement in Brazil, where you’ve also been, I know. It’s an abstract concept. How do we as agents, media, or even politicians or intellectuals, bring that unity together?

CORNEL WEST: I think, one, we have to try to exemplify it in what we say and do, whatever visibility we have, to put forward an international vision. The analysis of empire, capitalism, patriarchy, homophobia, white supremacy, male supremacy. But then beyond that I think we have to be parts of groups. We have to be parts of collectivities that are trying to make a difference. Because for example, you know, when we were there in Standing Rock, it wasn’t abstract at all. It was very concrete. It was fleshified in a very potent and poignant way. When you’re in the context of a Ferguson and you’re getting support from folks struggling in on the West Bank in Gaza, that’s not abstract at all. That’s very, very real.

It’s just a matter of people being able to see it more clearly. And also feel it. You got to feel it. You got to feel that love, support, affirmation, solidarity. But it’s grounded on something more than spiritual, because they care. Because we care. It’s not just a matter of skin pigmentation. Not just a matter of gender. Not just a matter of sexual orientation. Because as a human being, you care about this other precious human being who’s catching hell.

SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Talking about caring. On the border of Mexico and the United States, we have so many people clamoring at our doors, trying to come into our country, looking for heart, for that feeling, with their children. And we are also in 2018, and you were there in 1968, where there was also a caravan for the struggle of African Americans in this country. Make that connection, as a final thing.

CORNEL WEST: Well, one is that we’ve got to raise our voices by means of our witness, and say that these brothers and sisters who are on the way to the border are catching hell in part because of U.S. imperial policies. Honduras, we support the military coup. We could just start there. Massive repression, massive regimentation and domination. But the first thing is, how do you treat them with dignity? We could coordinate it with the Mexican authorities. How do you treat them with dignity? How do you proceed in such a way that they’re already being afraid, they’re already feeling so insecure and full of anxiety; somehow it can be lessened because you are concerned with treating them respect. With a fairness. And anyone in a higher power, a higher level of power, must be accountable.

And that doesn’t mean–that doesn’t generate one policy. There can be a variety of policies that we come up with. But if it’s a policy that is disrespectful, that is thoroughly unfair, and does not understand the context in which they find themselves, then that’s coldhearted and meanspirited. And all coldhearted and meanspirited actions tend to come back at you. Chickens do come home to roost sooner or later. That’s true for empires, and that’s true for corporate elites. That’s true for individuals in our lives, and it’s true for communities.

China Is Starting to Grasp the Cost of Climate Change

China’s cities now have a better idea of what global warming is going to cost. New research warns that for every rise of one degree Celsius in global average temperatures, average electricity demand will rise by 9%.

And that’s the average demand. For the same shift in the thermometer reading, peak electricity demand in the Yangtze Valley delta could go up by 36%.

And the global average rise of 1°C so far during the last century is just a start. By 2099, mean surface temperatures on planet Earth could be somewhere between 2°C and 5° hotter. That means that average household electricity use – assuming today’s consumption patterns don’t change – could rise by between 18% and 55%. And peak demand could rise by at least 72%.

Household electricity consumption in China is expected to double by 2040.

Governments, energy utilities and taxpayers must plan for an uncertain future. The latest study in the needs of the fast-developing economy of China, now one of the world’s great powers, and the biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming, would be necessary even if there were no climate change: that is because even without the factor of climate change driven by profligate combustion of fossil fuels almost everywhere in the world, household electricity consumption in China is expected to double by 2040.

And climate change brings severe additional problems. Chinese scientists already know that climate change within the country is a consequence of human-induced global warming. They know that average warming worldwide means more intense and more frequent extremes of heat and drought. And they have just learned that by the century’s end, levels of heat and humidity could become potentially lethal,  particularly so in the north China plains.

Most responsive

So researchers from Fudan University in Shanghai and Duke University in North Carolina report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they built up a picture of how householders respond to weather shifts by examining data from 800,000 residential customers in the Pudong district of Shanghai between 2014 and 2016, and then tested their findings against various projections of global climate change in this century.

Residential power demand makes up only about a quarter of the total for the Shanghai metropolis, but the scientists focused on individual householders because these were most responsive to fluctuations in temperature.

To nobody’s great surprise, home usage of electricity went up during the days of extreme cold, early in February, and the days of extreme heat, usually around the end of July and early August.

Clear link

They found that for every daily degree of temperature rise above 25°C, electricity use shot up by 14.5%. Compared with demand during the household comfort zone of around 20°C, on those days when temperatures reached 32°C, daily electricity consumption rose by 174%.

The implication is that more investment in air conditioning is going to drive even more global warming: other research teams have already identified the potential costs of heat waves and repeatedly warned that demand for air conditioning will warm the world even further. In the US, there are already signs that power grids may not be able to keep up with demand in long spells of extreme heat.

Shanghai is a bustling commercial powerhouse of a city: other parts of China have yet to catch up. The study found that higher-income households reached for the thermostat in cold weather. But in hot weather – and the Yangtze delta region, which is home to one fifth of the nation’s urban population and produced one fourth of China’s economic output, can get very hot – all income groups turned on the air conditioning.

“If we consider that more provinces would become ‘Shanghai’ as incomes rise, our results may ultimately be more broadly applicable,” said Yatang Li, a PhD student at Duke University, who led the research.

Border Agents’ Latest Tear Gassing Prompts Call for Investigation

In what human rights groups condemned as a “cruel and inhumane” act that must be independently investigated, agents with President Donald Trump’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Tuesday reportedly hit women, children, and journalists near the U.S.-Mexico border with tear gas, smoke, and pepper spray.

According to an Associated Press photographer present at the scene, CBP agents fired “at least three volleys of gas” into Mexico at around 150 asylum-seekers who approached the border in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Contradicting CBP’s claim that the tear gas was used to deter migrants who were throwing rocks over the border fence, the AP photographer said rocks were thrown “only after U.S. agents fired the tear gas.”

In a statement Tuesday night, Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International, said CBP’s actions should be viewed as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping anti-immigrant agenda.

“Using tear gas against men, women, and children seeking protection is cruel and inhumane,” Mazzola declared. “There needs to be a thorough and independent investigation into the reported use of tear gas and other agents in this incident. However, this incident needs to be examined within the broader context of US policies at the border.”

“The Trump administration is defying international law and orchestrating a crisis by deliberately turning asylum-seekers away from ports of entry, endangering families who see no choice but to take desperate measures in their search for protection,” he continued. “These dangerous policies must end immediately. The U.S. must welcome people safely into the country while their asylum claims are reviewed.”

The US welcomed 2019 by firing tear gas across an international border into a crowd including women, children, & journalists. https://t.co/H7XrCOzv4n

— RAICES (@RAICESTEXAS) January 2, 2019

CBP’s use of tear gas against asylum-seekers on Tuesday marked the second time the agency has fired the chemical into Mexico over the past several weeks alone. As Common Dreams reported, CBP agents fired tear gas across the U.S.-Mexico border in late November, forcing women and children to flee “screaming and coughing.”

The Trump administration’s use of chemical agents against asylum-seekers comes amid a government shutdown over the president’s demand for $5 billion in border wall funding.

While Democratic leaders have thus far rejected Trump’s demand for wall money, progressive advocacy groups raised alarm in a letter last week that the Democrats’ plan to reopen the government would still provide the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—which oversees CBP—with substantial funding to carry out the president’s anti-immigrant agenda.

“As much as we all desire an end to the shutdown,” the groups wrote, “rewarding Trump’s DHS with border barrier money is the wrong course of action, especially at a time when its personnel are tear gassing toddlers, separating and detaining families, and presiding over custodial deaths, including those of a seven-year-old girl named Jakelin and an eight-year-old boy named Felipe in Border Patrol custody just this month.”