Chris Hedges's Blog, page 66
December 31, 2019
Bernie Sanders Out-Raises Everybody in the Democratic Field
Sen. Bernie Sanders got some good news Monday as his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination approached 5 million donations and, at an average of $18, looked set to end 2019 head and shoulders above his competitors for total money raised over the year.
“Bernie Sanders demolished all of the other candidates,” tweeted activist and Sanders surrogate Shaun King. “It’s not even close.”
The numbers came from New York Times reporting on the Democratic field’s fundraising for the end of the year. The Sanders campaign reported raising $26 million in the fourth quarter, putting the Vermont senator firmly in the top tier of candidates in the 2020 primary.
As the Times explained:
Mr. Sanders is expected to remain a financial pacesetter in the 2020 contest. He has about 1.6 million individual donations this quarter alone and is nearing a goal of five million total contributions. With an average donation of $18 for the year, and slightly less than that now, the numbers suggest he has already raised about $26 million in the fourth quarter—more than any Democratic candidate has raised in any quarter this year.
According to Times reporter Shane Goldmacher, extrapolating on the data in a Twitter thread, Sanders is on track to raise roughly $87.5 million by the end of 2019.
“His campaign said today he’s at 4.865 million donations for the year, with a previous disclosed average donation of $18,” tweeted Goldmacher. “That means he’s raised ~$87.5 million for the year.”
The campaign is hoping to hit 5 million donations by the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, telling supporters in an email that they can donate as little as $2.70 to help the senator reach the mark.
“Our movement has all the momentum right now,” the campaign said in an email. “And reaching our goal of 5 million donations will ensure we continue to hold onto our momentum as we approach the Iowa caucus.”
That Sanders was able to raise at least $87.5 million without Super PACs, bundlers, and other forms of big money donations favored by rivals like former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, said HuffPost senior reporter Zach Carter, is an indication the senator is defying expectations and conventional wisdom.
“He out-raised literally everyone else in the field,” said Carter.
Here’s the fundraising story in 2019: The Democratic Party establishment assailed Bernie Sanders’ fundraising strategy as “unilateral disarmament,” and he out-raised literally everyone else in the field. https://t.co/E1GrcB0Hhm
— Zach Carter (@zachdcarter) December 30, 2019
The Sanders campaign on Monday released health information for the 78-year-old senator, showing him to be in excellent shape for his age.
“At this point, I see no reason he cannot continue campaigning without limitation and, should he be elected, I am confident he has the mental and physical stamina to fully undertake the rigors of the presidency,” Dr. Martin M. LeWinter, Sanders’ personal cardiologist, said in a statement.
Monday’s fundraising news came as Sanders supporters made #PresidentSanders the top trending hashtag in the U.S., tweeting their hopes for the accomplishments of the senator’s future presidency.
After interacting with all of you on twitter for years it’s going to be surreal when we all get to hang out in Washington for Bernie’s inauguration #PresidentSanders
— Rob (@robrousseau) December 30, 2019
“It can happen,” tweeted filmmaker and Sanders supporter Adam McKay. “An actual President not owned by banks, oil or billionaires. A President not motivated by lining his own pockets. Free healthcare, a living wage, taxes on billionaires and corps, clean air and water… #PresidentSanders.”
December 30, 2019
Fewer Births, More Deaths Lead to Slowest U.S. Growth Rate in 100 Years
ORLANDO, Fla.—The past year’s population growth rate in the United States was the slowest in a century due to declining births, increasing deaths and the slowdown of international migration, according to figures released Monday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. grew from 2018 to 2019 by almost a half percent, or about 1.5 million people, with the population standing at 328 million this year, according to population estimates.
That’s the slowest growth rate in the U.S. since 1917 to 1918, when the nation was involved in World War I, said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution.
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For the first time in decades, natural increase — the number of births minus the number of deaths — was less than 1 million in the U.S. due to an aging population of Baby Boomers, whose oldest members entered their 70s within the past several years. As the large Boomer population continues to age, this trend is going to continue.
“Some of these things are locked into place. With the aging of the population, as the Baby Boomers move into their 70s and 80s, there are going to be higher numbers of deaths,” Frey said. “That means proportionately fewer women of child bearing age, so even if they have children, it’s still going to be less.”
Four states had a natural decrease, where deaths outnumbered births: West Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
For the first time this decade, Puerto Rico had a population increase. The island, battered by economic stagnation and Hurricane Maria in the past several years, increased by 340 people between 2018 and 2019, with people moving to the island offsetting natural decrease.
International migration to the U.S. decreased to 595,000 people from 2018 to 2019, dropping from as many as 1 million international migrants in 2016, according to the population estimates. Immigration restrictions by the Trump administration combined with a perception that the U.S. has fewer economic opportunities than it did before the recession a decade ago contributed to the decline, Frey said.
“Immigration is a wildcard in that it is something we can do something about,” Frey said. “Immigrants tend to be younger and have children, and they can make a population younger.”
Ten states had population declines in the past year. They included New York, which lost almost 77,000 people; Illinois, which lost almost 51,000 residents; West Virginia, which lost more than 12,000 people; Louisiana, which lost almost 11,000 residents; and Connecticut, which lost 6,200 people. Mississippi, Hawaii, New Jersey, Alaska and Vermont each lost less than 5,000 residents.
Regionally, the South saw the greatest population growth from 2018 to 2019, increasing 0.8% due to natural increase and people moving from others parts of the country. The Northeast had a population decrease for the first time this decade, declining 0.1% due primarily to people moving away.
Monday’s population estimates also offer a preview of which states may gain or lose congressional seats from next year’s apportionment process using figures from the 2020 Census. The process divvies up the 435 U.S. House seats among the 50 states based on population.
Several forecasts predict California, the nation’s most populous state with 39.5 million residents, losing a seat for the first time. Texas, the nation’s second most-populous state with 28.9 million residents, is expected to gain as many as three seats, the most of any state.
According to Frey’s projections on Monday, Florida stands to gain two seats, while Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each stand to gain a seat. Besides, California, other states that will likely lose a seat are Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia.
Capitalism’s Failures Have Millennials Reconsidering Communism
Income inequality in the United States reached a 50-year high in 2019, the worst since the Census Bureau began tracking the gap between America’s wealthiest and poorest.
Student loan debt rose to $1.41 trillion in 2019, a 107% increase this decade, according to Federal Reserve data. Millennials have been hit particularly hard, carrying an average of $27,900 in student debt, according to 2019 data from Northwestern Mutual.
News outlets have reported on how millenials can’t afford to buy homes, and multiple experts question their prospects for retirement, As Business Insider noted in April, “the generation … is plagued by financial problems that baby boomers didn’t have to face at their age.”
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Against this bleak economic backdrop, it’s not surprising that millennials long for an economic system that focuses on the redistribution of wealth. Seventy percent of millennial respondents in a recent YouGov survey said they would be either “somewhat likely” or “extremely likely” (the survey’s words) to vote for a socialist candidate for elected office, including the presidency. Thirty-six percent of respondents—more than a third—also said they approve of Communism, a figure, MarketWatch observes, that “is up significantly from 28% in 2018.”
By contrast, MarketWatch continues, “amid a widening divide between the haves and have-nots, [capitalism] has plunged in popularity from a year ago, with one out of every two millennials—ages 23 to 38—supporting it.”
Millennial support for a socialist elected official is reflected by Bernie Sanders’ recent climb in Democratic presidential campaign polling. A self-described democratic socialist, Sanders is viewed positively by 54% of millennials, according to YouGov. He’s even done well among the general population, earning 22% of voters’ support in a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, just two percentage points behind Joe Biden.
While socialism as a whole saw a decline in favorability among most generations surveyed, the silent generation (age 74 and up, which includes Sanders) and millennials both view it more favorably than they did in 2018.
The survey was commissioned by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, whose executive director, Marion Smith, was dismayed by the findings. “The historical amnesia about the dangers of communism and socialism is on full display in this year’s report,” Smith wrote in a statement on the foundation’s website. “When we don’t educate our youngest generations about the historical truth of 100 million victims murdered at the hands of communist regimes over the past century, we shouldn’t be surprised at their willingness to embrace Marxist ideas.”
Smith’s fears were probably not assuaged by the poll finding that 15% of millennials surveyed think the world would be a better place if the Soviet Union still existed.
Perhaps he might be comforted by at least one other finding in the survey: Capitalism remains the most popular economic system for now, with 61% favorability among all respondents.
Read the full report here.
Democrats Are Using ‘Russiagate’ to Push for Fracking
What follows is a conversation between climate reporter Steve Horn and Lisa Snowden-McCray of The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Lisa Snowden-McCray.
Last week, Congress gave European Union countries and big oil a holiday season gift: $1 billion to facilitate the importation of U.S. fracked gas. The legislation called the European Energy Security and Diversification Act was tucked into $1.4 trillion budget bill signed into law on December 20th by President Donald Trump.
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Congressional Dems who had been pushing for the legislation since early this year invoked Russiagate and an attempt to wean EU countries off of Russian gas to make their case for the bill. One of them was U.S. Representative Bill Keating from Massachusetts.
BILL KEATING: So speaker, we saw again last weekend with a summary of the Mueller report coming forward. Just underscoring, once again, the attack it was made in our country by Russia. Russia is seeking, number one, to attack the democracies of our country, but also to strategically create a wedge with the greatest asset we have, something that they certainly do not have. That asset is the coalition we have with our European allies.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Sponsors for the bill pointed to the energy geopolitics goals undergirding the legislation, and as it moved through the Senate during the United Nations climate talks in Madrid, Connecticut democratic Senator Chris Murphy said, “If we are able to help make countries truly energy independent of Russia’s energy largess, then it effectuates so many U.S. national security goals in the region.”
But as it turns out, the bill was not simply a geopolitical muscle flex by the United States government. It was also the fulfillment and realization of a month long, big oil lobbying demand. Here to talk about that is Real News Climate reporter and producer Steve Horn. He’s the author of a recent piece titled, “Democrats invoke Russiagate to advance bill lobbied for by big oil.” He joins us from San Diego where he’s based. Thanks for joining us, Steve.
STEVE HORN: Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: So Steve, you published an investigative piece on this legislation for us right before it got inserted into the federal budget bill last week. So what exactly does the legislation call for and who lobbied for it?
STEVE HORN: Yeah, so the bill itself calls for, like you said, $1 billion to go towards energy projects or energy infrastructure in EU countries. And in particular it centers upon these 45 projects that are designated back in November by the European Commission as priority projects, which ended up being and was decried at the time being lots of fossil fuel industry projects, in particular natural gas projects.
So although there’s lots of different language in the bill it says it could be natural gas; it says it could be coal; it says it could be renewable energy. And yet at the end of the day it’s going to be a lot of natural gas or fracked gas infrastructure or infrastructure to import gas, obtained from fracking in the United States into a European Union countries.
And in terms of who lobbied for this bill, I think that was sort of this, as you said, this has been pushed since the beginning of the year. What was news here is looking at the lobbying disclosure forms and the number one proponent of this bill, it was the American Petroleum Institute or API, which is the lobbying voice of the oil and gas industry, which has spent every quarter of this year that’s been documented so far lobbying on behalf of this bill. So, that’s really who’s behind this bill.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Okay. And so this bill got unanimous support from House Democrats and some interesting debate ensued on the legislation in the Senate Committee on formulations around renewable energy language. Can you talk a little bit about what happened there?
STEVE HORN: Yeah, and that goes back to the language in the bill, which is sort of an all of the above energy strategy towards European Union funding. All of it, which is encompasses every energy form. But what Senator Ed Markey tried to do is as a member of the Senate foreign relations committee is provide supplemental language, which said only renewable energy should be promoted in European Union countries. And it got struck down. There’s a couple of different votes on different language formulations that he came up with.
But at the end of the day, it got struck down. The reason why that’s really important to me is Chris Murphy, who was the coauthor of the bill on the Senate side, a Democrat from Connecticut, he Tweeted about this after it got inserted into the budget bill and he said, “Well, hey look, this is a great bill.” There’s going to, we’re going to prioritize renewable energy. And within it, well actually, if you look at what happened in deliberations on this bill, that’s not the case at all.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: And then there’s like a little bit of irony in the way that the legislation came together and got passed. Can you talk a little bit about that?
STEVE HORN: Yeah. So I think to understand the dynamics of this, of course, this is being pushed in the vein of Russia is an adversary of the United States and Russia is a bully of European Union countries in terms of how its uses its gas, uses its natural gas as almost a weapon or a blackmail tool in the European Union or in that context when it exports its energy to those countries. And so I think what’s really important understand is looking at the proponents on the United States side; the American Petroleum Institute, lots of those member companies, including those largest member companies like ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, all of those companies to more or less extent. But in particular ExxonMobil, and in particular BP are hugely tied to extracting oil and gas in Russia.
And so I’ll just give one of the most egregious examples is BP who’s a member of API; their CEO, Bob Dudley, is actually on the board of directors of Rosneft, which is Russia’s state-owned oil company. BP in turn owns over 18% of a stake of Rosneft as a company. So they’re an 18% owner. So I think that if you look at the push from this perspective, it’s just completely insidious because they’re using Russia and at the same time, Russia is another profit center for these same member companies. So I think in a lot of ways, it kind of blows a major hole in the central argument that is being made by the proponents of this legislation.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: There was some pushback as you mentioned a few minutes ago, but ultimately the groups that were against this legislation were not successful. Can you talk a little bit about who the people that were not for this legislation and how that kind of panned out?
STEVE HORN: Yeah, so back in the Spring in May, there were 200 groups who wrote a letter in opposition to this legislation. But on the lobbying side, two of those groups in particular were leading the lobbying push against this bill. One of them was Friends of the Earth; the other one was Food and Water Watch. And I spoke to one of the lobbyists for Friends of the Earth for this article who was working on the pushback against the legislation.
And basically what she told me was two things: One, there was not much appetite to even talk to them. They were being blown off in conversations. There were meetings that weren’t being able to set up because there was so much of this, the Russiagate fervor in the air in Washington. So basically, meeting doors weren’t even being open for them.
And second of all, Friends of the Earth told me that they were being kind of smeared almost as Russian agents for pushing back against this legislation. Essentially what they told me is, look, at the end of the day, this legislation is going to hurt people in the European Union. It’s going to hurt people in Russia. It’s going to … Around the world, people are going to be hurt by more and more fossil fuels being produced and marketed because of climate change, because of the local impacts of fossil fuel extraction and production. So, I think that was an important point that they made as well.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: It’s good that you mentioned the EU because that was going to be my last question. What has been the reaction over there? What are people over on the other side of the pond saying about this legislation?
STEVE HORN: Yeah. I don’t think that people, from what I’ve seen, environmental groups or people on the ground in EU countries, have not really been looking at this piece of legislation in particular. But I think what’s important to point out is they, I think they don’t realize that they have been in a different way. That is that number, that 55 project list or 55 critical projects list that sort of is the key of this legislation that will be the ones prioritized, groups in the EU have been pushing against that and they slam that as basically a fossil fuel industry give away.
In one project in particular I think is worth noting, which is on that list, it’s just called Shannon LNG in Ireland. That project has garnered opposition, not even an ordinary opposition. I mean the Pope has come out against that project. Cher. Mark Ruffalo. Famous people have come out against this project. That’s one of the ones on this list under this bill that will potentially get funding from this new piece of legislation. So I think that once… I’d be curious to see what people in the EU countries, how they react to this bill as they realize it got inserted into the United States budget for the next year.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Yeah. I feel like it’s not often that Cher and the Pope are speaking out on the same issue.
STEVE HORN: Yeah.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Thanks so much for taking us through all the twists and turns on this story. We’ll have a link to it on our website and on our YouTube channel as usual. And thank you, Steve, for joining us.
STEVE HORN: Thanks for having me. Good to talk about it.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Great. And you’ve been watching The Real News Network.
Iran Denounces U.S. Bombings as Acts of ‘Terrorism’
Iran’s foreign ministry on Monday condemned the Trump administration’s deadly airstrikes in Iraq and Syria over the weekend as a “clear example of terrorism” and demanded that the U.S. end its occupation of the region.
“We strongly condemn this aggression on Iraqi soil,” Abbas Mousavi, a spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry, said in a statement. “The U.S. has to respect the territorial integrity and independence of Iraq and to stop interfering in Iraqi internal affairs.”
The Pentagon claimed Saturday’s airstrikes were a “defensive” response to recent rocket attacks by Iraqi militia groups that the U.S. says are Iranian proxies. Iran denied any responsibility for the attacks, which killed one American contractor.
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“These attacks have once again proved America’s false claims in fighting the Takfiri group of Daesh [ISIS] as the United States has targeted the positions of forces that over the years have inflicted heavy blows to Daesh terrorists,” Mousavi said Monday. “With these attacks, America has shown its firm support for terrorism and its disregard for the independence and sovereignty of countries and it must accept responsibility for the consequences of its illegal act.”
Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif also condemned the U.S. airstrikes.
“Thousands of miles away from its own borders,” Zarif said Monday, “the United States is causing bloodshed and destruction against the people of Iraq and Syria in the name of defending itself.”
The latest U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, which President Donald Trump approved late Saturday, was enthusiastically applauded by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), former national security adviser John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other war hawks who have long advocated regime change in Iran. The airstrikes killed at least 25 people and injured dozens more.
Peace advocates raised alarm about the intensifying drumbeats of war in the wake of the U.S. strikes.
“The war with Iran crowd is getting excited,” tweeted Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-war group. “They may have found the excuse they needed to trick Trump into a war he has wisely avoided.”
The war with Iran crowd is getting excited. They may have found the excuse they needed to trick Trump into a war he has wisely avoided. https://t.co/jWNn0KqhVC
— Joe Cirincione (@Cirincione) December 30, 2019
Sina Toossi, senior research analyst at the National Iranian American Council, said in a statement Sunday that rapid deescalation is needed to avoid a full-blown regional conflict.
“The dangerous escalation in Iraq occurs in the context of the Trump administration’s reckless and needless ‘maximum pressure’ campaign that threatens to make Iraq an all-out battlefield between the U.S. and Iran,” said Toossi. “Avoiding this scenario requires a broader rethinking of the maximum pressure policy away from mindless saber-rattling.”
3 Years In, No Sign of Trump Alternative to Obamacare
WASHINGTON—As a candidate for the White House, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would “immediately” replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own that would provide “insurance for everybody.”
Back then, Trump made it sound that his plan — “much less expensive and much better” than the Affordable Care Act — was imminent. And he put drug companies on notice that their pricing power no longer would be “politically protected.”
Nearly three years after taking office, Americans still are waiting for Trump’s big health insurance reveal. Prescription drug prices have edged lower but with major legislation stuck in Congress it’s unclear if that relief is the start of a trend or merely a blip.
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Meantime the uninsured rate has gone up on Trump’s watch, rising in 2018 for the first time in nearly a decade to 8.5% of the population, or 27.5 million people, according to the Census Bureau.
“Every time Trump utters the words ACA or Obamacare, he ends up frightening more people,” said Andy Slavitt, who served as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama administration. He’s “deepening their fear of what they have to lose.”
While Trump has yet to deliver on his campaign pledge to replace Obamacare, White House officials argue that the president is improving the health care system in other ways, without dismantling private health care.
White House spokesman Judd Deere noted Trump’s signing of the “Right-to-Try” act that allows some patients facing life-threatening diseases to access unapproved treatment, revamping the U.S. kidney donation system and the FDA approving more generic drugs as key improvements. Trump has also launched a drive to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
“The president’s policies are improving the American health care system for everyone, not just those in the individual market,” Deere said.
But as the president gears up for his reelection campaign, the lack of a Trump health care plan is an issue that Democratic presidential contenders and their allies believe they can use against him.
This month, a federal appeals court struck down “Obamacare’s” individual mandate, the requirement that Americans carry health insurance, but sidestepped a ruling on the law’s overall constitutionality. The attorneys general of Texas and 18 other Republican-led states filed the underlying lawsuit, which was defended by Democrats and the U.S. House. Texas argued that due to the unlawfulness of the individual mandate, Obamacare must be entirely scrapped.
Texas v. United States appears destined to be taken up by the Supreme Court, potentially teeing up a constitutional showdown before the 2020 presidential election.
Trump welcomed the court ruling as a major victory while Democrats accused him of trying to dismantle his predecessor’s health care law without offering a replacement.
Over the last three years, Trump and senior administration officials have periodically teased that a Trump plan was just around the corner.
In August, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, said officials were “actively engaged in conversations and working on things,” while Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway suggested that same month an announcement was on the horizon.
In June, Trump told ABC News that he’d roll out his “phenomenal health care plan” in a couple of months, and that it would be a central part of his reelection pitch.
The country is still waiting. Meantime Trump officials say the administration has made strides by championing transparency on hospital prices, pursuing a range of actions to curb prescription drug costs, and expanding lower-cost health insurance alternatives for small businesses and individuals.
One of Trump’s small business options — association health plans — is tied up in court. And taken together, the administration’s health insurance options are modest when compared with Trump’s original goal of rolling back the ACA, which Republicans blamed for rising premiums.
Although Trump has not come through on his promise of a big plan, internecine skirmishes among 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls have largely driven the health care debate in recent months.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are leading the push among liberals for a “Medicare for All” plan that would effectively end private health insurance while more moderate candidates, like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, advocate for what they contend is a more attainable expansion of Medicare.
Brad Woodhouse, a former Democratic National Committee official and executive director of the Obamacare advocacy group Protect Our Care, said it is important for Democrats to “put down the knives they’ve been wielding against one another on health care.”
“Instead turn their attention to this president and Republicans who are trying to take it away,” Woodhouse counseled.
Some Democratic hopefuls appear to be doing just that.
During a campaign stop in Memphis, Tennessee. this month, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called out Trump on health care, saying the president is “determined to throw Americans off the boat, without giving them a lifeline.”
“President Trump has spent three years sabotaging the Affordable Care Act — and offering Americans nothing in return but empty promises,” said Bloomberg, a late addition to the Democratic field. “He promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something better — but he has never had another plan.”
Polling suggests Trump’s failure to follow through on his promise to deliver a revamped health care system could be a drag on his reelection effort.
Voters have consistently named health care as one of their highest concerns in polling. And more narrowly, a recent Gallup-West Health poll found that 66% of adults believe the Trump administration has made little or no progress curtailing prescription drug costs.
Prescription drug prices did drop 1% in 2018, according to nonpartisan experts at U.S. Health and Human Services.
That was the first such price drop in 45 years, driven by declines for generic drugs, which account for nearly 9 out of 10 prescriptions dispensed. Prices continued to rise for brand-name drugs, although at a more moderate pace.
Trump’s broadsides against the pharmaceutical industry might well have helped check prices, though drug companies have been hammered by every major Democrat as well as many Republican lawmakers.
Trump says a health insurance overhaul can be done in a second term if voters give him a Republican Congress as well as a reelection win.
But Trump and the GOP had that chance when they were in full control and unable to deliver, because Republicans don’t agree among themselves.
Trump could still score a big win on prescription drugs before the 2020 election. He’s backing a bipartisan Senate bill that would limit what Medicare recipients pay out of pocket for their medicines and require drug companies to pay rebates to the government if they increase prices above inflation.
Passing it would require the cooperation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, harshly criticized by Trump over impeachment.
The Most Disturbing Environmental Statistic of the Decade
This year, I was on the judging panel for the Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Decade.
Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” competition, the international statistic is meant to capture the zeitgeist of this decade. The judging panel accepted nominations from the statistical community and the public at large for a statistic that shines a light on the decade’s most pressing issues.
On Dec. 23, we announced the winner: the 8.4 million soccer fields of land deforested in the Amazon over the past decade. That’s 24,000 square miles, or about 10.3 million American football fields.
This statistic, while giving only a snapshot of the issue, provides insight into the dramatic change to this landscape over the last 10 years. Since 2010, mile upon mile of rainforest has been replaced with a wide range of commercial developments, including cattle ranching, logging and the palm oil industry.
This calculation by the committee is based on deforestation monitoring results from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, as well as FIFA’s regulations on soccer pitch dimensions.
Calculating the Cost
There are a number of reasons why this deforestation matters – financial, environmental and social.
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First of all, 20 million to 30 million people live in the Amazon rainforest and depend on it for survival. It’s also the home to thousands of species of plants and animals, many at risk of extinction.
Second, one-fifth of the world’s fresh water is in the Amazon Basin, supplying water to the world by releasing water vapor into the atmosphere that can travel thousands of miles. But unprecedented droughts have plagued Brazil this decade, attributed to the deforestation of the Amazon.
During the droughts, in Sao Paulo state, some farmers say they lost over one-third of their crops due to the water shortage. The government promised the coffee industry almost US$300 million to help with their losses.
Finally, the Amazon rainforest is responsible for storing over 180 billion tons of carbon alone. When trees are cleared or burned, that carbon is released back into the atmosphere. Studies show that the social cost of carbon emissions is about $417 per ton.
Finally, as a November 2018 study shows, the Amazon could generate over $8 billion each year if just left alone, from sustainable industries including nut farming and rubber, as well as the environmental effects.
Financial Gain?
Some might argue that there has been a financial gain from deforestation and that it really isn’t a bad thing. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, went so far as to say that saving the Amazon is an impediment to economic growth and that “where there is indigenous land, there is wealth underneath it.”
In an effort to be just as thoughtful in that sense, let’s take a look. Assume each acre of rainforest converted into farmland is worth about $1,000, which is about what U.S. farmers have paid to buy productive farmland in Brazil. Then, over the past decade, that farmland amounts to about $1 billion.
The deforested land mainly contributes to cattle raising for slaughter and sale. There are a little over 200 million cattle in Brazil. Assuming the two cows per acre, the extra land means a gain of about $20 billion for Brazil.
Chump change compared to the economic loss from deforestation. The farmers, commercial interest groups and others looking for cheap land all have a clear vested interest in deforestation going ahead, but any possible short-term gain is clearly outweighed by long-term loss.
Rebounding
Right now, every minute, over three football fields of Amazon rainforest are being lost.
What if someone wanted to replant the lost rainforest? Many charity organizations are raising money to do just that.
At the cost of over $2,000 per acre – and that is the cheapest I could find – it isn’t cheap, totaling over $30 billion to replace what the Amazon lost this decade.
Still, the studies that I’ve seen and my calculations suggest that trillions have been lost due to deforestation over the past decade alone.
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Liberty Vittert, Professor of the Practice of Data Science, Washington University in St Louis
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Ralph Nader: Democrats Stand Between Trump and Tyranny
Against Donald J. Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted narrow impeachment charges, despite key House Committee Chairs’ arguments for broadening the impeachment charges. These veteran lawmakers, led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, urged Speaker Pelosi to include the ten obstructions of justice documented in the Mueller Report. These House Committee Chairs also wanted to add a count of bribery regarding Ukraine – a stance Pelosi took herself in a November 14, 2019 press conference. She then overruled her chairs and rejected the bribery count.
Speaker Pelosi told reporters on November 14:
“The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival – a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election.”
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“Bribery” is explicitly listed as an impeachable offense in the Constitution in Article II, Section 4 and resonates with the public. No matter, Pelosi dropped this crucial charge.
Since the two articles of impeachment – abuse of power and obstruction of justice (limited to the Ukraine matter) – passed the House on December 18, 2019, the Republicans may have given Pelosi reason to accept some of her colleagues’ pleas to broaden the impeachment charges.
First, Senator Mitch McConnell indicated that he was going to follow Trump’s White House in establishing the rules of the trial. What about the oath to “do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God?” The Senatorial jurors are going to let the defendant, Donald Trump, have a say on the rules in his own impeachment? That bad faith action prompted Pelosi to hold back sending the two approved impeachment articles to the Senate. Currently the stage is being set for the Senate to be a kangaroo court.
Second, more incriminating e-mails have emerged, linking Trump and his cronies to the Ukraine extortion/bribe. On January 3, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is set to review two cases that will weigh heavily on Trump’s legal team. In one case, the district judge ruled that the White House had to obey a Congressional subpoena for the testimony of Trump’s lawyer, Donald McGahn, as the “most important” witness regarding Trump’s obstruction of justice in Robert S. Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The second case involves the House Judiciary Committee’s access to grand jury testimony in the Mueller investigation to determine if Trump lied. The lower court judge said the White House must turn them over.
To add to these developments, Trump mocked Pelosi, asserting that the various impeachment charges she did not allow her colleagues to include in the impeachment articles means the other impeachment offenses were, according to Trump, all “lies” and “fake.” This should bother Pelosi because Trump is trying to legitimize these numerous impeachable offenses due to Pelosi’s inaction. Trump has defiantly refused to “faithfully execute” the laws for health, safety, and economic protections – enriching himself and displaying contempt for Congress by installing cabinet and other high officials without Senate confirmation. Trump also obstructs Congress by blocking Congressional Committee access to testimonies and documents. Getting away with very serious impeachable offenses sets a terrible precedent for future presidential lawlessness. See a listing of twelve such counts by me, constitutional law experts Bruce Fein, and Louis Fisher in the Congressional Record (December 18, 2019, page H 12197).
Nothing in the Constitution or federal statutes bars second or third rounds of impeachments. Indeed, attorneys for the House Judiciary Committee told the Circuit Court that it “is continuing to conduct its inquiry into whether the President committed other impeachable offenses. The Committee’s investigations did not cease with the House’s recent impeachment vote.”
Moreover, Nancy Pelosi has encouraged five House Committees to continue their probe into the outlaw president, whom Pelosi has called “a crook, a thief, a liar” and said she wants to see “in prison.” The question is whether she wants only “oversight investigations” or she also wants “impeachment investigations.” The difference is critical to Trump’s tenure, to the rule of law, and to making the Senate conduct a fair trial with witnesses (the latter backed by 71 percent of the people).
Prosecuting Trump’s other grave constitutional violations would demonstrate the important personal stakes for Americans who have borne the brunt of the President’s monarchical, illegal defiance that takes away life-preserving safeguards for the American people, which protects them from rampant corporate ravages.
With the coming of the New Year, Speaker Pelosi has a historic choice regarding constitutional order and compliance with the law by Donald J. Trump. Either she sends a boomerang to the White House or she delivers a solid, broad-based eviction notice that the Senate Republicans can try to defend in a public trial viewed by tens of millions of Americans.
5 Ways to Prevent Corporations From Destroying Labor for Good
Artificial intelligence, robots, and other advanced technologies are already transforming the world of work – and their impact is just beginning. They’ll grow the economy and make it more efficient. But unless American workers are involved, that growth and technological change will benefit only those at the top.
The challenge of making economic growth and technological change benefit all working people and not just those at the top is the same challenge I’ve written about and talked a lot about over the years. It’s the challenge of reversing widening inequalities of income, wealth, and political power. A big part of the solution is making sure workers have a voice and a union. That way they have more bargaining leverage to get a piece of the pie that in recent years has been going almost entirely to the top.
We shouldn’t think of emerging technologies as things we have no control over – as if they just happen automatically, inevitably. We have the power to shape technological progress. We need to assert our roles as workers and members of a democratic society to ensure that new technologies benefit all of us.
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Here are five ways to do so:
First, workers need a stronger voice, from the boardroom to the shop floor. Workers at all levels should participate in the design, development, and deployment of technology in the workplace – as they do in Germany.
This is not only good for workers. It’s also good for companies that otherwise waste countless dollars trying to figure out how best to use new technologies without consulting frontline workers who are closest to processes and products, and know how to get maximum use out of new technologies.
In the early 2000s, Home Depot spent over $1 billion in automation but reduced investment in their workforce. In the end, because workers were left out of the process, many of these automated systems failed and had to be scaled back.
Second, if we want corporations to invest in innovation and their workers we need to reform Wall Street. So instead of buying back their own shares of stock to manipulate stock prices and laying off employees to boost short-term profits, corporations can make the long-term investments that are necessary for their competitiveness and for the competitiveness of their workers.
Every corporation can get access to the same gadgets. What makes a corporation uniquely competitive is its people – how its workers utilize the new technologies.
Third, we need to rebuild strong collaboration between government and business in researching and developing new technologies, so they work for the benefit of all. That’s what we did in the three decades after World War II, when the Defense Department worked with the private sector to develop the Internet, telecommunications, and aerospace; when the National Institutes of Health did basic research for pharmaceuticals and medical breakthroughs; and our national laboratories pioneered research on biofuel, nuclear, wind and solar energy.
Conservatives often object that it’s not the role of government to steer technological development. Yet most of the cutting-edge technology that’s the crowning achievement of the United States’ private sector was in fact developed as a result of public innovation and public funding.
Our government is still steering technological development. The difference now is we have the capacity to steer that development in a way that generates broad-based prosperity, not just jaw-dropping incomes for a few innovators and investors.
Fourth, a more open and forward-looking industrial policy can help steer the nation’s economic growth toward combating our central challenges – climate change, poverty, our crumbling infrastructure, costly and inaccessible health care, lack of quality education.
Tackling big ambitious goals like transitioning to clean energy can encourage collaboration between different sectors of the economy. Backed by the right technologies, they can also be sources of the good jobs of the future.
Conservatives claim the government shouldn’t pick winners and losers. But that’s what we’ve done for years. We already have an industrial policy when the government bails out Wall Street banks, gives special tax breaks to oil, and hands out subsidies to Big Agriculture. But it’s a backwards industrial policy, led by powerful industry lobbyists. We need a forward-looking industrial policy that develops the industries and jobs of the future, and does so openly, in ways that benefit working people and society.
Finally, we need to assure that our workers are protected from the downsides: That new information technologies along with their increasing potential for monitoring and surveilling workers don’t undermine worker autonomy, dignity, and privacy. That the use of algorithms to manage workers doesn’t give top management unwarranted power in the workplace. And that workplace technologies don’t make work more unpredictable for millions of workers.
Workers need some control over how these technologies and the data they produce are used. And for this they need strong unions.
New technologies advancing toward our workplace shouldn’t reduce the standard of living of Americans. They should raise our standard of living. But that won’t happen automatically.
Workers need a voice. Government needs a responsible role. We deserve a forward-looking and open industrial policy. And the rules of the game need to be fair. We should all be able to steer the direction of technological change and influence how new technologies affect our lives.
The Best Truthdig Book Reviews of 2019
This year’s original reviews provide unique insight into the literary world through a distinctly progressive lens, including two National Arts & Entertainment Journalism award-winning pieces by Truthdig contributor Allen Barra and Foreign Editor Natasha Hakimi Zapata. Read the full reviews by clicking on the hyperlinked titles below.
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The Trickster King and the Erudite Literalist
By ALLEN BARRA
Approaching Vladimir Nabokov’s 120th birthday, Truthdig looks at his friendship and falling-out with another literary giant, Edmund Wilson.
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When the Voiceless Speak
By ALEXIS CAMINS
Filipino American author Alex Tizon spent his life raising up the lives of those rendered invisible by society.
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Written after the 45th president was inaugurated, Terrance Hayes’ sonnets have an urgency that will leave readers’ heads spinning.
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The Future of Meat
By CARYN HARTGLASS
As people become aware of the effects of eating animals on climate change and human health, a new book asks whether we will see an end to it.
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Reclaiming Difference
By PAUL VON BLUM
A new anthology shines light on differently abled artists, including Sandie Yi, born with two digits on each hand and foot, whose art forces viewers to reconsider beauty.
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By TIM RILEY
Ken Burns’ documentary “Country Music” and its book tie-in present country music with a naive affection that misses key American tensions.
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A new book argues weakly for the influence of Ayn Rand on our culture—after all, the dominant classes in America were greedy and selfish from the get-go.
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The Madness Driving Climate Catastrophe
By H. PATRICIA HYNES
A new book examines how corporate capitalism, through fossil fuel-based technology, has led the world to the point of destruction.
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‘Civilizing’ Perpetual Foreigners
By ELAINE MARGOLIN
In a time rife with anti-immigrant invective, Truthdig reviews a book that explores a historic episode involving missionaries and migrant Chinese women.
Need more recommendations? Check out all of Truthdig’s book reviews here.
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