Ralph Nader's Blog, page 38

Governor Cuomo: Avoid Budget Cuts by Not Rebating Stock Sales Tax to Wall Street!

By Ralph Nader

June 5, 2020

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is basking in the popularity of his meticulous Covid-19 news briefings and simultaneously predicting a pandemic-driven $61 billion state deficit over four years. Astonishingly, the Governor electronically rebates an existing tiny stock transfer sales tax back to Wall Street. This stock transfer sales tax, bringing in an estimated 13 to 16 billion dollars a year, would reduce forthcoming budget cuts in health, education, transportation, and other safety nets.

No Governor in the country has the luxury of simply keeping very significant tax revenues that are already collected to avoid cutting necessities of life. Yet Governor Cuomo has supported these rebates for the past ten years, as have previous New York state Governors all the way back to 1981 when this early 20th-century tax stopped being retained in the state’s treasury. As much as a staggering $250 billion dollars has been immediately returned to the stockbrokers over that time period.

Bear in mind, a fraction of one percent of this tiny sales tax is paid by the investors buying stocks, bonds, and engaging in massive volumes of derivative speculation. Since the great bulk of trading is conducted by upper-income people and large companies, this sales tax, unlike the regressive 8 percent sales tax ordinary New Yorkers pay when they buy from stores, is progressive in its impact.

So why hasn’t the media taken this eminently timely and newsworthy story to the people? I’ve been explaining this surrender to Wall Street for years. Most recently, given its timeliness, calling up reporters and columnists of major press outlets, but to no avail; with the exception of the Buffalo News. This indifference is inexplicable. After all, Governor Cuomo regularly talks about drastic budget cuts.

Well, a new factor may change this equation. Blair Horner, a longtime, prominent director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), an influential university college student-funded civic advocacy group is now on the case.

On May 28, 2020, Mr. Horner held a virtual news conference in Albany, presented a letter signed by over fifty labor, consumer, women’s, educational, minority, health, taxpayer, elderly, and justice organizations – all calling on the Governor to keep the many billions of dollars from the stock transfer tax. The number of New York groups supporting this proposal will only grow. Attentively advanced by the seasoned Horner and his team, a detailed news release was distributed and several speakers, including me, briefly spoke. At question time, only a Newsday reporter asked about Wall Street’s reaction.

A half-hour later, no reporter asked Governor Cuomo during his long daily briefings about keeping the collected revenues. The next day there was no media coverage of this event and the benefits the revenue could have for communities whose members will be bearing the brunt of avoidable service cuts and job losses.

Everyday New York state rebates about $40 million to an upper-economic class, already further enriched by Trump’s 2017 tax bonanza. Nor have these privileged plutocrats shared, via a wealth tax, a fraction of the sacrifice of New York’s 2.2 million front-line Covid-19 workers. Shameful!

Bills mandating the retention of this stock sales tax are already in the state legislature. A prime sponsor, Assemblyman Phil Steck believes that there will be overwhelming left/right support in the polls.

However, the legislature’s leaders await the signal from a thus far reluctant Governor Cuomo. But not, I suspect for long.

With Wall Street’s Robert Rubin and Michael Bloomberg coming out for a financial transaction tax (thanks probably to the Bernie Sanders movement), can the son of Mario Cuomo be much far behind?

See the Coalition release, letter to Governor Cuomo, and the New York State Assembly and Senate bills to stop the rebate of the stock transfer tax at https://nader.org/ny-stock-tax/

Letter to Governor Cuomo, May 1, 2020

May 1, 2020

The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo


Governor of New York State


NYS State Capitol Building


Albany, NY 12224

Dear Governor Cuomo,

The major revenue source described below is one that you have been familiar with during your tenure as Governor but have avoided due to over-reaching corporate resistance.

Now, given your precise predictions of state budget deficits and forthcoming dire cuts in human services, you should not find the collection and rebate of about $13 billion yearly from the state’s indirect stock transfer tax so easy to dismiss.

Your lucid and methodical daily Covid-19 briefings have raised your public approval to over 70%. Expectations too have been raised for you to close the budget deficit gap to diminish plunging the public into major reductions in education, Medicaid and other necessary public services.

You have opposed thus far raising taxes on the very wealthy, who are enjoying the windfalls of Trump’s large tax cut for them and his family since 2017. Some might rise-up and move to Florida you have implied.

However, what could be the effect of a tiny fraction of one percent sales tax on huge volumes of stock, bond and options trading and speculation? The traders would hardly feel it as they pass it on. Remember the top ten percent own 84% of all stocks. New Yorkers pay over 7% sales tax for the necessities and wants of their livelihoods. People will draw comparative conclusions here about Wall Street greed.

With hundreds of thousands of essential workers risking their safety and health daily, who you have repeatedly honored, how can you allow zero sacrifice on these higher income traders comfortably making money from money?

From 1905 to 1981, New York state collected and kept the revenues from this stock transfer tax. In 1981 the state agreed to rebate electronically those revenues. Since then, the state’s strange arrangement has cost New York state hundreds of billions of dollars.

Democrats in the state senate and assembly introduced in May 2019 SB6203 and A7791A to repeal this stock transfer tax, collect 100% of this tax and dedicate the funds to specific public services such as the MTA, other transportation infrastructure, safe water infrastructure, the clean energy fund and other public necessities.

(See attached copy of “New York State Assembly Memorandum in Support of Legislation”)

The chief sponsors are Senator James Sanders and Assemblyman Phil Steck.

You properly have made criticisms of presidential neglect and Senatorial callousness (Senator Mitch McConnell) for their harmful effects on virus afflicted people and families. Public revulsion over the tax rebate, once it is more widely known, may well draw similar judgments on the state level, if this bill is not passed and signed into law rapidly.

Thank you.

Sincerely,


Ralph Nader

P.O. Box 19312


Washington, DC 20036

Tel: 202-658-9443

Enclosed: 2010 Stock Tax Letter & New York State Assembly Memorandum

S. David Freeman: Seven Decades of Participating in Power for All of Us

By Ralph Nader

May 28, 2020

If the planet Earth were animate, it would have shuddered at the news that S. David Freeman passed away this month. Freeman was that important to Earth’s future.  In his 94th year, he inspired all he met with his burning passion, relentless energy, and keen intellect.

Freeman, an engineer and a lawyer, knew where decisions were being made or ignored regarding our energy future. He mocked the foolish embrace of fossil fuels and warned all who would listen about the deadly impact of coal, oil, and natural gas consumption on our   environment. This humble son of an immigrant umbrella repair man made the most of his formidable talents over seven decades and helped steer mankind toward renewables and energy efficiency. Freeman worked to prevent the perilous use of fossil and nuclear fuels.

Freeman was one of the first environmentalists to warn us of the dangers posed by fossil fuels and he was one of the first to offer practical remedies.  He started his career in the 1950s as an engineer with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) before holding a series of positions with the Federal Power Commission (FPC) and the Johnson White House. In 1974 Freeman    authored the Ford Foundation’s groundbreaking report “A Time to Choose: America’s Energy Future.”  He was an adviser to President Jimmy Carter, who appointed him chairman of the giant TVA in 1978.

At the TVA, Freeman managed with a no-nonsense, down-to-earth, results-focused approach to reform. Using what he learned at TVA, Freeman became known for turning around hidebound giant utilities that were unable to process evidence contrary to their wasteful ways and environmental destructiveness. The tenacious Tennessean had no patience for self-serving talk that avoided obvious solutions. Freeman was a serious advocate who used humor, wit, and charm to make his case in the court of public opinion and the corridors of power. “Mother Nature doesn’t care what we say, Mother Nature only cares about what we do,” he would remind bloviators!

Freeman shut down or suspended construction of half a dozen nuclear reactors at the TVA, scoring them as dangerous, uneconomical, and unnecessary. He liked “free” sources of energy, such as solar and wind, instead of lethal coal, gas, oil, and uranium that had to be ripped perilously from the bowels of the Earth. As for vast opportunities afforded by energy efficient sources, he paraphrased Benjamin Franklin, saying a megawatt of energy that isn’t wasted is a megawatt you don’t have to produce.

In between his clearheaded impact on conferences around the world, advising presidents, governors, members of Congress and parliaments, and many cogent writings, Freeman ran three other giant utilities (other than TVA, Freeman ran utilities in California, Texas, and New York). At Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), he implemented a public vote against the troubled Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station, replacing its energy with conservation and renewables.

In the decades I knew David, he always made the changes he implemented look easy because he so deftly and honestly used evidence, facts, and economics— sometimes to rectify his previous positions. He used his knowledge to serve the public that was too often shoved aside by bureaucratic and corporate vested interests.

Freeman had that unparalleled combination of managerial experience, scholarly knowledge, and programmatic urgency in confronting the climate crisis. We would invite him for brown bag lunches with younger leaders working on energy transition. He would “out urgent” them, mocking dilatory cap and trade ideas while demanding  mandatory reduction in fossil fuels and ending nuclear power, and replacing them with job producing energy conservation, retrofitting homes and buildings as solar and wind ramp up. Freeman said, “We need to pass a law that says that every utility in this country must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5% of 2020 emissions every year, starting now, and until we get down to zero.”

You may be wondering why you haven’t seen Freeman on television or read about his urgent proposals, as a doer, covering the crisis of climate and regular air water soil safeguards from ruinous extractive fuels.

Certainly, the mass media has devoted many hours and pages to these subjects, interviewing far lesser and often conflicted people on NPR, PBS, commercial networks, and major newspapers. I made many calls to energy and environmental reporters about David’s availability, but to no avail.

Was it ageism? Which is rampant. Was it his free-thinking challenges to named influential corporations? Was it that he was seen as no longer an adviser to powerful officials? At age 93 he was flying to California negotiating the closure of the last nuke plant there with Pacific Gas Electric. He co-authored a book All-Electric America: A Climate Solution and the Hopeful Future with Leah Y. Parks in 2018 and his human interest memoir The Green Cowboy: An Energetic Life in 2016. Recently he was meeting with the pro-“Green New Deal” members of Congress.

But the media wasn’t calling. Until, that is, David’s “energetic” life came to an end and the obituary pages gave him his due in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other outlets. Unlike like celebrity entertainers and athletes, however, he didn’t make page one. But his prescient legacy is an enduring example of how we can save our green planet and brighten our future. Biographers may wish to wrap their minds around this functional, enlightened life of such immense productivity.

Donald Trump, Resign Now for America’s Sake: This is No Time for a Dangerous, Law-breaking, Bungling, Ignorant Ship Captain

By Ralph Nader

May 22, 2020

Where are the calls for Trump’s resignation? Since his first months in the White House, Trump has been the most impeachable, most lawless, most self-enriching, most bungling President in U.S. history. He relies entirely on lying and scapegoating to avoid taking responsibility for his failures. Trump didn’t even win the popular vote – the Electoral College selected him. President Trump has fomented chaos and corruption in his administration without encountering insistent demands for his resignation.

The supine Republican Senate shields Trump from any political accountability. Dominated by the evil “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, the Senate prevented Trump from being convicted under the impeachment clause of the Constitution. But Trump makes the case against himself – “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Trump makes good on that statement every day, making decisions with reckless abandon and doubling down, falsely accusing people of crimes, turning our government over to big businesses, and firing inspectors general investigating crime and corruption in Trump’s regime of corporatism, favoritism, and nepotism.

Trump exercises his pouting, unstable ego as the determinant of misgoverning on a deadly scale, as with his delaying, downplaying, over-riding science and providing lethal advice regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. For which he boastfully gives himself a perfect ten.

Trump keeps flailing, failing, and using foul-mouthed rhetoric because about 43 percent of voters stick with him, no matter what.

Well – the parents of many Trump supporters did not stay with Richard Nixon in 1974. Public demands for “Tricky Dick” to leave office ultimately included much of his “base” including scores of Republicans in Congress, led by Mr. Conservative Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). Why? Nixon had defied a Congressional subpoena and committed an obstruction of justice. Trump, on the other hand, has defied many Congressional subpoenas and engaged in over a dozen obstructions of justice, many of which are ongoing.

Why no demands for resignation? Have too many Americans lost their proper sense of honest public service and accountability? From 1974 to now, the American Bar Association (ABA) – supposedly a first responder against the destruction of rule of law and constitutional observance – has done nothing to challenge above-the-law presidential abuses. (In 2005-2006 the ABA displayed some courage and charged the Bush/Cheney administration with three sets of unconstitutional behavior. See: https://nader.org/2013/04/19/aba-white-papers/).

Many Trump voters seem to expect more of virtually every public figure who isn’t Trump! Ask Trump voters if they would support their local fire chief if he or she lied daily about the fire department’s readiness to fight fires? Would they support a fire chief who appoints firefighters with no experience? Would they support a police chief who accepts no responsibility for a street crime wave while disabling the force?

Would they support a CEO of a major hospital who promotes, against the advice of his/her medical scientists, chemicals and drugs that can take the lives of patients? Would they support a super predator bank CEO who gives sweet-heart deals to the rich at the direct expense of customers of modest means? Would they support a CEO of a big construction company, spouting anti-immigrant hate, while hiring hundreds of poorly paid undocumented foreign laborers taking jobs away from American workers? The answer is pretty clear.

These people in positions of power would have lost their jobs if they engaged in such reckless and unjust behavior. Corrupt Donald, on the other hand, has done all of these continually and remains an escapee from justice. In addition to these previously acknowledged failings, Trump has wrecked the federal health, safety, and economic protections including many life-saving controls on deadly pollution, dangerous business practices and business theft of your earnings as consumers, workers, and savers.

In addition, here is a top betrayal: Trump promised his voters a big infrastructure repair and upgrade program in all communities – with good paying jobs. He betrayed them, giving instead about 2 trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich and big corporations, like the drug and banking industries and even his own family!

Trump voters need to ask themselves – what else does Trump have to do to our livelihood, health, safety, and dignity before you say – “no more!” If you want more details about Mr. Trump’s lying betrayals, read Fake President by Mark Green and me and judge Trump by his own contemptuous words and misdeeds.

Most puzzling are the many columnists – both Democratic and Republican – who week after week show how disastrously unworthy and unfit Trump is, yet never conclude with a demand for his resignation or further impeachment. Many in the opinion class may believe it would never happen.  My response is that judging the odds is not the primary responsibility of a columnist. Making the demand is telling readers that your critique is serious enough to warrant a necessary remedy.

Devastating critics like Dana Milbank, Republican Michael Gerson, Eugene Robinson, Margaret Sullivan, and conservative Max Boot of the Washington Post, or Charles Blow, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times have cogently taken Trump apart on very serious matters since 2017, yet they leave their readers without the obvious conclusion -Trump has to go.  A clear daily peril to innocent Americans “I’m in total control”, why not try bleach, etc. The country cannot wait until January 2021 – assuming dictatorial Donald and his determined GOP don’t criminally suppress enough votes to postpone Trump’s departure until January 2025.

Trump: Letting Big Corporations Get Away with Whatever They Want

By Ralph Nader

May 15, 2020

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has allowed large corporations to run rampant, exploit people, and get away with it. Trump considers himself above the law, boldly claiming, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” For more information about Trump’s misdeeds, please see the Articles of Impeachment proposed by me and constitutional law experts Bruce Fein and Louis Fisher in the December 18, 2019 Congressional Record, page H 12197.

In 2017, Trump betrayed his own voters by giving the corporate rich a nearly two trillion dollar tax cut instead of fulfilling his promise to invest in repairing infrastructure and expanding well-paid job opportunities.

These tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, which benefited the Trump family, ran up the deficit for our children and were largely used to give executives bonuses and let CEOs waste money on stock buybacks. In short, the corporate bosses lied to the Congress, saying they wanted these tax cuts to invest and create jobs, but actually used them to enrich themselves.

After his Trumpian giveaway, Trump crushed health and safety law enforcement, unleashing more disease-producing corporate polluters and corporate thieves. The result: harm to workers, consumers, and defenseless communities.

The New York Times reported 98 lifesaving regulations were revoked, suspended, or simply replaced with weaker versions. What remains on the books is not enforced.

Similar wreckage of corporate law-and-order has exacerbated the crisis of working people. Trump has worked to further punish student borrowers; diminish workplace and auto safety; and remove safeguards against banking, credit, and payday loan rackets.

Trump, during his failed business career and bankruptcies, saw the law as a nuisance and breaking and escaping justice as a competitive advantage.

While raising huge sums for his reelection campaign from business lobbyists, Trump keeps giving them no-law government, more loopholes for tax escapes ($170 billion more buried in the $2.2 trillion relief/bailout legislation), more corporatist judges to shut you down in the courtroom, and more of your taxes for their endless corporate welfare greed.

Big companies such as banks, insurance companies, real estate behemoths, and Silicon Valley giants have so many tax escapes and cuts that they’re moving toward tax-exempt status.

Howard Stern, a longtime friend of Trump who promoted Trump’s notoriety early on, has recently called on Trump to resign. Stern said that, in reality, Donald Trump was “disgusted” by his own voters. Why won’t more Trump voters realize that Trump has nothing but contempt for them? Trump will betray his followers at every turn.

During the COVID-19 virus pandemic – which Trump dismissed and scoffed for eight critical weeks, leaving the country defenseless – Trump has allowed a corporate crime epidemic. He has no qualms about aiding and abetting a corporate crime wave epidemic.

Trump, with Congressional Republicans, wants more legislation giving big companies immunity from lawsuits by victims for their negligently harmful products and services. Another rigging of the system.

Trump’s agencies actually announced that they’re putting their law enforcers on the shelf. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) astonishingly told foreign importers of food and medicine that inspections overseas are suspended. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signaled similar retreats, as have other enforcement agencies. Why would the Trumpsters signal green lights for corporate crooks? Especially since corporate scams and other corporate crimes – some crude, others sophisticated – are exploding as trillions pour out of Washington.

A year ago, Public Citizen reported a steep decline in corporate prosecutions and fines under Trump. Now, compared to the size of the previous corporate crime wave, they’ve fallen off a cliff. You can ignore the stern warnings by Attorney General William Barr. He is a phony. He has neither allocated nor asked Congress for a budget that will provide the Department of Justice the capacity to crackdown.

In fact, Trump has fired inspectors general and not filled vacant inspectors general positions. Trump’s boasts bear repeating: Congress can’t watchdog him because “[he has] an Article 2, where [he has] the right to do whatever [he wants] as president.”

With vicious madness, Trump pushes for federal deregulation of nursing homes where residents are dying from COVID-19. He pursues court cases in attempts to end Obamacare, the result of which would be throwing 20 million Americans off of their insurance during a lethal pandemic. He is cravenly freeing corporate emitters of life-destroying mercury and coal ash in our air, condemned pesticides and toxins in drinking water, and whatever else is on the deadly wish list given to him by his corporate paymasters.

Trumps actions that dismantled protections for all Americans families have been expertly documented. Yet, few critics are calling for his resignation or removal from office, despite the clear and present danger he poses to the American people and the Republic.

Trump is doing whatever he wants. He is getting away with abandoning the rule of law and the dismantling of crucial government institutions as he embraces American-style fascism and nepotism.

Perhaps people will learn how to effectively fight back against Trump, a delusional, flailing, ego-obsessed, foul-mouthed, self-enriching bully. The people must stand up to this corrupt politician who lies every hour and turns our government over to Wall Street.  He sacrifices the people on Main Street to enrich fat cats and oligarchs.

One person, Eugene Jarecki, offers a rebuttal to Trump. In a Washington Post op-ed, Jarecki’s sources found that “had the guidelines been implemented earlier, a crucial period in the exponential spread of the virus would have been mitigated and American lives saved.” According to conservative estimates from epidemiologists, “had the Trump administration simply implemented mitigation guidelines by March 9, approximately 60 percent of American COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided.” On his website, TrumpDeathClock.com, Jarecki “displays both the number of people who have died in the country from COVID-19 and an estimate of that portion whose lives would have been saved had the president and his administration acted just one week earlier.” Jarecki has also erected a 54-foot high Trump death clock in New York City’s historic Times Square.

See the numbers yourself on TrumpDeathClock.com. Email david@theeisenhowerproject.org to see how Eugene Jarecki’s team can help you set up such an accountability clock in your community.

We Honor What We Value – Entertainers Over Saviors

By Ralph Nader

May 6, 2020

“We honor what we value,” goes the old saying. In our hedonistic culture we value most those who can put a ball in a hole. We ignore those who save lives through civic action.

The sports champions – golf, basketball, football, and baseball – receive riches and accolades from the masses. They are inducted into “Halls of Fame” and are the subjects of biographies, and documentary and feature films. As for the mass life-savers –few even know their names, much less their dramatic victories against overwhelming odds.

I was reminded of this contrast by a major New York Times Sports feature on Tiger Woods and his comeback win in the 2019 Masters Tournament, which was watched breathlessly by millions of golf fans around the world. Praises poured in on social media and many articles, features, and editorials covered every nuance of this golf match.

Barack Obama tweeted, “To come back and win the Masters after all the highs and lows is a testament to excellence, grit, and determination.”

What about the excellence, grit and determination of economist James Love? In the midst of the horrendous HIV epidemic, Love brilliantly organized, argued, wrote, and traveled the world before he found Dr. Yusuf Hamied and Cipla, an Indian company that took down Big Pharma’s $10,000 price for HIV drugs per African patient per year to $300 per patient. Neither Love nor his allies William Haddad and Robert Weissman were the subjects of features in major media outlets.

Others in the unsung circle of self-motivated stalwarts are David Zwick, Clarence Ditlow, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, and Joan Claybrook. Zwick helped write the Clean Water Act of 1972 and then started Clean Water Action which canvassed tens of millions of homes, distributing materials sparking local citizen action and nationally lobbying against water pollution for over four decades.

Engineer and lawyer Clarence Ditlow ran the Center for Auto Safety in Washington, DC and over forty years caused the recall of millions of defective cars. He also got the states to enact “lemon laws” to give voice to new car owners getting justice when their new car turned out to be “lemons.” Over roughly the same time span Joan Claybrook repeatedly blocked the auto-giants’ constant efforts to weaken or stop federal safety regulation that protected motorists.

As for Dr. Wolfe, with his small team, he  produced three major books: Worst Pills Best Pills, Pills That Don’t Work: A Consumers’ and Doctors’ Guide to Over 600 Prescription Drugs That Lack Evidence of Effectiveness, and Over the Counter Pills That Don’t Work  reaching millions of consumers through  mass audience outlets such as the Phil Donahue Show. Dr. Wolfe also persistently pushed the FDA and drug companies to remove hundreds of ineffective and/or dangerous drugs from the market, thus preventing health-threatening side-effects and saving consumers billions of dollars. That’s just a few of the successes of Dr. Wolfe’s Public Citizen Health Research Group.

In 1971 three scientists spun off from our organization to start the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Still turning its pistons nearly 50 years later, its long-time leader Dr. Michael Jacobson went after the junk food/drink industry and the deadly amount of high salt, high fat, and high sugar content in processed foods with scientific rigor and persistence. CSPI publishes the very popular health newsletter Nutrition Action and uses litigation and regulatory interventions to educate the public. CSPI arguably changed the nutritional habits of millions of people and exposed the slick and deceptive ads and crude direct marketing to children by the fast food chains and the cereal manufacturers. These companies are heavily responsible for the childhood obesity epidemic and its ongoing malignant health consequences.

Then there are Karen Ferguson and Karen Friedman running the Pension Rights Center in Washington, DC. They provide members of Congress and labor unions with technical advice on pension policy, inform the press, and help thousands of pensioners who are being ripped off by employers. Only trillions of dollars are at stake.

For these and many other long-term fighters for justice up against cruel or reckless corporations and their political toadies, there are few accolades, almost no recognition, and no citizen Hall of Fame. (See breakingthroughpower.org)

It is time for foundations or the enlightened super rich to start an annual “Citizen Academy Awards” to correct this imbalance of recognition and offer the mass media some inspiring content. This big-time dramatic event would elevate our priorities as a society and showcase motivating role models for our youngsters. Perhaps Barack Obama could be the first MC for this authentic reality event.

To put the spectator mania for professional sports in perspective, we can listen to the words of the great all-round Hall of Fame superstar, the late Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers. At his peak in the nineteen sixties, he told New York Times reporter Ira Berkow:

‘Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing, if I’ve wasted my time all these years,’ he told me, his eyes thoughtful. ‘And sometimes I think I have. I would like to have more to contribute to society. I don’t know, maybe a doctor. Something where you really play an important part in people’s lives.’

Al Kaline was one humble, great athlete, compared, with some luminous exceptions, to the “me, me, me” narcissism of too many sports stars today.  Sports superstars could easily direct more support and attention to those little recognized citizen advocates who protect the serious necessities of life on shoe-string budgets.

Moreover, in these critical times the selfless dedication of the nurses, doctors, grocery store clerks, postal workers activists, sanitation laborers, and other truly essential workers should spark long-overdue recognition of these valiant heroes and their critical contributions to our lives beyond the stage or stadium. ESPN has just broadcast a ten-part series about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bills’ triumphant years of putting balls in holes for championships. Someday a network may produce a ten-part series on how citizen leaders historically built the justice safeguards that benefit us all. We should make it happen as owners of our public airwaves.

The Uplifting Magic of Mother’s Day in These Perilous Days

By Ralph Nader

April 27, 2020

As Mother’s Day approaches, the celebration of our Mothers is overshadowed by the mounting Covid-19 casualties. Donald Trump is incapable and unwilling to provide the leadership needed to deal with the deadly pandemic attacking our communities. While we cannot afford to slow efforts to challenge the President and our Members of Congress, it is important to take a bit of time and reflect on what our parents, and in particular our mothers, have done and continue to do for their families.

I describe this sentiment in the Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook about nutritious food and its relation to our upbringings.

My mother and father and their four children – two girls and two boys – all ate the same food. There was peace and time for family discussions at the dinner table. To my mother, meals provided a daily occasion for education, for finding out what was on our minds, for recounting the traditions of food, culture, and kinship in Lebanon, where she and my father were born. At the dinner table, my mother would ask us what we had learned from our teachers each day at school. Small talk and gossip were not high on her agenda, though she knew those had their place, too.

Our mother cooked her nutritious and delicious recipes from scratch. There were no processed foods on our table. We were expected to eat everything on our plates.

She believed keeping it simple and everything in moderation were two good guiding principles for our dinner table. It allowed her to efficiently prepare food. Holidays and birthdays featured more elaborate entrees from Mother’s busy kitchen. One family favorite is called sheikh al-mahshi (the ‘king’ of stuffed food), a baked eggplant stuffed with minced lamb, pine nuts, and onions, garnished with tomatoes and served on long-grain rice with a tossed salad. Every Friday we had baked fish with tarator sauce, reflective of a Christian tradition in Lebanon.

Mother did not believe in regular snacks between meals, but occasionally, she liked to surprise us with some labneh with olive oil, tucked inside whole wheat pita bread, to take to school.

Sometime in the 1970s, having seemingly run out of criticism of my consumer protection work, the Wall Street Journal astonishingly devoted an entire editorial to how puritanical my mother was, forcing chickpea snacks on us instead of, presumably, candy. The Journal was particularly incensed at my mother quietly scraping the sugary frosting off birthday cakes once we had blown out the candles – a practice that had become a family joke. Mother reacted with amusement. Cakes had plenty of sweetness, she would say, without loading up on frosting that was pure sugar.

She knew that meals were about much more than food. For Mother, the family table was a mosaic of sights, scents, and tastes, of talking, teaching, and teasing, of health, culture, stimulation, and delight. For Dad, it was a time to ask us challenging questions to sharpen our minds and our independent thinking. Such as: Do the great leaders make the changes in history or do they reflect the rising pressures from people at any given time? Is it better to buy from a local family-owned business than from a large chain store? When can a revolution be called a success? What were you taught in school that you found out not to be true?

A major inspiration for The Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook is to celebrate my parents. Another stems from people always asking me what I eat, prompted in part by my work on food safety laws. Also, the growing popularity of Arab cuisine, backed by the scientific research into its exceptional nutrition, has broadened the audience and market for what was once seen as an exotic menu.

Diet is viewed by both consumers and physicians as more and more significant in an individual’s weight, energy level, and overall health. Medical schools, which traditionally haven’t featured nutrition very prominently in their curricula, are now more systematically focusing on diet.

As is reflected in the recipes chosen for this book, we were mostly raised on Arab cuisine – more specifically the food of the people who lived in the mountains of Lebanon. Today’s nutritionists have pronounced this Mediterranean diet to be just about the healthiest diet in the world. It is heavy with varieties of vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, spices, and lean (but not too much red) meat, mostly lamb.

The recipes are healthy and are reasonably low in fat, salt, and sugar (the latter given leeway in the desserts). The dishes are easy to prepare, with a few exceptions and their ingredients are relatively inexpensive. For sure, much of our upbringing happened in our comfortable kitchen – tucked between two pantries at our family table. That is why the recipes in this book evoke memories of their broader contexts and celebrate our good fortune in having such wonderful parents.

A selection of our family recipes are available for you to review and sample at: Nader.Org/Recipes.

For more information about The Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook visit Akashic Books.

A Response to Mr. George Selgin’s Reaction to My Brief Letter to Chairman Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve

By Ralph Nader

April 24, 2020

There are many ways to respond to Mr. George Selgin’s reaction to my brief letter to Chairman Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve. Here are a few:

1. The coarse pounding of Powell by Trump, according to insiders in a position to know, finally buckled Powell. With already historical low interest rates, going further to zero brings diminishing returns to economic stimulus. The bigger problems are (1) stagnant real wages since the 1970s and (2) fine print contract peonage that get lenders to loan shark their customers. These include payday and rent-to-own-rackets, unpaid credit card balances and student loan rates, to name a few categories that neither the Fed nor the CFPB inside the Fed can or are doing much about.

2. Of course, people have different multiple roles – workers are consumers are savers etc. My letter called for a fairer balance by the Fed instead of punishing savers after the government and banks etc. have urged people to save more as do other people in other countries.

3. What about trillions of dollars of pensions and people expecting them? Note the added plight from, near zero interest rates, on pension funds described recently by Mary Williams Walsh of the New York Times. Pretty dire.

4. I’ll have to see how the libertarian Cato Institute squares its philosophy with the autocratic, secretive dictates of the bank – dominated Federal Reserve and its discriminating money printing machine.

Stopping Trump’s Demonic Reversals of the Long-term Benefits of the First Earth Day April 22, 1970

By Ralph Nader

April 22, 2020

Earth Day, April 22, 1970 was the most consequential demonstration of civic energy in modern American history. Engaging nearly 20 million Americans participating in about 13,000 local events, this first Earth Day changed corporate and government policies through popular demands for clean air, water, soil and food.

Senator Gaylord Nelson launched Earth Day, having tired of Congressional inaction and the power of the corporate pollution lobby. Earth Day quickly became a grassroots educational and action-driven week of activities that aroused the country.

Even reactionary President Nixon quickly planted a tree on the White House South lawn in recognition of the public support for environmentalism after he saw the huge turnouts at rallies and marches.

Imagine the environmental threats fifty years ago. Cities were choking with motor vehicle and factory pollution. Los Angeles was smog-land. Air pollution caused respiratory disease and stung your eyes. The Cuyahoga river near Cleveland, slick with oil, would catch on fire. Birmingham, Alabama’s steel mills turned the air into a brownish haze.

I spoke at several large rallies on the first Earth Day and during “Earth Week” alongside environmental leaders, including the great David Brower and dynamic Professor Barry Commoner. The energy at the gatherings made indentured politicians nervous. Eleven thousand schools, colleges, and universities hosted events focusing on local deadly poison hotspots and challenging state capitols and the Congress.

Mass media coverage was spectacular. All the TV networks, the covers of Time and Newsweek (a big deal then) and the popular daytime TV talk shows (Phil Donahue, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas) – national and local media provided saturation coverage coast to coast.

There was a huge rally on the Mall in Washington, DC, which was very visible to a wary Nixon in the White House and lawmakers in Congress. Hearing the rumble of the people supported by scientists and health specialists, Nixon and members of Congress knew they had to enact environmental protections.

Within three years Congress produced sweeping, unsurpassed, landmark laws such as the Clean Air Act, Clear Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. New laws also created the EPA, OSHA, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. New environmental groups (Greenpeace, Public Citizen, Friends of the Earth, NRDC, and EDF) joined the earlier organizations such as the Sierra Club to strengthen the civic bedrock for environmental advocacy and watchdogging.

Out of Earth Day came many of the young authors, filmmakers, and leaders of the next half century of environmental action. They included Denis Hayes, lead coordinator of Earth Day 1970, David Zwick of Clean Water Action, Professor Paul Erlich, Selma Rubin, and Dr. Brent Blackwelder. Later the environmental justice movement stressed that poor communities are exposed to the most lethal dumping grounds and deadly emissions.

Although, constantly obstructed by corporate polluters, the air and water did become cleaner. There is far less lead in most, not all human bodies (note Flint, Michigan), and far less asbestos in your lungs. Both substances are banned from most consumer product uses.

Adam Rome, a University of Buffalo environmental historian, documented what happened on and after the first Earth Day in his book The Genius of Earth Day. He said the intensity of local organizers is largely missing from climate and environmental activism today.

Anybody doubting this observation should take note of how dangerous Donald and a supine Congress are failing to protect our environment. Trump is viciously unraveling the established protections to flood your families with more mercury, soot, coal ash, cancerous pesticides, dirtier drinking water and toxic workplaces. What Trump calls “deregulation” is increasing death, disease, and property damage in America by taking the federal cops off the corporate poison beat.

Dumb, disgraceful Donald still sneers at the oncoming climate catastrophe, calling it a hoax. His arrogant ignorance is scuttling federal programs and scientific research on climate, destroying restrictions on greenhouse gases produced by the fossil fuel giants, and inviting them to further exploit federal wilderness lands and offshore areas. Despite the massive oil flooding of the Gulf by B.P Oil company 10 years ago, disgraceful Trump is loosening restrictions on drillers imposed after the Deep Water Horizon disaster. The consequences for the fishing and tourist industry once again could be devastating.

The omnicidal Republican’s controlling the Senate support Trump’s reckless agenda regardless of the environmental harm done to their own families. The Democrats, controlling the House complain about gridlock. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, they are not racing to again impeach Trump, or demand his resignation, if only to rid the nation of his chaotic scapegoating, and the ego-maniacal, self-contradicting, colossal mismanagement regarding the corona-virus crisis. It is time to stop the further preventable loss of life caused by Trump’s fibbing, flailing and daily failures to process reliable information and lead.

Trump’s resignation should be the grassroots focus of today’s Earth Day and become everyday’s popular demand for the sake of American lives and health.

Cowardly Congress Chooses to be AWOL: Shouldn’t Our Elected Representatives be on the Job Providing Essential Services?

By Ralph Nader

April 17, 2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic a careening, confused President is fibbing, flailing, breaking laws, and mishandling money. As the domino effect of this crisis mounts, the public is asking: “Where is the Congress?” Our Senators and Representatives have been home since March 20 and won’t be back until May 4th, not on the job inside the Capitol. Shameful!

Worse, some lawmakers want a remote Congress so they can remain AWOL and pretend to deal with the many crises remotely.

Why? Fear of the pandemic? Escaping rollcall responsibility? No matter that Congress can follow all the CDC guidelines and more for personal protection. No matter that millions of essential workers – some a few blocks from Congress, bravely go to work to perform their critical duties. Healthcare, transit, grocery, police, maintenance and sanitation workers, many executive branch civil servants and others are faithfully on the job.

Congress should be working harder than ever – 6 days a week, not its usual 2 1/2 days. Congress should be monitoring the spending of trillions of dollars it approved for recovery, and passing improved rescue legislation that puts the people first. Congress should also be anticipating and preventing the ugly greed of commercial lobbyists who will cravenly push for more giveaways for their fat-cat big-business clients. The devil is in the details and in the fine print of new and upcoming bills. Scams, gouging, waste, and corruption are exploding already in a corporate crimewave while the President pulls the federal cops off their beats.

Thirteen million people will lose their health insurance between March and July of this year. Over 25% unemployment is bringing untold fear, dread, and deprivations to millions of families. Where are the indispensable 535 lawmakers? Back at home ignoring their duties.

Small businesses and family farms, lacking the reserves and political privileges of big business, are suddenly experiencing a deadly freefall in sales with slow arrivals of temporary federal assistance. Many will face ruin and bankruptcy. Lifetimes of work smashed.

Trump has encouraged the EPA to stop enforcing violations of prohibited pollution laws. Trump’s FDA announced that it was suspending inspections of foreign plant exporters of food and drugs to the U.S. The President is even threatening the existence of our post offices.

Where is the Congress? It’s halls and committee rooms are empty!

With knowing criminal intent, the Trumpsters are running the life and health saving Federal agencies into the ground. Under Trump’s puppet Andrew Wheeler, the EPA has become the environmental pollution agency. OSHA has been turned upside down. Trump is even weakening nursing home safety regulations in our pandemic. Scientists and other civil servants are being muzzled or pushed out.

Where is Congress? It is looking for how it can push button constitutional duties from perches back home. Can Congress truly believe that it can run our national legislature from home? There is no substitute for members of Congress convening in real time in the nation’s capital. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution requires a quorum to conduct Congressional lawmaking. The full Senate voted in person in March to pass the $2.2 trillion relief/bailout package.

Now, Congress agrees another large assistance law is needed. It has to be preceded by hard work, the best ideas, public hearings, tight drafting, and intense deliberation over long days.

So far Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is on the job, is resisting remote voting. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he agrees, but he led the flight out of Congress back to Kentucky a month ago.

Many of these pampered politicians, comfortable at home in their safe gerrymandered districts, drawing their regular salaries and benefits while watching or reading the stories of courageous workers risking their lives daily for pittances, will go down in history as cowards. Historians will not treat them kindly.

Meanwhile these so-called guardians of our crucial constitutional separation of powers are having a mock video hearing to try to show Congress can go online. This is indefensible when we have a Constitution-breaking monarchical president who says: “I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

Sovereign people – give your Senators and Representatives, who have fled Washington and are back home, a galvanizing piece of your mind. Just pick up the phone and dial your member or the Congressional switchboard (202-224-3141) and make your needs known. Remind them that if they don’t get back to work, you’ll remember in November.