Monday, July 3, 2017
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Merkel Worried G-20 Summit Could End in Trump Fiasco
The Trump in the Road: Merkel
Concerned G-20 Summit Could End in Fiasco
Ahead of the Hamburg G-20
summit, the EU trade conflict with the U.S. is threatening to escalate. Both
Brussels and Washington are looking into sanctions and Chancellor Merkel is
concerned that a fiasco could ensue.
By
SPIEGEL Staff
Wilbur Ross is the kind of man
who is easy to underestimate. Approaching his 80th birthday in November, he
seems slow at times and occasionally nods off during longer meetings. And sometimes,
he does so even when his boss is holding an important speech only a feet away,
as he did recently in Saudi Arabia.
Ross, though, is U.S.
President Donald Trump's commerce secretary, a key cabinet position, and on
Tuesday, he was wide-awake. Standing next to an American flag, he read out a
speech that was being transmitted to Berlin via video link. Specifically, it
was being broadcast into the ballroom of a luxury hotel where German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and several hundred guests of the Economic Council, a German
business association that is closely linked to Merkel's political party, the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU), were listening.
Ross had initially wanted to
travel in person to the German capital, but he canceled at the last minute because,
he said in the video, "urgent unexpected matters required that I remain in
Washington." The commerce secretary then straightened his glasses and
monotonously recited what his president expected of the Germans.
He demanded that Germany buy
raw materials from the United States instead of from Russia, lower tariffs on
automobile imports from the U.S. and ensure that America "obtain a larger
share" of the European market. Otherwise, he added, the government in
Washington, D.C., would have no alternative but to "engage in
self-help."
Ross had been allotted a
speaking time of 10 minutes, but when he still hadn't finished after 30
minutes, the event participants had heard enough. They turned down the sound
and switched off the video link. The U.S. commerce secretary disappeared from
the screen, silenced like a political gadfly. Some in the audience laughed.
A Potential Fiasco
One could see the episode as a
negligible display of disrespect, unworthy of much attention. The chancellor,
after all, has a full schedule and doesn't have time to waste. But one can also
see the incident as a covert threat to the Trump administration: If you don't
stick to the rules, there are consequences; our patience is not inexhaustible.
Less than a week before the
G-20 summit is set to start in Hamburg, the risk is
growing that the unpredictable U.S. president could turn the prestigious
meeting of world leaders into a fiasco. Environment, refugees, trade: On a long
list of issues, Trump and his America-first administration are sabotaging the
search for joint positions among the world's industrialized and emerging
economies. The discrepancies are "obvious," Merkel said during a
speech before German parliament on Tuesday, the discussions "will be
difficult."
If Merkel is right, the U.S. -
after withdrawing from the Paris
climate deal in early June - is now threatening another global agreement.
Almost nine years ago, at the height of the financial crisis, the world's 20
largest economies agreed to launch economic stimulus programs and to reach
consensus on joint regulations to prevent bank collapses and tax evasion. It
was a far cry from the new global government that some had been dreaming of,
but that summit did bring about some modest improvements.
Now, though, the Trump
administration is reneging on numerous G-20 agreements because it doesn't see
the world as a "global community," but as "an arena" in
which countries "engage and compete for advantage," as National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Trump's economic adviser Gary Cohn wrote in
a late May op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. Eat or be eaten: That is
Washington's new foreign policy creed, one which doesn't have much in common
with Merkel's image of a world with shared rights and regulations.
Corporate Money Overrules Voters to Kill Single-Payer in California
California Democrats have a
supermajority in the legislature & could pass ANY bill they want
June 30, 2017
What the Single-Payer Loss
Reveals About the Role of Corporate Money in California Politics
The chair of the California
Democratic Party’s progressive caucus explains how it went down.
Last week, the speaker of the
California State Assembly, Anthony Rendon, shelved a bill that would have
created a single-payer healthcare system. Progressives have looked to New York
and California as the best hope for creating a single-payer, universal
healthcare system at the state level, and potentially transforming the national
debate. Rendon’s decision dealt a serious blow to that hope. It is a
particularly painful setback because Democrats, with a supermajority in the
legislature, can pass any bill they choose to.
The push for single-payer
healthcare dominated the race for California Democratic Party
state chair in May. Supporters of Kimberly Ellis were strongly behind it. The
winner of that race, Eric Bauman, has also said he supports a single-payer
system. But Bauman has been an adviser to Rendon, and a consulting firm he owns
has accepted money from pharmaceutical companies to defeat a bill that would
have capped drug prices in the state. The Ellis camp is now challenging the results of the
election
The single-payer bill’s most
influential opponent has been California’s governor Jerry Brown. Rendon derided
the proposed legislation as “woefully incomplete.” Brown, Rendon and another
member of the California Democratic establishment, Senate leader Kevin De
León, have received $3.4 million in campaign contributions
from the health insurance industry since 2010.
Karen Bernal, chair of the
progressive caucus of the California Democratic Party, recently talked
with In These Times about the fate of single payer in California—and the
path forward. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Theo Anderson: What is the
holdup? I mean, I know it's money from the insurance industry.
Karen Bernal: People need to
understand that the governor has not supported single-payer for a long time.
And everyone has known in advance that that this bill was doomed to fail—that
the governor would never sign it. And the only decision about this was where,
and in what committee, it was going to die. That's it. I know I'm sounding very
cynical right now, but they never had the intention of passing this.
Theo: But everyone in the
party supports it except the governor? I mean, in word.
Karen: Yeah, in word, but
certainly not in action. The problem we have in politics here in California is
that so much of it turns on money. And, you know, I'm sure that the carrot from
the governor's office was money going to the election committees of the various
legislators to sweeten the pot. And in other places, threatening to block their
own pieces of legislation that they would like to see advanced. And that's the
stick. They can come in and say, “We'll make sure that won't live to see the
light of day. That it'll be killed in committee.”
So those are the kinds of
tactics being used here: threats and money. We knew months ago that the
governor was lobbying legislators against it. So that's not a huge surprise.
Brown said from the beginning that he was against it. We have to understand
that, in a system where money determines the structure and the leadership,
that's what turns things.
Theo: It's not a secret that
money plays a big role in our politics and shapes things. But even so, this
level of corruption seems pretty brazen.
Karen: Oh, it's terrible! It's
terrible. It's the open secret that everyone here knows about, especially those
of us in progressive politics. And we're always constantly amazed how it is
that California seems to have such a liberal and progressive reputation around
the rest of the country. Because, I mean, we know so many dirty open secrets
like that. We have fracking. We do drilling. We can't get single-payer passed
even though there’s a supermajority.
Theo: For a lot of
progressives, this kind of corruption makes them want to wash their hands of
the Democratic Party and say, you know, “Electoral politics is hopeless.” What
is your perspective is on that, especially after this really disappointing
result with the single-payer fight?
Karen: I think you're right on
that. This has a profoundly negative impact on the electorate and the base that
the Democrats should count on as the future of their party.
The only thing that affected
it was the infusion of energy from the Bernie Sanders campaign. It’s going to
have a really bad effect on that. Unfortunately, they're caught up in what I
would call a downward death spiral here, where they can't seem to do politics
without this massive influence of corporate money in the party.
And it’s not as though these
politicians, by the way, go out seeking it. It’s that, especially in poor
districts, for instance, these interests come to them, and say, “Well, here’s
how we can help fix your problems. We have what it takes to fix those problems
and provide funding and so on.” Even people who mean well, when they first come
in, end up finding themselves trapped in a system where, if they want to get
anything done, they have to raise all this money for the Democratic caucus. You
know, the speaker of the assembly isn’t the speaker of the assembly just
because he’s a great guy. It’s because he can bring in a lot of money. And the
same with the committee: They bring in money. It's a terrible situation. So, I
can understand how people would feel that way.
We know these were the things
that pushed people like Bernie Sanders to the brink of victory. It was because
of those outside pressures. But then you're seeing on the inside, this is what
happens. It kind of sends a message to people that there's nothing for them in
the party. And they're going to stay on the outside.
Theo: Could it also have the
effect of galvanizing more pushback, though? I know it's disappointing, but
since the corruption is so obvious, it could also inspire people to fight
against it?
Karen: Oh yeah, it is
definitely doing that. And it has to happen from the grassroots and the base,
which is way more progressive than the leadership. We have to send a message,
especially to the governor. And this is an important thing to happen, because
there will be a governor's race coming up, you know, in the next election
cycle. It’s important that we send the message to any new governor that this is
not going to be tolerated—that we've got their number and we know where the
power the power resides.
Theo: I wonder whether the
convention fight set the stage for some of the pushback you've talked about.
Single-payer was such a central issue in the convention campaign—in Kimberly's
campaign for chair. It got people galvanized.
Karen: To be fair about this,
there are many people who supported Bauman who support single payer. And Bauman
himself has said that he supports single-payer. And he did put out a message
saying that he was, as he said, “unambiguously disappointed.” I find that a
curious choice of words. He had to, uh, reassure us somehow?
I think the proof is going to
be what he does next as a follow up, in terms of action. Certainly, on the
Kimberly side, there is complete unity. We have to galvanize forces, and I
think that you're going to see [that energy translated] into action.
Save Granny from TRUMP, RYAN, & McCONNELL
America cannot be great without Medicaid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w228tzK7ZP8
Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg
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