Sunday, January 6, 2019
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Slamming Joe Lieberman for Joining Chinese Telecom Giant, Warren Calls for 'Lifetime Ban' on Members of Congress Becoming Lobbyists
"Corruption in Washington
isn't about a single president or political party. It runs deep. We should call
it out—and we should pass my sweeping anti-corruption reforms."
Responding to news that
former Democratic Sen. Joe Liebermann—who once promised to
never lobby after leaving Congress—is joining the Chinese telecom
giant ZTE as a registered lobbyist, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argued on
Thursday that such a move should be illegal and reiterated
her call for "a lifetime ban on members of Congress working as
lobbyists."
Warren, who on Monday offically
announced that she is exploring a 2020 presidential bid, went on to
call for a total ban on foreign lobbying as well, arguing that it would force
"countries like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia... to conduct their
foreign policy out in the open."
"ZTE is a giant foreign
telecom company that's close with the Chinese government. They've violated
serious U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea. Their lobbyists keep blocking
accountability. And today former Senator Joe Lieberman joined them. Should that
be legal? No," Warren declared on Twitter.
"Corruption in Washington
isn't about a single president or political party. It runs deep," the
Massachusetts senator added. "We should call it out—and we should pass my
sweeping anti-corruption reforms to clamp down on all the ways giant companies
drown govt in money to get their way."
As Common Dreams reported,
Warren in August unveiled a sweeping bill titled the Anti-Corruption
and Public Integrity Act (pdf), which would—among a host of other
reforms—completely bar foreign lobbying and impose a lifetime ban on lobbying
by former presidents, members of congress, and federal agency chiefs.
"Our national crisis of
faith in government boils down to this simple fact: people don't trust their
government to do the right thing because they think government works for the
rich, the powerful, and the well-connected, and not for the American people.
And here's the kicker: They're right," Warren declared in a speech after
introducing her bill. "I'd love to stand here and tell you that this was
some sudden drop after Donald Trump was elected, but that wouldn't be true.
This problem is far bigger than Trump."
Poll Notes "Trump Effect" as American Desire to Leave US Permanently Surges
"While Donald Trump has
spent much of his presidency focused on the number of people who want to get
into the U.S., since he took office, record numbers of Americans have wanted to
get out."
While most Americans still
want to stay put, the number of U.S. citizens—particularly young women—who
would leave the country if they could has increased dramatically under
President Donald Trump, according to new Gallup
polling results.
Released Friday as part of the
Gallup World's Poll, the survey found that while only 11 percent and 10 ten
percent wanted to leave the county under former presidents George W. Bush and
Barack Obama, respectively, that number surged to 16 percent in 2018 under
Trump.
While the survey, explained
Gallup, "does not ask people about their political leanings, most of the
recent surge in Americans' desire to migrate has come among groups that
typically lean Democratic and that have disapproved of Trump's job performance
so far in his presidency: women,
young Americans and people in lower-income groups."
While these figures fall in
line more or less with global averages of other developed nations in the world,
and Gallup notes there's not likely to be a mass migration out of the United
States any time soon, the number do put an emphasis on the current president's
low favorability and approval ratings.
For some, the irony of the
poll was hard to miss:
While the poll did not gauge
respondent's political affiliations—and both Bush and Obama experienced highs
and low in terms of overall approval—Gallup says its previous polling did not
register these kinds of shifts about the desire to migrate.
According to Gallup's Julie
Ray and Neli Esipova, what they refer to as the "Trump effect" has
become "a new manifestation of the increasing political polarization"
in the country and is influencing at least some people's desire to leave.
"Before Trump took office, Americans' approval or disapproval of the
president was not a push factor in their desire to migrate."
And just where would they go?
Most—26 percent, Gallup found—would head north to Canada.
For complete methodology and
specific dates of the polling, please review Gallup's
Country Data Set details.
'Call Me a Radical': Ocasio-Cortez Suggests 70% Tax Rate for Ultra Rich to Help Pay for Green New Deal
Pushing back against skeptics
of taxing the wealthy to pay for efforts to avert climate catastrophe, she
says, "I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this
country."
In the second video featuring Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to
make headlines in less than 24 hours, the first-term congresswoman
called for major systemic changes to address the climate crisis and suggested
taxing ultra wealthy Americans around 70 percent to help pay for it—declaring,
"if that's what radical means, call me a radical."
The preview of Anderson
Cooper's forthcoming interview with Ocasio-Cortez, which is set to air at 7pm
ET Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes," quickly caught the attention of
both advocates and critics of implementing a progressive taxation scheme that,
as she put, could force the rich "to start paying their fair share in
taxes."
According
to CBS News, in the interview Ocasio-Cortez charges that hiking taxes
on the very rich could help pay for the Green New Deal—an
increasingly popular proposal among the American public and Democrats in
Congress that would pair efforts to curb anthropogenic global warming with
policies to create a more just economy.
A foundational goal of the
Green New Deal championed by
Ocasio-Cortez is fully eliminating fossil fuels and carbon emissions within the
next 12 years, in line with recent
demands from international climate scientists. "It's going to
require a lot of rapid change that we don't even conceive as possible right
now," she told Cooper, but "what is the problem with trying to push
our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?"
As Ocasio-Cortez pointed out:
You know, you look at our tax
rates back in the '60s and when you have a progressive tax rate system, your
tax rate, you know, let's say, from zero to $75,000 may be ten percent or 15
percent, et cetera. But once you get to, like, the tippy tops, on your 10
millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That
doesn't mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means
that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.
After Cooper suggested that
such a plan is considered "radical" in the context of the current
U.S. political system, she responded: "I think that it only has ever been
radicals that have changed this country. Abraham Lincoln made the radical
decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made
the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security.
That is radical."
Expanding on her remarks in
a tweet that
included the video on Friday morning, she added: "Sometimes we take for
granted exactly how radical ideas like Social Security, the VA, and public
schooling really are: that we will care for our elders, provide healthcare, and
educate *all* children in America free of cost at the point of service."
In a Twitter thread, Michael
Linden, a Roosevelt Institute fellow who also serves as managing director of
policy and research at the Hub Project, welcomed Ocasio-Cortez's tax
suggestions, breaking down why she is "on very solid ground here," as
"there is a lot of evidence that from an economic and fiscal perspective,
we'd be way better off with top rates approaching 70 [percent]."
"The basic question we
should ask: Will the investment financed by the higher tax rates generate more
good than the lower rate would?" Linden posed. His conclusion? Yes,
raising taxes on the rich would have a net positive impact. As he put it,
"There will be many on the right and in the media who will mock @AOC for
calling for tax rates at 60 or 70, but they're the ones who are economically illiterate.
They're basing their view on an outdated and ideological understanding of
taxation, not on the best research."
Responding to Politico's
reporting on the video, John Iadarola of The Young Turks offered an
alternative headline on Twitter, acknowledging that Ocasio-Cortez's proposal is
the "same top tax rate U.S. had for literally decades during a time of
unprecedented, historic growth."
Others responded to Cooper's
apparent surprise at the congresswoman's so-called radical suggestions by
noting that he is the son of fashion designer and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, a
descendant of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. While Cooper has said,
"I don't believe in inheriting money," Town & Country reported in
2017 that independent of his family fortune, he makes "$11 million a year
and is worth about $100 million."
As for the other video that provoked recent
headlines—which shows Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop as a Boston University
student, borrowing moves from the famous '80s film The Breakfast Club—the
congresswoman responded early
Friday afternoon to the failed right-wing effort to embarrass her:
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