MORNING MESSAGE

Payday Lenders Use Installment Loans To Escape Scrutiny

Paige Marta Skiba, Caroline Malone

Installment loans seem like a kinder, gentler version of their “predatory” cousin, the payday loan. But for consumers, they may be even more harmful. In fact, payday lenders appear to have developed installment loans primarily to evade increased scrutiny. While payday loans are typically around US$350, installment loans tend to be in the $500 to $2,000 range. Installment loans are often cheaper than payday loans, with annualized interest rates of around 120% in some states, compared with payday loans’ typical 400% to 500% range. But their nature means they are also rife for misuse and abuse. And any negative effects will apply to a broader group of consumers because they are deemed more “mainstream” than payday loans. If regulatory crackdowns on payday lending continue, installment lending is likely to become the bulk of lending in the small-dollar, high-interest lending market. Given the current lack of regulation of these types of loans, we hope they receive increased scrutiny.

Trump Assaults Facts To Survive Impeachment

Trump assaults facts to survive impeachment. CNN: “Donald Trump is looking to survive impeachment the same way he built his powerful presidency — by assaulting facts and seeking to expand the limitations of the office he is accused of abusing. On the day that Democrats proposed two articles of impeachment against him, the President and his courtiers laid down a fresh fog to obscure the evidence that incriminates him. The President also issued a mocking defense of his conduct at a rally Hershey, Pennsylvania, Tuesday night — arguing that the charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress are ‘not even a crime.’ ‘Everyone said this is impeachment-lite. This is the lightest impeachment in the history of our country, by far. It’s not even like an impeachment,’ Trump said. Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, reprised his role spinning his boss out of trouble, dismissing his own department’s watchdog report that debunked Trump’s repeated claim that a ‘Deep State’ coup tried to bring him down. Barr also breathed fresh life into another of Trump’s conspiracy theories — that the FBI’s Russia investigation was unjustified and rooted in political bias by Obama administration officials.”

DeVos Overruled Forgiveness Of Student Loans

Betsy DeVos overruled Education Dept. findings on defrauded student borrowers. NPR: “Documents obtained by NPR shed new light on a bitter fight between defrauded student borrowers and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. These borrowers — more than 200,000 of them — say some for-profit colleges lied to them about their job prospects and the transferability of credits. They argue they were defrauded and that the Education Department should erase their federal student loan debt under a rule called ‘borrower defense.’ DeVos disagrees: She says most student borrowers still got value from these schools and deserve only partial relief from their federal loans. Now, internal Education Department memos obtained by NPR show that career staff in the department’s Borrower Defense Unit came down firmly on the side of defrauded borrowers. Instead of limiting students’ debt relief by arguing, as DeVos does, that defrauded borrowers still got some value from their educations, these memos arrive at a different conclusion: that credits earned from Corinthian and ITT schools are essentially worthless. ‘Hundreds of unprompted student statements confirm that lack of value of an ITT education, as ITT students time and again report that their education was sub-standard and that their degree or affiliation with the school was an impediment rather than an asset as they sought employment,’ reads the Jan. 10, 2017, memo. Until now, these internal department memos have been hidden from public view. Lawmakers had previously requested access to them, but DeVos and her department refused to hand them over.”

Trump Cripples WTO To Fuel Trade War

Trump cripples W.T.O. as trade war rages. NYT: “The United States has spent two years chipping away at the World Trade Organization, criticizing it as unfair, starving it of personnel and disregarding its authority, as President Trump seeks to upend the global trade system. This week, the Trump administration is expected to go one step further and effectively cripple the organization’s system for enforcing its rules — even as Mr. Trump’s widening trade war has thrown global commerce into disarray and another tariff increase on Chinese goods set for next weekend could send markets reeling. Over the past two years, Washington has blocked the W.T.O. from appointing new members to a crucial panel that hears appeals in trade disputes. Only three members are left on the seven-member body, the minimum needed to hear a case, and two members’ terms expire on Tuesday. With the administration blocking any new replacements, there will be no official resolution for many international trade disputes. The loss of the world’s primary trade referee could turn the typically deliberate process of resolving international disputes into a free-for-all, paving the way for an outbreak of tit-for-tat tariff wars.”

Jersey City Shooters Targeted Kosher Supermarket

Suspect published anti-Semitic posts, official says. NYT: “A suspect involved in a prolonged firefight in Jersey City, N.J., that left six people dead, including one police officer, had published anti-Semitic and anti-police posts online and investigators believe the attack was motivated by those sentiments, a law enforcement official familiar with the case said on Wednesday. Investigators also found a manifesto-style note inside the shooters’ van, the law enforcement official and another official familiar with the case said. Investigators also found a live pipe bomb inside the vehicle, the law enforcement official said. The Jersey City mayor, Steven Fulop, also said Wednesday that surveillance footage indicated the two shooters had targeted a kosher supermarket where most of the carnage unfolded. Mr. Fulop said the footage revealed that after shooting the detective in the earlier encounter, the shooters slowly drove to the market. ‘The perpetrators stopped in front of there and calmly opened the door with two long rifles,’ he said.”

Ice Cap Melting Accelerates Quickly

Greenland ice melt ‘is accelerating’. BBC: “The assessment comes from an international team of polar scientists who’ve reviewed all the satellite observations over a 26-year period. They say Greenland’s contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future. It means an additional 7cm of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone. This threatens to put many millions more people in low-lying coastal regions at risk of flooding. It’s estimated roughly a billion live today less than 10m above current high-tide lines, including 250 million below 1m. ‘Storms, if they happen against a baseline of higher seas – they will break flood defences,’ said Prof Andy Shepherd, of Leeds University. ‘The simple formula is that around the planet, six million people are brought into a flooding situation for every centimetre of sea-level rise. So, when you hear about a centimetre rise, it does have impacts,’ he told BBC News. When Imbie published its companion review of Antarctica in 2018, it found the White Continent’s contribution by 2100 was likely being underestimated by 10cm. Now, for Greenland, Imbie is saying the shortfall is 7cm. The IPCC will have to incorporate these updates when it releases its next major assessment report (AR6) of Earth’s climate in a couple of years’ time.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Thom Hartmann

Is It Time To Regulate Or Nationalize Facebook?

Has Facebook gone from merely being a destination on the internet to something so interwoven in our lives that it should now be considered part of the commons and regulated as such? Is it time to discuss taking Facebook out of private, for-profit hands? While Facebook is currently embroiled in a controversy over whether it’s wrong for it to allow Trump’s political advertising that contains naked lies, the debate over fully or partially nationalizing the platform has gotten much less coverage. Facebook was so critical to Donald Trump’s 2016 election efforts, for example, that his Facebook manager, Brad Parscale, has been elevated to managing the entire Trump 2020 effort—again, with Facebook at the center of it. Political change flows out of public dialogue. Facebook has, for many Americans, become a primary source of news as well as a social, political, and civic activity center. It controls about a third of all web traffic. If starting from scratch, it would be hard to imagine such a central nexus for such critical interactions without envisioning it as a natural commons, like a civic center or broadcasting service.

House To Unveil Articles Of Impeachment

House Democrats expected to unveil formal charges in Trump impeachment. Reuters: “Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were expected to unveil two formal charges against Donald Trump on Tuesday, moving quickly toward a momentous vote on whether to impeach the Republican president. Democratic lawmakers planned to make an announcement on articles of impeachment on Tuesday morning, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said as he left House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. He did not elaborate. Pelosi’s office announced later that the House Committee officials will hold a press conference on Tuesday morning to announce the next steps in the impeachment inquiry. A senior House Democratic aide told Reuters they were expected to draft two articles of impeachment against Trump, one on abuse of power and the other on obstruction of Congress. Democrats accuse Trump of abusing the power of his office by withholding aid to Ukraine, vulnerable as it faced Russian aggression, as well as dangling a possible White House meeting to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a Democratic political rival in the 2020 presidential race.”

U.S. Border Officials Refuse Free Flu Vaccine For Migrants

US border officials deny request by doctors to administer free flu vaccine to detained migrants. Common Dreams: “A group of doctors seeking to vaccinate migrants detained by President Donald Trump’s Customs and Border Patrol were denied at the gates of the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station in San Ysidro, San Diego Monday. ‘Refusing to vaccinate is inhumane,’ tweeted Immigrant Families Together director Julie Schwietert Collazo. ‘The agency is willingly putting lives at risk of death.’ It was the latest example of what critics of the administration call the “intentional cruelty” of Trump’s immigration policies. ‘People are needlessly suffering and dying,’ said Dr. Marie DeLuca, one of the physicians who was turned away. ‘You can’t lock people up in inhumane conditions, watch them get sick, and then refuse them access to medical care.’ The doctors were supported by a coalition of immigration advocates, including the groups Doctors for Camp Closures, Families Belong Together, and Never Again Action. Monday’s action marks the beginning of a planned week of action by the doctors and others at Chula Vista. In a statement, Families Belong Together chair Jess Morales Rocketto said that recent reporting from ProPublica on the death from flu and border patrol inaction of an immigrant child in detention gave the protest added urgency. ‘This administration’s cruel immigration agenda is intentionally barring life-saving medical care from children by refusing to provide vaccines during flu season,’ said Rocketto. ‘Earlier this year, as immigration authorities sat by, 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez died from the flu on the floor of his concrete jail cell.’”

Student Loans The Next Subprime Crisis

Student loans a lot like the subprime mortgage debacle, watchdog says. NPR: “Mike Calhoun is a man on a mission. He’s flying around the country, warning state lawmakers and prosecutors, sounding the alarm at conferences, and with members of Congress. He did the same thing back before the housing market crash, warning then about reckless subprime loans. ‘We projected over 2 million subprime mortgage foreclosures, and the response was we were ridiculed by the industry,’ he says. Of course, Calhoun was right. In fact, the wave of defaults and foreclosures was even worse and drove the economy into the worst recession in generations. Back then, he was watching the number of risky mortgages grow and grow. Now he’s watching student loans, ‘and there are a lot of similarities,’ he says. ‘You’ve had an absolutely explosive growth in the amount of student debt. In fifteen years it’s gone from about $300 billion to now $1.6 trillion.’ ‘Once again, it’s the mismatch between the debt and the borrower’s income, their ability to repay,’ Calhoun says. This time around it’s the government making the vast majority of the loans. That’s effectively turned the Department of Education into the country’s largest consumer lender. And, Calhoun says, more and more people can’t pay. ‘Already in the student loan world, we are seeing default levels that approach what there was in the subprime mortgage world,’ he says.”

Insurance Insider Admits Systematically Misleading Consumers

From health insurance spin doctor to truth teller. Truthout: “‘I was getting people to make decisions based on misleading information that could have life or death consequences.’ That’s Wendell Potter, the former head of public relations for CIGNA. As the executive spin doctor for one of the biggest health insurance companies in the country, he was responsible for concocting tales that enabled CIGNA to deny coverage, discredit critics, and otherwise cast the corporate health insurance machine in a positive light. That was until the numbers in his spreadsheets became actual people with real lives. What happens when a health insurance PR executive confronts the consequences of his spin? ‘What happens is the insurance company, when they’re faced with having to pay high medical bills, they often go back and look at the application that the person filled out at the time of getting the policy — Looking for any reason to cancel it so that they could avoid paying for the needed care. And by doing that, the companies avoided paying for many millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars in care that people really needed –and that in many cases would have meant the difference between life and death.’”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Andrea Flynn

What Breast Cancer Taught Me About Health Care

Every weekday for six weeks this fall, I had radiation for early-stage breast cancer. This journey has been a lesson in privilege, structural inequality and our broken social and economic systems. But even though my cancer was early stage, the treatment process was intense and took its toll. After the surgery, I had more follow-up visits with a radiation oncology team. That was followed by six weeks of radiation treatment, five days a week (which again I had to accommodate into my work schedule). Over the last five months the same questions have been plaguing me. What If I were an hourly or low-wage worker? My health condition could have lost me my job and the ability to financially support my family. What if I didn’t have a generous employer who provided paid leave? The last five months have convinced me more than ever before that this must be the year that progressives unapologetically center women. Those whose health access and outcomes are shaped by our country’s long legacy of racism and sexism and the toxic combination of both. I’m done with radiation and done with breast cancer, but I’m not done with this fight.

Andrea Flynn is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, where she researches race, gender. and economic inequality.

House Presents Impeachment Evidence

Evidence to be presented on impeachment. NYT: “The House Judiciary Committee opens a new phase in the impeachment inquiry on Monday as it hears evidence presented by Democratic and Republican lawyers before moving on to consider proposed articles of impeachment against President Trump later this week. Democrats appear poised to accuse Mr. Trump of abuse of power and bribery for pressuring Ukraine to help him incriminate Democratic rivals while withholding American security aid. They also expect to charge him with obstructing the congressional investigation by defying subpoenas, blocking current and former administration officials from testifying, and trying to intimidate those who have. Less clear is whether they will include charges of obstruction of justice for trying to impede the Russia investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. In his report last spring, Mr. Mueller submitted evidence of 10 instances of possible obstruction but said he could not judge whether they were illegal. Attorney General William P. Barr, a Trump appointee, declared that the president’s actions were not illegal, but Democrats dismiss his judgment as skewed and partisan.

McKinsey Helped ICE Deport Immigrants

How McKinsey helped the Trump administration detain and deport immigrants. ProPublica: “Just days after he took office in 2017, President Donald Trump set out to make good on his campaign pledge to halt illegal immigration. In a pair of executive orders, he ordered ‘all legally available resources’ to be shifted to border detention facilities and called for hiring 10,000 new immigration officers. The logistical challenges were daunting, but as luck would have it, Immigration and Customs Enforcement already had a partner on its payroll: McKinsey & Company, an international consulting firm brought on under the Obama administration to help engineer an ‘organizational transformation’ in the ICE division charged with deporting migrants who are in the United States unlawfully. ICE quickly redirected McKinsey toward helping the agency figure out how to execute the White House’s clampdown on illegal immigration. But the money-saving recommendations the consultants came up with made some career ICE staff uncomfortable. They proposed cuts in spending on food for migrants, as well as on medical care and supervision of detainees, according to interviews with people who worked on the project for both ICE and McKinsey and 1,500 pages of documents obtained from the agency after ProPublica filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. McKinsey’s team also looked for ways to accelerate the deportation process, provoking worries among some ICE staff members that the recommendations risked short-circuiting due process protections for migrants fighting removal from the United States. The consultants, three people who worked on the project said, seemed focused solely on cutting costs and speeding up deportations — activities whose success could be measured in numbers — with little acknowledgment that these policies affected thousands of human beings.”

Southern States Take Action On HR1 Reforms

Southern states take up fight for bold democracy reforms. Truthout: “n Jan. 3 of this year, the first day of the 116th U.S. Congress, the new Democratic majority in the House introduced as its first bill a sweeping reform of the country’s elections. H.R. 1, the For the People Act, a bold package of measures aimed at improving voting access, tackling Big Money’s corrupting influence in politics, and bolstering ethics rules. The Washington Post called it ‘perhaps the most comprehensive political-reform proposal ever considered by our elected representatives.’ The wide-ranging bill, expertly led to passage in the House by lead sponsor Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Maryland) and endorsed by a broad coalition including the Communications Workers of America, NAACP, and Sierra Club, was inspired by a key insight: that in the current political moment, marked by deep voter cynicism about corruption and rigged elections, piecemeal reforms aren’t enough. What is needed, Sarbanes and other Democrats reasoned, is a far-reaching plan that outlines how all aspects of democracy can work better, and only a bill that tackles voting rights, Big Money, and ethics reform together could offer that larger vision. Taking inspiration from Congress and H.R. 1 — and eyeing recent and potential future Democratic gains in state politics — advocates are proposing far-reaching, pro-democracy agendas across the South. While these plans face an uphill battle in even friendly political environments, democracy reformers see these big-picture agendas as a chance to be proactive and go on offense after years of playing legal and political defense.”

We Knew We Were Losing In Afghanistan

A secret history of the Afghanistan war. WaPo: “A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials. The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle. In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.”

Trump Mulls Pardons For Convicted Aides

Possible pardons loom for former Trump aides. Politico: “Roger Stone’s supporters are making a pardon pitch everywhere President Donald Trump looks: Fox News, InfoWars, Twitter, even the White House driveway. Michael Flynn abruptly hired a bombastic lawyer who spouts Trump-friendly theories about FBI duplicity that are widely seen as a pardon play. Paul Manafort has kept himself on Trump’s radar from behind bars in a federal penitentiary by feeding the president’s personal attorney a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign. In any other administration, and in any other time, it’d be shocking to consider that three men with such deep personal ties to the president might get their legal troubles expunged in an election year — not to mention from a president facing impeachment proceedings. But this is not any other administration. The clemency calculations come because Stone, Flynn and Manafort — all former Trump campaign aides — know the president has repeatedly proven willing to trample over his own advisers despite warnings of political consequences. Most recently, Trump cleared the records of three armed services members accused or convicted of war crimes over the objections of several of his top military brass. ‘Like everything else with this president, you can’t look to history for precedent,’ said a person who previously worked for President Trump. ‘If he felt Manafort and Flynn and others were deserving of pardons, he’d just do it.’”

Linda Ronstadt Shuts Down Mike Pompeo At Kennedy Center

Linda Ronstadt to Mike Pompeo: Stop ‘enabling’ Donald Trump. Variety: ” Linda Ronstadt, one of this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees, had sharp words for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday night during a State Department reception for the Kennedy Center kudos. Ronstadt and Pompeo faced off in the U.S. State Department’s ornate diplomatic greeting rooms at the traditional event that precedes Sunday’s Honors gala. Some 200 guests were assembled to celebrate this year’s honorees: Ronstadt, Sally Field, Earth, Wind and Fire, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and ‘Sesame Street.’ The State Department dinner is where honorees receive their Kennedy Center rainbow ribbons. Pompeo, an embattled protector of President Trump, was enjoying his first turn as official host of the event. During the pre-dinner welcoming address, he quipped: ‘As I travel the world, I wonder when will I be loved,’ invoking the words of Ronstadt’s 1975 hit ‘When I Be Loved,’ penned by Phil Everly. Ronstadt has been an outspoken critic of Trump. When it came her turn following dinner to receive the honor and make optional remarks, Ronstadt rose to the microphone a few feet away from the host’s table and looked straight ahead. ‘I’d like to say to Mr. Pompeo, who wonders when he’ll be loved, it’s when he stops enabling Donald Trump.’ Then she sat down. The line drew immediate gasps from the audience, followed by slowly building applause, and then cheers. Among those in attendance was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who received a standing ovation from a majority of the politically divided gathering.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Chelsea Hoglen

Building Power And Raising Voices Of Rural Women

In rural areas of North Carolina, people get sicker, die sooner, and have less access to what they need to thrive than their counterparts in the rest of the state. Women in rural communities are most affected by these crises, and we are uniquely positioned to be a key part of the solutions. Down Home North Carolina, part of the People’s Action network and a founding member of the Rural Women’s Collaborative, is organizing working people to grow democracy and improve the quality of life, so our grandbabies inherit a state that is healthy and just. We are shifting what’s possible in rural America by building the feminist leadership of rural women and promoting values of inclusion in communal life, interdependence, care for the elderly, love of earth and humanity, dignity of all work, and protection of the vulnerable. Rural women have served as the educators, healthcare givers, nurturers, and fighters for our community for generations. Now the women of Down Home are carrying forward this torch.

House Judiciary Holds First Impeachment Hearing

How to watch the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing. CN:: “The impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump enters its next stage this week as the House Judiciary Committee holds its first hearing. The Wednesday hearing, which will feature constitutional law experts, follows a series of public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee where current and former administration officials testified as part of the House Democrat-led investigation into the Ukraine scandal. It marks a new phase in the investigation centered on Trump’s actions when he asked the President of Ukraine in a July 25 phone call to do him a “favor” and pushed for investigations into the family of a potential political rival, Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. The House Intelligence Committee has so far led that investigation, but now the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over drafting articles of impeachment, will have its time in the spotlight. Ahead of the hearing, Intelligence Committee Democrats released a report summarizing the findings in the investigation and stating that the inquiry had “uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.” The report is expected to serve as the basis for articles of impeachment. The hearing is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday. It will take place in room 1100 of the Longworth House Office Building.”

Phone Records Confirm Secret Ukraine Campaign

A mysterious ‘-1’ and other call records show how Giuliani pressured Ukraine. NYT: “In the two days before President Trump forced out the American ambassador to Ukraine in April, his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was on the phone with the White House more than a dozen times. Phone records cited in the impeachment report released Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee illustrate the sprawling reach of Mr. Giuliani’s campaign first to remove the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, then to force Ukraine’s new government to announce criminal investigations for Mr. Trump’s political gain. That effort accelerated through the spring and summer into a full-court press to force Ukraine’s new president to accede to Mr. Trump’s wishes or risk losing $391 million in military assistance desperately needed to hold off Russian-led forces waging a separatist war in eastern Ukraine. From March 26 to Aug. 8, as he developed an irregular foreign policy channel that eventually sidelined both National Security Council and State Department aides, Mr. Giuliani — who is not a government employee — was in touch with top-ranking officials, the newly revealed call records suggested. A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know. He reached out to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; the national security adviser at the time, John R. Bolton; Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee itself; midlevel White House officials; the Fox News host Sean Hannity; a conservative columnist; an associate who has been charged in a scheme related to Ms. Yovanovitch’s ouster; and the owner of a mysterious number, ‘-1.’”

Trump To End Food Stamps For 3.2m

Trump administration moves to end food stamps for 750,000. Bloomberg: “The Trump administration will announce a plan Wednesday to end food stamps benefits for about 750,000 Americans, issuing a new regulation that makes it harder for states to gain waivers from a requirement that beneficiaries work or participate in a vocational training program, according to people familiar with the matter. Conservatives have long sought cuts in the federal food assistance program for the poor. House Republicans tried to impose similar restrictions last year when Congress renewed the program but were rebuffed in the Senate. The work requirement only applies to ‘able-bodied’ recipients who aren’t caring for a child under 6 years old. The measure would be the first of three Trump administration initiatives curtailing food stamp benefits to take effect. The Urban Institute estimated in an analysis last month that the measures together would cut 3.7 million beneficiaries from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, often known by its previous name, food stamps.”

Kamala Harris Ends Presidential Run

Kamala Harris drops out of 2020 race. AP: “Kamala Harris, the U.S. senator from California, announced Tuesday that she will end her quest to be the Democratic candidate for president in 2020. ‘I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life,’ she wrote in a note to supporters. ‘My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.’ Harris, 54, announced on Jan. 21 that she was running for president, skipping the step of forming an exploratory committee. Harris previously served as California’s attorney general for eight years before being elected to the Senate. Harris started her campaign in a strong position in the polls, but her popularity quickly fell in early primary states. The first female and first black attorney general and U.S. senator in California’s history, she was widely viewed as a candidate poised to excite the same segment of voters that sent Barack Obama to the White House. She raised an impressive $12 million in the first three months of her campaign and quickly locked down major endorsements meant to show her dominance in her home state, which offers the biggest delegate haul in the Democratic primary contest. But as the field grew, Harris’ fundraising remained flat; she was unable to attract the type of attention being showered on Pete Buttigieg by traditional donors or the grassroots firepower that drove tens of millions of dollars to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.”

Dept. Of Ed Denies Loan Forgiveness To Disabled

Why student loan borrowers with disabilities aren’t getting the help they deserve. NPR: “For over half a century, student loan borrowers with a significant, permanent disability have been protected by federal law. If they can no longer work enough to support themselves, they can ask the U.S. Department of Education to erase their debts. But an NPR investigation has found that hundreds of thousands of potentially eligible borrowers — more than enough to fill a city the size of Pittsburgh — have yet to receive the relief they’re entitled to. Not only that, the Education Department told Congress earlier this year it had discharged the loans of 40% of eligible borrowers with significant, permanent disabilities. But new data obtained by NPR from a department official show the real number is much lower: Only 28% of eligible borrowers identified between March 2016 and September 2019 have either had their loans erased, or are on track for that to happen. Borrowers and advocates say the Education Department doesn’t do enough to inform borrowers like Denise of their rights, and those who do apply for help have to navigate a years-long, bureaucratic obstacle course. A department official says the department has made incremental improvements to the process since 2016: “We continue to look for ways to make the process easier to navigate for disabled student loan borrowers, while maintaining the integrity of the taxpayers dollars associated with the discharges.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Megan Day

The Fighter The Tenants’ Movement Needs

“I’m excited to introduce the Homes for All Act,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, “which will fulfill the promise of a homes guarantee by building 12 million new public housing and private, permanently affordable rental units — vastly expanding the available affordable housing stock, driving down costs throughout the market, and creating a new vision of what public housing looks like in the United States.” When Linda Armitage watched Omar’s video announcement on Twitter, she cried. Armitage is a seventy-seven-year-old public housing resident and member of the housing committee of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, a grassroots senior organization in Chicago. “This is what we dreamed of and worked hard for,” she says, “and here is a big piece of it in black and white.” The Homes Guarantee campaign was launched by a network of housing activists involved in the group People’s Action. The campaign has a grassroots leadership team of one hundred people who are directly impacted by the housing crisis, explains Tara Raghuveer. Omar’s bill also reflects the vision of housing organizers on the ground, Raghuveer says — and we can trace the origins of Omar’s proposal directly to tenants like Armitage themselves. “Our grassroots team was pretty unapologetic about what they wanted,” says Raghuveer: policy team members who were “ready to go to work to deliver on the grassroots vision, not vice versa.”

Read more in Jacobin Magazine

Trump Declares War On Cheese, Champagne

US threatens 100% tariffs on French cheese and champagne. CNN: “US trade officials proposed a wave of tariffs on French goods Monday as they released a report finding that a new French tax on digital services — affecting large American tech companies such as Facebook (FB) and Google — represents a barrier to trade. The list of proposed US tariffs covers dozens of products, including cheeses, beauty products, handbags and sparkling wines such as champagne. The move risks escalating transatlantic trade tensions after the United States already hit $7.5 billion worth of European goods — including French wine, Italian parmesan cheese and Scotch whisky — in October over subsidies to planemaker Airbus (EADSF). Roughly $2.4 billion in French products could be subject to the new taxes of up to 100%.”

GOP Defies Reality In Impeachment Defense

New GOP report defies reality with Trump exoneration. CNN: “A new report aimed at defending Donald Trump against Democratic claims of abuse of power represented a remarkable demonstration of the President’s greatest political achievement — the transformation of the Republican Party in his image. The 123-page document written by GOP members on three House committees formalized the President’s own cycle of distraction and denial that he used to ride out the Russia scandal. He’s using the same tactic to save his job now that he’s faced with impeachment over his political pressure on Ukraine. Trump isn’t waiting to hear the formal case against him because he doesn’t have to. Ultimately, it will make little difference since his defense was long ago unmoored from fact and is based on selling a disinformational narrative to his followers that sows confusion and devalues truth for everyone else. The report released by the President’s House Republican allies on Monday was in effect the prebuttal of a report on the Democratic impeachment investigation set to be released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Tuesday. The message of the document was less a defense of Trump on the merits but rather an endorsement of his counterfactual denials.”

GOP Rep. Hunter Pleads Guilty To Fraud

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter to plead guilty To campaign finance charge. NPR: “In a reversal, embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter is now set to plead guilty to misusing campaign donations, likely ending the California Republican’s political career. Hunter told local TV station KUSI in an interview that he has struck a deal to plead guilty to one count of illegal use of campaign funds. He’s due in federal court on Tuesday. Hunter initially denied all the charges, and his attorneys accused the prosecution of trying to unfairly embarrass him. It’s unclear what type of jail time Hunter would face or when he might resign, which is typically what happens in such situations. New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins resigned this year after pleading guilty to insider trading charges.”

Dems At Climate Summit With No Plan

Congressional Democrats arrive at Madrid climate talks, announce they still don’t have a climate plan. Gizmodo: “International climate talks kicked off on Monday in Madrid, and a delegation of House Democrats showed up to tell the world how much they care about climate change. But they actually revealed, uh, how little action they’ve actually taken to appropriately address the severity of the crisis. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the U.S. Congressional delegation for the talks (known as COP25) on Monday, including people like Representative Kathy Castor of Florida who heads the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas who chairs the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. They were there to tell the world that despite a president who’s begun the formal process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, leaders on the state and city level are taking steps so that the U.S. stays on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and meet the targets set forth in the international agreement. ‘Our delegation is here to send a message that Congress’ commitment to take action on the climate crisis is ironclad,’ Pelosi said during the event. That’s great to hear, but the truth is that the Democratic-led House hasn’t done enough to tackle the climate crisis. Indeed, as Pelosi and her colleagues made clear Monday after a reporter asked, they don’t support a Green New Deal, which is the only bill currently put forth in Congress with enough vision to stave off climate chaos. I mean, c’mon, the youth, environmental groups, badass senators and representatives, and the American public want to see this type of transformative change. And Green New Deal proponents have begun building out a vision for that change with two recently released housing plans. Yet more moderate Congress members refuse to seriously consider it. Instead, Castor announced that Democrats will be releasing a climate action plan. In March. That’s three months from now and more than a year after Democrats took back the House in the midterms.”

Loan Sharks Send Clients To Jail

They loan you money. Then they get a warrant for your arrest. ProPublica: “It’s against the law to jail someone because of an unpaid debt. Congress banned debtors prisons in 1833. Yet, across the country, debtors are routinely threatened with arrest and sometimes jailed, and the practices are particularly aggressive in Utah. (ProPublica recently chronicled how medical debt collectors are wielding similar powers in Kansas.) Technically, debtors are arrested for not responding to a court summons requested by the creditor. But for many low-income people, who are not familiar with court proceedings, lack access to transportation, child care options or time off, or move frequently and thus may not receive notifications, it’s a distinction without a difference. Reese, a 70-year-old Vietnam veteran, said he missed a hearing because he couldn’t afford to put gas in his car. Gordon, 46, said he was never personally notified of the court date. Avila and Albritton, 32, said they couldn’t take time off work. In Utah, payday lenders and similar companies that offer high-interest, small-dollar loans dominate small claims court. Loans for Less, for example, filed 95% of the small claims cases in South Ogden, a suburban city of 17,000 about a half-hour north of Salt Lake City on the interstate, in fiscal year 2018, according to state data.”

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by Tim Wilkins | Nov 21, 2019 | Breakfast | 0 comments

MORNING MESSAGE

Steven Rosenfeld

How Social Media Amplifies Trump’s Rants And Disinformation

As 2020 nears, disinformation—intentionally false political propaganda—is increasing and getting nastier. Central to this disturbing trend is President Trump, whose re-election campaign and allies revel in mixing selected truths, half-truths, knowing distortions and outright lies, especially with messaging sent and seen online. Trump’s rants about impeachment, Ukraine, the Bidens, Nancy Pelosi, the media, and any opponent abound. On Twitter, in statements to the press, at rallies, he sets the angry tone. His White House staff, right-wing media, 2020 campaign and surrogates embellish his cues. Hovering above this cultivated chaos is a larger goal, propaganda experts say, to create an omnipresent information operation driving news narratives. Thanks to Trump, Americans have been subjected to a crash course in propaganda. When Russia used similar tactics in the West in recent years, its goals were to increase polarization, destabilize society, and undermine faith in democratic institutions. That is what disinformation is designed to do. And all signs suggest that there will be more of it than ever in 2020 as the presidential election, congressional elections, state races and impeachment proceed.

WATCH: Russia Expert Denounces “Fictional Narrative” On Ukraine

WATCH: Fiona Hill, David Holmes Testify In The Week’s Final Impeachment Hearing. NPR: “House Democrats are closing their second week of public impeachment hearings Thursday with testimony from two witnesses expected to detail events inside the White House and a key conversation involving President Trump. Appearing are Fiona Hill, the well-known Russia expert who served until this summer as a top director on the National Security Council; and foreign service officer David Holmes, the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. In her opening statement, Hill tells lawmakers that: ‘Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute.’”

Gender Equity Up Front In Fifth Dem Presidential Debate

Gender equity was at the forefront of the fifth Democratic debate. Vox: “In a marked contrast from several past debates, gender equity took center stage at Wednesday’s Democratic debate, which featured wide-ranging discussion about paid family leave, abortion rights, and the higher standards that women candidates must meet. Though Democrats’ 2020 presidential field is one of the most diverse in history, addressing gender disparities hasn’t always been a major focus on the debate stage, as Vox’s Anna North has written. Previous debates have barely glanced over subjects including equal pay. This week’s debate, only the third primary debate to ever feature an all-female panel of moderators, was different. It kicked off with a major moment on paid family leave, following a question on the subject of child care from the Washington Post’s Ashley Parker. As Parker noted, the costs of child care can be substantial for families. ‘There are only two countries in the world that don’t have paid family leave for new moms. The United States of America and Papua New Guinea,’ entrepreneur Andrew Yang emphasized. ‘That is the entire list and we need to get off that list as as soon as possible.’ Yang’s comment highlighted a startling reality: Among developed countries, the US is the only one that does not have a paid leave program, a policy that’s been shown to increase women’s workforce participation, reduce family’s reliance on public assistance, and improve children’s health outcomes. Sen. Kamala Harris emphasized just as much in her response on the topic, which called out the extensive work that women do on caregiving and how transformative paid leave could be for women’s ability to return to work.”

RAICES Pays $2.1m In Bonds To Free Immigrants

Why one group is paying $2.1 million to free about 200 detained immigrants. CNN: “An advocacy group says it’s paying $2.1 million so ICE will release some 200 detained immigrants in 20 states. The Texas-based nonprofit known as RAICES says it teamed up with a network of organizations and volunteers to make bond payments across the United States on Wednesday. Their aim: bringing more attention to the large number of immigrants who remain in US custody — and giving hundreds of people a better shot at winning their cases ‘It’s ridiculous that people are coming to this country to seek safety, and they’re having to pay these outrageous amounts of money,’ said Blake Vera, interim director of the group’s bond fund. ‘We’re stepping in to eliminate that financial obstacle.’ The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, widely known as RAICES, drew national attention and millions of dollars in donations last year during the family separations crisis at the border. Based on the average contribution amount to the RAICES Bond Fund, more than 25,000 donors funded Wednesday’s bond payments, the organization said.”

AZ Activist Acquitted For Helping Migrants

Arizona border activist acquitted on charges of harboring two immigrants. CBS: “An activist was quickly acquitted Wednesday on charges he illegally harbored two Central American immigrants at a southern Arizona camp operated by a humanitarian group. The verdict by a jury in U.S. District Court came after jurors deliberated for about two hours in what was the second trial for Scott Warren. A mistrial was declared last June after a jury deadlocked on harboring charges. Warren was stoic after the verdict was read. ‘The government failed in its attempt to criminalize basic human kindness,’ Warren said outside of court. Warren was arrested in January 2018 by U.S. agents who were staking out a humanitarian aid station in Arizona known as ‘The Barn,’ where two Central American men had been staying for several days. The camp is run by a group that tries to prevent immigrants from dying in the desert. Warren, a member of the group No More Deaths, says the group’s training and protocol prohibit advising migrants on how to elude authorities. He said his interest is in saving lives. ‘We need to work within the spirit of humanitarian aid and within the confines of the law,’ Warren said.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Tom Conway

Corporate Spies Keep An Eye On Organized Labor

Google’s computers are spying on its workers. Anytime a Google employee uses an online calendar to schedule a meeting involving more than 100 co-workers, management gets an alert—a great way for the anti-union corporation to sniff out union organizing efforts. Lots of other employers also would like to put union organizing campaigns under surveillance. And they’ll have their chance if the National Labor Relations Board gives corporations a free hand to snoop on employees, as two of the board’s right-wing members, John Ring and Marvin Kaplan, evidently want to do. Ring and Kaplan want to reconsider the longtime ban on labor spying. It’s a sleazy idea, but typical for these two. They’re part of a three-member Republican cabal that’s taken over the board and issued a string of decisions eviscerating workers’ rights and giving ever more power to corporations. Federal law prohibits employers from interfering in workers’ organizing rights. Right now, that means it’s illegal for corporations to surveil union activists or even give the impression that they’re snooping. But some companies spy anyway and invent all sorts of excuses when they get caught doing it. The NLRB’s job is to protect workers, not let employers think that it’s OK to engage in underhanded behavior as long as they don’t get caught. Ring, Kaplan and the rest of the board have a responsibility to set higher standards, not help employers climb down into the gutter.

Tom Conway is president of USW, the United Steelworkers.

WATCH: EU Ambassador Sondland Testifies In Impeachment

WATCH LIVE: Sondland: Ukraine aid link reflected Trump’s ‘desires and requirements.’ NPR: “Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, tied President Trump directly to the push for conditioning military aid to Ukraine and a meeting with the Ukrainian president with “a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election.’ ‘Mr. Giuliani expressed those requests directly to the Ukrainians,’ Sondland said in his opening statement at the public impeachment hearings on Wednesday. ‘Mr. Giuliani also expressed those requests directly to us. We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and White House meeting reflected President Trump’s desires and requirements.’ Sondland also provided the most explicit link yet of the secretary of state’s role in the Ukraine affair, saying he kept Mike Pompeo and other senior State Department officials abreast of his contacts with Giuliani who ‘specifically mentioned the 2016 election (including the DNC server) and Burisma as two topics of importance to the president.’ ‘They knew what we were doing and why,’ Sondland said of Pompeo and the others in his opening statement at the public impeachment hearings on Wednesday.”

Presidential Hopefuls Debate In Atlanta

Five things to watch in tonight’s Dem debate. The Hill: “Ten Democratic presidential hopefuls will take the debate stage in Atlanta on Wednesday night, as the candidates look for a breakout moment to either cement their place in the race’s top tier or elevate their campaigns from the lower rungs of the primary field. The field’s four leading candidates — former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — are all jockeying to deliver a strong performance at the debate, hoping to give their campaigns a burst of momentum heading into 2020 and the Iowa caucuses. Warren’s months-long rise to the top of the polls has seen its share of setbacks in recent weeks: Her rivals have repeatedly raised questions about how she plans to finance her proposed ‘Medicare for All,’ and Biden has attacked the Massachusetts senator as an “elitist” with a “my way or the highway” approach to politics. Buttigieg has gained momentum in recent weeks as he’s pitched himself to moderate voters as a younger alternative to Biden while drawing sharp contrasts with his leading progressive rivals. That message appears to be translating to support in Iowa, in particular. A Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll released over the weekend showed him taking a broad lead among likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa. But that recent success is likely to make him a prime target for his opponents when he takes the debate stage on Wednesday night.”

Mayor Pete’s Record On Minority Jobs

As president, Buttegieg wants to give 25 percent of federal contracts to minorities. As mayor, he gave 3 percent. The Intercept: “main tenets of Pete Buttigieg’s plan to address racial inequality if he becomes president is a proposal to increase the number of federal contracting dollars going to women- and minority-owned businesses to 25 percent. But in South Bend, Indiana, where he has been mayor since 2012, less than 3 percent of city business has gone to minority- and women-owned businesses in recent years, according to annual audits conducted by the city. In July, Buttigieg released “The Douglass Plan: A Comprehensive Investment in the Empowerment of Black America,” which he called “the most comprehensive vision put forward by a 2020 candidate on the question of how we’re going to tackle systemic racism in this country.” On Friday, The Intercept reported that the Buttigieg campaign had publicized support for the plan from prominent black leaders who actually weren’t endorsing it. South Bend’s population is 26.4 percent black, compared to 13.4 percent nationally. According to a 2015 report released by the mayor’s office, 1.2 percent of the city’s purchases went to contracts with minority- and women-owned businesses that year. In 2016, the number was 1.7 percent; in 2017, it was 1.9 percent; in 2018, it was 2.8 percent. South Bend already had a reputation for a lack of diversity among its business partners. As mayor, Buttigieg made it a priority to address those issues. He put in place several initiatives to address the problem, using his first executive order in 2016 to create the city’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. According to a study he commissioned, South Bend had done business with 12 percent of the city’s minority- or women-owned businesses, out of the 15 percent of eligible contractors in those categories. The city this month changed an existing ordinance to include quotas to improve those numbers and close the 3 percent gap.”

Tax Break For Poor Funds GOP Donor’s FL Superyacht Marina

Trump tax break for poor went to GOP donor’s superyacht marina. ProPublica: “The Rybovich superyacht marina lies on the West Palm Beach, Florida, waterfront, a short drive north from Mar-a-Lago. Superyachts, floating mansions that can stretch more than 300 feet and cost over $100 million, are serviced at the marina, and their owners enjoy Rybovich’s luxury resort amenities. Its Instagram account offers a glimpse into the rarefied world of the global 0.1% — as one post puts it, ‘What’s better than owning a yacht, owning a yacht with a helicopter of course!’ Rybovich owner Wayne Huizenga Jr., son of the Waste Management and Blockbuster video billionaire Wayne Huizenga Sr., has long planned to build luxury apartment towers on the site, part of a development dubbed Marina Village. Those planned towers, and the superyacht marina itself, are now in an area designated as an opportunity zone under President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax code overhaul, qualifying them for a tax break program that is supposed to help the poor. Then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott bestowed the tax break on the marina after a direct appeal from Huizenga Jr., according to a 2018 letter Huizenga Jr. wrote that was obtained by ProPublica. Huizenga and his family have been major donors to Scott. Even though the opportunity zone program is supposed to subsidize only new investment, Huizenga cited the already-planned Marina Village in his appeal to Scott. The state of Florida, based on an analysis of unemployment and poverty rates, had not originally intended to pick the census tract containing the superyacht marina for the program. But those plans changed in response to Huizenga’s lobbying, according to documents from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity obtained by ProPublica. A little more than a week after the Huizenga letter, Scott announced his opportunity zone picks, which included the Rybovich marina area. At the same time, Scott rejected other, poorer tracts that the city of West Palm Beach had asked to be named opportunity zones.”

CA’s Newsom Temporarily Bans Fracking

Climate groups applaud Newsom’s temporary fracking ban in California. Common Dreams: “Anti-fracking advocates were cautiously optimistic Tuesday after California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on fracking in the state and new steps to mitigate the disastrous public health effects that extractive industries have on communities. Author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben credited “relentless organizing” with pressuring the Democratic governor to ban—at least temporarily—the high-pressure steam injection central to the fracking process and pledge to reverse the increase in drilling permits that’s taken place under Newsom’s administration. ‘It’s not all that activists wanted, but that language is an important signal,’ McKibben wrote of the temporary fracking ban. Newsom announced that, along with the fracking lease moratorium, the state would also commission an independent audit of regulators tasked with overseeing the oil and gas industries and would have federal scientists conduct third-party reviews of all drilling lease requests going forward. The state will also strengthen protections for communities near oil and gas wells.”

Judge To Rule On McGahn Testimony

Judge intends to rule by Monday on House subpoena to Donald McGahn. WaPo: “A federal judge said she intends to rule no later than the end of the day Monday on whether former White House counsel Donald McGahn must testify under subpoena to Congress, after the House Judiciary Committee asked her to accelerate a decision because it aims to call him after the current round of public impeachment hearings finish in December. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington entered an order Tuesday about her deadline intent “absent unforeseen circumstances” shortly after a filing from House General Counsel Douglas N. Letter arguing last week’s opening of the hearings before the House Intelligence Committee was grounds for urgency. Those committee hearings are exploring President Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate former vice president Joe Biden — a potential 2020 political rival — and his son Hunter Biden. House Democrats are debating whether articles of impeachment should include obstruction of justice allegations detailed in the special counsel report by Robert S. Mueller III. ‘Given that the House’s impeachment inquiry is proceeding rapidly, the Committee has a finite window of time to effectively obtain and consider McGahn’s testimony,’ Letter wrote. ‘The Judiciary Committee anticipates holding hearings after [the] public hearings have concluded and would aim to obtain Mr. McGahn’s testimony at that time,’ Letter wrote.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Robert Borosage

Warren Won’t Back Down On Medicare For All

When Elizabeth Warren was criticized for not detailing how she would pay for Medicare for All, most pundits assumed she would duck and cover. M4A is Bernie Sanders’s signature legislation, but the establishment dismisses him as a movement candidate. Warren, on the other hand, is seen as a “serious, in the weeds” policy wonk who wants to win. Warren has since issued a detailed plan on what Medicare for All would cover, and how she would pay for it without raising taxes on working people. She summarized the compelling human benefits of making health care a right, not a privilege rationed by cost. She outlined the massive savings that would result from eliminating the insurance company profits and exorbitant administrative fees of the current system. Workers could pocket the savings on co-pays and premiums, in what would effectively amount, she noted, to the largest middle-class tax cut in history. The political establishment was aghast. The Washington Post unleashed a blizzard of articles decrying Warren’s audacity, picking apart her assumptions, her math, and her political judgement. Despite the carping, one thing is clear: Warren has joined Sanders in forceful support of Medicare for All. As with the Green New Deal, two of the three leading candidates in the Democratic presidential primaries will argue the case. The others will have to put up, or shut up — Warren’s gauntlet will force discussion of the spiraling costs, and human toll of the current system. The debate over Medicare for All illustrates the fundamental choice that Democrats will make in the coming primaries. Are they satisfied with a candidate who promises restoration, or do they want a champion of fundamental change?

WATCH: Impeachment Inquiry Intensifies On Third Day

Nine witnesses will testify at five hearings between Tuesday and Thursday. Vox: “House Democrats have set up a packed schedule for their second full week of impeachment inquiry hearings, with nine witnesses set to testify between Tuesday and Thursday. Things kick off on Tuesday morning at 9 am Eastern, with testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (a National Security Council staffer) and Jennifer Williams (a State Department official detailed to the vice president’s office). We’ve embedded a live stream above, and you can also watch it on C-SPAN or other news networks. Later, on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 pm Eastern, the committee will hear testimony from Kurt Volker (the former US special representative for Ukraine) and Tim Morrison (a National Security Council staffer). The hearing beginning Wednesday morning at 9 am Eastern will likely be especially explosive. It will be devoted entirely to Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union. And Sondland is viewed by Democrats as the least credible witness so far — much of his testimony has conflicted with other aides’ recollections and documents, and he’s already “updated” his testimony once. So expect him to face serious pressure over whether he’s telling the full story. That afternoon, Wednesday at 2:30 pm Eastern, two lower-profile witnesses — Laura Cooper (a Defense Department official) and David Hale (the under secretary of state for political affairs) will appear. The week’s testimony will close out on Thursday at 9 am Eastern, with testimony from Fiona Hill (the former top NSC staffer handling Russia and Europe), as well as David Holmes (a Kyiv-based State Department official who stepped forward only recently to report new information about the scandal.) All of these witnesses have already given closed-door depositions in the impeachment inquiry, so most of what they have to say is already known. The hearings are primarily to have them repeat their accounts of what they saw transpire in public. And, for Ambassador Sondland in particular, they provide one more opportunity for him to try and remember some of the many things he failed to recall in his first go-round.”

Barr Signals Contempt For Congressional Oversight

Barr comments signal GOP embraces new level of authoritarianism. Truthout: “Barr gave a speech to the Federalist Society that makes clear his pet constitutional theory is only a part of the problem. This is not just about presidential power. It is about a deep loathing for his political opposition on such a visceral level that it’s frightening to think about such a man having so much power and being answerable only to the inept bully in the White House. It was frankly authoritarian. Barr seeks to make the conservative movement see Trump’s alleged victimization as a reflection of their own. They must see themselves as easy prey, hunted by the ruthless leftist “resistance,” which seems to include all members of the legislative branch, ‘disloyal’ federal employees and any member of the judiciary who may have ruled against Trump’s policies. The speech was frightening both in its arrogance and its lack of self-awareness. Right now, Barr is in the midst of an investigation into the ‘origins’ of the Russia investigation during the 2016 campaign. He has strongly suggested he believes it was improper to investigate a Republican presidential campaign, and the fact that the DOJ and the intelligence community, which undertook that investigation, are themselves part of the executive branch he now venerates as a repository of unlimited power doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.”

House Will Vote To Avert Shutdown

House to vote on short-term funding bill to avert shutdown ahead of looming deadline. CNN: “The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Tuesday to approve a short-term funding bill in an effort to avert a government shutdown before funds expire later in the week. The push to keep the government funded comes as the House is in the midst of contentious and high-profile public impeachment inquiry hearings as part of an investigation into President Donald Trump by House Democrats that has led to an escalation of partisan tensions on Capitol Hill. The stop-gap legislation, known as a continuing resolution, that the House is set to vote on will extend funding through December 20, setting up another spending deadline on the eve of the winter holidays. The current deadline for funding is Thursday, November 21. The expectation is that if the House and Senate both pass a funding bill, the President will sign it. ‘With a government shutdown deadline just days away, this continuing resolution is necessary to keep government open as we work towards completing the appropriations process,’ House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat, said in a statement. Lawmakers have not yet been able to reach bipartisan agreement on the twelve regular annual appropriations bills needed to fund the government, but the passage of another stop-gap measure will allow for more time to negotiate.”

Trump Wants Asylum Seekers To Pay

Proposed asylum fees would have immigrants paying for red tape. Truthout: “The Trump administration wants to make people fleeing persecution in their home countries pay for something they’ve long gotten for free: the right to apply for asylum in the United States. As an immigration attorney and a law professor who has represented people seeking asylum for over a decade, I believe this change, which could go into effect as soon as mid-December following a monthlong comment period, would be not just cruel but also unusual. At present, only Iran, Australia and Fiji charge fees to would-be asylum-seekers. Making immigrants escaping harm and persecution shoulder the cost of processing their paperwork is in line with other trends in U.S. immigration law over the last several decades. Fees for everything from green cards to naturalization are not only common but increasingly costly and mandatory. ‘You must submit the correct fees or we will reject your form,’ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Homeland Security agency that oversees these applications, warns on its website. It relies primarily on revenue from these fees to cover its entire budget. The proposed rule would make applying for asylum, which has always been free, cost US$50. While that might not seem like much, asylum seekers do not initially have work authorization, and many, if not most, have fled their home countries with just the clothes on their backs.”

CA Young Dems Endorse Sanders

With 67% of the vote, California Young Democrats endorse Bernie Sanders for President. Common Dreams: “On Saturday night, members of the California Young Democrats—one of the largest caucuses within the California Democratic Party (CDP) representing members in local chapters across the state—voted to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary. Sanders won 67 percent of the votes—more than twice what any other candidate received—in the nation’s most populous state that will hold its Super Tuesday primary on March 3, 2020. Of the 126 votes cast during an evening CYD meeting at the California Democratic Convention held in the city of Long Beach, Sanders received 84 votes (67%) while Sen. Elizabeth Warren received 29 votes (23%), the second-largest number in the crowded field. Sen. Kamala Harris came in third place among caucus members (aged 13 to 35) in the state she represents in the U.S. Senate. The landslide meant that Sanders was able to take the endorsement in just one round of voting. Notably, former Vice President Joe Biden received zero votes while South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg received only one.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Ross Floyd

Migrants Are Iowans, And We Stand With Them

To his fellow migrants and to all of us at Iowa CCI, Jose Robinson Palacios is a hero. That’s because he saved the lives of dozens of children on his trek north from Honduras, carrying them one by one across the river that separates Guatemala from Mexico. These include Isaac, an eleven-year-old epileptic, the son of Heybi Jacqueline Torres Toro. Jose and Jacqueline are just two of the many asylum seekers who have found a safe haven and welcome in Iowa City, at the Catholic Worker House. At Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, we have a broad mission to put people before profits, and go where we see a need. In the lives of these refugees, we saw our ability to make a difference – so we’ve joined forces with the Catholic Worker House to try and protect them. Iowa is an early-voting state, and in September we organized a people’s forum with presidential candidates. We arranged for Juliza, Jose and Jacqueline to meet with Senator Bernie Sanders and Former HUD Secretary Julián Castro. This Tuesday, Secretary Castro made good on his promise – he returned to Iowa, and went with Jose and two dozen of us to Jose’s mandatory check-in at the ICE office in Cedar Rapids. Castro demanded that ICE take the ankle bracelet off Jose’s leg. They accepted that demand, and when Jose emerged from his check-in, he proudly showed us his unchained ankle. We thank Secretary Castro for following through on his promise. For Iowa CCI and myself, we view members of our community like Jose and Jacqueline as part of our family. So to not show up for them is to accept our family members’ death. And we can’t do that. Jose is not just a refugee, or an immigrant: he’s an Iowan. He’s a member of our community, and we’re going to fight for him to have every right that we have. Because if we leave anybody out, then we’re never going to get where we want to go.

Ross Floyd is an organizer at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and a graduate of Grinnell College.

Public Impeachment Hearings Open

Key US diplomats to testify in first public impeachment hearing. CNN: “The House is taking a historic step forward Wednesday in its impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, holding public hearings that Democrats hope will show the public that the President abused the power of his office to obtain dirt on a potential 2020 rival while withholding vital security aid from Ukraine. The top US diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent are testifying at 10 a.m. ET Wednesday in the first public hearing of the House Democrats’ impeachment investigation into Trump and Ukraine. Both received subpoenas Wednesday to testify, according to an official working on the impeachment inquiry, which also were issued before their closed-door depositions last month.
Taylor is one of the most important witnesses for the Democrats impeachment case. He testified behind closed doors last month that he was told Trump held up US security aid and denied a one-on-one meeting with the Ukrainian President unless Ukraine announced an investigation into his political rivals. Taylor said he was told by officials who spoke with the President that Trump wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “go to a microphone” to announce the investigation.”

SCOTUS May Undermine DREAMers

Supreme Court may side with Trump on ‘DREAMers’. NPR: “The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled Tuesday that it may let the Trump administration shut down the Obama-era program that granted temporary protection from deportation to roughly 700,000 young people, commonly known as DREAMers. Brought to the U.S. illegally as children, the DREAMers were allowed to legally work and go to school if they met certain requirements and passed a background check. The program, begun in 2012, is known as DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Until Tuesday the administration had consistently maintained that it had no choice but to pull the plug on the program because, as President Trump’s attorney general put it in September 2017, the DACA program was “illegal” and “unconstitutional” from the time it was first put in place in 2012.

Trump’s WikiLeaks Strategy Revealed In Roger Stone Trial

Former top Trump official details campaign’s dealings on WikiLeaks, and suggests Trump was in the know. WaPo: “Roger Stone was the linchpin of a months-long effort by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to discover damaging information on Hillary Clinton to be released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, an effort that began before the hack of Democratic emails was publicly known, Stone’s trial has shown. Testimony over four days ending Tuesday also revealed engagement by Trump and top aides in making use of Stone’s claims that he knew emails detrimental to Clinton’s campaign would be released. The trial in federal court in Washington turns on accusations that Stone lied to Congress about his attempts to learn more about what WikiLeaks would publish and when it would do so. But some testimony also raises questions about the president’s written assertions under oath that he did not recall being aware of communications between Stone and WikiLeaks or recall any conversations about WikiLeaks between Stone and members of his campaign.”

Buttegieg Challenged On Skating Away From Medicare For All

Justice Democrats accuse Buttigieg of abandoning Medicare for All after taking ‘tons of cash’ from corporate interests. Common Dreams: “Providing a two-year timeline of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s remarks about Medicare for All, progressive advocacy group Justice Democrats on Wednesday accused the South Bend, Indiana mayor of abandoning support for single-payer healthcare in favor of an incremental half-measure after realizing ‘he could raise tons of cash from corporate executives in the pharmaceutical and insurance industry.’ Waleed Shahid, spokesperson for Justice Democrats, said in a statement that Buttigieg “has no credibility” to criticize fellow 2020 contenders Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for being “evasive” on Medicare for All ‘given how far his position has shifted over the past two years and how much money he’s been taking from Big Pharma and insurance executives.’ According to a Business Insider analysis published in August, Buttigieg—who is now running on a public option plan called “Medicare for All Who Want It”—has received more campaign cash from the healthcare industry than any other 2020 presidential candidate aside from President Donald Trump. Shahid suggested Tuesday that industry cash played a role in Buttigieg’s decision to ditch Medicare for All and go on the attack against the popular proposal in campaign ads and the presidential debates.”

34m Americans Know Someone Who Died Without Access To Health Care

Millions in U.S. Lost Someone Who Couldn’t Afford Treatment. Gallup: “More than 13% of American adults — or about 34 million people — report knowing of at least one friend or family member in the past five years who died after not receiving needed medical treatment because they were unable to pay for it, based on a new study by Gallup and West Health. Nonwhites, those in lower-income households, those younger than 45, and political independents and Democrats are all more likely to know someone who has died under these circumstances. These data are based on surveys with 1,099 U.S. adults across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, conducted Sept. 16-30, 2019. Respondents were asked, “Has there been a time in the last five years when a friend or family member passed away after not receiving treatment for their condition due to their inability to pay for it?” These results are not meant to quantify the number of people who have died after not being able to pay for medical treatment, including prescription drugs, but rather the number of people who report knowledge of a death under such circumstances. In all, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 2.8 million persons died in 2017 in the U.S. across all causes.”

Trump Advisor Stephen Miller Openly Embraced White Supremacy

Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails. SPLC: “In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch. The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children. Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a ‘white genocide’-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in ‘Mein Kampf.’ Miller’s perspective on race and immigration across the emails is repetitious. When discussing crime, which he does scores of times, Miller focuses on offenses committed by nonwhites. On immigration, he touches solely on the perspective of severely limiting or ending nonwhite immigration to the United States. Hatewatch was unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.”

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MORNING MESSAGE

Sean Broadbent, Cheng-Sim Lim, Sasha Rappaport

What It Takes To Win Medicare For All In Every Community

On Tuesday, November 5th, the Los Angeles City Council voted ten to one in favor of a resolution in support of the Medicare for All Act of 2019. Los Angeles is now the largest city in the United States to do so, joining Tampa, Detroit, Seattle, Chicago’s Cook County in this growing movement. Getting the resolution passed was the culmination of months of advocacy. We were entirely grassroots, and knowing no one in the City or County government, we decided to look into the closest entry point to local government – the Neighborhood Council. If we could present the bills to the Neighborhood Councils to endorse, we thought, might there something they could do to push the City to pass a resolution? Within a month, nine Neighborhood Councils had approved our initiative, and people at City Hall were starting to take notice. Advocates met with Los Angeles City Councilmembers to ask them to introduce a resolution, citing this support within the community. Community outreach works. Listening and sharing stories works. Get to know who your elected officials are at any level of government. It seems basic, but make it to a City Council or Neighborhood Council meeting. Find out how they work and find a way to get involved. Most importantly, don’t do it alone. You’ll appreciate the support and camaraderie. What we’ve learned most of all is that healthcare touches every one of us, and sharing our collective stories can catalyze action in response. The City of Los Angeles heard our stories, and responded. The City now stands with us on the side of health justice. To those Senators and Representatives yet to join the fight for Medicare for All, hear us too.

Guide To Impeachment Hearings

Who will testify and how the questioning will work.NPR: “Public impeachment hearings begin Wednesday, and the first round of witnesses include three career public servants who have testified behind closed doors that President Trump did link military aid and a White House meeting for Ukraine with a promise to investigate one of the president’s domestic political opponents. ‘The American people will hear firsthand about the President’s misconduct,’ Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said of the open hearings. The first hearing is on Wednesday, beginning at 10 a.m. ET. The second hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. ET on Friday. You can watch live on NPR.org and listen to special coverage on many local public radio stations. Schiff is using this week’s hearings to focus on the testimony from officials who handled U.S. policy in Ukraine. All three have already appeared in closed-door interviews and backed up the complaint filed by an anonymous whistleblower that set off the impeachment inquiry. Transcripts of those interviews have already been released.”

SCOTUS Hears DACA

Dreamers hold their breath as Supreme Court takes up future of 800,000. NBC: “The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Tuesday on a Trump administration challenge to lower court rulings that blocked the administration from ending the program, which President Donald Trump announced he would do in 2017. Administration officials argue the program interferes with its immigration enforcement efforts and sanctions the violation of federal law, but they have been challenged in court by civil rights, legal and immigration groups. A number of national groups will rally outside the Supreme Court as Democratic lawmakers, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will be holding a press conference and a prayer breakfast with national leaders in support of the program as the oral arguments begin inside the Supreme Court.”

70,000 Kids In U.S. Detention

U.S. held nearly 70,000 migrant kids in custody in 2019, government data shows. Newsweek: “The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him. After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, she arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her once-beloved father abandoned her. He fears their bond is forever broken. ‘I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,’ he said days after their reunion. This month new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more kids detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has recognized detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.”

U.S. Must Provide Mental Health Services To Traumatized Families

U.S. must provide mental health services to families separated at border. NYT: “A federal judge has ruled that the government must provide mental health services to thousands of migrant parents and children who experienced psychological harm as a result of the Trump administration’s practice of separating families. The decision, issued late Tuesday, marks a rare instance of the government being held legally accountable for mental trauma brought about by its policies — in this case, border security measures that locked thousands of migrant parents in detention while their children were placed in government shelters or foster homes. Judge John A. Kronstadt of the United States District Court in Los Angeles ordered the federal government to immediately make available mental health screenings and treatment to thousands of families forcibly separated under the policy, which was primarily carried out in 2017 and 2018 — though hundreds of similar separations still occur. In his ruling, Judge Kronstadt referred to previous federal cases that found that governments can be held liable when with ‘deliberate indifference’ they place people in dangerous situations. In the past, the ‘state-created danger’ doctrine has been applied when a police officer ejected a person from a bar late at night in very cold weather, or when a public employer failed to address toxic mold that caused workers to fall ill. In this case, the judge said, the Trump administration could be held accountable for the enduring psychological harm brought about by forcibly taking children from their parents at the border with no guarantee of when or how they would be reunited. Thousands of parents spent months in often agonizing limbo, plaintiffs in the case argued, unable to communicate with their children and in many cases not knowing even where the children were being held.”

Hedge Fund-Backed GOP Group Attacks Warren

Hedge fund-backed GOP group coordinates campaign against Warren. The Intercept: “America Rising — which is affiliated with a political action committee, a public relations firm, and a for-profit research company, as well as several news websites — has been backed over the years by Republican donors, including hedge-fund billionaires Paul Singer and Ken Griffin, private equity investor John Childs, and banker Andrew Beal. America Rising did not respond to a request for comment. The organization did not claim direct responsibility for the Warren story, but touted the documents as soon as they appeared online via an allied conservative website called the Washington Free Beacon. Free Beacon is also funded by Singer. America Rising is known for attempting to dig up dirt on politicians, journalists, and activists on behalf of donors’ interests. The group went after journalist Jane Mayer, shopping negative information about the New Yorker writer following the publication of her book “Dark Money.” In 2016, America Rising focused on environmentalist Bill McKibben, dispatching its team to obtain thousands of documents from McKibben’s past and to follow the Vermont-based writer, filming him at public events, as well as while grocery shopping and sitting in a church pew. This year, Definers Public Affairs, an affiliate of America Rising that shares the same staff, decided to rebrand following revelations that the company had been retained by Facebook to orchestrate a campaign to smear its critics.”

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