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FOCUS: Key Trump Impeachment Defense Is Blowing Up in Republicans' Faces |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=49829"><span class="small">Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair</span></a>
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Thursday, 14 November 2019 12:00 |
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Lutz writes: "Republicans are looking to defend Donald Trump against impeachment, in part by claiming that he was not directly involved in any pressure campaign his personal attorney may have mounted on Ukraine."
Top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. waits to testify before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 13, 2019 in Washington, DC. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Key Trump Impeachment Defense Is Blowing Up in Republicans' Faces
By Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair
14 November 19
During Wednesday’s public hearings, diplomat Bill Taylor testified that the president was well aware of his administration’s dealings in Ukraine.
 epublicans are looking to defend Donald Trump against impeachment, in part by claiming that he was not directly involved in any pressure campaign his personal attorney may have mounted on Ukraine. “If it’s a step removed from the president,” one Republican told Axios Wednesday, just before Democrats took their impeachment inquiry public, “he doesn’t lose any Republicans in the House.” Unfortunately for the president, Bill Taylor, the career diplomat who has become one of the inquiry’s key witnesses, rendered that already-shaky talking point more or less useless, testifying that a member of his staff overheard a phone call between Trump and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland discussing the probes the president and Rudy Giuliani had sought.
“In the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kiev,” Taylor testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday morning. “The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about ‘the investigations.’ Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.”
The conversation, which allegedly occurred on July 26 and which Taylor told lawmakers he had been unaware of until last week and had therefore not included in his closed-door testimony, undercuts the notion that any attempt to pressure Volodymyr Zelensky was undertaken without Trump’s blessing, directly implicating the president in the extortion scheme. Republicans had been seeking to pin any “rogue” foreign policy moves on Giuliani, distancing Trump himself from the allegations. Republicans have also sought to dismiss tales of Trump’s wrongdoing as politically-motivated, claiming the president was merely trying to root out corruption. But, the Ukraine charge d’affaires testified Wednesday, what Trump actually seemed to care about was getting Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden. “Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine,” Taylor said. “Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.”
The conversation—which, according to Taylor, occurred the day after Trump’s call with Zelensky that triggered the whistleblower complaint—was one of many details disclosed by Taylor and diplomat George Kent in their appearances on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Speaking in somber tones that contrasted with an opening statement from Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the committee, Kent and Taylor gave detailed accounts of how Trump associates, apparently at his direction, dangled military aid and a White House visit appearance over Ukraine. This effort undermined U.S. policy of support for Ukraine and endangered both Kiev and Washington’s strategic interests, the diplomats said.
Much of what Kent and Taylor described in their televised opening statements is not new to anyone who read transcripts of their closed-door testimonies, but watching them describe an apparent extortion attempt by the president and his cronies is different than merely reading words on a page. It remains to be seen if their accounts are powerful enough to move the needle with the public—and, more importantly, with Senate Republicans, who hold Trump’s potential conviction in the balance. But at the very least, their testimonies make it a hell of a lot harder to reasonably argue that everybody but Trump was participating in the scheme. That argument could become even more difficult to make later this week. After Taylor’s remarks, a reporter for CBS News tweeted that Democrats had scheduled additional interview for Thursday and Friday this week. One witness, on Friday, will be David Holmes, an aide to Taylor.
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Fighting Antisemitism Is at the Heart of the Left's Struggle Against Oppression |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=24193"><span class="small">Bernie Sanders, Guardian UK</span></a>
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Thursday, 14 November 2019 09:27 |
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Sanders writes: "On 27 October, we marked one year since the worst antisemitic attack in American history, when a white nationalist walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and murdered 11 people and injured six others."
Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)
Fighting Antisemitism Is at the Heart of the Left's Struggle Against Oppression
By Bernie Sanders, Guardian UK
14 November 19
The antisemites threatening us don’t just hate Jews. They hate the idea of multiracial democracy and political equality
 n 27 October, we marked one year since the worst antisemitic attack in American history, when a white nationalist walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and murdered 11 people and injured six others. He acted on a twisted belief that Jews were part of a nefarious plot to undermine white America – a plot to assist in the “invasion” of the United States by a caravan of migrants from Latin America. This vicious lie about an “invasion” had been repeated endlessly in rightwing media, on Fox News, across the internet and, most disgracefully, by the president of the United States.
Yes, Donald Trump’s own words helped to inspire the worst act of antisemitic violence in American history.
The threat of antisemitism is not some abstract idea to me. It is very personal. It destroyed a large part of my family. I am not someone who spends a lot of time talking about my personal background because I believe political leaders should focus their attention on a vision and agenda for others, rather than themselves. But I also appreciate that it’s important to talk about how our backgrounds have informed our ideas, our principles and our values. I am a proud Jewish American. My father emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1921 at the age of 17 to escape the poverty and widespread antisemitism of his home country. Those in his family who remained in Poland after Hitler came to power were murdered by the Nazis. I know very well where white supremacist politics leads, and what can happen when people do not speak up against it.
Antisemitism is rising in this country. According to the FBI, hate crimes against Jews rose by more than a third in 2017 and accounted for 58% of all religion-based hate crimes in America. A total of 938 hate crimes were committed against Jews in 2017, up from 684 in 2016. Just last week, on 4 November, we learned that federal authorities had arrested a man in Colorado they believe was involved in a plot to bomb one of the state’s oldest synagogues.
This wave of violence is the result of a dangerous political ideology that targets Jews and anyone who does not fit a narrow vision of a whites-only America. We have to be clear that while antisemitism is a threat to Jews everywhere, it is also a threat to democratic governance itself. The antisemites who marched in Charlottesville don’t just hate Jews. They hate the idea of multiracial democracy. They hate the idea of political equality. They hate immigrants, people of colour, LGBTQ people, women, and anyone else who stands in the way of a whites-only America. They accuse Jews of coordinating a massive attack on white people worldwide, using people of colour and other marginalised groups to do their dirty work.
This is the conspiracy theory that drove the Pittsburgh murderer – that Jews are conspiring to bring immigrants into the country to “replace” Americans. And it is important to understand that that is what antisemitism is: a conspiracy theory that a secretly powerful minority exercises control over society.
Like other forms of bigotry – racism, sexism, homophobia – antisemitism is used by the right to divide people from one another and prevent us from fighting together for a shared future of equality, peace, prosperity and environmental justice.
Opposing antisemitism is a core value of progressivism. So it’s very troubling to me that we are also seeing accusations of antisemitism used as a cynical political weapon against progressives. One of the most dangerous things Trump has done is divide Americans by using false allegations of antisemitism, mostly regarding the US–Israel relationship. We should be very clear that it is not antisemitic to criticise the policies of the Israeli government.
I have a connection to Israel going back many years. In 1963, I lived on a kibbutz near Haifa. It was there that I saw and experienced for myself many of the progressive values upon which Israel was founded. I think it is very important for everyone, but particularly for progressives, to acknowledge the enormous achievement of establishing a democratic homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of displacement and persecution.
We must also be honest about this: the founding of Israel is understood by another people in the land of Palestine as the cause of their painful displacement. And just as Palestinians should recognise the just claims of Israeli Jews, supporters of Israel must understand why Palestinians view Israel’s creation as they do. Acknowledging these realities does not “delegitimise” Israel any more than acknowledging the sober facts of America’s own founding delegitimises the United States.
It is true that some criticism of Israel can cross the line into antisemitism, especially when it denies the right of self-determination to Jews, or when it plays into conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish power. I will always call out antisemitism when I see it. My ancestors would expect no less of me. As president, I will strengthen both domestic and international efforts to combat this hatred. I will direct the Justice Department to prioritise the fight against white nationalist violence. I will not wait two years to appoint a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, as Trump did; I will appoint one immediately.
When I look at the Middle East, I see Israel as having the capacity to contribute to peace and prosperity for the entire region, yet unable to achieve this in part because of its unresolved conflict with the Palestinians. And I see a Palestinian people yearning to make their contribution – and with so much to offer – yet crushed beneath a military occupation that is now over a half-century old, creating a daily reality of pain, humiliation and resentment.
Ending that occupation and enabling the Palestinians to have self-determination in an independent, democratic, economically viable state of their own is in the best interests of the United States, Israel, the Palestinians and the region. My pride and admiration for Israel lives alongside my support for Palestinian freedom and independence.
I reject the notion that there is any contradiction there. The forces fomenting antisemitism are the forces arrayed against oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians; the struggle against antisemitism is also the struggle for Palestinian freedom. I stand in solidarity with my friends in Israel, in Palestine and around the world who are trying to resolve conflict, diminish hatred, and promote dialogue, cooperation and understanding.
We need this solidarity desperately now. All over the world – in Russia, in India, in Brazil, in Hungary, in Israel and elsewhere – we see the rise of a divisive and destructive form of politics. We see intolerant, authoritarian political leaders attacking the very foundations of democratic societies. These leaders exploit people’s fears by amplifying resentments, stoking intolerance and inciting hatred against ethnic and religious minorities, fanning hostility toward democratic norms and a free press, and promoting constant paranoia about foreign plots. We see this very clearly in our own country. It is coming from the highest level of our government. It is coming from Donald Trump’s tweets, and from his own mouth.
As a people who have experienced oppression and persecution for hundreds of years, Jews understand the danger. But we also have a tradition that points the way forward. I am a proud member of the tradition of Jewish social justice. And I am so inspired when I see so many Jewish people picking up this banner, especially the younger generation of Jews, who are helping to lead a revival of progressive values in the US. They see the fight against antisemitism and for Jewish liberation as connected to the fight for the liberation of oppressed people around the world. They are part of a broad coalition of activists from many different backgrounds who believe very deeply, as I always have, that we are all in this together.
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Why Does the United States Still Believe the Myth of the 'Good Coup'? |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=52179"><span class="small">Erica De Bruin, The Washington Post</span></a>
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Wednesday, 13 November 2019 14:01 |
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De Bruin writes: "U.S. officials have developed a bad habit of endorsing military meddling in global politics - ironically, in the name of democracy."
Police officers take part in a ceremony on Wednesday in La Paz, Bolivia. (photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)
Why Does the United States Still Believe the Myth of the 'Good Coup'?
By Erica De Bruin, The Washington Post
13 November 19
The U.S. praising Bolivia’s military overthrow is the latest example of supporting “good coups.”
 .S. officials have developed a bad habit of endorsing military meddling in global politics — ironically, in the name of democracy.
Some heralded the resignation of Bolivia’s president Evo Morales this week after nearly 14 years in power as a victory for democracy. Although his regime remained popular, Morales’s increasingly brazen efforts to serve a fourth term in office had sparked violent protests. Though Morales initially appeared determined to hold on to power, the turning point appears to have been the defection of Bolivia’s military and security forces. On Sunday, the commander of the armed forces publicly pressured him to step down.
While there is some debate about whether the developments in Bolivia constitute a “coup” or a “popular revolution,” the military’s role in Morales’s ouster has many of the hallmarks of a typical coup attempt. Coups are usually understood as illegal, overt attempts to unseat the executive. Those that involve generals and other high-ranking officers are frequently accomplished without the use of violence. Instead, they can take the form of public pressure to resign.
President Trump applauded Bolivia’s military for pressuring Morales. The developments in that country, he claimed, brought the world “one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.”
This is hardly the first time U.S. officials have implied that military intervention in politics might help countries usher in more democratic rule. Last April, when Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó called upon soldiers to join him in ousting President Nicolás Maduro from power, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested Guaidó’s proposed coup would result in “a peaceful democratic transition.”
Similarly, in 2013, when Egypt’s military leaders ousted Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected ruler, from power, Obama administration officials portrayed it as an expression of the popular will, rather than a coup attempt. Secretary of State John F. Kerry claimed that in ousting Morsi, the military was “restoring democracy” rather than seizing power.
The temptation to endorse the domestic political maneuverings of military leaders against unfriendly regimes is clearly strong for U.S. policymakers. In recent years, moreover, a number of observers have suggested that coups might be the only way to remove entrenched dictators from power. Coups sometimes succeed in replacing repressive rulers with more democratic ones, and since the end of the Cold War, these so-called “good coups” — those that are quickly followed by competitive elections — have risen in number. Examples include the coups in Niger in 1991 and Guinea-Bissau in 2003, both of which preceded free and fair elections.
But faith in the military to restore democracy is misplaced. There is, in fact, scant evidence that coups and other forms of military intervention result in more democratic rule. Notwithstanding the recent uptick in the number of “good coups,” coups still more often than not simply replace one dictator with another.
Just as importantly, those military interventions that are followed by elections rarely bring about lasting change. In Egypt, for instance, human rights organizations documented mass, arbitrary arrests, the detention of protesters and human rights workers, new restrictions on nongovernmental organizations and repression of political opposition. The same misplaced optimism followed the 2006 coup in Thailand.
What makes “good coups” lead to bad outcomes? The basic answer is that letting military elites’ interference in the political process go unchecked ultimately undermines norms of civilian control of the military that are a prerequisite for stable, democratic rule. It encourages military officers to see themselves as above the law. Hence, when civilian elites invite military officers to weigh in on politics, it is difficult to get them to stop. Morales himself learned this the hard way. When the current crisis began to unfold, he appealed directly to the military to help him remain in power, only to see it throw its weight behind his opponents.
It is a matter of long-standing U.S. policy, moreover, to bolster the norm of civilian control of the military abroad, as reflected in State and Defense departments’ security-assistance programs that devote substantial resources to convincing foreign militaries to accept that control. The opportunistic deviations from these principles by successive presidential administrations only undermine such commitments while achieving little in the way of real democracy promotion.
A response to the crisis in Bolivia consistent with promoting democratic rule would involve simultaneously condemning both the alleged electoral fraud that triggered the recent crisis as well as the military’s response to it. The temptation to rely on the military to check would-be authoritarians will continue to crop up in the context of mass protests. But the longer-term survival of democratic rule depends on resisting it.
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Why Billionaires Don't Really Like Capitalism |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51635"><span class="small">Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog</span></a>
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Wednesday, 13 November 2019 12:02 |
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Reich writes: "Billionaires are wailing that Elizabeth Warren's and Bernie Sanders's wealth tax proposals are attacks on free market capitalism."
Robert Reich. (photo: Getty)
Why Billionaires Don't Really Like Capitalism
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
13 November 19
 illionaires are wailing that Elizabeth Warren’s and Bernie Sanders’s wealth tax proposals are attacks on free market capitalism.
Warren “vilifies successful people,” says Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
Rubbish. There are basically only five ways to accumulate a billion dollars, and none of them has to do with being successful in free market capitalism.
The first way is to exploit a monopoly.
Jamie Dimon is worth $1.6 billion. That’s not because he succeeded in the free market. In 2008 the government bailed out JPMorgan and four other giant Wall Street banks because it considered them “too big to fail.”
That bailout is a hidden insurance policy, still in effect, with an estimated value to the big banks of $83 billion a year. If JPMorgan weren’t so big and was therefore allowed to fail, Dimon would be worth far less than $1.6 billion.
What about America’s much-vaulted entrepreneurs, such as Jeff Bezos, now worth $110 billion? You might say Bezos deserves this because he founded and built Amazon.
But Amazon is a monopolist with nearly 50 percent of all e-commerce retail sales in America, and e-commerce is one of the biggest sectors of retail sales. In addition, Amazon’s business is protected by a slew of patents granted by the U.S. government.
If the government enforced anti-monopoly laws, and didn’t give Amazon such broad patents,Bezos would be worth far less than $110 billion.
A second way to make a billion is to get insider information unavailable to other investors.
Hedge-fund maven Steven A. Cohen, worth $12.8 billion, headed up a hedge fund firm in which, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department, insider trading was “substantial, pervasive, and on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry.” Nine of Cohen’s present or former employees pleaded guilty or were convicted. Cohen got off with a fine, changed the name of his firm, and apparently is back at the game.
Insider trading is endemic in C-suites, too. SEC researchers have found that corporate executives are twice as likely to sell their stock on the days following their own stock buyback announcements as they are in the days leading up to the announcements.
If government cracked down on insider-trading, hedge-fund mavens and top corporate executives wouldn’t be raking in so much money.
A third way to make a billion is to buy off politicians.
The Trump tax cut is estimated to save Charles and the late David Koch and their Koch Industries an estimated $1 to $1.4 billion a year, not even counting their tax savings on profits stored offshore and a shrunken estate tax. The Kochs and their affiliated groups spent some $20 million lobbying for the Trump tax cut, including political donations. Not a bad return on investment.
If we had tough anti-corruption laws preventing political payoffs, the Kochs and other high-rollers wouldn’t get the special tax breaks and other subsidies that have enlarged their fortunes.
The fourth way to make a billion is to extort big investors.
Adam Neumann conned JP Morgan, SoftBank, and other investors to sink hundreds of millions into WeWork, an office-sharing startup. Neumann used some of the money to buy buildings he leased back to WeWork and to enjoy a lifestyle that included a $60 million private jet. WeWork never made a nickel of profit.
A few months ago, after Neumann was forced to disclose his personal conflicts of interest, WeWork’s initial public offering fell apart and the company’s estimated value plummeted. To salvage what they could, investors paid him over $1 billion to exit the board and give up his voting rights. Most other WeWork employees were left holdingnear-worthless stock options. Thousands were set to be laid off.
If we had tougher anti-fraud laws, Neumann and others like him wouldn’t be billionaires.
The fifth way to be a billionaire is to get the money from rich parents or relatives.
About 60 percent of all the wealth in America today is inherited, according to estimates by economist Thomas Piketty and his colleagues. That’s because, under U.S. tax law – which is itself largely a product of lobbying by the wealthy – the capital gains of one generation are wiped out when those assets are transferred to the next, and the estate tax is so tiny that fewer than 0.2 percent of estates were subject to it last year.
If unearned income were treated the same as earned income under the tax code, America’s non-working rich wouldn’t be billionaires. And if capital gains weren’t eliminated at death, many heirs wouldn’t be, either.
Capitalism doesn’t work well with monopolies, insider-trading, political payoffs, fraud, and large amounts of inherited wealth. Billionaires who don’t like Sanders’s and Warren’s wealth tax should at least support reforms that end these anti-capitalist advantages.
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didn’t decide to blow the whistle on Google’s deal, known internally as the Nightingale Project, glibly. The decision came to me slowly, creeping on me through my day-to-day work as one of about 250 people in Google and Ascension working on the project.
