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The GOP 'Tax Scam' Is a 'Dirty Deal' for America |
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Tuesday, 26 December 2017 14:27 |
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Redford writes: "I've always believed our country's wide open landscapes reflects our unique American spirit. It's that sense of boundless opportunity, personal freedom and the pursuit of equality that's defined us as a people, and inspired us, from our start as a nation."
Robert Redford, founder of the Sundance Institute, interacts with the media during the opening day press conference at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
The GOP 'Tax Scam' Is a 'Dirty Deal' for America
By Robert Redford, TIME
26 December 17
 ’ve always believed our country’s wide open landscapes reflects our unique American spirit. It’s that sense of boundless opportunity, personal freedom and the pursuit of equality that’s defined us as a people, and inspired us, from our start as a nation.
Those values created what is often called America’s best idea, the promise to protect and preserve the natural splendor of this country, not just for some, but for all of us. And not just for today, but for all time.
President Donald Trump is trying to break that promise and sacrifice spectacular lands for the sake of oil and gas profits. His target is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last truly wild places left on this Earth.
The Arctic Refuge is a national treasure, so majestic and wild and beautiful the Gwich’in people call it “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.” Part of the reason Republican President Eisenhower set aside the Arctic Refuge more than 50 years ago.
Oil and gas companies have coveted those lands ever since. They’ve tried, and failed, more than a dozen times, to break down the protections that guard the refuge from drilling, and the harm they cause.
Congress is about to shell out tax cuts to these same big corporations, and you may not know their deal includes a provision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling if they get their way.
They are claiming to pay for proposed tax cuts by charging oil companies $100 million a year to mine the Refuge but we all know what’s really going on. $100 million dollars sounds great, but don’t be fooled. It won’t even pay the interest on our new debt for even a single day.
And it’s not even close to being worth the trade for giving up the Refuge. It’s a dirty deal — but it’s not a done deal. Republicans are scrambling to get their tax scam out of Congress and onto Trump’s desk by Christmas. I believe we can still stop it — but we’ve got days, not weeks.
Join me right now to stand up for this special place. Tell Congress you’ll hold them responsible if they give away our lands to the most profitable companies in the world. Remind them of our American spirit, the will to fight and to stand up for causes and ideas bigger than ourselves.
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FOCUS: Russia Never Stopped Its Cyberattacks on the United States |
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Tuesday, 26 December 2017 12:34 |
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Excerpt: "Every first-year international-relations student learns about the importance of deterrence: It prevented a Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the height of the Cold War."
The Russian president's cuts to the American diplomatic mission may prove to be an opening gambit in negotiations rather than an ironclad position. (photo: Sergey Guneev/Sputnik/AP)
Russia Never Stopped Its Cyberattacks on the United States
By Michael Morell and Mike Rogers, The Washington Post
26 December 17
Michael Morell is a former deputy director and twice acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, served in the House from 2001 to 2015 and was chairman of the Intelligence Committee from 2010 to 2015. Both are on the advisory council for the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
 very first-year international-relations student learns about the importance of deterrence: It prevented a Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the height of the Cold War. It prevented North Korea from invading South Korea in the same time frame. Today, it keeps Iran from starting a hot war in the Middle East or other nations from initiating cyberattacks against our infrastructure.
And yet, the United States has failed to establish deterrence in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. We know we failed because Russia continues to aggressively employ the most significant aspect of its 2016 tool kit: the use of social media as a platform to disseminate propaganda designed to weaken our nation.
There is a perception among the media and general public that Russia ended its social-media operations following last year’s election and that we need worry only about future elections. But that perception is wrong. Russia’s information operations in the United States continued after the election and they continue to this day.
This should alarm everyone — Republicans, Democrats and independents alike. Foreign governments, overtly or covertly, should not be allowed to play with our democracy.
Russia’s information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.
In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman.
This continues a pattern of similar activity over the past year. Russian operatives have frequently targeted Republican politicians who have been critical of Trump, including Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.). In September, they also attacked Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) after his decisive “no” vote against the Republican health-care bill.
And in mid-November, after Keurig pulled its advertising from Sean Hannity’s Fox News show for comments the host made defending Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, the Russians used their social media accounts to urge a boycott of the company. For two days, #boycottkeurig was the most used hashtag among Kremlin-influenced Twitter accounts. This was a Russian attack on a U.S. company and on our economy.
More troublingly, other countries are beginning to follow Russia’s lead on social media, according to research provided by the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The Chinese are doing so in Taiwan, where 75 percent of the population consumes media from a Japanese instant messaging app called LINE — a hotbed for fake news, much of it from China. Some of the messages pushed by Beijing — including one incorrectly saying that the Taiwan government was planning to regulate Buddhist and Taoist temples — have resulted in large protests in Taipei. And Turkey is starting to use social media to try to influence European policy debates, specifically by targeting the large Turkish diaspora in Europe.
While those information operations have not yet reached the United States, they most certainly will. Russia’s use of social media as a political weapon will continue, and more countries will follow suit — until deterrence is established.
The sanctions that the Obama administration and Congress put in place in the aftermath of the 2016 election are steps in the right direction, but they were not significant enough to check Russian President Vladimir Putin. True deterrence requires policies that prevent adversaries from achieving their objectives while imposing significant costs on their regimes. So far, we have done neither.
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FOCUS: Who Are We as a Country? Time to Decide. |
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Tuesday, 26 December 2017 11:49 |
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Yates writes: "Stand up and speak out on America's core founding values. We are not living in ordinary times, and it's not enough to admire them from afar."
A sit-in at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., urging lawmakers to take money out of the political process. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Who Are We as a Country? Time to Decide.
By Sally Yates, USA TODAY
26 December 17
 ver the course of our nation’s history, we have faced inflection points — times when we had to decide who we are as a country and what we stand for. Now is such a time. Beyond policy disagreements and partisan gamesmanship, there is something much more fundamental hanging in the balance. Will we remain faithful to our country’s core values?
Our founding documents set forth the values that make us who we are, or at least who we aspire to be. I say aspire to be because we haven’t always lived up to our founding ideals — even at the time of our founding. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were being enslaved by their fellow Americans.
Not so long ago, all across the Jim Crow South, our country’s definition was defiled by lynchings, the systematic disenfranchisement of African-American voters, and the burning of freedom riders’ buses. And still today, we have yet to realize fully our nation’s promise of equal justice.
But while we have too often fallen short, we have remained dedicated to our defining principles in our resolve to form a more perfect union. These principles have remained if not fully who we are, at least who we seek to be.
Despite our differences, we as Americans have long held a shared vision of what our country means and what values we expect our leaders to embrace. Today, our continued commitment to these unifying principles is needed more than ever.
What are the values that unite us? You don’t have to look much further than the Preamble to our Constitution, just 52 words, to find them:
“We the people of the United States” (we are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship) “in order to form a more perfect union” (we are a work in progress dedicated to a noble pursuit) “establish justice” (we revere justice as the cornerstone of our democracy) “insure domestic tranquility” (we prize unity and peace, not divisiveness and discord), “provide for the common defense” (we should never give any foreign adversary reason to question our solidarity) “promote the general welfare” (we care about one another; compassion and decency matter) “and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” (we have a responsibility to protect not just our own generation, but future ones as well).
Our forefathers packed a lot into that single sentence. Our Bill of Rights is similarly succinct in guaranteeing individual liberties — rights that we have come to take for granted but without vigilance can erode and slip away, such as freedom of speech (our right to protest and be heard); freedom of religion (the essential separation between how one worships and the power of the state); and freedom of the press (a democratic institution essential to informing the public and holding our leaders accountable).
Our shared values include another essential principle, and that’s the rule of law — the promise that the law applies equally to everyone, that no person is above it, and that all are entitled to its protection. This concept of equal protection recognizes that our country’s strength comes from honoring, not weaponizing, the diversity that springs from being a nation of Native Americans and immigrants of different races, religions and nationalities.
The rule of law depends not only on things that are written down, but also on important traditions and norms, such as apolitical law enforcement. That’s why Democratic and Republican administrations alike, at least since Watergate, have honored that the rule of law requires a strict separation between the Justice Department and the White House on criminal cases and investigations. This wall of separation is what ensures the public can have confidence that the criminal process is not being used as a sword to go after one’s political enemies or as a shield to protect those in power. It’s what separates us from an autocracy.
POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
And there is something else that separates us from an autocracy, and that’s truth. There is such a thing as objective truth. We can debate policies and issues, and we should. But those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications.
Not only is there such a thing as objective truth, failing to tell the truth matters. We can’t control whether our public servants lie to us. But we can control whether we hold them accountable for those lies or whether, in either a state of exhaustion or to protect our own political objectives, we look the other way and normalize an indifference to truth.
We are not living in ordinary times, and it is not enough for us to admire our nation’s core values from afar. Our country’s history is littered with individuals and factions who have tried to exploit our imperfections, but it is more powerfully marked by those whose vigilance toward a more perfect union has prevailed.
So stand up. Speak out. Our country needs all of us to raise our collective voices in support of our democratic ideals and institutions. That is what we stand for. That is who we are. And with a shared commitment to our founding principles, that is who we will remain.
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Tribune Editorial: Why Orrin Hatch Is Utahn of the Year |
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Tuesday, 26 December 2017 09:37 |
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Excerpt: "The Tribune has assigned the label to the Utahn who, over the past 12 months, has done the most. Has made the most news. Has had the biggest impact. For good or for ill."
Orrin Hatch. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Tribune Editorial: Why Orrin Hatch Is Utahn of the Year
By The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board
26 December 17
 hese things are often misunderstood. So, lest our readers, or the honoree himself, get the wrong impression, let us repeat the idea behind The Salt Lake Tribune’s Utahn of the Year designation.
The criteria are not set in stone. But this year, as many times in the past, The Tribune has assigned the label to the Utahn who, over the past 12 months, has done the most. Has made the most news. Has had the biggest impact. For good or for ill.
The selection of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch as the 2017 Utahn of the Year has little to do with the fact that, after 42 years, he is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, that he has been a senator from Utah longer than three-fifths of the state’s population has been alive.
It has everything to do with recognizing:
- Hatch’s part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
- His role as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code.
- His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.
Each of these actions stands to impact the lives of every Utahn, now and for years to come. Whether those Utahns approve or disapprove of those actions has little consequence in this specific recognition. Only the breadth and depth of their significance matters.
As has been argued in this space before, the presidential decision to cut the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in half and to slash the size of the brand new Bears Ears National Monument by some 90 percent has no constitutional, legal or environmental logic.
To all appearances — appearances promoted by Hatch — this anti-environmental, anti-Native American and, yes, anti-business decommissioning of national monuments was basically a political favor the White House did for Hatch. A favor done in return for Hatch’s support of the president generally and of his tax reform plan in particular.
And, on the subject of tax reform: For a very long time indeed, Hatch has said that his desire to stick around long enough to have a say in what indeed would be a long-overdue overhaul of the nations’ Byzantine tax code is the primary reason he has run for re-election time after time.
Last week, he did it.
The tax bill that passed the House and the Senate and was signed into law by the president Friday is being praised for bringing corporate tax rates in line with the nation’s post-industrial competitors and otherwise benefiting corporations and investors in a way that backers see as a boost to the economy, even as opponents vilify it for favoring the rich and adding to the federal budget deficit.
No matter who turns out to be right about that argument, the fact remains that tax reform has been talked about and talked about for decades and only now has anything been done. And Hatch, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has his fingerprints all over it.
But perhaps the most significant move of Hatch’s career is the one that should, if there is any justice, end it.
The last time the senator was up for re-election, in 2012, he promised that it would be his last campaign. That was enough for many likely successors, of both parties, to stand down, to let the elder statesman have his victory tour and to prepare to run for an open seat in 2018.
Clearly, it was a lie. Over the years, Hatch stared down a generation or two of highly qualified political leaders who were fully qualified to take his place, Hatch is now moving to run for another term — it would be his eighth — in the Senate. Once again, Hatch has moved to freeze the field to make it nigh unto impossible for any number of would-be senators to so much as mount a credible challenge. That’s not only not fair to all of those who were passed over. It is basically a theft from the Utah electorate.
It would be good for Utah if Hatch, having finally caught the Great White Whale of tax reform, were to call it a career. If he doesn’t, the voters should end it for him.
Common is the repetition of the catchphrase that Hatch successfully used to push aside three-term Sen. Frank Moss in this first election in, egad, 1976.
“What do you call a senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”
Less well known is a bit of advice Hatch gave to Capitol Hill interns in 1983.
“You should not fall in love with D.C.” he admonished them. “Elected politicians shouldn’t stay here too long.”
If only he had listened to his own advice.
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any of us came into 2017 expecting the worst. And in many ways, the worst is what we got.
