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FOCUS | Rev. William Barber to Democrats: Overrule the Senate Parliamentarian and Pass the $15 Minimum Wage |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51501"><span class="small">Democracy Now!</span></a>
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Saturday, 06 March 2021 12:44 |
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Excerpt: "Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach, notes that 140 million people in the U.S. were already living in poverty before this pandemic, and he urges Democrats to 'stick together' and push through the minimum wage hike."
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. (photo: Eric Arnold)
Rev. William Barber to Democrats: Overrule the Senate Parliamentarian and Pass the $15 Minimum Wage
By Democracy Now!
06 March 21
AMY GOODMAN: The Senate voted Thursday to open debate on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The final vote was 51 to 50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie after every Republican senator voted against advancing the legislation. Democrats are hoping to pass the bill before March 14th, when extended unemployment benefits run out. The legislation has widespread support from voters. One new poll shows 77% of Americans support the bill, including nearly 60% of Republicans. But Senate Republicans are attempting to slow the process to a crawl. On Thursday, Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson forced Senate clerks to read the entire text of the stimulus bill aloud — more than 100,000 words filling 628 pages.
The House has already approved a $1.9 trillion relief package, but the Senate bill has some key differences. It reduces the number of people eligible for direct stimulus checks and does not include a provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over a number of years. The unelected Senate parliamentarian recently ruled the wage increase could not be included in a bill passed through what’s known as the budget reconciliation process.
However, the Fight for 15 is not over. The Senate will consider today an amendment by Senator Bernie Sanders to raise the hourly federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 over the next five years. Sanders spoke on the Senate floor Thursday.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: This is legislation that will increase wages for 30 million American workers. And if you ask me what the great economic crisis in our country is today, it’s not just high unemployment. It’s not just income and wealth inequality. It is that half of our people today and before the pandemic were living paycheck to paycheck. Their wages were so low that if they had a problem with their car or their kid got sick, suddenly they were in financial crisis. And in the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people should not be facing economic desperation when their car breaks down. And the reason for that is, significantly, that many millions of workers are earning starvation wages — and I underline that: starvation wages — in this country. I’d love to hear anybody get up here and tell me that they could live on seven-and-a-quarter an hour, they can live on eight bucks an hour, they can live on nine bucks an hour. You can’t.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Senator Bernie Sanders.
To talk about the push to raise the federal minimum wage, we’re joined now by the Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president of Repairers of the Breach. He and Reverend Liz Theoharis just wrote a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, published in The Nation, titled “VP Harris, Maybe You Were Elected for Such a Time as This.”
Reverend Barber, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain what you are demanding.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, first of all, thank you so much, Amy, for having me on this morning.
And we wrote that letter to Senator [sic] Harris and to Chuck Schumer and to Democrats and to President Biden. I can’t help but think right now about a passage of Scripture, Isaiah 10: “Woe unto those who legislate evil and rob the poor of their rights.”
When I went to West Virginia a few weeks ago and met with poor, low-wealth people, from the hollows of West Virginia to the streets of Charleston, they were clear — white and Black and Brown: When passing tax cuts, they said, for the wealthy, parliamentarians have never had the last word, and they shouldn’t have it now. Parliamentarian didn’t rule; the parliamentarian merely advises.
And they were demanding of Manchin, whose actions have just been shameful — Republicans’ actions have been sinister; his have been shameful. They were demanding that Democrats have to keep pushing. And as Bernie Sanders said, Senator Sanders, not one of these senators could live off of what people are living off of now. Every one of them makes hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And, Amy, I also — we’re pushing. I really want to hear Bernie Sanders also say “poverty wages.” We’ve got to say “poverty.” A hundred and forty million people were living in poverty even before — poverty or low wages, even before this pandemic. We said that Senator Schumer should have kept it in the bill — it shouldn’t have to be amended — should have been kept it in the bill and forced Vice President Harris to overrule the advice of the parliamentarian.
And the history is important here. The parliamentarian issue, parliamentarians advised and ruled out of order every attempt to end slavery. They ruled out of order attempts to change the Constitution, to change injustice after the Civil War. Nobody should want to be connected to that legacy. And if Senator Harris was to say no to the adviser, which has been done before — Trent Lott fired a parliamentarian, Hubert Humphrey did fire them, Rockefeller. There’s a history of this.
And then it would force it back to the floor, which would mean that senators would have to have 60 votes to override the presiding officer. Where we are now, if Bernie puts an amendment on the floor, if the Democrats were to stick together, first of all, the amendment could pass. Then it would put it back where the parliamentarian would advise against it. Then the vice president could say no to the advice. And it then would require 60 votes. And they don’t have 60 votes. Even Manchin and Sinema, those Democrats, they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to vote against the bill, which is why they want a pass. They don’t want to have to vote and let everybody see them vote against $15.
They know, lastly, that there are 62 million workers before this pandemic who were making less than $15 an hour. They know that the poor and low-wealth people were the first to be forced to go to work, the first to get infected, the first to get sick and the first to die. And they know that 55% of poor and low-wealth people voted for the Biden-Harris ticket.
They also know, lastly, that this issue of $15 an hour, the March on Washington, Amy, agenda was $2 an hour and the Civil Rights Act. Two dollars an hour in '63 would be $15 an hour today. Seventy percent of the public wants this. And I think Democrats are really playing with fire here if they don't get Manchin and Sinema in check or if Schumer pulls this out, and they don’t — and the vice president doesn’t overrule, because you’re talking about 62 million people. You’re talking about 65 million poor and low-wealth voters, and you’re talking about in the midst of a pandemic.
And it’s shameful, lastly, that in the midst of this pandemic, there are three things we have not done. Number one, we have not guaranteed unemployment and sick leave. Number two, we’ve not expanded healthcare. And number three, we’ve not decided to pay essential workers a living wage, essential, what they need, in the time in which 8 million more people have gone into poverty. Only 39% of this country can afford a $1,000 emergency. Seven-twenty-five is barely $15,000 a year. And tip workers make $2.13 an hour, 16 million tip workers, and 60% of them couldn’t even qualify for the unemployment offered during this pandemic. This is “Woe unto those who legislate evil and rob the poor of their rights.” And this robbery needs to stop, and we need to do what is right.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, what’s fascinating here is you have a group of people, a hundred people — and then, of course, there’s Kamala Harris — and the majority of them are millionaires saying $15 an hour is too much. You make a critical point about Manchin and Sinema. They have said they would not vote for that $15-an-hour increase — which is not right away. It would be over a number of years. Manchin said maybe he would tolerate $11. But that you’re saying if push came to shove, given its vast popularity among the American public, including Republicans, they would not go against this bill.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Don’t have the guts to do it. I don’t believe it. In West Virginia, 50% of the people work for less than a living wage. That’s 362,000 people. I’ve been to West Virginia. I’ve seen the fervor in the people. I’ve never seen the unity between Black people from the streets of Charleston and white people from the hollows of the mountain. When we we met with Manchin, we had persons from his own county, his hollow. One lady said, “I knew your mama. I knew Robert Byrd. This is not what Robert Byrd was about.” They have been strong. There are 900,000 poor and low-wealth people in West Virginia. In Arizona, there’s about almost a million people who make less than a living wage. They don’t want to have to vote. They want a pass. They want to be able to say, “Well, the parliamentarian didn’t allow it.” But the parliamentarian advises. The parliamentarian doesn’t rule.
And the reason I’m saying this to — we’ve said to Vice President Harris is it’s really a love statement. You have a chance here to make this our economic Selma. You have a chance to stand where Rosa Parks stood, where Fannie Lou Hamer stood, where Amelia Boynton stood, who was beat on the bridge in Selma but also was at the — with Poor People’s Campaign in '68, she was in Resurrection City. You have a chance to say, “Not only am I the first Black woman in the position, but I'm going to take a position, and I’m not going to allow a parliamentarian — one person — to block 62 million people who are poor and low-wealth. I’m not going to allow one person to hurt 25 million people who are facing hunger right now, 30 to 40 million people that are facing eviction. I’m not going to let one person block billions of dollars being pumped into the economy” — because, you know, if they did it immediately, it would actually pump $330 billion-plus into the economy. She could say, “I’m not going to allow the 74 million women who are poor and low-wealth in this country to continue to be hurt. No, I’m going to force you to have to vote on this. I may not be able to vote on it, but as the vice president, I’m not going to allow a parliamentarian to be more powerful than me. I’m going to overrule them.”
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the legacy of the parliamentarian? You’ve talked about it going back to slavery.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah. I mean, and that’s the other reason nobody should want to be lined up with this issue, because, Amy, none of this stuff is constitutional. Nobody swore to uphold a parliamentarian. They swore to uphold the Constitution, which declares the first thing you must do, if you’re going to heal — have domestic tranquility, is you must establish justice. And there is no justice when we still have people making $7.25 an hour. There is no justice when in America today we’ve declared, by our outdated poverty measurement, that if a person makes $12,761 a year, they are not poor. That is absurd.
There is no justification in allowing a parliamentarian — and as I’ve said, if you go back in history, every time the issue of slavery came up, parliamentarians advised against it, said it was not — it could not be brought to the floor, prior to slavery, and there were attempts to do it after the Civil War. And then the whole parliamentarian filibuster issue was used constantly by white supremacists in the Congress during the civil rights movement and prior to the civil rights movement. This is an ugly history.
And there is history, though, of it being defied. As I said, Hubert Humphrey did. Nelson Rockefeller did it. Trent Lott fired the parliamentarian. There’s no way — and that’s why we were so troubled. President Biden should loose the vice president. There’s no way in the world he — and I preached the inaugural ceremony. I have great respect. We are thankful for much else that’s in the bill. But there’s no way he should have said two weeks ago, “I’m going to abide by the parliamentarian.” The parliamentarian didn’t elect him. The parliamentarian isn’t a constitutional office. The parliamentarian, and use of it by oppressive forces in this country, has a deep and ugly history. No, overrule that parliamentarian and make those senators vote. Make them vote in front of the people.
AMY GOODMAN: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “Conservative Dems have fought so the Biden admin sends fewer & less generous relief checks than the Trump admin did. It’s a move that makes little-to-no political or economic sense, and targets an element of relief that is most tangibly felt by everyday people. An own-goal.” And, I mean, the stats are staggering. You write raising the minimum wage would, quote, “lift 40 percent of African-American workers and 62 million poor and low-income Americans of every race.”
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, first of all, again, I’m going to challenge even all the Democrats. We need to stop using this language about conservative. Look, they’re not conservative. There’s nothing conservative when you deestablish justice. To conserve means to hold on to something. So they’re not conservative. They’re not liberal. They’re not moderates. They’re not centrists. What is a centrist? You only make sure half the people get justice?
What we are seeing is a robbing of the rights of the poor. What we are seeing is a clear violation, I believe, of the fundamental principles of the Constitution. And that’s what we need to call it. It’s extreme. It’s catering to the corporate bloc in this country. It’s a refusal to treat people right. It is literally stomping on the hopes and dreams of the very people, poor and low-wealth people, who were the main ones to have kept this economy alive in the midst of a pandemic.
And lastly, there was no parliamentary issue brought up when we gave $6 trillion to the corporations, no issue brought up when 84% of the first COVID bill went to banks or corporations, no issue brought up when we gave $1.2 trillion to corporations that didn’t even go through the Congress. Mnuchin just did it.
And how tragic it would be to pass a bill that is less than what Republicans did, less than what McConnell did. And if Democrats are not careful, Republicans are going to outflank them. Trump and others are so cynical. They would come back — I bet you — if we don’t do this, and then propose a higher minimum wage and end up outflanking Democrats, because, you know, there’s a kind of populism that has a history in this country that is economic populism but is also socially regressive.
This makes no sense at all. Make these senators vote. So, when Bernie Sanders puts this motion on the table, Democrats should stick together, goes back to the vice president. She should overrule the advice — that’s all it is — of the parliamentarian and force it to a 60-vote margin. They have to have 60 votes to overrule the vice president. And let America see. If they’ve got the intestinal fortitude to vote against their own people, let us see that. And then we’ll be clear about what we need to do in the next election. But I don’t believe they have it. They just want a pass. They want to not have to vote, and they’re afraid to have to vote. And if we make them do it in the public, I don’t think they’ll vote against the people.
AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Dr. William Barber, I want to thank you for taking this time — you’re on the road in North Carolina — to be with us, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president of Repairers of the Breach. We’ll link to the letter you and Reverend Liz Theoharis wrote to Vice President Kamala Harris, published in The Nation, again, titled “VP Harris, Maybe You Were Elected for Such a Time as This.”
Next up, the House has passed H.R. 1, the most sweeping pro-democracy bill in decades, at a time when Republicans are pushing more than 250 state laws to restrict voting access. We’ll speak with New York Congressmember Mondaire Jones. Stay with us.
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FOCUS: Overrule the Parliamentarian. Or End the Filibuster. Americans Need a $15 Minimum Wage. |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=58551"><span class="small">Rep. Ro Khanna, The Washington Post</span></a>
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Saturday, 06 March 2021 12:14 |
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Khanna writes: "Three years ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and I introduced the Stop Bezos Act, which would have forced large companies such as Amazon to repay the federal government for subsidizing their inadequate wages."
Rep. Ro Khanna. (photo: Tom Williams/Getty Images)
Overrule the Parliamentarian. Or End the Filibuster. Americans Need a $15 Minimum Wage.
By Rep. Ro Khanna, The Washington Post
06 March 21
 hree years ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and I introduced the Stop Bezos Act, which would have forced large companies such as Amazon to repay the federal government for subsidizing their inadequate wages. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Post.) Establishment fearmongers insisted that if these companies paid a higher wage, they’d have to eliminate thousands of jobs. Instead, when Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 in response to our legislation, competitors raised their wages as well, while Amazon saw record job growth, doubled its number of employees and pushed their market cap past $1 trillion.
The country as a whole would similarly benefit if we raise the minimum wage to $15. Thirty-two million Americans make less than $15 an hour, with millions making either $7.25 or are tipped workers with only a $2.13 cash wage guaranteed. Sixty-seven percent of Americans support raising the minimum wage to $15. Sadly, because the unelected Senate parliamentarian has blocked a minimum-wage increase from the president’s covid relief package, millions of workers, disproportionately Black and Brown, may not receive a raise.
But the Senate can still pass this wage increase, notwithstanding the parliamentarian ruling. That’s why I led a letter with 22 of my colleagues urging the Biden administration to support overruling the parliamentarian. This step would not break with precedent. The vice president, acting as the Senate’s presiding officer, disregarded the parliamentarian’s ruling three times in the 1960s and 1970s. Any senator could appeal the decision, but 60 votes would be required to overrule the chair. Given this high bar, the vice president’s decision is the final say on the matter.
If the parliamentarian is not overruled, we should end the filibuster, an arcane procedural tool that President Barack Obama recently called “a Jim Crow relic.” Another path forward is for the administration to support attaching the provision to the must-pass defense bill and ensure it’s not diluted during conference. Otherwise, we could be stuck with Sen. Mitt Romney’s $10 proposal, which is both grossly inadequate and imposes a costly burden on small businesses to prove they don’t hire undocumented workers. (Ironically, Romney’s bill would push undocumented workers into the shadows and decrease their bargaining ability, further depressing wages.)
As a progressive capitalist, I believe that paying workers a higher wage is pro-growth and pro-business. With higher wages, fewer employees will work multiple jobs to pay the bills. They’ll be less exhausted at work, happier and more productive. Employee retention rates will rise. With additional money in their pockets, Americans will spend and stimulate economic growth. And Americans have more than earned this raise. If the minimum wage kept pace with productivity, those 32 million workers would make $24. Yet, employee wages have stagnated since the 1970s, while the earnings of executives skyrocketed.
Despite the experience of Amazon and others, some argue that increased wages will destroy jobs because businesses won’t be able to afford to pay their workers. The most recent studies show no evidence of this, and the few studies that have found loss of employment often relied on flawed or incomplete methods. Economist Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst finds that even when minimum wages are at 80 percent of the median wage ($19.33 in 2019), there haven’t been negative job impacts. This was confirmed by research from University of California at Berkeley economists Anna Godoey and Michael Reich, who studied minimum wages in states that were raised to 82 percent of the country’s median wage. Finally, this proposal gives businesses five years to adjust to this change. The federal government should provide small businesses tax credits to ensure they can afford paying workers a raise.
Free-marketeers also argue we are interrupting a contract between American workers and a business by forcing this wage floor. But in many cases, monopsonies — where one employer can dominate the labor market — are at play. Workers lose their bargaining power, with few jobs to choose from, plunging their wages below the competitive market price. With the decline of unions, workers’ bargaining power is further undercut, and workers have low-wage jobs.
It’s time to reverse these trends. Nationally, we should pay everyone at least $15 an hour. This is barely enough to scrape by, regardless of your Zip code. I encourage those arguing otherwise to try to afford rent, utilities, food, child care, eldercare, car expenses, health care, school supplies and clothes on $2,400 a month before tax. It’s still not a living wage for many, especially families with children, but it is a huge lift over the terrible status quo. A $15 minimum wage is more than good politics and smart economics. We have a moral obligation to 32 million Americans to act.
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Haiti's Massive Protests Are a Repudiation of Authoritarianism and US Intervention |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=58547"><span class="small">Kim Ives and Arvind Dilawar, Jacobin</span></a>
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Saturday, 06 March 2021 09:23 |
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Excerpt: "Haiti's corrupt, US-backed president is facing massive demonstrations after refusing to step down. US intervention has stifled Haitian democracy and impoverished its people - and the protests are an effort to fight back."
Haitians gather in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to stage a demonstration against President Jovenel Moïse, who refuses to step down. (photo: Sabin Johnson/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Haiti's Massive Protests Are a Repudiation of Authoritarianism and US Intervention
By Kim Ives and Arvind Dilawar, Jacobin
06 March 21
Haiti’s corrupt, US-backed president is facing massive demonstrations after refusing to step down. US intervention has stifled Haitian democracy and impoverished its people — and the protests are an effort to fight back.
 ince February 14, thousands of Haitians have taken to the streets every weekend in the capitol of Port-au-Prince and elsewhere to protest President Jovenel Moïse’s refusal to abdicate power. Moïse, who was elected with the backing of the United States in November 2016, has exploited a supposed loophole in Haiti’s constitution stating that the duration of the president’s term is five years. The constitution clarifies that terms must begin in February, but Moïse insists that his election in November — the delay stemming from previous US meddling — entitles him to more time in office. Thousands of Haitians disagree, but their demonstrations have been met with police violence, leaving dozens dead.
The rallying call of Haitian demonstrators has been, “Where is the Petrocaribe money?” Ostensibly a simple question of accounting, it points to the depth of corruption in Haiti under Moïse and his predecessor, Michel Martelly, who have squandered or stolen billions of dollars’ worth of oil and funds provided by Venezuela as part of Petrocaribe, a program meant to support regional development.
The combination of corruption and repression has critics branding Moïse and Martelly “neo-Duvalierists,” in reference to Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the father-son dictators who ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986. The Duvalierists stand in contrast to Fanmi Lavalas, a social-democratic party founded by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who became Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 1991 — before being deposed by a US-backed coup later that year.
Jacobin contributor Arvind Dilawar spoke with Kim Ives, an editor at Haiti Liberte, about the current protests, the government’s brutal response, and the United States’ ongoing complicity in the repression of the Haitian people. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
AD: What was the spark that set off the current protests?
KI: The latest protests stem from Moïse not stepping down on February 7, 2021, as Article 134.2 of Haiti’s 1987 Constitution dictates. He had been making it clear that he was not going to step down in the months leading up to the date, but it came to pass in a very belligerent way. The people did not pour out on February 7 precisely, expecting maybe that he would step down at some point, but he did not. Every weekend since, the demonstrations are growing in size, and the tone is becoming sharper.
There is a little contradiction in Article 134, which says that the president will serve five years. But there is a clarification in 134.2 that, in fact, he will have to start his term on February 7 of the year of the election. So even though the election took place on November 20, 2016, that constitutional article insists that he start the clock on February 7.
There have been constant demonstrations throughout the presidency of Moïse, as there were for his predecessor, Michel Martelly. There were on the order of eighty-four demonstrations per month during the end of 2020, which is saying something, given that COVID was in place. So we could say that it wasn’t exactly “the spark,” but the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I don’t see these demonstrations subsiding as they have periodically in the past. Heightened demonstrations have been taking place since July 2018, when Moïse had to drastically hike fuel prices in the country due to the fact that Petrocaribe oil and money were no longer flowing into the country. The IMF, who had to step in to fill the breach, said, you have to hike the gas prices or you’re not going to get a loan. So they did. And that really began the past two and a half years of demonstrations on an almost weekly, if not daily, basis.
AD: Are there larger structural problems that have kept the Haitian people seething?
KI: The Martelly government was shoehorned in by then secretary of state Hillary Clinton in January 2011, when she traveled to Haiti to basically read the Riot Act to then president René Préval and tell him that he had to put Martelly in the runoff. He had come in third, according to the Electoral Council, so she overrode the Electoral Council and said, no, Martelly is going to be in the runoff, and he won.
That marked the beginning of neo-Duvalier rule in the county, after twenty years of alternating Lavalas [party] and semi-Lavalas rule, between Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his sometimes-called “twin,” [René] Préval. The US ushered in this neo-Duvalierist group, who brought with it all the hallmarks of Duvalierism: corruption, repression, lavish excess, complete insensitivity to the people’s demands, and complete openness to US, French, and Canadian imperialism doing as they wish in the country. In fact, that was their slogan: “Haiti is open for business” — which, not coincidentally, was the slogan of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in the early 1980s, before his overthrow. The people of Haiti have essentially been demonstrating since the arrival of the Haitian Bald-Headed party, as Martelly called his party.
This is the backdrop to all the demonstrations, which have been against corruption and repression, primarily. But the demonstrations became more ferocious and larger in 2018, because the spigot that the Petrocaribe fund that Venezuela was providing Haiti was turned off. At one point, Martelly’s prime minister said that 94 percent of the government’s special projects were being funded by the Petrocaribe fund. When that money all disappeared, Moïse, who had made all sorts of fantastic promises to the people — that they would, in the space of eighteen months, have 24-7 electricity, etc. — was left with an even more angry population.
AD: How bad is corruption in Haiti?
KI: The largest part of it, which really has become the background for this movement, is the money stolen from the Petrocaribe fund. This became the call shortly after the gas hike in July 2018, which began on social media after an artist put up a picture of himself saying, where is the Petrocaribe money?
The Venezuelans gave Haiti $4 billion worth of cheap oil, about twenty thousand barrels a day. Haiti only had to pay 60 percent upfront, and 40 percent went into this capital fund, which was supposed to pay for clinics and hospitals and schools and roads and anything that would benefit the Haitian people.
But instead of being used for that, it was pilfered and misspent and embezzled into a myriad of fake projects — from invisible stadiums to fake food distribution programs to fake home-building programs, etc. On the order of $1.7 billion disappeared in this manner, by the Martelly government. That corruption, that embezzlement of the Petrocaribe funds, is the rock that is sticking in the craw of the Haitian people.
It should be said that Haiti also reportedly received some $13 billion worth of funds for earthquake rebuilding. Ironically, they used in Haiti the same slogan they’re using [in Washington] today, “Build Back Better,” but it did not go to building back better. Not only was it frittered away and intercepted by various middlemen and NGOs, but what did get through to Haiti also seems to have been misspent by the Martelly government, which received the lion’s share of that as well.
That, though, has not been as much in the people’s consciousness as the Petrocaribe funds, which was a more appreciated solidarity fund than the earthquake fund, which was headed by Bill Clinton — which Haitians felt, almost from the get-go, was probably not going to end up doing much for them.
AD: How has the Haitian government responded to the protests?
KI: Very fierce repression. Moïse, in November, returned to service Léon Charles, who was in charge of the Haitian National Police right after the coup d’état against Aristede on February 29, 2004. His reign was characterized by very bloody and fierce repression against the rebellious masses of, primarily, Cité Soleil and Bel Air, Port-au-Prince’s two largest slums. Moise brought him back, and he has lived up to his past record — and has even been given new powers. Moïse, who has been ruling by decree since January 13, 2020, has also decreed a new Gestapo force, the National Intelligence Agency, which gives its agents the power not just to spy on the public, but to arrest them, and even kill them, because its agents are armed. On top of that, they cannot be prosecuted, they have complete immunity.
This is a force very similar to the Tonton Macoute of the Duvalier dictatorship. The Tonton Macoute had the same extrajudicial powers. They were the eyes, ears, and fists of the Duvalier dictatorship and allowed it to stay in power for three decades.
That repression has been on display in the past weeks. Dozens of demonstrators have been killed in the past months of demonstrations. Sometimes they’re hit by tear gas grenades in the head, and others have been shot by police forces who apparently act as snipers, shooting into the demonstrators.
In addition, another decree made it an act of terrorism to carry out certain forms of demonstration and street protest. This gives the so-called legal framework for the severe police repression — even though the decrees themselves are completely illegal, because, as even the US State Department has said in their dismay over the optics of this, the decrees are supposed to be used for caretaking questions and not for creating legislative initiatives of this nature.
On top of it, part of this decree mania that Moïse has exhibited has been to not only form his own new, handpicked Electoral Council, which he proposes will hold the election in the coming year, but to rewrite the constitution. Again, these are all tactics that Francois Duvalier in the early 1960s employed to establish his presidency for life.
AD: What do you think will be the results of the current protests?
KI: I will be surprised if Moïse can stay in power until February 7, 2022, as he intends to. This really is the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object right now.
The US seems to be having a little bit of doubt. Julie Chung, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric Affairs, tweeted last month that she was alarmed by the authoritarian and undemocratic moves of the government. But they stopped short of saying that they were pulling any support. They seem to be keeping the same basic policy that the Trump administration had, which is to encourage Moïse to hold elections — which he was supposed to have held in 2018 and ’19 — and pass the sash and repopulate the parliament and the mayor’s offices throughout Haiti. (There are right now only eleven elected officials in the country: Moïse and ten senators.)
The Biden government has certainly got to be seeing the size of these demonstrations. The other factor is that, as the demonstrations grow in size and ferocity, the US Congress is putting increasing pressure on the Biden administration, saying that Moïse should step down and be replaced by a provisional government.
Will all that pressure push the US to remove him? The reasons why they might balk are because the last time there was a civilian transition, the president elected was Aristide, a liberation theologian priest and anti-imperialist that the US did not approve of in any way and carried out a coup d’état against him eight months after his inauguration in 1991. Secondly, the very important role that Haiti is playing in the anti-Venezuela campaign of Washington. For those two reasons, they may feel that they should just ride out the storm, continue to pump money to him.
The other thing we have to fear, especially with the hawks and warmongers who are now populating the Biden administration, is yet a third foreign military intervention in Haiti — of course, probably dressed up as a “humanitarian” intervention. This would be like throwing a rock into a hornet’s nest, because the Haitian people, I can say without any equivocation, are fed up with foreign military occupations.
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Prosecutors May Flip the Trump Organization Employee Who Knows Where All the Bodies Are Buried |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=44994"><span class="small">Bess Levin, Vanity Fair</span></a>
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Friday, 05 March 2021 13:25 |
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Levin writes: "Donald Trump's chances of staying out of prison just took a nosedive."
Protester outside Trump property. (photo: Jeff Vinnick/Getty)
Prosecutors May Flip the Trump Organization Employee Who Knows Where All the Bodies Are Buried
By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
05 March 21
Donald Trump’s chances of staying out of prison just took a nosedive.
 ast month Donald Trump got several pieces of bad news re: avoiding prosecution for his cornucopia of alleged crimes. First, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office hired Mark Pomerantz, the guy who successfully put away John Gotti and others involved in organized crime. Worse, his tax returns were finally handed over to the D.A.’s office after the Supreme Court rejected his bid to keep them under lock and key, a development he reacted to with the tone of a guy who’s committed all manner of fraud and is terrified to get caught. Now the team working around the clock to put him away has apparently zeroed in on the Trump Organization employee who knows where all of his financial bodies are buried, and the possibility of his talking is presumably keeping Trump awake at night.
The Washington Post reports that Cyrus Vance’s office is “delving deeply into the personal and financial affairs” of Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. The questioning is being led by Pomerantz, with the goal of flipping Weisselberg and convincing him to become a witness against Trump. (During his years as a mob prosecutor, Pomerantz undoubtedly got who knows how many people to “snitch.”) Per the Post:
Vance’s focus on Weisselberg has included questions related to two of his adult children, a tactic that could be an effort to increase pressure on the elder Weisselberg. One of Weisselberg’s sons also works for the Trump Organization, where he manages the company’s Central Park ice rinks. Another Weisselberg son works for a company that has extended loans to the Trump Organization.... Typically, efforts to flip witnesses have two parts: First, prosecutors work to build evidence that a witness may have their own legal liabilities. They then try to convince the witness to save themselves by turning on a higher-up. The person with knowledge of the case said investigators were trying to “cast a wide net...looking to shake the tree a little bit.”
In this case prosecutors have scrutinized Weisselberg’s work in helping to assess the value of Trump buildings as the company sought to obtain loans or property tax reductions, people familiar with the investigation said. They have also asked about a Trump-owned luxury apartment where Weisselberg’s son Barry lived for several years. The exact nature of Vance’s interest in the apartment is not known, but if Barry Weisselberg, who manages Trump’s ice skating rinks, got the apartment rent-free, that might be considered a fringe benefit of his job and subject to income tax. Two people with knowledge of the district attorney’s probe said the team has also been analyzing the finances of the cash-only skating rink where Barry Weisselberg works. At the same time investigators have asked detailed questions about Allen Weisselberg’s financial history and his feelings about Trump, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The D.A.’s criminal investigation, which began in 2018, initially focused on the hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal in the run-up to the 2016 election, but has since expanded to include possible crimes like insurance and tax fraud. Weisselberg has kept Trump’s books since the ’80s and became CFO of the family business in 2000, once describing himself in a deposition as Trump’s “eyes and ears...from an economic standpoint.” Or as a former Trump employee put it to the Post, “Allen is in charge of everything.”
In addition to asking questions about Weisselberg’s financial history, lifestyle, and relationship with Trump, investigators have reportedly been focusing on the Trump Parc East building where Weisselberg’s son Barry lived for several years; last year his ex-wife told Bloomberg that they lived there for free, believing at the time that it was a wedding present from Donald and Melania Trump. (IRS rules state that an apartment provided for free by an employer typically is subject to income tax, and a person familiar with the matter told the Post that prosecutors have been analyzing Barry Weisselberg’s tax returns.) Additionally, attorneys from Vance’s office have asked witnesses about more than $270 million in loans made to the Trump Organization by Ladder Capital, which employs Weisselberg’s other son, Jack Weisselberg. It’s not clear at this time what testimony, if any, Allen Weisselberg has provided to the D.A.’s office, although the bad news for Trump is that he does not appear opposed to talking:
In the past...Weisselberg has provided testimony to government investigations into Trump’s financial dealings. In 2017, Weisselberg spoke to investigators for a New York attorney general investigation of Trump’s charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. He told them that the charity’s board never met, that the charity had “no policy” for determining whether its spending followed nonprofit laws, and that the charity had been co-opted by Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, in violation of a ban on mixing charities and politics. The attorney general later used Weisselberg’s testimony against Trump, in a lawsuit that ended with a New York judge ordering Trump to pay a $2 million penalty.
And Weisselberg also accepted a deal from federal prosecutors focused on [Michael] Cohen’s hush money payments, in which Weisselberg testified about others in exchange for immunity for himself. Prosecutors were interested in the Trump Organization’s reimbursement of Cohen for the hush money payments…Cohen later pleaded guilty to two felony counts related to those payments.
Vance declined the Post’s request for comment, as did the Trump Organization and Mary Mulligan, an attorney for Weisselberg. Jack Weisselberg told the Post he was declining to comment on both his and his brother Barry’s behalf. A person familiar with the Trump Organization said the company is confident its “practices for assessing the value of property fall within industry norms for New York City,” and that Weisselberg will remain loyal.
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