State Department analyst resigns after his testimony on climate crisis is blocked by Trump

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

July 22, 2019 

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State Department intelligence analyst Rod Schoonover drafted a critical report on U.S. security issues, only to see half of that report cut away by officials from the Trump White House—the half of the report that dealt with threats caused by the climate crisis. In response to being asked to update Congress on national security, without discussing the biggest threat facing national security, Schoonover has resigned.

As The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, Schoonover consulted with experts across a wide range of fields to perpare his paper, and the science he used in evaluating the effects of the climate crisis came primarily from peer-reviewed scientific journals. What that information revealed is the range of threats that a warming planet presents including huge shifts in population with climate refugees creating a series of humanitarian crises, a greater pressure on remaining resources, and widespread political instability.

White House officials cleared Schoonover to speak to the congressional panel, but only if he dropped not just his conclusions about the climate crisis, but avoided giving out any of the evidence and data on the topic. Rather than provide Congress with an incomplete and inaccurate picture, the analyst elected not to hand in a written statement. That promoted House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff to send a letter to the State Department seeking Schoonover’s report.

He didn’t get it. Instead, a “senior White House official” accused the ten-year department veteran of being “a clear example of some within the behemoth of the U.S. bureaucracy running around thinking their way is the only way and desperately trying to undermine this president and the American democratic process.”

What the White House is claiming here is that Donald Trump doesn’t just get to have an opinion, he also gets to suppress any evidence that he is wrong. And that even attempting to bring up that evidence “undermines the democratic process.” That’s a position that creates a threat which goes far beyond the climate crisis.

Schiff replied that it is “The role of Intelligence Community is to speak truth to power.” After all, if the executive’s uninformed opinion must be upheld at all costs, including the cost of hiding looming threats to the nation, then there’s not much need for an intelligence service. And in fact on a whole range of issues, including the Iranian nuclear deal, the effect of tariffs, the tax bill, and immigration policy, the data and evidence has been either ignored or actively denied in favor of Trump’s “very good brain.”

A 2014 report prepared by the Defense Department flatly stated that the climate crisis is a major threat facing the nation. It will bring regional shortages of water and food, fuel the spread of parasites and pandemic disease, speed the destruction of natural resources, and drive refugee crises at a scale that dwarf those which have caused tumult in both Europe and America.

Trump Is a Racist. If You Support Him, So Are You.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, three of the four Congresswomen President Trump has attacked on twitter, during a House hearing last week. (photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

By Goldie Taylor, The Daily Beast

21 July 19
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The president keeps baring his ass, and the people talking about his clothing as he does so are part of the problem.

he president is a racist, in his words and his actions.

Before you go clutching your pearls and extolling the virtues of “civility,” let me say this: Put a sock in it.

This is not a new revelation, nor is it something that we can continue to ignore as though it were coming from a drunk uncle at the family barbecue. Bigotry is dangerous and, coming from our nation’s commander in chief, it can mean an inability to recognize individual humanity and a failure to act with moral authority in times of crisis. Every person talking about his clothes as he cheerfully bares his ass is part of the problem.

Last Sunday, he claimed that newly elected progressive Democrats “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and “the worst, more corrupt and inept anywhere in the world.” And he told freshmen Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—outspoken Democratic women of color who have challenged the administration’s inhumane immigration policies—to leave the country.

Three of the four were born here in the United States. All are American citizens, and duly elected members of Congress.

Trump’s repugnant rebuke of American values did not come out of thin air.  It unfolded days after “the Squad” travelled with a delegation of congressional Democrats to tour detention facilities in border states. What they found was deplorable. Reports of rampant abuse and neglect filled the airwaves, leading Trump to again dismiss accurate coverage as “fake news.” Rather than focus on improving basic conditions and getting to work on bi-partisan, comprehensive reforms, the president basically said if immigrants didn’t like how they were being treated, they should stay in their own country.

The next morning, he turned his ire on some of his most vocal critics in Congress—all of whom have previously called for his impeachment.

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Trump tweeted about the four congresswomen today. “Then come back and show us how it is done.”

“These places need your help badly,” he went on, “you can’t leave fast enough.”

While Republicans predictably remained tight-lipped and oblivious, Democrats reacted swiftly.

“Mr. President, the country I ‘come from,’ and the country we all swear to, is the United States,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez responded. “You are angry because you can’t conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder.”

“When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ has always been about making America white again,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a tweet. “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power.”

This isn’t simply disgusting and divisive rhetoric. Whether it is the abhorrent, inhumane treatment of immigrants detained in government-sponsored concentration camps or the slow, piecemeal aid sent to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, for some, his policies have been deadly.

Certainly, this is not the first time Trump has shamelessly revealed himself in public. His “Make America Great Again” campaign was always about catering to our lowest common denominator—a hateful sector of the electorate that believes themselves culturally superior by skin color and religion.

For years, even before mounting a formal bid for the presidency, Trump regaled television news audiences with racist conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama. He pledged to send investigators out to prove the nation’s 44th president was not born in the United States. He later derided immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries, calling those foreign nations “shit hole countries.” He once said immigrants from Haiti all “have AIDS” and that Nigerian immigrants would never “go back to their huts.”

In Trump’s mind, a judge’s Mexican heritage made him incapable of ruling fairly in a civil fraud case against one of his companies, and he believes “laziness is a trait in blacks.” Trump, whose real estate company was sued for housing discrimination in the 1970s, went on to place a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of five innocent black teenagers. Even after the Central Park Five were exonerated, he refused to take it back. After Heather Heyer was murdered in Charlottesville, Virginia, amid a white supremacist protest, he lamented the there were “some very fine people” on “both sides.”

Trump is not a fine person. His words Sunday were not racially “charged,” “fueled,” or “tinged.” They were unapologetically racist.

And, if you support him, so are you.

Ilhan Omar Is a Leader With Strength and Courage

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ilhan Omar. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

By Bernie Sanders, Bernie 2020

19 July 19

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ast night, I was at dinner with Ilhan Omar, her daughter, and some other members of Congress when we heard the news that thousands of people at a Donald Trump rally were chanting "send her back."

To my surprise, Ilhan was pretty unfazed. Sadly, as she told me, she has been dealing with this kind of hatred and racism for a long time.

And she knows, as we do, that Trump is a demagogue doing what he does best: dividing and conquering through hate.

No. Trump won't talk about trying to throw 32 million Americans off their health care. He won't talk about his massive tax breaks for billionaires. He won't talk about his budget which called for huge cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. And he certainly won't talk about how climate change is destroying the planet.

But he will try to divide the country up based on the color of our skin, our religion, where we were born or our sexual orientation.

Brothers and sisters: Now is the time, more than at any other moment in our lifetimes, to say NO to racism, NO to divisiveness, NO to the hatred that Trump is trying to foment.

Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won’t back down to Trump’s racism and hate, and neither will we.

Ilhan and I have worked together on a number of important issues since she was elected – most recently our effort to cancel all student debt in this country.

She is a critical voice in our fight for justice in America, and I am excited to work with her and other progressives when we are in the White House.

Dem Controlled House Passes $15 Minimum Wage

$15 minimum wage would boost pay for 17 million but 1.3 million would lose their jobs, CBO says. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty)

By Erica Werner and Mike DeBonis, The Washington Post

19 July 19



  

House Democrats bridged internal differences to bring the bill to the floor, although it’s not expected to advance in the GOP-led Senate

ouse Democrats voted Thursday to lift the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, delivering on a long-standing liberal priority that has become a rallying cry for 2020 Democratic presidential contenders.

The bill, which passed 231-199, would raise the minimum wage gradually from its current level of $7.25 an hour until reaching $15 an hour in 2025. The legislation was amended earlier this week at the urging of moderate Democrats to provide for a slower six-year phase-in, instead of five years as originally envisioned.

The “Fight for $15” has become a potent political push on the left, but bringing it to fruition on the floor of the House took months of maneuvering as some moderates voiced concerns about the impacts on small businesses or in rural areas where pay scales are lower than in larger metropolitan areas.

Ultimately, the slower phase-in pushed by moderate members — along with a proposed study that would measure the impacts of the wage increase partway through its implementation — satisfied the concerns of the large majority of House Democrats.

Although the legislation is not expected to advance in the Republican-run Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will not take it up, House Democrats celebrated what they described as a major achievement in their fight for U.S. workers.“This is an historic day,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor ahead of the vote, which she said would narrow the gender gap in wages. “Today we wake up for a day of jubilation because of the sense of fairness this legislation engenders. We wake up with a smile on our face, showing the world with all the love in our hearts, and that love in our hearts is about fairness for the American people.”

Republicans were almost uniformly opposed, a stance that was fueled by a Congressional Budget Office report last week that said increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour would lead to 1.3 million lost jobs. The report also said that the change would lift the earnings of 27.3 million workers. The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009, but Republicans described the Democratic legislation as a politically motivated jobs-killer designed to undermine economic gains they said had been made under President Trump.

The minimum wage bill is “another baseless attack on President Trump’s successful record,” said Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.). “Just this week House Democrats voted to hold the president’s advisers in contempt, and many voted to impeach the president. Today they are working to undo the economic gains seen under the Trump administration’s leadership and undermine the best economy in my lifetime.”

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a moderate Blue Dog Coalition leader who played a lead role in negotiating the bill, rejected the GOP criticism while contending that the deliberate approach advocated by moderate Democrats would guard against any negative effects. Murphy and others advocated for an amendment, approved by the House, that would require an independent study once the minimum wage reached $9.50 to allow Congress to monitor the impacts of the law.

“The positive impacts way outweigh any potential negative impacts, but the incremental way in which we’re doing this along with the data-focused approach allows us to address any real harm — if there is harm — as we move along,” Murphy said. “This will be one of the proudest votes I cast,” she said.

Raising the minimum wage was a centerpiece of the Democratic agenda when they took control of the House this year, but Pelosi and other leaders have struggled to focus attention on such bread-and-butter issues important to voters heading into the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. The Democrats’ preferred message has been repeatedly drowned out by other issues, most recently President Trump’s racist attacks on four minority freshmen Democratic women.

Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.), who had been pushing to adopt a regionally adjusted minimum wage, said she was voting for the bill, even though it did not include any regional adjustment or a small-business tax credit she championed.

“We promised the American people a raise, and this is the only vehicle that’s moving. I still stand by my bill — I think my approach is better,” Sewell said. “But at the end of the day, this is a Democratic process and this is the bill that’s moving.”

A last-minute effort by Republicans to amend the legislation to exempt small businesses with fewer than 10 workers or less than $1 million in annual income from the minimum wage increase failed narrowly. Democrats warned that the GOP maneuver was aimed at dividing the Democratic caucus and causing the underlying bill to fail. The underlying bill passed along near party lines, with three Republicans joining Democrats in voting “yes” and six Democrats opposing the legislation.

Passage of the bill was a particularly sweet victory for members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, some of whom have been fighting for it for years.

“I’m a little frustrated we have to extend the date a little bit, but I really believe it needs to get done and I will vote for it and I will celebrate the passage of the first raise of the federal minimum wage in such a long time,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a Progressive Caucus leader who represents Seattle, which recently enacted a $16-an-hour minimum wage.

Polling has found a $15 minimum wage to be broadly popular with the public. A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey last year found 60 percent of U.S. adults supported raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour, while 37 percent were opposed. The candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination uniformly support the change, and some are making it an important focus of their campaigns. In Iowa this week, several candidates rallied with Fight for $15 workers.

As the federal minimum wage has stagnated, states and localities have increasingly acted on their own. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the effective minimum wage has increased in 27 states and the District of Columbia since 2014; 29 states and the District now have a minimum wage that is higher than the federal minimum wage.

Republicans Have Rejected Our System of Government and Are Replacing it With Their Own

Republicans are building a State within a State

Paul C

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Wednesday July 17, 2019 · 3:22 PM PDT

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With all of the outrages perpetrated by Republicans every day on every front it is easy to miss the forest for the trees.  When Trump attacks the press as “fake news” he is not pressuring them to be nice to him or trying to fend off their criticisms, he is signalling to his base who they should or should not listen to.   He really could care less what anyone outside his base has to say about him.

When McConnell violates every Senate norm to stack the courts with far right judges who openly reject 150 years of legal precedent he is not shifting the courts to the right, he is throwing out the laws that have been written over that period of time.  When conservatives talk about “originalist” interpretation of the law they are saying that any laws passed after the signing of the Constitution are basically illegal.  So say goodbye to labor, civil rights and environmental law.

When McConnell shuts down lawmaking, when state legislators and governors gerrymander their states and throw Democratic voters off voter roles, when McConnell stops efforts to protect elections from foreign hacking, they are not simply tying the hands of the Democrats, they are rendering our government inoperative in order to shut it down.   And they are asking for help from our enemies abroad to do so.

Meanwhile, by gutting regulatory law and authority they are setting up the libertarian corporatocracy they have always envisioned to operate in place of our government.  They are “drowning government in a bathtub” and giving free reign to a plutocracy run by the likes of the Kochs, Mercers, Adelsons, and so on.

The Republicans are not playing the same game that we are playing.  Neither are they playing by the same set of rules.  They are engaged in open rebellion against the United States and are intent upon sidelining our government, rendering it obsolete and irrelevant in favor of an autocracy with a Machiavellian madman at the helm.

2020 Democratic Field About to Get a Lot Smaller

Democratic presidential candidates wave to the crowd at the first round of primary debates in June. (photo: Jayme Gershen/Getty Images)

By Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair

16 July 19

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New financial disclosure forms show that all but five 2020 Democrats are rapidly running out of money.

ith such a large Democratic primary field, all competing for the same resources, it was only a matter of time before candidates started running out of money. New financial disclosures reveal just that: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg are chugging along, while the remainder of the jam-packed field appears to be struggling to fundraise, or spending more than they’re bringing in, suggesting the end may be nigh.

As Politico reported Tuesday, eleven campaigns—close to half the field—spent more than they raised in the second quarter of the year, a number that includes John Delaney, the former congressman who launched his campaign close to two years ago; Beto O’Rourke, who’s so far failed to capture the energy of his 2018 face-off with Ted Cruz; and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar, all of whom have struggled to break free from the pack. Even those not in the red are feeling the pinch. Julian Castro had a breakout performance in the first round of Democratic debates last month, but is nevertheless spending more than 80 percent of the money he’s taking in, leaving his campaign in dire straits.

“Some of these candidates need a miracle,” Mathew Littman, a Democratic strategist and former Biden speechwriter who now supports Harris, told Politico. “It’s like if you’re a baseball team and you’re 15 games behind in mid-July, the odds are that you’re not making it to the playoffs.”

The “playoffs,” in this case, would be the first contests of the Democratic primary in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which are still half a year away. On one hand, that means struggling candidates still have time to right the ship. On the other, they’ll have to maintain campaigns that are already short on resources, a problem that’s likely to worsen as frontrunners become entrenched. As the New York Times noted Tuesday, the best-funded candidates raked in a combined $96 million last quarter—about three-quarters of the money brought in by the entire field—and are significantly outspending their less-monied counterparts.

Resources, in other words, are becoming increasingly concentrated at the top. “This is the doomsday scenario for a lot of campaigns, where they’re grasping for air to keep their campaigns alive and to live another day,” Democratic strategist Andrew Feldman told Politico. “You can’t build an operation that turns enthusiasm into votes without having resources to do it.”

Of course, the winnowing was bound to happen sooner or later. As my colleague Chris Smith reported back in February, the field was primed for a life-or-death battle for limited cash and staff. “They are not all going to be able to raise enough money to get from here to Iowa,” Mark Longabaugh, a top Sanders strategist in 2016, told Smith. “By the time we get to the end of this year, you’re going to know the three or four who have a legitimate shot at the nomination.” There’s still time for some jockeying— the second round of debates is set for later this month, and bubble candidates are scrambling to qualify for the third debates in September. But several campaigns seem doomed. Eric Swalwell, the California congressman, has already dropped his bid, and a number of others who have failed to ascend from anonymity are circling the drain. For months, the story has been the growing 2020 field. In the coming months, the story is likely to be that field’s shrinking.

Republicans don't even pretend to be offended as they embrace Trump's racism

 

Mark Sumner

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday July 16, 2019 · 5:51 AM PDT

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Over the last three years, Republican politicians have learned. But what they have learned is that no matter what ugly, insulting, or downright evil thought Donald Trump shoves onto the national stage, it will not be too much for his followers.

Because ugly, insulting, and downright evil is what his supporters want from Trump. What the alt-right calls “not being politically correct” and everyone throughout the rest of history knew simply as “being an ignorant, mean-spirited son of a bitch,” is the core of Trump’s support.

What Republicans have learned is that when Trump attacks an ally, demeans a respected official, or simply spews his own thick mix of hate-lies, they should just mumble, dissemble, and generally sit on their hands … until whatever new subbasement in hell Trump has uncovered becomes not merely acceptable, but the new “standard” for American political discourse, and the new truth for the Republican Party. And that has never been more clear than in the last few days.

Following Donald Trump’s explicit, direct, and inexcusable racist statements aimed at a group of progressive congresswomen, a few Republicans initially raised limp “I wouldn’t say it like that” flags of wincing disagreement. But by far the majority of Republicans followed one of two paths—staying silent, or explaining why Trump was right to claim that disagreeing with him while brown was sufficient cause for exile.

And there’s something here for everyone to learn: Trump’s racism hasn’t just become worse since he moved into the White House; it’s become more acceptable at every level of the GOP. Just ask Ivanka. When her father called Nazi marchers at Charlottesville “good people,” the spa magnate issued a statement that there was “no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis.” But this week, Ivana Trump Jr. has not just failed to tweet about her father’s racist hate-mongering; she has also declined to comment when asked.

That blatant racism isn’t just something that Trump feels more free to spread. It’s something that other Republicans now feel free to ignore, or to outright endorse.

As The New York Times reports, Trump has carefully weeded out any morality in the White House. What remains is those who follow the lead of would-be Bond villain Steven Mnuchin in claiming, “I do not find them racist,” and those who, like Rudy Giuliani, claim that Trump is right to want to toss democratically elected congresswomen back to … wherever, because they “attack America.” 

However, there does remain a comic chorus in the White House claiming that Trump can’t possibly be racist. As evidence, Mike Pence’s chief of staff pointed out that Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is Asian. So clearly this isn’t about race. “So when people write the president has racist motives here,” said Short, “look at the reality of who is actually serving in Donald Trump’s Cabinet.”

Sure. Let’s look. Trump’s cabinet contains one black man, Ben Carson, and one Asian woman, Elaine Chao. It also contains two white women, Gina Haspel and Betsy DeVos. Other than that, Trump’s cabinet consists entirely of white men—making it the whitest and most male cabinet in decades.

“This is not a universal statement that he’s making,” said Short. “He’s making it about an individual member of Congress.” Except Trump didn’t make it about an individual; he made it about a group. And if anyone missed the color of the women in that group, Trump made the point explicit by declaring that they should “go back” to wherever it is Trump believes they originated. Some shithole countries, no doubt.

The silence, acceptance, or outright support of Trump’s blatant racism didn’t stop at the White House. It’s on its way to being the baseline for the Republican Congress. As The Washington Post reports, those responses included excusing Trump’s statement by simply denying that he said what he said, as did Republican Rep. Andy Harris, who declared that Trump “could have meant go back to the district where they came from.” That statement complemented that of campaign director Matt Wolking, whose “Anyone who says the president told members of Congress to go back to where they came from is lying” is a mini-master class in refusing to see what Trump put on the screen in black and all-too-white.

Many Republicans followed Mitt Romney in his long-held position of being utterly spineless on every issue. But Romney didn’t just fail to rebuke Trump for his racism—this time he joined in, declaring that it was the fault of the congresswomen that Trump attacked them. “I certainly feel a number of these new members of Congress have views that are not consistent with my experience and not consistent with building a strong America,” said Romney. 

And of course, whenever Trump digs a new basement, Sen. Lindsey Graham can be counted on to furnish it with slime. When Trump was running for office, Graham accused him of using “race-baiting” and employing “xenophobic” language to generate hate. But this week Graham ran straight to Fox & Friends so he could be front and center on Trump’s screen as he claimed, “We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists. They hate Israel. They hate our own country.

They’re calling the guards along our border — Border Patrol agents — concentration camp guards. They accuse people who support Israel of doing it for the Benjamins. They’re anti-Semitic. They’re anti-America."

Donald Trump found his Roy Cohn in William Barr.  With Lindsey Graham, he has his new Joe McCarthy.

What Republicans have learned over the last three years is what Trump knew all along: Racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and plain old hate sell. And they’re all becoming his salesmen.