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Open in TheBrain

CORPS 2

see main

5/17 age of trump

no merri

see sedition caucus pledge fail

SEE TRUMP FUNDER MAGA INC SUPERPAC DARK MONEY BUY ELECTIONS --> FASCISM

see press suppress bezos LAT

see disaster caplism

see woke corps disney for gop aTTACKS

see dark $

see tax dodge ~ TRANSPARENCY --> CORRUPTION

see offshore bank

see inequality

see voodoo tax cuts

see ceo pay

see bad actor

see trade assoc

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tool:

BBB

https://influencemap.org/report/The-Reconciliation-Bill-and-How-Corporate-America-is-Engaging-40b368ddbd6134be670d01085b898ac5

This briefing analyzes the 20 largest, US-based companies with InfluenceMap Organization Scores over 65, indicating broadly positive positioning towards climate change policy.Despite their apparent support for climate action, the majority of these companies are not publicly endorsing the Build Back Better Act. Their inactivity is accompanied by the highly active opposition of US industry associations, where many remain members.

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tool // cmd?

http://documentedinvestigations.org/fullpage/fullpage-home/

tool:

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Portal:Corporate_Rights

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tool:

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/

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tool/site

https://www.corporateaccountability.org/

We are funded by some of the most progressive and visionary foundations in the U.S. and globally, including:

We are also funded by funders networks, Jewish community federations, as well as family and community foundations and trusts from coast to coast.

Allies

Corporate Accountability and our allies come together because we share a vision of the world as it should be, and we know none of us can achieve systemic change alone.

In the ecosystem of organizations creating the change we need, Corporate Accountability brings our expertise in running effective, long-term campaigns that force abusive transnational corporations to change. Never afraid to name names, we zero in on industry leaders from Nestlé to Exxon Mobil to transform the world’s largest industries and the landscape in which they can operate. The victories we secure with our allies create tangible and positive changes in people’s lives around the world. Learn more about our approach.

A few of the allies that we partner with to build true democracy, create a just economy, dismantle systems of oppression, and challenge corporate power include:

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AM 8 26

Most discussions about the Democratic Party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats (such as Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who yesterday scored an upset win in the Democratic contest for the Florida Senate).

An equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats.

Some Democrats worry about this. My old friend Democratic strategist James Carville compares the current wave of progressive primary wins to progressive campaigns in 2016 — especially that of Bernie Sanders — that he believes fractured the Democratic coalition.

“Bernie Sanders is the reason that Donald Trump is president,” Carville said recently, claiming that Bernie’s primary challenge to Hillary Clinton convinced voters in battleground states that establishment Democrats were no different from establishment Republicans, thereby weakening her prospects in the general election.

Even if James is right about 2016 (and I don’t believe he is) his assessment is irrelevant now because we’re at a radically different point in American politics than we were 10 years ago.

The silver lining on the dark storm cloud of Trump and his detestable regime is that it has exposed the greed, venality, cupidity, and corruption of America’s corporate elite.

Trump has allowed the CEOs of giant corporations and the titans of Wall Street to do whatever they want as long as they suck up to him. And he’s providing all sorts of corporate welfare to those who generously bribe him — no-bid government contracts, exclusive licenses, tax loopholes, tariff exemptions, use of public lands, and permission to become even bigger monopolies.

Trump has thereby unveiled a truth about corporate America that for many years has been hidden behind a soothing blanket of corporate PR bullsh*t about social responsibility, corporate charity, and “trickle-down” economics.

That truth is the captains of corporate America are so rapacious that they’re willing to throw average working Americans under the bus to make billions more.

Corporate avarice under Trump has become so blatant and corporate America’s contempt for the needs of average Americans so flagrant that most Americans are now catching on.

They’re voting for progressive Democrats not because they want socialism, support the Democratic Socialists of America, or reject candidates called “moderate.”

They’re voting for candidates whom they believe will fight to make housing, food, healthcare, and childcare affordable to average working families. And who’ll take on Trump’s billionaire backers, CEOs, and Wall Street titans who are rigging the economy against them.

Much of the corporate media won’t tell this story. When Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic primary over Haley Stevens, the media overflowed with accounts of how much smaller El-Sayed’s margin of victory was than polls had predicted.

Yet the most remarkable thing about El-Sayed’s victory was that he won despite being dramatically outspent by super PACs arrayed against him.

Stevens benefited from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, including the largest investment in a senatorial race ever made by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which traditionally supports pro-Israel candidates but in recent election cycles has supported candidates most favored by corporate America. AIPAC’s ads in favor of Stevens and against El-Sayed never even mentioned Israel.

Outside super PACs poured an estimated $54 million to $60 million into backing Stevens and opposing El-Sayed, compared to only about $5 million for El-Sayed. Pro-Stevens groups outspent El-Sayed on TV advertising alone by more than 12 to 1 ($26.9 million to $2.1 million) in the closing weeks. An average of $95 was spent for every vote against El-Sayed versus just $9 per vote for him.

The race between Stevens and El-Sayed was a proxy fight over the future of the Democratic Party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed Stevens and encouraged donors to back her campaign, as did other corporate-aligned politicians such as Michigan senator Gary Peters. On the other hand, Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported El-Sayed, as did progressives such as Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren.

El-Sayed justifiably made a campaign issue out of how much corporate money was backing his rival. He argued that Democrats should reject corporate influence and embrace an agenda that helps average Americans. His campaign centered on providing Medicare for All, lowering prescription drug costs, and banning corporate PAC money. “We’re in a situation right now where the rich keep getting hyper-rich on the backs of figuring out how to monetize everyday people,” El-Sayed told AP during a Sunday afternoon march, as his supporters chanted behind him, “Money out of politics! Money in your pockets!”

El-Sayed’s victory marked a turning point for the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.

I saw the start of the corporate Democrats in the early 1980s, when Democrats in congress began drinking from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans, mostly from big corporations.

“Business has to deal with us whether they want to or not” crowed Democratic Rep. Tony Coelho, who then headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Democrats had controlled Congress since 1955, and assumed they’d continue to run the House for years. They thought they could take advantage of their seemingly permanent power to raise cash for their campaigns.

Coelho’s Democrats soon achieved a rough parity with Republicans in contributions from corporate and Wall Street campaign coffers, but it proved a Faustian bargain as big corporations and Wall Street gained increasing influence in the party. It is a truism in politics as in nature: One dares not bite the hands that feed.

Corporate Democrats thereafter stopped the Democratic Party from pursuing an agenda that would have dramatically helped America’s working class.

To be sure, over the last three decades Democrats have scored some important victories for working families — the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.

Yet they’ve done little to alter the widening economic inequalities that have taken a huge toll on working-class families.

Both Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free-trade agreements, for example, but didn’t provide the millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

They also stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class. Clinton and Obama failed to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated them, or to enable workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down vote.

In his 1992 campaign, Clinton promised such reform but once elected didn’t want to buck corporate Democrats by spending political capital on it. In his 2008 campaign, Obama made the same promise but never acted on it.

Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22 percent of all workers when Clinton was elected president to fewer than 10 percent today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

The Obama administration also protected Wall Street from the consequences of its gambling addiction through a giant taxpayer-funded bailout but left millions of underwater homeowners to drown.

Both Clinton and Obama allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify — with the result that large corporations have grown far larger and major industries far more concentrated.

And they turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns. And he never followed up on his reelection campaign promise to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates to big money in politics.

What happens when you combine free trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, growing corporate monopoly power, and the abandonment of campaign finance reform? You get an economy favoring the wealthy and a political system favoring the powerful, while workers without college degrees suffer declining real wages and dwindling job security.

John F. Kennedy was the last Democratic president to depend on the votes of working-class Americans while losing the votes of white, college-educated Americans by 2 to 1. Sixty years later, Joe Biden depended on the votes of college-educated Americans while losing the votes of the white working class by 2 to 1. Kamala Harris lost the working class by an even larger margin.

Trump has exposed the venality and cupidity of corporate America, while large swaths of the working middle class struggle to make ends meet. As a result, Republicans appear likely to face some major defeats in the midterm elections. Corporate Democrats are on the defensive because their campaign cash isn’t working the way it used to.

Now, finally, the Democratic Party has an opportunity to once again become the party of working Americans, as it was under Franklin D. Roosevelt, rather than the party of corporate America. It is more urgent than at any time since the Great Depression that Democrats act on this opportunity.

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Trump’s MAGA Inc. SuperPAC Donor List is Littered with Corporate and Billionaire Influence Buyers  - Public Citizen

August 4, 2025

Trump’s MAGA Inc. SuperPAC Donor List is Littered with Corporate and Billionaire Influence Buyers

WASHINGTON D.C. — President Trump’s MAGA Inc. SuperPAC received $1 million or more from 58 donors since January, according to the SuperPAC’s most recent campaign finance disclosure filed last week.

The million-dollar donor list includes numerous corporate and billionaire donors with interests in influencing the Trump administration, including two crypto companies that were facing SEC investigations that have since been dropped and a seller of “skin substitute” products that benefited from the delay of a Biden-era Medicare rule to limit spending on their products.

“The real question this mega-donor list raises is not ‘how much,’ but ‘who from?’” said Jon Golinger, democracy advocate for Public Citizen. “By taking contributions from wealthy individuals and industries who want something from government, Trump’s SuperPAC has used pay-to-play to raise big money from special interests like a legalized shakedown.”

Public Citizen analyzed the new MAGA Inc. SuperPAC filing with the Federal Election Commission, covering the period of January 1 – June 30, 2025, and found the following:

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AN COMMON DR 12 25

As workers face slowing wage growth, a worsening cost-of-living crisis, and rising unemployment, the chief executives of top corporate retailers in the United States are reaping huge gains from the tax cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans extended over the summer.

An analysis released Friday by the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) estimates that the CEOs of Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, TJX, and Walmart have collectively saved close to $35 million on their individual tax returns in the seven years the Trump tax cuts have been in effect.

Thanks to the Trump-GOP tax law, which took effect in 2018, the companies examined in the analysis paid a tax rate of just 17.5% between 2018 and 2024—roughly half what they paid prior to the law’s enactment.

“While at the same time prices have soared for consumers and retail workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs, big-store CEOs and shareholders have reaped higher profits and lower taxes,” David Kass, ATF’s executive director, said in a statement. “If we want a system that alleviates economic stress on average Americans instead of exacerbating it during the holiday season, we need to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, invest in workers and families with expanded public services.”

Workers at the major retailers haven’t fared nearly as well. ATF noted that “the average worker at the eight stores was paid less than $32,000 in 2024.

“Amazon—the world’s largest retailer—refuses to even sit down with its employees who have formed a labor union for better pay, benefits, and working conditions,” the group observed. “If Lowe’s had used the nearly $50 billion it spent on stock buybacks over the seven-year period to instead raise employee wages, its workers would have each been paid almost $200,000 more.”

Across the US economy, workers are seeing wage growth stagnate amid elevated and still-rising prices, which are forcing many to skip meals and ration their medications to make ends meet.

The Labor Department said earlier this week that wage growth decelerated to 3.5% year over year—the slowest pace since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment, meanwhile, rose in November to the highest level in four years.

The ATF analysis came days after Trump delivered a lie-filled primetime speech defending his handling of the US economy as his approval ratings tanked, with American voters across party lines increasingly furious over the high costs of housing, groceries, healthcare, and other necessities.

During the speech, Trump vowed that Americans would soon “see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history.”

But the richest people in the country are set to reap disproportionate benefits from the tax cuts. As Bloomberg reported earlier this week, “Many filers—particularly those who could most use the financial boost—may soon be disappointed.”

“Wealthy taxpayers in high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey are the biggest winners,” the outlet noted.

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SEE TAX DODGE

AN 11 25

The Trump administration is quietly waging an all-out regulatory war on a Biden-era corporate tax that aimed to prevent large companies from dodging their tax liabilities while reporting huge profits.

The corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) was enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, Democratic legislation that former President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. The CAMT requires highly profitable US corporations to pay a tax of at least 15% on their so-called book profits, the figures reported to shareholders.

As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has explained: “Many of the special breaks that corporations use to avoid taxes work by allowing companies to report profits to the IRS that are much smaller than their book profits. Corporate leaders prefer to report low profits to the IRS (to reduce taxes) and high profits to the public (to attract investors).”

But since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has issued guidance and regulatory proposals designed to gut the CAMT. The effort is a boon to corporate giants and rich private equity investors at a time when the Trump administration is relentlessly attacking programs for low-income Americans, including Medicaid and nutrition assistance.

TheNew York Times reported Saturday that “with its various tax relief provisions, the administration is now effectively adding hundreds of billions of dollars in new breaks for big businesses and investors” on top of the trillions of dollars in tax cuts included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.

“The Treasury is empowered to write rules to help the IRS carry out tax laws passed by Congress,” the newspaper added. “But the aggressive actions of the Trump administration raise questions about whether it is exceeding its legal authority.”

The administration’s assault on the CAMT has drawn scrutiny from members of Congress.

In a September 8 letter to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a group of Democratic lawmakers and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) warned that the administration’s guidance notices “create new loopholes in the corporate alternative minimum tax for the largest and wealthiest corporations.”

“Most troubling, Notice 2025-27, issued this June, allows companies to avoid CAMT if their income—under a simplified accounting method—is below $800 million,” the lawmakers wrote. “The Biden administration previously set the safe harbor threshold precisely at $500 million in its proposed CAMT rule after calculating that a higher safe harbor threshold would risk exempting corporations that should be subject to CAMT under statute.”

“Now, less than nine months later and with zero justification, this new guidance summarily asserts that an $800 million safe harbor will not run that risk,” they continued. “We are seriously concerned that this cursory loosening of CAMT enforcement will simply allow more wealthy corporations to avoid paying their legally owed share.”

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an 8 25

New Republic reporter Timothy Noah said seven out of the ten top donors to the presidential race last year gave to Trump — and now their favored president is turning on them

“… The White House keep[ing] scorecards measuring the loyalty of 553 corporations to President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful reconciliation bill demonstrates that the relationship between private wealth and this presidential administration isn’t as happy as you might think,” said Noah.

Trump is certainly making corporations happy by “chucking health care for the poor so it can cut taxes for the rich,” said Noah, and he’s also “dismantling regulatory agencies created to check corporate power.” Trump lowering taxes and deregulation “are what oligarchs desire more than anything else,” Noah adds, which is why “people like Elon Musk, Timothy Mellon, and Miriam Adelson supported Trump in 2024.”

READ MORE: 'Complete 180' and 'hot mic moment': Brutal CNN supercut reveals how Trump got played by Putin

However, “Trump’s pathological attachment to high tariffs, his never-ending threats to destabilize the Federal Reserve, and, increasingly, his demands that corporations bend the knee are all more than these plutocrats likely bargained for,” Noah said.

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Even as Trump dismantles regulatory agencies legitimately created by Congress, he is introducing a new, “more chaotic regulatory regime dictated by his own whims,” said Noah. “Trump appears intent on ripping up business regulations" and “replacing them with himself.”

Consider the president allowing chip-maker Nvidia to sell AI chips to China. Trump had previously blocked those sales on national security grounds, but Noah said Trump changed his mind and allowed sales, providing Nvidia turned over 15 percent of the resultant revenues to the United States Treasury.

The Constitution does not grant a president the right to demand Invidia surrender a portion of its revenues from Chinese sales to the U.S. Treasury, said Noah, “Nor does the Constitution encourage a president to tell Goldman Sachs to fire its chief economistor Intel to fire its chief executive."

READ MORE: buckle up: Former Trump attorney Alina Habba may be in office for awhile

And then there’s the issue of Trump approving the merger of Nippon and U.S. Steel — provided the federal government retain a “golden share” that allows it to veto certain future actions affecting workers. Language in that agreement refers unnecessarily to Trump by name,which strikes Noah as “unsettlingly authoritarian.”

And now comes the news that Trump has loyalty “scorecards” on corporations that rank their support as “strong, moderate, or low” based on whether and how they supported passage of the Big Beautiful Bill through “social media posts, press releases, video testimonials, ads, [or] attendance at White House events.” The most obedient companies, said Noah, appear to be AT&T, Airlines for America, Cisco, Delta, DoorDash, the Steel Manufacturers Association, Uber and United.

“[I]f history is any guide, businesses don’t fight fascist corporatism; they just grope their way toward accommodating it,” writes Noah. “That’s certainly what we’re seeing thus far. Even when Trump bullies American oligarchs, they can’t see their way to judging him anything other than their guy.”

Read the full New Republic report at this link.

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an 12 24 mojo

I was a rotten high school student, a shirker and smart-ass of the first rank. I even found myself purged from a typing class for bad behavior—an event I regret to this precise moment, since touch-typing is obviously a convenient skill for someone in my profession. Afterward, I had to choose another "elective." Naturally, I seized upon home economics—in which, I hoped, I'd spend my time amusing girls with wisecracks and whipping up desserts from boxed mixes. If memory serves, that's exactly how it played out—especially the bit about the just-add-water confections. Mmmm, instant cake.

In other words, I retained just as much from my home ec class as I did from my failed stint as a student of the keyboard: which is to say, nothing. Yet Ruth Graham's recent Boston Globe essay "Bring back home ec! The case for a revival of the most retro class in school"strikes me as spot on. Graham isn't talking about the home ec of my misspent '80s youth, nor that of quaint stereotypes featuring "visions of future homemakers quietly whisking white sauce or stitching rickrack onto an apron."

She means a revitalized, contemporary home economics for all genders, one capable of at least exposing youth to basic skills that so many adults (i.e., their parents) lack: "to shop intelligently, cook healthily, [and] manage money." And I think such a reimagined home ec should move from the shadowy margins it now occupies—the field has been rebranded as "Family and Consumer Science," Graham reports—and become mandatory for all high school kids, and—why not?—even elementary school ones.

I have witnessed firsthand the vexed state of basic cooking skills among the young. When I helped run the kitchen at Maverick Farms for seven years, I noticed that most of our interns couldn't chop an onion or turn even just-picked produce into a reasonably good dish in a reasonable amount of time. And these were people motivated enough about food to intern at a small farm in rural North Carolina. If I had their cooking skills, I'd be tempted to resort to takeout often, just to save time.

It's true that in my home ec class nearly a quarter century ago, we weren't taught how to handle a knife or follow a simple recipe for a from-scratch dish. But home ec wasn't always so vapid. Graham points to New York Times reporter Michael Moss' great 2013 book Salt Sugar Fat, which contains a brief history of the home ec trade in US public schools.

The convenience food industry that's so powerful and entrenched today was just taking root in the 1950s. And as it began to aggressively market its products to a growing US middle class, it "faced one real obstacle," Moss writes: the "army of school teachers and federal outreach workers who insisted on promoting home-cooked meals, prepared the old fashioned way."

Home ec teachers explicitly battled against the industry's claims of convenience, Moss shows. In 1957, he writes, the American Home Economics Association conducted a demo pitting a commercial cake mix against a homemade batter, Moss reports. "As reported in the association's journal, the homemade cake not only cost less and tasted better, it took only five more minutes to prepare, cook, and serve." Plus the batter could be made in advance and stored, "for quick parceling out when a cake was needed." Home-ec teachers also schooled their charges in frugal shopping, teaching them to "avoid buying things they didn't need."

Graham drops a bit more history:

If any single person could be said to be the founder of home economics, it is the formidable Ellen Swallow Richards, a Bostonian who was the first woman admitted to MIT. She served as the first president of the American Home Economics Association and was instrumental in coming up with the term "home economics," officially adopted at a conference "for the betterment of the home" in 1899, just in time for the dawn of a scientifically minded century. Though it may now seem impossible, the discipline was originally rooted in progressive and even feminist thinking. The idea was to bring scientific rigor into the home, and to professionalize women’s domestic work, bringing dignity and efficiency to both.

To rebuff this cadre of holdouts within America's schools, the food industry mobilized in two ways, Moss reports. First up was rolling out a school marmish figure called "Betty Crocker"—invented by the marketing department of the company that would become General Mills to extol the wholesomeness and ease of processed crap. The other move was a kind of leveraged buyout of the home ec trade itself: first by pouring money into grants and fellowships for the American Home Economics Association—$288,250 in 1957 alone, Moss writes—and then by "sponsoring candidates for the organization's top leadership posts, candidates who would bring a decidedly pro-industrial view to home economics."

And that is how home ec became the piece-of-instant-cake elective that I so idly enjoyed in the '80s.

But imagine a home ec that taught basic skills like how to prepare a simple pureed vegetable soup, whip up a quick, easy, and much-cheaper-than-bottled salad dressing, or stock up a pantry with inexpensive bulk staples?

Food isn't the only sphere in which millions of American adults—and the kids they are raising—find themselves swimming in a sea of ignorance, at the mercy of an industry peddling dubious wares. Another one is personal finance, as Helene Olen shows in her indispensable 2013 book Pound Foolish. Over the past two decades, what Olen calls the "personal finance industrial complex" has fooled Americans into such follies as leveraging their futures with deceptively pricey credit cards, dumping hard-earned savings into that casino called the stock market, and buying houses they can't afford and too often can't hold on

In doing so, the industry has made personal finance into something that seems impossibly complex—what the hell is a variable annuity?—and then presented gurus who simplify it along lines convenient for itself. All of that is nonsense, Olen shows. After an interviewingher about what he sees as the "financial industry's most basic dilemma," that the "best advice fits on a 3×5 index card and is available for free at the library," University of Chicago social scientist Harold Pollack actually scribbled out that card. Check it out—it's mostly about saving as much as possible and avoiding the fees of Wall Street charlatans. If those simple principles could be drummed into the heads of high school students, imagine the misery that could be avoided. And what better forum for it than new-wave home ec? After all, the home ec curricula of yore included lessons on household finance.

A revived curriculum could be broader than just food and money, Graham notes. "Even sewing is gaining a certain relevance, as consumers grow increasingly wary of disposable garments made in unregulated factories overseas," she writes. "An ambitious class could also include things like basic household plumbing or car repair." I certainly could have used those skills (though auto mechanics have gotten so complex that I think "How to choose a reliable car you can afford—or get by without one altogether" might be a better theme.)

The main obstacle between where we are now and home ec nirvana is funding, as Graham notes. Public school systems are so strapped that they're already slashing equally worthy classes like art, music, and PE. But producing generation upon generation of people who don't know how to feed themselves healthily or manage their finances is generating massive, cascading societal costs—and the pennies we pinch by not revitalizing home ec seem like a classic false economy, much like those boxed cakes the food industry was already peddling by 1957

11 24

aha:  tax dodge = amplifying feedback -->  inequality/ polarization --> instability --> crisis

aha2 // billionaires hide $ in fam fdn, // gop attack gubmint, degrade ability to work, trash more rinse repeat downward death spiral, deconstruct admin state burn it down alt rt nihilism? bannon trump clown car cabinet; corp dark money to drop tax rate more and kill regulations --> extraction

an 11 24

A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.

The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that "the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion." Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN's calculations.

"For people everywhere, the losses translate into foregone public services, and weakened states at greater risk of falling prey to political extremism," the study reads. "And in the same way, there is scope for all to benefit from moving tax rule-setting out of the OECD and into a globally inclusive and fully transparent process at the United Nations."

The analysis estimates that just eight countries—the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—are enabling large-scale tax avoidance by opposing popular global reform efforts. Late last year, those same eight countries were the lonely opponents of the United Nations General Assembly's vote to set in motion the process of establishing a U.N. tax convention.

According to the new TJN study, those eight countries are responsible for roughly half of the $492 billion lost per year globally to tax avoidance by the rich and large multinational corporations, despite being home to just 8% of the world's population.

"The hurtful eight voted for a world where we all keep losing half a trillion a year to tax-cheating multinational corporations and the super-rich," Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said in a statement Tuesday. "The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system, and their people consistently demand an end to tax abuse, so it's absurd that the U.S. and U.K. are seeking to preserve it."

"It's perhaps harder to understand why the other handful of blockers, like Australia, Canada, and Japan, who don't play anything like such a damaging role, would be willing to go along with this," Cobham added.

TJN released its study as G20 nations—a group that includes most of the "hurtful eight"—issued a communiqué pledging to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed." Brazil, which hosted the G20 summit, led the push for language calling for taxation of the global super-rich.

The document drew praise from advocacy groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, which stressed the need to "transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into global reality."

The communiqué was released amid concerns that the election of far-right billionaire Donald Trump in the U.S. could derail progress toward a global solution to pervasive and costly tax avoidance.

The new TJN study cites Trump's pledge to cut the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% and warns such a move would accelerate the global "race to the bottom" on corporate taxation.

"People in countries around the world are calling in large majorities on their governments to tax multinational corporations properly," Liz Nelson, TJN's director of advocacy and research, said Tuesday. "But governments continue to exercise a policy of appeasement on corporate tax."

"We now have data from these governments showing that when they asked multinational corporations to pay less tax, the corporations cheated even more," Nelson added. "It's time governments found the spines their people deserve from their leaders."

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an 11 24

The results of last week's U.S. elections were cataclysmic for the Democratic Party, which lost control of the White House and Senate as the Republicans gained a trifecta, but economic justice advocates on Wednesday said that for many working people, the fight for a better standard of living and a political system that places people over Wall Street profits remains the same.

United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain acknowledged in aletter to membersthat while the election outcome was not one that "our union advocated for, and it's not the outcome a majority of our members voted for, our mission remains the same."

"We must raise the standard of living for our members and the entire working class through unity, solidarity, and working-class power," said Fain. "No matter who is in the White House."

Noting that "in a democracy, the four most important words are: The People Have Spoken," Fain suggested that the Democratic Party did not convince a key constituency—working people, including an estimated78% of Americans who live paycheck-to-paycheck—that it represents their interests, and as a result handed the presidential victory to President-elect Donald Trump.

While the UAW endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and Fain campaigned with her, he said, "for us, this was never about party or personality. As we have said consistently, both parties share blame for the one-sided class war that corporate America has waged on our union, and on working-class Americans for decades."

Trump ran an openly xenophobic campaign, but won the support of low-income voters from a range of ethnic backgrounds as he demonized undocumented immigrants and made outlandish, racist claims about Ohio residents from Haiti, sticking to his longtime narrative that immigration—not corporate greed—is to blame for the country's housing crisis, economic inequality, and stagnant wages.

"The task for the Democrats is what it should have been all along: remaking the party into the party of the bottom 90%... the party that rejects Elon Musk and the entire American oligarchy."

As numerous progressives have pointed outsince the election, the Biden administration has introduced a host of pro-worker policies and Harris unveiled numerous economic justice proposals during her brief campaign—but her decision to campaignwith billionaire businessman Mark Cuban and unveil a more Wall Street-friendly tax proposal have been criticized moves that highlighted the Democratic Party's close ties to rich donors and muddied her message to working families.

With the Democratic Party still taking part in the "one-sided class war" referenced by Fain, the UAW leader said that the union "stand[s] today where we stood last week."

"We stand for bringing back American jobs," said Fain. "We stand for taking on corporations that break their promises to American workers. And we stand against the same things we've always stood against. We will never support the destruction of the union movement. We will never support efforts to divide and conquer the working class by nationality, race, and gender. We will never support handouts to the ultra-wealthy or paying for it by cutting crucial federal investments."

"We are unafraid to confront any politician who takes actions that harm the working class, our communities, and our unions," he said.

Fain's comments came as progressive lawmakers including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke at an event titled Delivering for the Working Class.

While the caucus is set to be in the minority in the House and Senate for at least the next two years, the senators used the event to rally Democratic leaders to "learn the right lessons" from Trump's victory.

As Democrats decide who they answer to, Warren asked, "Is it going to be a handful of billionaires? We know what kind of policy they want to set. Or are we going to show voters that Democrats are the ones who are willing to unrig this economy?"

Sanders suggested that Fain's rallying of the UAW's more than 400,000 members will also be a key to fighting Trump's agenda, including Republicans' plans to make cutsto Social Security and Medicare and hislikely reversalof Biden's pro-worker policies.

"The antidote to enormous economic and political power on the part of the few is mass organizing at the grassroots level among working people—to stand up and fight for an economy that works for all," said Sanders.

Just after the election last week, Sanders became one of the first members of the Democratic caucus to release a statementon the party's major losses, driving home the same message he has repeated during his decades in public service: "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."

On MSNBC on Wednesday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the election results in several red states proved that many of Trump's supporters prioritized working class issues.

"Voters actually want the populist, popular ideas that we have been pushing at the Progressive Caucus, certainly, for quite some time," said Jayapal. "They went to the ballot in three states that voted for Donald Trump... and they voted for a higher minimum wage, they voted for paid sick leave."

Voters in Alaska and Missouriapproved ballot measures requiring a higher minimum wage and demanding that employers provide paid sick leave; Nebraska voters also supported a measure allowing workers to earn paid sick leave.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Thursday also took a close look at voting figures, writing at his Substack newsletter that the election didn't deliver "a very big mandate" to Trump as the president-elect claimed, or even "a 'red shift' to Trump and the Republicans."

"It was a blue abandonment," he wrote. "We now know that 9 million fewer votes were cast nationwide in 2024 than in 2020. Trump got about a million more votes than he did in 2020 (700,000 of them in the seven battleground states). That's no big deal... The biggest takeaway is that Biden's 9 million votes disappeared... So what happened to the 9 million?"

Reich posited that 9 million potential voters refused to vote for Trump, but also didn't turn out for the Democratic Party because they were left thinking, "They don't give a damn about me."

"The task for the Democrats is what it should have been all along: remaking the party into the party of the bottom 90%—the party of people who don'tlive off stocks and bonds, of people who are not CEOs or billionaires like Mark Cuban, the party that rejects Elon Musk and the entire American oligarchy," he wrote. "Instead, the Democratic Party must be the party of average working people whose wages have gone nowhere and whose jobs are less secure."

He continued:

Blue-collar private-sector workers earned more on average in 1972, after adjusting for inflation, than they are earning now in 2024. This means today's blue-collar workers are on average earning lessin real dollars than their grandparents earned 52 years ago.

Yet the American economy is far larger than it was 52 years ago. Where did the additional money go? To the top. So what's the Democrats' task? To restructure the economy toward more widely shared prosperity.

In his statement on Wednesday, Fain said the lives and daily struggles of many working class voters are unchanged after the election.

"Today, our members clock in to the same jobs they clocked into last week," said Fain. "You face the same threats—corporate greed, Wall Street predators, and a political system that ignores us. And we are driven by the same force, as outlined in our UAW Constitution generations ago: 'The hope of the worker in advancing society toward the ultimate goal of social and economic justice.'"

Fain urged union members to get involved in "political action on every level of government, in every state, in every sector has an impact on every contract, every organizing drive, and every standard we win as a union," while Sanders implored the Democratic Party to urgently "determine which side it is on in the great economic struggle of our times."

"It needs to provide a clear vision as to what it stands for," wrote Sanders in a Boston Globe op-ed on Tuesday. "Either you stand with the powerful oligarchy of our country, or you stand with the working class. You can't represent both."

NOW READ:It's time for Democrats to declare class warfarethom FDR

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lever $ 11 24

Trump’s pick of Congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general has rocked Washington. Gaetz’s controversial history, including a Justice Department investigation into alleged sex trafficking, makes him an absurd choice. But in a special Lever Time Premium episode exclusively for paid subscribers, political analyst and Lever contributor Matt Stoller points out that Gaetz has a surprising record on antitrust and issues of corporate power, raising questions about his potential impact on corporate regulation if he manages to be confirmed.

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lever $ 11 24

Trump’s pick of Congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general has rocked Washington. Gaetz’s controversial history, including a Justice Department investigation into alleged sex trafficking, makes him an absurd choice. But in a special Lever Time Premium episode exclusively for paid subscribers, political analyst and Lever contributor Matt Stoller points out that Gaetz has a surprising record on antitrust and issues of corporate power, raising questions about his potential impact on corporate regulation if he manages to be confirmed.

===

mma

Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook to crush the free press in a second term

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/29/24

If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the fate of the U.S. press may rest on whether corporate executives who control mammoth multimedia conglomerates are willing to prioritize the journalistic credibility of the news outlets they oversee over their own business interests.

Trump will put wealthy media magnates to the test, forcing them to decide whether they are willing to suffer painful consequences for keeping their outlets free of influence, or whether they will either compel their journalists to knuckle under or sell their outlets to someone who will.

Trump spent his presidency demanding that his administration target his perceived political enemies with federal pressure — fromregulatory action to criminal investigations — and says he would be even less restrained in enacting “retribution” in a second term.

In recent months, prominent commentators have warned that the press could become such a target of Trump, whose own former top aides describe him as a fascist. New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger, in an extraordinary warning in the pages of The Washington Post, wrote last month that Trump takes as his model Hungary’s autocrat Victor Orban, who has “effectively dismantled the news media in his country” as “a central pillar of Orban’s broader project to remake his country as an ‘illiberal democracy.’”

These fears that Trump would use a second term to crack down on the press are rational. The former president demands sycophantic coverage and describes those who do not provide it as the “enemy of the people.” Trump’s rhetoric and record show that he is keenly aware of the vulnerabilities some news outlets have and is eager to exploit them if he returns to the White House.

Corporate media owners are vulnerable to Trump’s pressure — and some are already bending

Trump’s presidency revealed the dark playbook he and his allies use against perceived enemies such as individual journalists. Its potential tactics include publicly denouncing reporters, stripping them of access, inciting supporters to target them with violence, threatening them with investigation, and sending federal agencies like the Justice Department after them. These heinous maneuvers could and likely would be used against journalists in a second Trump term.

But perhaps the greater threat to the free press as an institution comes from Trump’s ability to target for retaliation the corporate barons who control the newspapers, broadcast and cable networks, and other outlets that employ those journalists.

While some publications like the Times are functionally standalone journalism businesses, many others are either small divisions within massive multimedia companies whose executives are ultimately responsible to stockholders or privately held entities that represent a tiny fraction of their owner’s assets.

CNN is part of Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company that also owns film and TV studios, streaming services, and a host of other businesses.

Comcast provides cable and internet services to consumers and owns and operates broadcast and cable TV channels and a movie studio, in addition to overseeing NBC News and MSNBC.

CBS News is owned by Paramount Global. ABC News is part of the Walt Disney Co.

Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post (where my wife works as letters and community editor) but his billions come from founding Amazon, which is the nation’s second-largest private employer with subsidiaries in industries from online retail to web services, artificial intelligence to groceries. Patrick Soon-Shiong used a fraction of the wealth he earned in biotech to purchase the Los Angeles Times.

Trump understands that those broader corporate structures create a host of potential vulnerabilities an authoritarian president with no interest in preserving the rule of law could utilize against the owners of news outlets that displease him. Individuals and corporations that own major news outlets have other business interests that may rely on government contracts or federal patents or regulators who oversee their mergers and acquisitions and other practices.

The former president knows that even if journalists want to stand up to him, he can force their outlets to change course by threatening corporate executives and owners who have different priorities.

Trump does not just lash out at the Post — he targets the “Amazon Washington Post.” When he goes after NBC and MSNBC, he calls out Comcast’s CEO by name. He shares attacks on Disney’s Bob Iger as part of his war on ABC News.

He is telegraphing the future trouble he may bring down on the corporate owners if they do not bring their news outlets to heel — and forcing those owners to determine how much pain they are willing to endure over a division that likely provides a small fraction of the overall corporation's revenues.

Some media owners seem to be responding to Trump’s authoritarian message in advance of Election Day. Bezos and Soon-Shiong both reportedly overruled the editorial boards of the papers they own and spiked planned editorials endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in the final weeks of the race, while NBC will not air a documentary about the impact Trump’s administration had on migrant families until December. While all three have offered other explanations for their moves, observers have noted that their other business interests give each extensive exposure to a Trump presidency.

Corporate executives also know that there are rewards for knuckling under and following the paths of avowed pro-Trump figures like Rupert Murdoch, whose multimedia empire includes right-wing fixtures Fox News and the New York Post, and David Smith, whose Sinclair Broadcasting Group is a telecommunications giant that owns and programs scores of TV stations. Both received favorable regulatory treatment during Trump’s presidency.

Case study: How Trump could target CBS News in a second term

Others will come under increasing pressure if Trump returns to the White House. For example, the former president has decried the network’s editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris as “the biggest scandal in broadcast history” and said that CBS should be stripped of its broadcast license.

While Trump apparently lacks a clear understanding of how the government regulates news networks like CBS, he is making clear that he expects federal retribution against the network — and Paramount Global, its parent company, is acutely vulnerable to such retaliation.

Paramount Global, after a monthslong search for a buyer, agreed in July to a proposed merger with Skydance Media, the production company founded by filmmaker David Ellison. The deal will need to go through Justice Department antitrust regulators who, under a normal administration, are supposed to scrutinize its impact on media consolidation.

But Trump eschews the traditional independence of the Justice Department, seeing it instead as an extension of the president’s personal will. If he returns to the White House, it will be impossible to separate the DOJ’s handling of the Paramount-Skydance merger from his personal grudge with CBS News. And the executives of those companies will be pressed to respond.

What happens if Trump gets elected and the Justice Department derails the merger? If Trump’s associates tell Paramount executives that it might get back on track if CBS News provided more positive coverage of Trump’s administration, how would they respond?

Journalists at CBS News might resist that kind of pressure. But what would happen if Skydance’s Ellison suddenly got a call from Lachlan Murdoch suggesting that CBS News was holding up the deal and offering to buy it? If that hypothetical sounds far-fetched, consider that it is reportedly quite similar to reports about the Trump-era merger featuring the parent company of CNN.

Ellison doesn’t have roots in journalism; he’s a film producer and the son of the billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Does he — and other corporate owners like him — care more about the preservation of the free press than completing a megamerger?

We may find out.-

===

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News outlets reported that Vice President Kamala Harris proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% if she wins the presidency this November, partially rolling back the Trump-era tax cuts that slashed corporate taxes.

Even though corporate tax revenue plummeted in response to the Trump tax cuts, and American corporations are undertaxed relative to other developed economies in the OECD, conservative media began assailing Harris’ policy with false claims of immediate and “massive layoffs” and higher inflation.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has explained, Trump’s 2017 tax cut was skewed to the richest Americans, and the corporate tax cut even moreso, with the bottom 90% of workers gaining nothing from the corporate tax rate cut, while corporate executives earning nearly $1 million a year got an average $50,000 earnings boost. A leading reason that Trump's corporate tax changes benefited the wealthy was the imposition of a flat tax of 21% to replace what had been a graduated rate system, ranging from 15% to 35%.

And thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, even as corporate profits went up during most of his presidency, corporate tax revenue dropped until the pandemic and the years after. Corporate tax revenue as a share of the economy remains near historic lows at under 2% of gross domestic product, and it’s also near historic lows as a share of federal tax revenue. :{

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Co-operations and Development (OECD) average showed corporate tax revenue in 2020 at just over 15% of total tax revenue, and 3% of GDP, showing that U.S. corporations have a very light tax burden in comparison. In 2023, the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that raising the corporate tax rate to 28% would raise more than $1.3 trillion in revenue over 10 years.

Yet conservative media reacted to Harris’ proposal with hyperbolic doom and gloom. Citing an analysis from the Tax Foundation, Fox News personalities claimed that raising the corporate tax rate would lead to “massive layoffs” “right off the bat.” Yet the Tax Foundation’s analysis projected a loss of only 128,000 “full-time equivalent jobs” by 2034. This is a drop in the bucket of the millions of jobs projected to be created over the course of a decade. Other conservatives claimed that raising the corporate tax rate would be inflationary; in reality, tax increases are broadly considered deflationary.

* Wash. Times columnist and Trump campaign staffer Tim Murtaugh: “She wants to tax job creators at a higher rate than Chinese communists do.” Murtaugh added: “Who do you think will pay for the tax increase? Do you suppose maybe it’s passed on to consumers like always? Harris is dangerous.” Twitter/X, [8/20/24]

related

  1. ### Fox goes to bat for supermarket price gouging as VP Harris prepares to call out corporate greed

08/15/24

  1. ### Fox Business host struggles to attack Tim Walz’s economic record as governor

08/09/24

  1. ### Economists blame the Fed for jobs report missing expectations. Trump sycophants instead blamed Kamala Harris.

08/02/24

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jake j commn dr an 1 24

two new reports published Tuesday by the Roosevelt Institute argue that robust corporate taxation is key to creating a strong economy and improving the well-being of families and children—objectives that have been undermined in the decades since the Reagan era by regressive tax cuts enacted on the false premise that benefits would "trickle down" to the rest of society.

The first report, A Mapping of the Full Potential of U.S. Corporate Taxation to Enhance Child and Family Well-Being, examines what the authors describe as the understudied notion that "increasing corporate taxation will necessarily help children and families by providing additional revenue for essential public services."

That perspective runs counter to what the Roosevelt Institute's second report calls "a 'cut-to-grow' mentality" that rose to prominence in the 1970s and was enthusiastically embraced by the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

"Under this view, the thinking went, it was necessary to reduce the corporate tax rate to grow the economy—and that this growth would allow gains to eventually 'trickle down' from the rich shareholders to the middle class," the report states. "During this time, the corporate tax rate was gradually reduced to 35% before it was dramatically cut to 21% in 2017. These cuts resulted in corporate tax revenues falling to less than 10% of total federal revenues."

"Perhaps more than any other, President Ronald Reagan leveraged mounting backlash to taxation and government spending to dramatically reduce both, regardless of the consequences to American families," the report observes.

"Corporate tax policy since Reagan has been driven by the trickle-down economics narrative that cutting the taxes on 'job creators' will benefit less wealthy U.S. taxpayers."

The decades-long decline in corporate tax rates has severely undermined the federal government's ability to finance critical public goods, from education to childcare.

"Since regressive corporate tax cuts don't significantly increase earnings for working families (through either wage or employment increases), but they do reduce the government's ability to fund family income and care supports, childcare costs—which are already rising—can become a relatively more expensive line item in working parents' household budgets," reads the Roosevelt Institute's first report, authored by Emily DiVito and Niko Lusiani.

"When they can't afford childcare," they added, "parents face the difficult choice of having to cut costs in other places—often on the basic necessities that allow children to thrive, like food, clothing, and enrichment activities—or taking on additional caregiving duties themselves."

At the state and local levels, DiVito and Lusiani noted, "corporations' successful efforts to avoid their full property tax liability devastate public school budgets."

DiVito, deputy director for the corporate power program at the Roosevelt Institute, said Tuesday that "we have a false idea in the U.S. that corporate tax policy is unrelated to equitable social reforms."

"However, strong corporate tax policy is vital to all aspects of a thriving economy," she argued. "And the failing to reimagine a more ambitious and comprehensive use of corporate tax policy prevents us from achieving a more equitable, sustainable, and democratic economy and society for all families."

The new reports come a week after a bipartisan pair of House and Senate negotiators announced a deal to expand the child tax credit (CTC) for three years in exchange for a series of corporate tax cuts. The American Prospect's David Dayen estimated that "in the time period when all the tax credits are actually in place, the business tax changes are five times more costly than the CTC changes."

"Who knows if this deal can pass in time to take effect in the upcoming 2023 tax season, if ever. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is already asking for changes to make it even more generous to businesses. That's in part a function of the dissembling that there is 'parity' in the deal. The truth is that this is not an equal trade. And it may extend that inequity well into the future."

That warning is in line with the Roosevelt Institute's new research, which argues that a corporate tax code generous to big business fuels inequality by "benefiting capital interests (i.e., business owners, partners, and shareholders) at the expense of workers and their families."

"When corporations enjoy low taxes on their profits, they face a trade-off for how to otherwise disperse them: make investments in the workforce and productive capacity (e.g., raise wages, hire more workers, and/or upgrade buildings, equipment, or technology) or distribute them to shareholders (i.e., pay out dividends and buy back stock to inflate prices). Data shows that executives typically choose the latter."

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, a professor of law at the University of Michigan and the lead author of the new report on "cut to grow" ideology, said in a statement that "corporate tax policy since Reagan has been driven by the trickle-down economics narrative that cutting the taxes on 'job creators' will benefit less wealthy U.S. taxpayers."

"Such an idea is often offered in tandem with the notion that this is the only way tax policy can help American families," said Avi-Yonah. "But this just isn't true. In fact, this false 'cut-to-grow' narrative has made it very difficult to argue for a more expansive, progressive vision of corporate tax reform—contributing to a decades-long stalemate in efforts toward real comprehensive corporate tax reform."

"Now is the time," he added, "to reverse this trend with a more historically grounded support of the corporate tax."

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— A new report finds half of the inflation America has experienced since the pandemic is caused by corporate price-gouging.A new report from the think tank Groundwork Collaborative documents how obscene corporate profits caused about 53% of the inflation we all suffered under during the second and third quarters of last year. While prices consumers paid last year went up 3.4%, for example, the “input costs” (raw materials, rent, electricity, wages, benefits) to big corporations only went up 1%, drawing from data supplied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and National Income and Products Accounts.

This is happening because in 1983 Ronald Reagan instructed his DOJ, FTC, and SEC to stop enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust and other anti-monopoly laws, leading to a decade of “Mergers & Acquisitions Mania” as was documented in Michael Douglas’ “greed is good” movie, Wall Street.

The first president since then to begin enforcing century-old anti-trust law is Joe Biden, although his administration has only put their toe in the water: they’re blocking new mergers, but have not yet begun breaking up giant companies like Roosevelt and Taft did at the turn of the 20th century and Gerald Ford did with AT&T in the 1970s. The only solution to this problem will be for Biden to get more aggressive and, by breaking up America’s corporate monoliths, restore some competition to the marketplace.

— Billionaires ask for higher income taxes and even a wealth tax: is anyone listening?A group of over 250 billionaires and multimillionaires presented an open letter to the attendees of the “Billionaire Woodstock” at Davos, Switzerland this week. Calling for higher taxes on the morbidly rich, these wealthy people wrote:

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

Valerie Rockefeller and Abigail Disney led the charge, with a letter that was both blunt and concerned:

“We are also the people who benefit most from the status quo. But inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe — and growing every day. In short, we need action now.”

The group Patriotic Millionaires published a new poll of rich people showing that fully 74% are in favor of higher taxes on their own class. An additional 58% supported a 2% wealth tax like Elizabeth Warren has supported for years, and 54% said straight out that extreme wealth is a threat to democracies around the world. Nonetheless, Republicans will go to the mat to protect or pass tax cuts for the morbidly rich, no matter how badly they damage our economy and the American middle class.

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Starbucks shouldn’t be allowed to get away with union busting.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Starbucks’ appeal of a federal district court decision which ordered seven wrongfully terminated workers in Memphis to be reinstated after being fired for union organizing.1

Starbucks wants a bailout for its record-breaking, illegal union busting campaign from a conservative Supreme Court. Despite a district court ruling that Starbucks broke federal law by firing workers for union organizing, Starbucks is trying to weaken federal labor law that officials use to grant injunctive relief, including ordering the rehiring of workers affected by their employer’s labor law violations.2

Corporations like Starbucks will use every trick in the book, including going to SCOTUS, to legitimize their illegal worker intimidation tactics. Sign the petition to hold corporations accountable to the law!

Even the Department of Justice has urged the Supreme Court to not take the case, affirming that Starbucks’ argument is flimsy and does not warrant SCOTUS review.3

SCOTUS agreeing to take this case endangers the rights of all U.S. workers. Their decision could weaken the National Labor Relations Board’s power to hold guilty corporations accountable for breaking federal labor law.4

It’s clear that corporations like Starbucks care only about their bottom line—they’ll even go to the highest court in the country to protect their profits while attacking the working class.

Thanks for all you do.

–Mia, Soraya, Nakia, Thad, and the rest of the team

Sources:

  1. “Supreme Court steps into Starbucks union fight,” The Hill, January 12, 2024

https://act.moveon.org/go/186068?t=6&akid=374171%2E20164584%2EESn7-Q

  1. Ibid.
  1. Ibid.
  1. “SCOTUS Will Hear Starbucks Case Arguing Against Key Labor Law Enforcement Tool,” Truthout, January 16, 2024

https://act.moveon.org/go/186069?t=8&akid=374171%2E20164584%2EESn7-Q

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an 1 24

in the wake of the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which a mob of far-right rioters attempted to violently disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College count, numerous corporations vowed publicly to stop donating to Republicans who supported the rioters' cause.

However, a new report from nonpartisan campaign finance research group Open Secrets shows that corporations have been flooding the campaign war chests of Republican election deniers in Congress, with more than $108 million donated since the insurrection.

"Companies pledged to pull back, but we have not seen that play out," Open Secrets investigations manager Anna Massoglia recently told the New York Times.

To come to that amount, Open Secrets tracked donations to the campaigns of the 147 House and Senate Republicans (also known as the "Sedition Caucus") who voted to overturn the 2020 election the same day supporters of former President Donald Trump ransacked the US Capitol, killing five police officers and injuring hundreds more in the process. Researchers then zeroed in on donations that came from approximately 1,400 business political action committees and trade associations.

According to Open Secrets, PACs and trade groups donated roughly $91.4 million to the Sedition Caucus in the three years since the insurrection, and funded leadership PACs affiliated with Sedition Caucus members to the tune of $16.7 million more. Some of the biggest donors include the National Association of Realtors — a trade group for the real estate industry — the American Bankers Association and United Parcel Service. Other major corporate donors to election deniers include military contractors like Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and General Atomics.

Notably, many of these donations came from the very same companies that pledged to stop supporting the Sedition Caucus. As journalist Judd Legum reported in his newsletter Popular Information, household name brands like Airbnb, Amazon, AT&T, Boeing and Pfizer publicly vowed to cut off donations to election deniers in 2021. However, Open Secrets found that all of those companies quietly resumed donations, in addition to other companies that pledged to stop supporting 2020 election conspiracy theorists like Comcast, Deloitte, General Motors, Home Depot, Marathon Petroleum, Raytheon and SpaceX, among others.

"Support for these organizations does not represent an endorsement for all issues that the organization supports," General Motors said of a 2021 donation to the Republican State Leadership Committee, which signed a statement in support of election denialism.

READ MORE:Media's 'performative neutrality' about Jan. 6 helps Trump threaten democracy: columnist

Click here to read Open Secrets' full report.

corporate-pacs-and-industry-trade-groups-steered-over-108-million-to-election-objectors-since-jan-6

Corporate PACs and industry trade have given more than $108 million to election objectors in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, according to a new OpenSecrets analysis of campaign finance reports.

Many corporations that vowed to suspend or reevaluate PAC giving to election objectors resumed making PAC donations to the so-called Sedition Caucus” within weeks or months of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the new analysis, which was first reported by the New York Times.

Over 1,400 business PACs, which include corporate PACs and industry trade groups, poured more than $91.4 million of that into political contributions directly to the campaigns of election objectors. Corporate PACs and industry trade groups added about $16.7 million more to the coffers of leadership PACs affiliated with those same members of Congress.

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Major corporations that have since resumed corporate PAC giving to election objectors include: AT&T, Boeing, Comcast, Home Depot, Lockheed Martin, Marathon Petroleum, Pfizer, Raytheon, SpaceX, Union Pacific, UPS, Verizonand Walmart.

The American Bankers Association, which paused contributions after the Jan. 6 attack, was the top contributor to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, followed by the National Association of Realtors and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

These PACs are not necessarily donating funds exclusively to election objectors. Instead, most of the corporate PACs spread money around with little discrimination. Many of the top corporate contributors to election objectors give to Democrats as well as Republicans. As companies often strive to appear politically impartial, several of the top contributors to election objectors have given about evenly to politicians on both sides of the aisle.

About 70% of contributions from the American Bankers Association’s PAC, which gave election objectors over $430,000 in the first three quarters of 2023, have benefited Republicans in recent cycles.

The National Auto Dealers Association, which gave over $203,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, similarly gives around 70% of its PAC contributions to Republicans.

UPS, which gave about 60% of its PAC contributions to Republicans in recent years, gave $164,500 to election objectors in the same period.

The PAC of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, which gave $194,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, also leans slightly right with their PAC contributions but have histories of giving to Democrat and Republican politicians.

The National Association of Realtors, the second highest overall contributor to election objectors during the first three quarters of 2023, has given about evenly to Democrats and Republicans in recent election cycles — meaning the election objectors were just a few names on a long list of the trade association’s beneficiaries. In some prior cycles the real estate trade group’s PAC has given more to Democrats while in other cycles it has given more to Republicans.

Boeing’s corporate PAC steered over $345,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023, more than any other company. But the aerospace giant has supported both Democrats and Republicans in recent years. While its PAC has given more to Republicans most recent cycles, it has also given more to Democrats in some prior cycles.

Following a similar trend, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association — which ranked third in giving to election objectors during the same period with $272,000 in PAC contributions has given slightly more to Republicans in recent years but gave more to Democrats in some prior cycles. Lockheed Martin’s PAC also generally gives slightly more to Republicans but sometimes gives more to Democrats.

AT&T’s PAC has also given about evenly to Democrats and Republicans in recent election cycles but leans slightly Republican.

Comcast, which made $192,000 in PAC contributions to election objectors since Jan. 6, has given about evenly to politicians of both parties in recent cycles. SpaceX and Honeywell International have also given roughly the same amounts to politicians of both parties in recent cycles.

American Crystal Sugar’s PAC giving leaned slightly Democratic while the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has predominantly given to Republicans.

Marathon Petroleum’s PAC, which gave $133,500 to election objectors during that period, has also given more than 90% of its contributions to Republicans – similar to many other oil and gas companies.

Koch Industries is another major contributor to election objectors that has also predominantly given to Republicans, but the Koch brothers’ energy company has a more complicated relationship with former President Donald Trump. The Kochs saw some key policy wins under the Trump administration but also clashed with the former president on several issues during his time in the White House and announced in 2023 that stopping Trump would be a key goal of their 2024 political strategy.

But that tension did not stop Koch Industries from continuing to give to members of Congress who voted against certifying 2020 election results after the Jan. 6 attack, with the company contributing $166,000 to election objectors in the first three quarters of 2023 alone. AFP Action, a super PAC affiliated with Americans for Prosperity that is predominantly funded by the Koch’s political network and Koch Industries, spent millions more to support election objectors during the same period.

Election objectors continue to rake in corporate PAC cash in 2023

Members of Congress who opposed certification of 2020 presidential election results received over $35 million in campaign and leadership PAC contributions from PACs affiliated with corporations and industry trade groups representing business interests in the first three quarters of 2023.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) received more campaign and leadership PAC money from PACs affiliated with corporations and business trade groups than any other election denier’s campaign during the first three quarters of 2023.

IFrame Content

Business PACs collectively steered over $2 million to Smith during that period with about $1.5 million to his campaign and nearly $470,000 to his leadership PAC.

Smith served as the top Republican on the House Budget Committee in the 117th Congress and now chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

Smith has already received $10,000 from more than a dozen companies during the 2024 election cycle. Corporate PAC contributors that have maxed out to Smith this cycle include American Crystal Sugar, Cigna, CVS Health, Deere & Co., Qualcomm and Toyota.

Trade associations whose PACs maxed out to Smith include the National Structured Settlements Trade Association, the National Council of Farmer Co-Ops, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trustsand the National Association of Enrolled Agents.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who left Congress at the end of 2023, are also top recipients of corporate PAC funds.

Several other election objectors supported by the business PACs have also announced their retirement or were voted out of office in the 2022 midterms, but many are also running for reelection in 2024.

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huh? wtf he does not even narrow to woke corps disney

mma 1 24

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): The Central Intelligence Agency has been interfering in our elections for years. 1964, 1968, 2016, 2020, just to name a few. And in 2024, Biden's going to need all the help he can get. Black, Hispanic, youth support -- evaporating. And he's losing to Trump in every battleground.

...

But maybe Biden knows something we don't. Maybe he thinks it's in the bag. Maybe it is in the bag. A former CIA analyst says we can expect the intelligence agencies who've been turbocharged by diversity, equity, and inclusion to reemerge this year and subvert the Republican nominee.

...

So the deep state went woke in order to kneecap Republican presidential candidates who threaten their corporate and ideological agenda. That's what DEI has really been about: using inclusivity as an excuse to hire ideological hit men and hit women to do the dirty work. Remember, you're not allowed to ask recruits about their politics. But if you hire DEI-type recruits, you can assume what their politics are without having to ask.

Also, remember, the CIA does the bidding for corporate America. And if a Republican candidate threatens corporate America's agenda by controlling the border, starting trade wars with China, challenging the Green New Deal, they'll be dealt with by the CIA -- especially a CIA stacked with liberal recruits who think they're saving democracy, but they're only saving a CEO's bottom line.

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https://www.alternet.org/corporate-bullying/

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no vid

...Starbucks is a multibillion dollar company. Its new CEO will start with a pay packageestimated to be worth over $28 million dollars. That’s roughly 800x the pay of the workers who actually brew and serve the coffee the business is built on — and who barely earn a living wage.

That’s why those workers have begun to unionize.

Since December 2021, Starbucks Workers United has won union elections in more than 300 Starbucks stores, covering more than 8,000 workers and counting.

And most of the union campaigns in individual stores won by overwhelming margins,gaining more than 70% of the total votes — and in parts of the country where private sector unions rarely win.

The Starbucks union campaign has inspired young workers across the country and breathed life into a U.S. labor movement that has been stagnantfor decades.

It’s been so successful that Starbucks briefly brought its former CEO, billionaire Howard Schultz, out of retirement to bust the union, and still refusesto even sit down at the bargaining table.

That’s why I’ve been boycotting Starbucks.

As part of its campaign to tamp down further unionization, Starbucks corporate has fired scores of pro-union workers, closed stores that have unionized, threatened to withhold wage and benefit improvements from stores considering unionizing, and packed stores with outside managers to undermine organizing efforts.

The National Labor Relations Board, which oversees all union elections in the U.S., has issued more than 93 complaints covering 328 unfair labor practice charges against Starbucks — and ordered reinstatement of at least 23 fired workers so far.

Yet Starbucks is unwilling to change its anti-union ways — even though Schultz was grilled in front of Congress

Starbucks claims to be a “progressive” company.

But based on the way it’sbroken labor law and put unionized workers in the percolator, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Now is an opportunity for all of us to make our voices heard and to tell Starbucks to stop UNION BUSTING and bargain in good faith with Starbucks Workers United.

And it’s time for Joe Biden, who calls himself the “most pro-union president in American history,” to send a powerful message: we won’t tolerate union-busting by Starbucks or any other corporation — including Elon Musk’s Tesla and Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.

Otherwise, my boycott will continue — and perhaps you’ll consider joining me.

If we want to brew a future where workers have power and dignity, then we need to show solidarity with unions…

And stand up to corporate bullying.

bad actors, all give up?

ggl owns youtube

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Media Matters Vice President Julie Millican released the following statement after Axios reported that YouTube has reversed its election integrity policy and will no longer prohibit “content that says fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 presidential election and other U.S. elections.”

YouTube’s announcement today that they will resume allowing bad actors to lie about the 2020 presidential election result comes as no surprise. YouTube was one of the last major social media platforms to keep in place a policy attempting to curb 2020 election misinformation. Now, it’s decided to take the easy way out by giving people like Donald Trump and his enablers free rein to continue to lie without consequence about the 2020 elections.

YouTube and the other platforms that preceded it in weakening their election misinformation policies, like Facebook, have made it clear that one attempted insurrection wasn’t enough. They’re setting the stage for an encore.

YouTube initiated its election integrity policy in December of 2020, beginning to prohibit claims of widespread fraud in that election. The platform did not employ similar policies prohibiting such claims for the 2022 midterms.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/corporatization-of-just-about-everything

Tom Valovic

and   

Common Dreams

July 21, 2022

an 623? few lnx  https://milled.com/time/the-cover-story-planet-earths-future-now-rests-in-the-hands-of-big-business-AL5u1Lxjt1BFTGoG

back in the day, a Yale law professor named Charles Reich wrote a bestselling book called the Greening of America. His masterwork topped the New York Times best seller list and drew a ton of popular attention. Reich argued that American society was undergoing a major shift in cultural awareness (He used "consciousness", a word that no longer seems to be in vogue) and opined that this would lead to a major and lasting revitalization of our deepest cultural norms and values. It was a noble thought.

One reason the book drew so much interest is because of Reich's background. He was a former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal and a friend of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. In writing about something as retrospectively "mushy" as the consciousness movement of the sixties, Reich's unique stance might then have been described as "establishmentarian as hippie" but also more contemporary than "old school". His impressive background provided both gravitas and a strong air of credibility to the prevailing Zeitgeist. (Fun fact: among Reich's students, William and Hillary Clinton.)

The sixties, of course, disappeared into the black hole of cultural amnesia that was the Reagan era. But as Reich continued his own personal and intellectual journey, he was having none of the social trend whereby many Boomer culture warriors eventually became yuppies, merrily plunging themselves into the consumer society they once railed against. Instead, and to his credit, Reich continued to develop his ideas and aspirations in the direction of the massive changes needed to right the ship of state. And many younger folks of his vintage learned and matured from the protests and educational rebellions of the Sixties.

In 1995, Reich followed up with a second book that was titled "Opposing the System" that offered a prophetic warning about what would happen if corporations became powerful enough to "run the show." Unlike his previous masterwork, the book was, for the most part, roundly ignored by the mainstream media. It was simply too radioactive. By chance, I happened to pick it up at a used bookstore and remember marveling at how it was shunted off to the remainder shelves after the smashing success of "The Greening of America." So thoroughly was this book buried in the collective memory that when the LA Times wrote his obituary (Reich died in 2019), it wasn't even mentioned.

Does "The System" Still Exist?

Whatever anyone might want to say about the excesses or over-reach of the Sixties, with the influential younger demographic of the time, there was a widespread perception and understanding that the US government was increasingly being influenced by corporations. But that was a bit too simplistic.The semi-invisible power structure that guided many policy decisions had far-reaching tentacles and was basically an interlocking directorate of corporations working in tandem with a variety of educational and governmental institutions. It was this system of values that constituted "the establishment." The fact that, in the current political perception, many Americans no longer perceive this phenomenon (which has now mushroomed many times over in power and influence) or think of it as an obstacle to positive social change, is unfortunate.Back in the Sixties, the process of understanding the embedded role of corporate power in politics gave rise to the maxim: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Reich's quixotic warning about the anti-democratic effects of excessive corporate control on the quality of our political life, of course, went largely unheeded. Since that time, corporate power has increased many times over and it has been ably argued that corporations now have effective control over Western governments in many important legislative and policy areas. What's troubling to contemplate is how easily we've come to accept this reality as the new normal.

Not only is there more corporate control in more areas of life but (worse) there has been consolidation of corporate power into monopolies that are so powerful that they seem unstoppable. In addition to Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Media, Big Ag, we now have the new kid on the block: Big Medicine. And sadly, the privatization ( now coded as "public/private partnerships") that was initially pushed by Republicans and Libertarians has now been embraced by mainstream Democrats and has been the case for many years.

If we are to ever untangle what's happening in US politics, we should consider taking Charles Reich's advice and revisiting the notion of "the system," a juggernaut of unquestioned values and influences feeding on itself, continually reinforced by the mainstream corporate media, and having a multitude of negative impacts on the quality of life. Equally important is moving beyond the illusion that our political parties operate the same way they did 30 or 40 years ago. It's precisely this illusion that keeps ordinary citizens from exercising the full spectrum of their rights and power while serving as the conceptual underpinning for massive wealth re-distribution to economic elites.

Corporations to the rescue? Don't hold your breath

It is possible that just about every major social and political mega-problem we're now facing can in some way be traced to varying degrees of corporatization—from renewed interest in war as a solution to international relations to Big Pharma's capture of health care to the influence of dark money in our political system to a climate crisis fed and ignored by Big Energy. In my opinion, this is a worthy topic to explore. Rest assured, however, that to counter this notion, corporate interests are vigorously employing massive and costly PR and propaganda campaigns to muddy the water.

As mentioned, as corporations engage in more intrusive involvement in social and political problems (not just in the US but globally), they're also busy re-positioning themselves as agents for social change, under the moniker of "stakeholder capitalism." This is often effected under another slightly Orwellian euphemism "public/private partnerships" (Read: government in the service of business). Many areas formerly under the purview of government are now open season for powerful corporations including the climate crisis and the exploration of space. (My metaphor for this is opening up a fast-food franchise on the Titanic.)

The purported desirability of these new initiatives was made abundantly clear in several articles appearing in an April 2022 issue of Time magazine. One of them, addressing the climate crisis, advised: "Planet Earth's Future Now Rests in the Hands of Big Business." In the article we learn that:

"The U.S. Department of Energy has partnered with private companies to bolster the clean energy supply chain, expand electric-vehicle charging, and commercialize new green technologies, among a range of other initiatives. In total, the agency is gearing up to spend tens of billions of dollars on public-private partnerships to speed up the energy transition…..Across the Biden Administration, and around the world, government officials have increasingly focused their attention on the private sector—treating companies not just as entities to regulate but also as core partners….For some, the emergence of the private sector as a key collaborator in efforts to tackle climate change is an indication of the power of capitalism to tackle societal challenges; for others it's a sign of capitalism's corruption of public institutions."

In other words, it's not enough that many corporations have despoiled the earth through systematic abuse of the profit motive and the widespread capture of regulatory agencies (Just one example: the FDA now receives major portions of its funding from Big Pharma).Instead of acknowledging culpability for their role in these problems, corporate entities are busy thinking about how they can make more money on the climate crisis and the other mega-problems facing humanity. Nice.

Next up: The corporatization of space

Once again, let's draw on the self-declared wisdom of Time magazine for guidance. (This is a publication that's now in the Big Tech/Big Media" camp as it's now owned by the CEO of Salesforce.com). In the same issue, another article gushed over the fact that corporations are poised to dominate the exploration and use of space:

"….NASA made it clear that when that clock does toll, the U.S. will be getting out of the space station game, likely for good. Instead, the space agency signed a $415.6 million seed money deal with three companies—Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman—to develop their own private space stations, on which NASA and other customers could lease space for professional crews and tourists. The article goes on to point out that, in a press statement, a NASA spokesperson boasted that…." NASA is once again leading the way to commercialize space activities" and that "we are partnering with U.S. companies to develop the space destinations where people can visit, live, and work."

There are many other examples of the corporate capture of public functions could be mentioned. It's arguable, of course, that some of these efforts have effected positive change under the right circumstances. But uncontrolled and uncontrollable market forces are no substitute for thoughtful and enlightened public policy and democratic norms. Granted, this is in short supply these days but allowing corporations to fill that void is hardly a solution.

As our glorious planet continues to experience crisis after crisis, it's sad and troubling that there seems to be no shortage of profiteers looking to make an easy buck off the spoils. It seems abundantly clear that the top-down corporate model of governance is fundamentally anti-democratic by its very nature and the waning power and direction of our democratic institutions worldwide has much to do with this fact.

Given these realities, the first task at hand is to foster a widespread recognition that the stakeholder capitalism being pushed by the Davos crowd with its call to accept the public/private partnership model is little more than a clever PR inversion. As such, much of it can be placed in the same bucket as greenwashing and other forms of corporate virtue signaling. Only with the deeper conceptual change that Charles Reich tried in vain to inspire will it be possible to make a sustained commitment to cleaning up the corporate takeover of our political system, eliminating pay-for-play politics, and restoring the kind of democratic governance that Americans deeply long for.

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an 4 23

no lnx

Here’s the real reason Disney Is defying DeSantis

Sonali Kolhatkar and Independent Media Institute April 28, 2023

Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis is eager to cast himself as the new and improved Donald Trump. He has waged a relentless war against what he calls “woke ideology” by attacking the rights of vulnerable minorities to teach and learn history, to read literature, and to get life-saving medical care such as gender-affirming treatment and reproductive health care. Now, his attack on Florida’s largest corporation is being cast in the same vein of “good versus evil.”

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Except that the DeSantis-Disney war ought really to be viewed as an opportunity to call Republicans out on their slavish devotion to Big Business and dare them to follow through with stripping not just the Disney corporation, but all money-hungry companies of their dependence on public financing. Both DeSantis and Disney are predatory, albeit in different ways.

Disney, a company that has deep cultural sway over Americans for being a purveyor of “magic” and “happiness,” has enjoyed a very special and extremely unusual arrangement in Orlando, Florida, where its Walt Disney World Resort occupies tens of thousands of acres named the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Since 1967, the state of Florida has allowed the corporation to govern the area and even to issue tax bonds to residents in order to pay for municipal services while being exempt from certain regulations and taxes.

Rather than viewing Disney World as “the happiest place on earth,” Sophie Weiner, writing in Popular Mechanics in 2018, explained that, “Disney World is what it looks like if you give a corporation full control over an area of land as big as San Francisco. It’s worked out great for the company, which counts on the park for 14 percent of its $2 billion yearly earnings.” Further, in 2021, the state of Florida gifted the company a massive $580 million tax break in exchange for moving about 2,000 jobs from its California locations to Florida.

But in March 2022 Disney took a stand against the Parental Rights in Education Law, which has been dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” act, prompting DeSantis’s ire. A month later Florida’s Republican legislature dissolved Disney’s special status in a law that is to take effect on June 1, 2023. DeSantis explained the move saying, “I’m just not comfortable having that type of agenda get special treatment in my state.” In other words, Disney’s special corporate arrangement would not be tolerated if it challenged his homophobia.

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Except that Disney had to be pushed hard into taking such a moral stand. For weeks after the bill was announced the company was perfectly content enjoying the largesse of Florida even as activists were demanding it speak out against a law prohibiting teachings that touch on gender identity and sexual orientation to kids in kindergarten through third grade. Disney’s own workers protested their employer’s lack of courage. The hashtag #BoycottDisney began trending. The company eventually, reluctantly, reacted by suspending all its political donations in the state of Florida to both parties—not exactly the most principled stand.

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To his credit, Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek also made public statements against the bill and offered a $5 million donation to the Human Rights Campaign (which the group rejected).

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But earlier this year Florida, realizing that dissolving Disney’s tax status would end up dumping a billion-dollar bond debt onto the public, quickly scrambled to restore the special district while muzzling Disney. A new law will allow the governor to appoint leadership positions of Reedy Creek Improvement District instead of allowing Disney to do so.

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Representative Anna Eskamani, a progressive Democrat in the state legislature, told the Hollywood Reporter, “The inner workings [of the special district] stay the same. The only difference is Disney won’t challenge the governor on anything anymore.” The company was initially happy and Disney World’s head Jeff Vahle said his company was “ready to work within this new framework.”

Testing this new arrangement DeSantis has revved up his culture war, approving a rule change to expand the Don’t Say Gay bill to all grades and sending a message to LGBTQ youth that their lives don’t matter. But the new board that he appointed to govern Disney’s special district voted to nullify a company plan to expand and develop the area. It was only then that Disney filed a lawsuit against DeSantis claiming he violated their first amendment rights over the homophobic law.

Every step of the way Disney was happy to suck up all the tax perks and financial autonomy it could get away with, regardless of whom its host was harming. Only when its financial status was threatened has it claimed to be on the side of LGBTQ communities.

Aside from Eskamani, few Democrats have called Disney out for its hypocrisy and for reaping special financial perks, instead supporting the corporation for being a job creator. Democratic Congressional representative Darren Soto chastised DeSantis, saying, “It’d be nice if he stopped attacking Central Florida’s top employer.” He added, “We’re talking about trying to get [Disney] to invest more money to create more jobs. And this is not helpful to those efforts.”

Soto’s words suggest that he sees Disney performing a massive favor to the state by operating its resort and parks there instead of the other way around. But the sort of jobs that Disney creates is precisely what has fueled deep income inequality in the U.S. Its presence in Florida has meant thousands of poorly paid jobs that keep Floridians in a hand-to-mouth existence, unable to cope with the rising cost of living. Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political science professor, told USA Today, “Yes, we have a lot of jobs. But they don’t pay very much. And we seem to have lost ground over time, especially when it comes to housing costs.”

One Disney worker told the Guardian, “We’re grossly, grossly underpaid for the hours that we work,” and that “[a] lot of Disney workers are barely squeaking by. You have workers with families sleeping in their car.”

Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who is an outspoken progressive, even made a documentary about the poor treatment of Disneyland workers in Anaheim, California, where the company also enjoys special tax benefits in exchange for creating jobs and where it was granted an exception to a voter-passed minimum wage increase. Just as in Florida, Disney’s California jobs are worth about as little as the taxes the company pays to the state.

In addition to constantly being granted exemptions for taxes and regulations, corporations like Disney enjoy a mythical status in the U.S. for being so massively profitable that their dollar signs obscure capitalism’s ugly underbelly.

Disney should not have control over land, resources, tax regulations, or wages.And lawmakers should not be allowed to trample over the rights of minorities. It’s not difficult to oppose both Disney’s power grab and DeSantis’s dangerous culture wars. Indeed, both positions are fully consistent with progressive ideals of protecting and furthering the rights of human beings.

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https://www.alternet.org/kyrsten-sinema-and-joe-manchin/

no lnx

Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin awash in corporate cash as small donors flee: report

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 28: (L-R) U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) speaks as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) listen during a news conference after a procedural vote for the bipartisan infrastructure framework at Dirksen Senate Office Building July 28, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The Senate has advanced the bipartisan infrastructure framework with the vote of 67-32. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images).

Brandon Gage April 19, 2023

United States Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) are both up for reelection in 2024. But their ongoing clashes with the Democratic Party are souring voters from contributing to their respective campaigns,  The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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Manchin, a conservative Democrat who often caucuses with Republicans, and Sinema, who became an Independent last December, "each raised less than 1% of their campaign money between Jan. 1 and March 31 from donors who gave $200 or less. Those are among the lowest percentages in the Senate—and well below their previous grassroots fundraising levels, Federal Election Commission filings show," the paper explained. "In the same quarter four years ago, small donors made up about 18% of Ms. Sinema's campaign contributions and accounted for almost 5% of Mr. Manchin's finances."

Although neither politician is actively engaged in a campaign, Manchin has yet to declare his intent to hold onto his seat. Instead, Manchin has made a number of media appearances teasing a run for president.

READ MORE: 'Can't I be a moderate centrist?' Joe Manchin refuses to commit to a party if he runs for president

At stake, though, is the razor-thin majority that Democrats have in the Senate and thus President Joe Biden's capacity to enact his agenda (presuming that he is reelected).

"Democrats and the three independents who vote with them now hold 51 seats to the Republicans' 49. Next year, 33 seats are up for election, 23 of them now held by Democrats and the aligned independents," noted the Journal. "The map includes contests in such Republican-leaning states as Ohio and Montana. Arizona and especially West Virginia also could elect Republican senators."

Donors and their money, meanwhile, are actively seeking new investments.

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"Ms. Sinema has raised a little over $2 million this year, with most of the money coming from donors who gave more than $200. Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat challenging Ms. Sinema's re-election, has collected almost $3.8 million, more than half from donors giving $200 or less, campaign filings show," the Journal pointed out. "Mr. Manchin's campaign reported raising about $371,000 so far this year. In the comparable fundraising quarter six years ago—when he was last beginning an election cycle—he raised about $556,000."

READ MORE: GOP billionaire donor who funded Clarence Thomas’ lavish lifestyle also donated heavily to Sinema, Manchin

One glaring issue for Sinema and Manchin is where their donations are coming from geographically.

"With grassroots fundraising flagging, Ms. Sinema and Mr. Manchin are more reliant upon major donors and political-action committees, which tend to give only once at the maximum level," according to the Journal. "Ms. Sinema and Mr. Manchin share roughly 700 of the same individual and PAC donors who gave at least $200, a Wall Street Journal analysis of their campaign finance reports found. The analysis covered January 2019, when Ms. Sinema took office as a senator, through the end of last month. The overlap represents a fraction of their donors—Ms. Sinema's campaign alone has had more than 25,000 contributors in that time—but they share some characteristics. Almost all hail from states other than Arizona and West Virginia, and many have tended to give more heavily to Republicans than Democrats."

Another potentially problematic development is that Sinema and Manchin rely heavily on corporate cash.

"Financial industry, pharmaceutical, energy and real-estate PACs gave to both senators. The PACs for SpaceX, Elon Musk's space transportation company, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are among their shared corporate donors," added the Journal. "More than a dozen of their mutual donors also have ties to the group No Labels, which is backed by financial-industry leaders and is supportive of centrist politicians."

View the Journal's full report here (subscription required).

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mma 3 23

MARGARET BRENNAN (HOST): Quickly, Scott, you know, we are looking at the potential indictment of the 45th president of the United States, who is back on social media platforms. Have there been any measures put in place that would limit the ability to use this as an organizing tool or in a dangerous way as he calls for protests?

SCOTT GALLOWAY (NYU PROFESSOR): Not that I know of. I find it kind of borderline comical, this, this kind of hollow debate around First Amendment or speech or pretending -- these organizations pretending it was a really difficult decision. It's pretty straightforward. I mean, an organization or an individual adds shareholder value to these companies one of two ways, they create a lot of engagement through enragement or awe or they spend a lot of money on the platform. And about the time that President Trump was about to become much less enraging or have much less content, about a few days before Biden's inauguration, Meta found their backbone and kicked him off. And about the time he's about to spend another billion or billion and a half on media, they've all the sudden decided he should come back on the platform. But my understanding is the president, President Trump has called for protests and the last time he called for protests we had an insurrection. So, if they've ever wanted an excuse not to put him back on the platforms but they have it. But at the end of the day, this is all about what drives shareholder value, not any sense of what connects us or any fidelity to the commonwealth.

an 1 23

https://www.alternet.org/american-politicians/

Our political class does not govern. It entertains. It plays its assigned role in our fictitious democracy, howling with outrage to constituents and selling them out. The Squad and the Progressive Caucus have no more intention of fighting for universal health care, workers’ rights or defying the war machine than the Freedom Caucus fights for freedom. These political hacks are modern versions of Sinclair Lewis’s slick con artist Elmer Gantry, cynically betraying a gullible public to amass personal power and wealth. This moral vacuity provides the spectacle, as H.G. Wells wrote, of “a great material civilization, halted, paralyzed.” It happened in Ancient Rome. It happened in Weimar Germany. It is happening here.

Governance exists. But it is not seen. It is certainly not democratic. It is done by the armies of lobbyists and corporate executives, from the fossil fuel industry, the arms industry, the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street. Governance happens in secret. Corporations have seized the levers of power, including the media. Growing obscenely rich, the ruling oligarchs have deformed national institutions, including state and federal legislatures and the courts, to serve their insatiable greed. They know what they are doing. They understand the depths of their own corruption. They know they are hated. They are prepared for that too. They have militarized police forces and have built a vast archipelago of prisons to keep the unemployed and underemployed in bondage. All the while, they pay little to no income tax and exploit sweatshop labor overseas. They lavishly bankroll the political clowns who speak in the vulgar and crude idiom of an enraged public or in the dulcet tones used to mollify the liberal class.

Donald Trump’s seminal contribution to the political landscape is the license to say in public what political decorum once prohibited. His legacy is the degradation of political discourse to the monosyllabic tirades of Shakespeare’s Caliban, which simultaneously scandalize and energize the kabuki theater that passes for government. This burlesque differs little from the German Reichstag, where the final cri de coeur by a mortally ill Clara Zetkinagainst fascism on August 30, 1932, was met with a chorus of taunts, insults and jeers by Nazi deputies.

H.G. Wells called the old guard, the good liberals, the ones who speak in measured words and embrace reason, the “inexplicit men.” They say the right things and do nothing. They are as vital to the rise of tyranny as are the Christian fascists, a few of whom held the House hostage last week by blocking 14 rounds of voting to prevent Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker. By the time McCarthy was elected on the 15th round, he had caved on nearly every demand made by the obstructionists, including permitting any one of the 435 members of the House to force a vote for his removal at any time, thus guaranteeing political paralysis.

The internecine warfare in the House is not between those who respect democratic institutions and those who do not. McCarthy, backed by Trump and far-right conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, is as morally bankrupt as those trying to bring him down. This is a battle for control among con artists, charlatans, social media celebrities and mobsters. McCarthy joined the majority of House Republicans in support of a Texas lawsuit to void the 2020 Presidential result by preventing four states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia — from casting electoral votes for Biden. The Supreme Court refused to hear the lawsuit. There isn’t much in the Freedom Caucus extremist positions, which resemble those of Alternative fur Deutschland in Germany and Fidesz in Hungary, McCarthy doesn’t embrace. They advocate greater tax cuts for the wealthy, further deregulation of corporations, a war on migrants, more austerity programs, champion white supremacy and accuse liberals and conservatives who do not line up behind Trump of treason.

“I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it,” McCarthy said in audio posted to YouTube by a Main Street Nashville reporter in 2021. Pelosi, for her part, called McCarthy a “moron,” after he said that a possible renewed mask mandate was “a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state.” This is what passes for political discourse. I yearn for the time when political rhetoric was geared to the educational level of a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth or seventh-grade education. Now we speak in imbecilic clichés.

This political vacuum has spawned anti-politics, or what the writerBenjamin DeMott called “junk politics,” which “personalizes and moralizes issues and interests instead of clarifying them.” Junk politics “maximizes threats from abroad while miniaturizing large, complex problems at home. It’s a politics that, guided by guesses about its own profits and losses, abruptly reverses public stances without explanation, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized(e.g.: [the war in] Iraq will be over in days or weeks; Iraq is a project for generations).”

“A major effect of junk politics — its ceaseless flood of patriotic, religious, macho and therapeutic fustian — is to pull position after position loose from reasoned foundations,” DeMott noted.

The result of junk politics is that it infantilizes the public with “year-round upbeat Christmas tales” and perpetuates the status quo. The billionaire class, which has carried out a slow motion corporate coup d’état, continues to plunder; unchecked militarism continues to hollow out the country; and the public is kept in bondage by the courts and domestic security agencies. When the government watches you twenty-four hours a day, you cannot use the word “liberty.” That is the relationship between a master and a slave. The iron primacy of profit means that the most vulnerable are ruthlessly discarded. Supported by Republicans and Democrats, the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to slow economic growth and increase unemployment to curb inflation, exacting a tremendous cost on the working poor and their families. No one is required to operate under what John Ruskin called “conditions of moral culture.”

But the second result of junk politics is more insidious. It solidifies the cult of the self, the amoral belief that we have the right to do anything, to betray and destroy anyone, to get what we want. The cult of the self fosters a psychopathic cruelty, a culture built not on empathy, the common good and self-sacrifice but on unbridled narcissism and vengeance. It celebrates, as mass media does, superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and an inability to feel guilt or remorse. This is the dark ethic of corporate culture, celebrated by the entertainment industry, academia and social media.

The essayist Curtis White argues that “it is capitalism that now most defines our national character, not Christianity or the Enlightenment.” He assesses our culture as one in which “death has taken refuge in a legality that is supported by both reasonable liberals and Christian conservatives.” This “legality” ratifies the systematic exploitation of workers. White excoriates our nationalist triumphalism and our unleashing of “the most fantastically destructive military power” the world has ever known with the alleged objective of “protecting and pursuing freedom.”

“Justice, under capitalism, works not from a notion of obedience to moral law, or to conscience, or to compassion, but from the assumption of a duty to preserve a social order and the legal ‘rights’ that constitute that order, especially the right to property and the freedom to do with it what one wants,” he writes. “That’s the real and important ‘moral assessment’ sought by our courts. It comes to this: that decision will seem most just which preserves the system of justice even if the system is itself routinely unjust.”

The consequence is a society consumed by excessive materialism, pointless soul-destroying work, suffocating housing developments closer to “shared cemeteries” than real neighborhoods and a license to exploit that “condemns nature itself to annihilation even as we call it the freedom to pursue personal property.”

The billionaire class, for the most part, prefers the mask of a Joe Biden, who deftly broke the freight railway unions to prevent a strike and forced them to accept a contract a majority of union members had rejected. But the billionaire class also knows that the goons and con artists on the far right will not interfere in their disemboweling of the nation; indeed, they will be more robust in thwarting the attempts of workers to organize for decent wages and working conditions. I watched fringe politicians in Yugoslavia, Radovan Karadžić, Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tudjman, dismissed by the political and educated elites as buffoons, ride an anti-liberal wave to power in the wake of widespread economic misery.Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Citibank, Raytheon, ExxonMobile, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs will easily adapt. Capitalism functions very efficiently without democracy.

The longer we remain in a state of political paralysis, the more these political deformities are empowered.As Robert O. Paxton writes in “The Anatomy of Fascism,” fascism is an amorphous and incoherent ideology. It wraps itself in the most cherished symbols of the nation, in our case, the American flag, white supremacy, the Pledge of Allegiance and the Christian cross. It celebrates hypermasculinity, misogyny, racism and violence. It allows disenfranchised people, especially disenfranchised white men, to regain a sense of power, however illusory, and sanctifies their hatred and rage. It embraces a utopian vision of moral renewal and vengeance to coalesce around an anointed political savior. It is militaristic, anti-intellectual and contemptuous of democracy, especially when the established ruling class mouths the language of liberal democracy but does nothing to defend it. It replaces culture with nationalist and patriotic kitsch. It sees those outside the closed circle of the nation-state or the ethnic or religious group as contaminants who must be physically purged, usually with violence, to restore the health of the nation. It perpetuates itself through constant instability, for its solutions to the ills besetting the nation are transitory, contradictory and unattainable. Most importantly, fascism always has a religious coloring, mobilizing believers around rites and rituals, using sacred words and phrases, and embracing an absolute truth that is heretical to question.

Trump may be finished politically, but the political and social decay that created Trump remains. This decay will give rise to new, perhaps more competent, demagogues. I fear the rise of Christian fascists endowed with the political skill, self-discipline, focus and intelligence that Trump lacks. The longer we remain politically paralyzed, the more certain Christian fascism becomes. The January 6 mob assault on the Capital two years ago, the polarization of the electorate into antagonistic tribes, the economic misery afflicting the working class, the rhetoric of hate and violence, and the current dysfunction in the Congress is but a glimpse of the nightmare ahead.

// binding arbitration

9 substack vs #4 mercola

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In the United States, about 30 million people are subject to noncompete clauses,which "block people from working for a competing employer, or starting a competing business, after their employment ends." According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), noncompete clauses "restrict workers from moving freely" and give employers "the power to suppress wages and avoid having to compete to attract workers." Overall, the FTC estimates that noncompete clauses reduce worker earnings by $250 billion to $296 billion per year — or just under $2,000 per family.

Even if you are not subject to a noncompete clause, the existence of noncompete clauses may suppress your compensation. Noncompete clauses harm all workers by preventing jobs from opening in their industry. That means the competition for the labor of all workers is reduced, driving down wages.

Last week, the FTC proposed a new rule that would ban noncompete clauses in the United States. All existing noncompete clauses would be rendered null and void. And companies would be required to notify their employees that they are no longer be prohibited from pursuing employment from competitors. If the rule is adopted and upheld by the courts, it would be one of the most dramatic expansions in worker rights in decades.

Noncompete clauses were initially only used for high-ranking executives with access to valuable trade secrets. But, in recent years, the use of noncompete clauses has exploded. Today, "fast-food workers, arborists and manual laborers," making little more than minimum wage, are routinely required to sign noncompete clauses as a condition of their employment.

In 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported how a noncompete clause was deployed against a security guard:

In early 2017, Michael Kenny found work as a nighttime security guard at Critical Intervention Services Inc., a Florida housing development. A few weeks after accepting the job, which paid around $11 an hour, his overnight child care fell through. Mr. Kenny, a single father, resigned.

Months later, he took a job as a daytime security guard at a bank making almost $15 per hour. He said that soon after he started, his boss informed him that his previous employer had sent a letter stating Mr. Kenny had signed a two-year noncompete clause as part of his employment contract. His new employer let him go.

Kenny did not even recall agreeing to a noncompete clause. His experience is typical. A 2011 study by an M.I.T. professor "found that employers typically presented workers with noncompete contracts when the employees lacked negotiating leverage, on their first day at work, for instance."

The FTC says it has existing authority to ban noncompetes under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits "unfair methods of competition."

The opposition

The FTC's proposed rule will face stiff opposition from corporate America, which benefits from locking in valuable employees at lower wages. The Chamber of Commerce, a corporate lobbying group representing virtually every major U.S. company, issued a statement oddly claiming noncompete clauses "preserv[e] competition."

The Chamber of Commerce statement also claims "noncompete agreements are an important tool in fostering innovation." But California, which has banned noncompete agreements since the 19th Century, undercuts that argument. As Matt Stoller notes in the BIG newsletter, "California’s ban on non-competes… was a key reason for Silicon Valley’s success." According to historian Margaret O’Mara, in the 1970s, "Massachusetts was wealthier, better connected and more technologically advanced." But Massachusetts had noncompete clauses which meant "the porous information ecosystem of engineers changing companies that led to lots of companies in Silicon Valley never developed."

Other states that restrict noncompete clauses include: Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington.

A 2011 study found that "enforcement of noncompete clauses significantly impedes entrepreneurship and employment growth." Noncompete clauses don't just prevent workers from moving to another company; they prevent workers from starting their own companies. States that limit noncompete clauses ended up with more patents, more firm starts, and more employment.

Nevertheless, the Chamber of Commerce called the FTC proposal "blatantly unlawful" and, if the FTC proceeds with the rule in its current form, it is likely to be challenged in court. The Supreme Court may be sympathetic to corporations that wish to continue enforcing non-compete clauses. Specifically, the current Supreme Court has embraced the "major questions doctrine," which is the belief that "Congress must speak clearly when empowering agencies to regulate issues of vast significance." The Supreme Court invoked the previously obscure doctrine last year to "invalidate the EPA’s Clean Power Plan."

FTC Chair Lina Kahn said the agency was acting well within its authority. "In addition to the text of the statute, the structure and purpose of the statute, legislative history all support the authority that we’ll be exercising," Khan said. She cited "the D.C. Circuit’s 1975 decision in National Petroleum Refiners Ass’n v. FTC, in which the court said the commission has authority to issue competition-related rules."

The crackdown begins

Along with the proposed rule, the FTC announced an enforcement action against several companies exploiting workers with noncompete clauses. The actions represent "the first time that the agency has sued to halt unlawful noncompete restrictions."

One case involves a Michigan-based security firm, Prudential Security. According to the FTC, Prudential Security's standard noncompete clause prohibited employees "from working for a competing business within a 100-mile radius of their job site with Prudential for two years after leaving Prudential." While Prudential Security's "guards typically earned hourly wages at or near minimum wage," the noncompete clause "required employees to pay $100,000 as a penalty for any alleged violations of the clause."

A Michigan court found that Prudential Security's noncompete clause was "unreasonable and unenforceable under state law" but the company continued "to require all of their security guard employees to sign them." The FTC's order prohibits Prudential Security "from enforcing, threatening to enforce, or imposing noncompete restrictions on any current or past workers." Further, the company is "required to notify all affected employees that they are no longer bound by noncompete restrictions."

jan 2022

sludge

In April 2021, as Republican-controlled states began passing bills that will restrict voting in upcoming elections, cable and media giant Comcastput out a statement declaring its opposition to the measures.

“We believe that all Americans should enjoy equitable access to secure elections and we have long supported and promoted voter education, registration and participation campaigns across the country to achieve that goal,” the company said in a statement it provided to Deadline. “Efforts to limit or impede access to this vital constitutional right for any citizen are not consistent with our values.”

In the following months, however, Comcast and its political action committees made donations to several Republican lawmakers who authored voter suppression bills that were signed into law last year. At least 19 states enacted 33 laws that further restrict access to voting in 2021, according to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan institute Brennan Center for Justice.

On October 15, Comcast donated $1,000 to Florida Sen. Dennis Baxley, the sole sponsor of SB 90, a 48-page bill that, among other measures, makes it a misdemeanor to give water—or anything else—to people waiting in line to vote in the sweltering Florida heat, similar to a restriction that first appeared in Georgia Republicans’ suppression bill. Baxter’s bill eliminates 24/7 ballot drop boxes and requires such boxes to be monitored at all times and only available during in-person voting hours. It also requires voters seeking an absentee ballot to submit a driver’s license or Social Security number and requires voters to reapply for mail ballots more often, among its many other provisions that make voting more difficult.

The League of Women Voters of Florida, Black Voters Matter Fund, and Florida voters have filed a lawsuit to stop Baxley’s bill, which Gov. DeSantis signed into law in May. The lawsuit argues that the bill is designed to make it more difficult for seniors, minorities, and young people to vote and violates people’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Comcast made several other donations to voter suppression bill sponsors after it put out its statement, Sludge found by reviewing donations to the sponsors of new restrictive voting laws identified by the Brennan Center. The company donated $1,000 in September to Alabama Republican State Representative Alan Baker, the sponsor of a new law that shortens the window of time people have for requesting an absentee ballot. It also made donations to the sponsors of new Brennan Center-identified voter suppression laws in Utah and Kansas.

pharmaceutical company Merck signed a pro-voting rights statement that was published as an advertisement in the New York Times on April 14. “For American democracy to work for any of us, we must ensure the right to vote for all of us,” the ad reads. “We call upon all Americans to join us in taking a nonpartisan stand for this most basic and fundamental right of all Americans.”

After signing the ad, Merck donated $1,000 in September to Florida’s Baxley and $1,000 in October to Texas Republican State Senator Lois Kolkhorst, the primary sponsor of one of the state’s two new voter suppression laws and a cosponsor of the other one.

Kolkhorst’s bill, SB 1111, which was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, limits the types of addresses people can use to register to vote in ways that could be difficult for people who move often or are homeless.The bill says that people can’t use addresses where they do not live full time, and it allows voting officials to demand voters show documents to prove their place of residence. With few exceptions, Texans would not be able to use commercial post office boxes as their registration addresses, a practice that Democratic attorney Marc Elias says is often used by churches that help homeless people register to vote.

Kolkhorst was also one of the 14 cosponsors of SB 1, an omnibus voter suppression law that bans drive-through voting and 24-hour voting locations, requires voters to provide driver’s license or Social Security numbers to request absentee ballots, prohibits election officials from proactively mailing out ballots, says poll watchers can not be denied “free movement” in polling places, and more. The Brennan Center is suing Gov. Abbott in an attempt to stop the law, which it says is “a reaction to Texas’s changing electorate, which is now more racially diverse and younger than ever before.”

JPMorgan Chasealso donated to a cosponsor of Texas SB 1, giving $1,000 from its PAC to Sen. Dawn Buckingham in September. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon released a statement in March saying that “as state capitals debate election laws, we believe voting must be accessible and equitable,” and that “We regularly encourage our employees to exercise their fundamental right to vote, and we stand against efforts that may prevent them from being able to do so.”

AT&T is another company whose political donations seem to contradict its public statements.

“We believe the right to vote is sacred and we support voting laws that make it easier for more Americans to vote in free, fair and secure elections,” reads an April statement from AT&T CEO John Stankey. “We are working together with other businesses through groups like the Business Roundtable to support efforts to enhance every person’s ability to vote.”

In September, AT&T donated $1,000 to Alabama Republican Wes Allen, the chief sponsor of H.B. 285, a new state law that prohibits election officials from setting up curbside voting, ballot drop boxes, or putting voting machines outside of polling locations. The company’s Oklahoma PAC also donated $2,500 that month to Oklahoma Senate Republican Majority Leader Kim David, the sponsor of a new state law that shortens the deadline for applying for a mail-in ballot from 7 days before an election to 15 days before the election, among other provisions.

AT&T and its PACs also donated $500 to Florida’s Baxley in March, after the senator had formally introduced his voter suppression bill, and made donations to sponsors of Brennan Center-identified restrictive voting laws in Utah and Kansas.

Other companies and organizations that donated to the sponsors of Brennan Center-identified state voter suppression measures after publicly denouncing them earlier this year include General Motors and Planned Parenthood, whose PACs contributed to Democratic New York senators who cosponsored a bill that shortens the window for applying for a mail-in ballot, and Microsoft, which donated to a Kansas Republican representative who chairs the committee that sponsored a new law limiting mail-in voting.

AT&T, Merck, and Comcast did not respond to Sludge’s requests for comment on how their donations to the sponsors of voter suppression bills relate to their public expressions in favor of voting rights. JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.

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In 2017, with Trump in the White House, Republicans in Congress passed a massive tax cut for corporations, reducing the basic corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. From there, corporations have an assortment of deductions and credits to reduce their tax bill further. Between 2018 and 2020, the three tax years following the corporate tax rate cut, "39 profitable corporations in the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax." Corporations that paid nothing in federal income taxes over those three years include Duke Energy, FedEx, and T-Mobile. 

In 2021, more of the nation's largest corporations, including AT&T, Charter Communications, and Dow Inc., are paying nothing in federal income taxes. Other highly profitable corporations are paying very low rates, including General Motors (0.2%), Ford (1%), Exxon Mobil (2.8%), Nike (5.9%), and Amazon (6.1%). While major corporations are paying these low rates, corporate profits are soaring to record highs.

To reduce the enormous cost of the 2017 tax cuts, the law made some technical changes to certain business tax deductions beginning in 2022. The most prominent change involved how businesses could deduct spending on research and development (R&D). Starting this year, businesses cannot deduct the full cost of R&D immediately. Instead, they must spread out the cost over five tax years, a process known as amortization. (A separate tax credit for R&D remains unchanged.)

This change in the R&D tax deductions was put in place by Republicans in Congress (no Democrats voted for the bill) and signed into law by Trump. The overall legislation was enthusiastically supported by corporate America.

But now, the same corporations that cheered the legislation are warning of "grave harm" if the change in how R&D spending goes into effect. A letter to Congressional leaders, signed by the CFOs of 178 companies, says that "the current playing field is tilted against the U.S., and every day this policy continues to be in place makes it harder for the U.S. to remain a global leader in innovation." Several signatories of the letter represent corporations that have paid no income taxes in recent years.

Giving these corporations what they want will cost the federal government $131.3 billion over 10 years. But there is little evidence that the R&D tax deduction meaningfully increases R&D spending or useful innovation. Rather, "[e]vidence suggests that a significant portion of increased R&D spending may be driven by reclassification of existing activity." A 2019 paper in the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy found "found that creative categorization of some corporate spending as qualified R&D expenses can be an effective tax avoidance technique for companies to use."

While corporations are arguing that the immediate deduction of R&D expenditures is necessary to incentivize R&D spending, they are also urging Congress to make the change retroactive. They want the federal government to refund $29.1 billion in estimated taxes corporations paid this year. Since this R&D spending has already occurred, it is not an incentive but a corporate giveaway.

“We’re hoping, again, [that] we’re going to get a tax law change here at the end of the year with tax extenders which, as you know, will give us a refund of the $1.5 billion that we’ve already paid,” Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes said during an earnings call last month. Raytheon had $3.9 billion in profits in 2021. It is projecting higher sales and profits for 2022.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which represents virtually every major corporation in the United States —  listed its legislative priorities for the remainder of the year. The extension of immediate deduction of corporate R&D spending is prominently featured.The group claims that allowing amortization to take effect "would increase the cost of doing business for American companies at a time when they are suffering persistent, record-high inflation." But large American companies that benefit from favorable tax treatment of R&D spending are not "suffering" from inflation. Rather, they are enjoying record profitability.

Corporations versus kids

The American Rescue Act, passed in March 2021, expanded the child tax credit. It increased the amount of the deduction, made it fully refundable regardless of income, and provided it as a monthly benefit instead of forcing families to wait for a tax refund.

The expanded child tax credit kept 3.7 million children out of poverty. The monthly payments were spent "on basic household needs and children's essentials: the most common item is food." After two months of payments, "2 million fewer adults report[ed] that their children, specifically, did not have enough to eat." Overall, child poverty rates were cut in half to the lowest level on record.

The child tax credit has traditionally "enjoyed bipartisan support." But many Republicans in Congress turned against expanding the credit after Biden embraced it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce specifically argued against extending the expanded child tax credit, saying it was concerned about "large amounts of transfer payments that are not connected to work." That argument won the day, plunging millions of kids back into poverty.

Earlier this month, a group of 58 progressive members of Congress wrote leadership and urged them not to extend full deduction of corporate R&D spending without also helping families. The signatories describe the change to how R&D spending is deducted as "one of the few provisions that helped level the playing field by increasing corporate taxes." They noted that Biden's original Build Back Better proposal included a 4-year delay of changes to R&D deductions. But that delay was "included as part of a comprehensive framework that provided major economic and tax-related support for working families while pursuing historic advances in the longstanding Democratic priority to make the wealthy and large corporations finally pay their fair share in taxes."

A separate letter by 51 centrist Democrats to Democratic leadership claims allowing the change to R&D expensing to go into effect "will hurt U.S. economic competitiveness [and] stifle the innovation that has powered our economy." But this group also urged leadership to pair any change to R&D expensing with an extension of "the enhanced [child tax credit] so American families and children have the resources and opportunities to flourish."

https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ups-strikes-drivers-collapse-heat/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/robert-reich-breaks-down-the-distinct-change-in-balance-of-power-between-large-corporations-and-the-government/

Robert Reich breaks down the distinct change in balance of power between large corporations and the government

Robert Reich, the former United States Secretary of Labor, is expressing concern about the shift in the balance of power between the U.S. government and corporations while explaining the country's failure to properly regulate businesses.

Reich began with a brief overview of the government's regulation of businesses and how it ultimately enter subsidization.

"From 1932 through the late 1970s, the government mainly regulated businesses. This was the era of the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies begun under Franklin D Roosevelt (the SEC, ICC, FCC, CAB, and so on) culminating in the EPA of 1970," Reich wrote.

READ MORE:**Robert Reich explains how 'shady investors' in private equity are 'rigging the economy' and jacking up costs**

"The government still regulates businesses, of course," he added, "but the biggest thing the federal government now does with businesses is subsidize them."

He went on to offer a comparison of decisions made by present-day president's in comparison to the years prior to the 80s.

Highlighting President Joe Biden’s recent accomplishments including the Chips and Science Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, he noted that: "This shift from regulation to subsidy has characterized every recent administration."

He also recalled other executive decisions along the same lines.

READ MORE:**Robert Reich: There are only 5 ways to become a billionaire — and none of them involve being successful in free market capitalism**

"Trump’s Operation Warp Speed delivered $10bn of subsidies to Covid vaccine manufacturers," he wrote.

Recalling similar orders under former President Barack Obama, Reich also pointed out: "Obama’s Affordable Care Act subsidized the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries (indirectly, through massive subsidies to the buyers of healthcare and pharmaceuticals)."

He added, "Obama spent about $489bn bailing out the financial industry (and, notably, never fully restored financial regulations that previous administrations had repealed), as well as GM and Chrysler."

According to Reich, prior to the 1980s, the U.S. governnent would have likely taken a different approach. Instead of subsidizing sectors, he insists the government likely would have regulated them.

Reich went on to explain the shift from regulation to subsidization when he wrote, "Why the big shift? Because of the change in the balance of power between large corporations and the government."

He concluded, "In truth, the three decades-long shift in power to big corporations has transformed industrial policy into a system for bribing them to do the sorts of things government once demanded they do as the price for being part of the American system."

READ MORE:**'You can kiss our democracy goodbye' if Republicans win: Robert Reich**

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/billionaires-gop-congress/

no lnx table grfx

Just 27 billionaires have spent $90 million to buy GOP congress: report

[ brk windows london? ]

Rupert Murdoch receiving the 2015 Global Leadership Award, Wikimedia Commons

Kenny Stancil and Common Dreams July 19, 2022

A few dozen billionaires are spending tens of millions of dollars on the 2022 midterm elections—mostly to support Republican candidates, including many who have parroted the dangerous lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen—in a bid to ensure that Congress is full of lawmakers willing "to make their wealthy benefactors even richer," according to a fresh analysis.

Titled Billionaires Buying Elections, the report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) details how "billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters' voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation's economy—especially the tax system."

A pair of super PACs tasked with securing Republican majorities in the House and Senate—the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the [cnp?] Senate Leadership Fund (SLF)—raised a combined $188.3 million through the first 16 months of the 2022 campaign cycle, according to ATF. Nearly half—$89.4 million, or 48%—came from just 27 billionaires. A whopping 86% of the GOP's billionaire money came from "Wall Street tycoons" who are arguably the biggest beneficiaries of glaring loopholes in the tax code.

The Democratic counterparts of those two super PACs—the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC—raised a combined $154 million over the same time period. A smaller share—$25.8 million, or 17%—came from 19 billionaires. A majority of billionaire contributions to Democratic candidates also came from the finance and investment sector (35%), but other industries were also well-represented, including cryptocurrency (26%), and tech (18%).

"Unlike candidates and party committees, super PACs can raise unlimited donations from individuals and corporations," ATF explained. "In return they are not supposed to coordinate activities with the campaigns they support but instead act independently, though that rule is often flouted."

Top billionaire donors to congressional super PACs include hedge fund magnate Ken Griffin, who has given more than $28.5 million to CLF and SLF, and private equity mogul Stephen Schwarzman, who has pumped $20 million into the GOP's two super PACs.

"Anti-democratic vote-buying," ATF wrote, "has been facilitated by—and is facilitating—the accelerating wealth growth of the billionaire class and the record profits of the corporations they own."

The combined net worth of the nation's roughly 750 billionaires surged by $2 trillion, or 70%, during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. The collective wealth of the 27 billionaires bankrolling the GOP's super PACs alone soared by $82.4 billion over that time period, meaning that the $89.4 million they have donated to CLF and SLF constitutes less than 0.1% of their overall pandemic-era gains.

Meanwhile, the return on that modest investment could amount to billions of dollars if Republicans take back Congress in November and preserve their 2017 tax cuts or further slash taxes on superrich people and the corporations they own.

Over a recent nine-year period, the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. paid an average effective federal income tax rate of just 8.2% when the increased value of their stock holdings is included in their income. That is a lower rate than the nationwide average of 13.3% in 2019.

As ATF explained, focusing on contributions to congressional super PACs fails "to capture the full political influence of billionaires, who in addition to personal donations also steer money to favored candidates from related corporations and organizations."

Billionaires are among the ultrawealthy Americans who control corporations through their extensive stock holdings. Many corporate giants have been distorting the upcoming midterms, ATF pointed out, by spending tens of millions to help GOP candidates who have vowed to defend special tax breaks for the top 1% get elected, including 144 far-right members of Congress who voted to overturn President Joe Biden's electoral victory.

According to the report,seven powerful corporations—AT&T, Chevron, ExxonMobil, FedEx, GM, Merck, and UPS—have collectively given nearly $1.5 million to dozens of election deniers and various Republican PACs and election committees this campaign cycle. The companies' demonstrated lack of concern for democracy, ATF noted, likelystems from their desire to keep dodging taxes. In 2021, these firms paid an average federal income tax rate of just 2.7% on a combined $78.4 billion in profits.

Notably, Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal who is worth about $5 billion and openly opposed to democracy, has been spending big on his preferred Republican candidates but not through the GOP's congressional super PACs.

Thiel "has so far spent almost $30 million through super PACs supporting the 2022 senatorial bids of two former employees who share his anti-democratic and anti-tax beliefs," ATF found. "J.D. Vance won the Ohio Republican U.S. Senate primary thanks in part to Thiel's $15 million in spending. Blake Masters has a fighting chance in Arizona's GOP U.S. Senate primary in August due to Thiel's $13.5 million in contributions."

Another source of "billionaire dominance of campaign financing, especially on the Republican side," wrote ATF, are so-called "dark money" groups, which are not required to disclose the identity of their donors. Some dark money groups—including Club for Growth, which has received $32 million from billionaire Wall Street trader Jeffrey Yass over the years—are "notorious for having bankrolled insurrectionist members of Congress" like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), ATF noted.

According to the report:

Politically active billionaire Charles Koch has not personally donated to either GOP super PAC this cycle, but his corporation—Koch Industries—has so far given them a total of $1.75 million.

Two of the biggest "dark money" groups, which do not disclose their donors, are essentially sister groups to thetwo congressional GOP super PACs. American Action Networkgave at least $26 million to CLF in the 2020 cycle and $18.7 million so far this cycle.One Nation donated $77.5 million to SLF last cycle and has given $16.5 million so far this cycle.

The ability of the nation's wealthiest individuals to translate their disproportionate economic power into political clout has increased exponentially since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision eliminated effective limits on campaign contributions.

According to the report:

Billionaires pumped $1.2 billion into the 2020 elections, almost 40 times more than the $31 million they donated in 2010, when the Citizens United rules were first in effect. In the 2020 election cycle, billionaires contributed nearly $1 out of every $10, while making up just 0.01% of all donors contributing more than $200.

Billionaires donated almost $240 million to the combined campaign efforts of Donald Trump's two runs for president. Over half came from just one billionaire household, that of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (who has since died).

"Billionaires, who are used to buying whatever they want, have increasingly dedicated their almost unlimited resources to buying American elections," Frank Clemente, executive director of ATF, said in a statement.

"The problem is what's good for billionaires—including cutting taxes on the rich and corporations—is bad for working families," said Clemente. "We need to rein in billionaire political and economic power through campaign finance reforms and tax reforms such as a billionaires income tax."

Several legislative proposals have emerged to tax the increased value of assets owned by the nation's wealthiest households each year regardless of whether they sell or keep them, which would ensure that income derived from wealth is taxed more like income earned from work.

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Biden's plan would raise an estimated $360 billion over 10 years, while Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-Ore.) plan would raise an estimated $550 billion over a decade, and Rep. Jamaal Bowman's (D-N.Y.) proposal possibly even more.

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Billionaire-backed Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), however, has joined Senate Republicans in opposing such a measure.

an 4 22

Toyota Motor Corp. was targeted by the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project with a digital ad campaign this week assailing the company for resuming its political donations to members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.

A new report by the liberal group Accountable.US finds that the carmaker is just one of many Fortune 500 companies that have resumed giving money to election certification deniers.

Vice News indicates that the group says that "hardware giant Home Depot and agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere & Company, donated more than $800,000 last month to Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results."

Just in March, the home improvement retailer gave $95,000 to 20 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results last January. Deere tossed $75,000 to more than a dozen Republicans and aerospace giant Boeing - the second-largest federal contractor in the U.S. - donated $45,000 to 32 different Republicans who objected to the 2020 results, according to FEC records. Boeing has more than $23 billion in federal contracts in FY2021, including the construction of the new planes that will serve as Air Force One.

Also donating more than $20,000 each to multiple GOP members in March were General Dynamics, Motorola Solutions, FedEx and Tyson Foods,according to the data.

According to Accountable.US, House Republicans who voted against the certification of the 2020 election raked in more than $800,000 from corporate and trade group PACs last month. Those groups have donated more than $12 million to Jan. 6 objectors since the insurrection.

“Corporations that have failed to align their political spending with their stated values supporting democracy should stop misleading the public about what they value far more - amassing political influence,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement to VICE News.

“It’s short-sighted for any corporation to marginalize concerns from its customers and shareholders when it comes to democracy, because a healthy democracy will always be what’s best for business.”

By far, Home Depot has been the biggest corporate donor to Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Its top recipients include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ($456,000), House Minority Whip Steve Scalise ($353,000), and Missouri Rep. Sam Graves ($290,000).

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/ceos-raked-in-254-times/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/sanders/ hearings

Bernie Sanders is right: 'Corporate greed' and 'price-gouging' are driving inflation

pharma  CORPS claim need massive profits for innovation but trump voodoo windfall went to stock buyback ceo bonus?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/pfizer/

public R&D

profiteer, someone's mrna vacc reverse engr from open records? but still need license?!

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/corporate-seditionists-are-no-better-than-the-seditionists-who-attacked-the-capitol/

Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.

That’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.

**

Btw, if you’d like my daily analyses, commentary, and drawings, please subscribe to my free letter: robertreich.substack.com

**

Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.

A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees.

But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a more basic problem.

The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more.

The Democratic senator KyrstenSinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans.

Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide.Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 minimum wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and stalled on drug price reform– policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans.

Over the last four decades, corporate PAC spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation.

Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union PACs contributed about as much as corporate PACs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than three to one.

According to a landmark study published in 2014 by the Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.

Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens. Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Lawmakers mainly listen to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.

It’s probably far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002: before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super Pacs, before “dark money” and before the Wall Street bailout.

The corporate return on this mountain of money has been significant. Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.

Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations (most recently, Build Back Better). They’ve attacked labor laws, reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a third 40 years ago to just over 6% now.

They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for big pharma, big oil, big tech, big ag, the largest military contractors and biggest banks now dwarfs the amount of welfare for people.

The profits of big corporations just reached a 70-year high, even during a pandemic. The ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.

Meanwhile, most Americans are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.

But the biggest casualty is public trust in democracy.

In 1964, just 29% of voters believed government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”. By 2013, 79% of Americans believed it.

Corporate donations to seditious lawmakers are nothing compared with this 40-year record of corporate sedition.

A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy they are willing to believe blatant lies of a self-described strongman, and willing to support a political party that no longer believes in democracy.

As I said at the outset, capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.

Despotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.

My message to every CEO in America: you need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it.

It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy – and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.

***

Btw, if you’d like my daily analyses, commentary, and drawings, please subscribe to my free letter: robertreich.substack.com

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and writes at robertreich.substack.com. Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.

https://hbr.org/2022/01/corporate-political-spending-is-bad-business

Corporate Political Spending Is Bad Business

by Dorothy S. Lund and Leo E. Strine

From the Magazine (January–February 2022)

summary.   Corporations are facing increased scrutiny over their political spending—particularly when their stated values seem to contradict their lobbying efforts. A 2020 report by the Center for Political Accountability offers abundant examples, including corporations that have...more

On April 14, 2021, in response to a restrictive Republican-sponsored voting law in Georgia, the CEO of Google joined 200 other corporate CEOs in publishing an open letter in the New York Times and the Washington Post stating opposition to “any discriminatory legislation” that would make it more difficult for Americans to vote. But there was a catch: Google had quietly funded a “policy working group” on “election integrity” with the Republican State Leadership Committee, an organization that supported the Georgia legislation and similar legislation in other states. During the RSLC working group meeting that Google’s state policy manager attended, slides were shown calling “election reform” “the only line of defense of the Republican Party.” Months earlier, Google had also donated $35,000 to the RSLC from its corporate treasury...

no lnx

1 22 an hartmann

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/corporate-crime-in-america/

[list of damage]...Those who perpetrated the lies that led to this must be held to account, both financially and with the force of criminal law.

On top of that, now that climate change is here and walloping us, we must harden our nation’s infrastructure and relocate both vulnerable people and those who lost their homes and communities to wild weather, drought, and floods.

Shouldn’t the fossil fuel companies and the millionaires and billionaires they’ve created pick up that bill, too?...>We’ve been having a similar conversation around other 20th century corporate crime for decades, and generally we’ve screwed it up....America is pock-marked with mansions and estates owned by families enjoying multi-generational wealth that came from their ancestors or parents lying to the American government and the public in ways that killed people....For example, in 1943 Samac Laboratory told the nation’s largest asbestos producer, Johns-Manville, that  caused the excruciatingly painful and always-fatal lung cancer called mesothelioma. The company’s executives made the corporate decision to cover the science up and then lied about it to their employees, customers and the government for two generations.

That was eight years before my father dropped out of college in 1950 and went to work in a Grand Rapids steel mill because Mom got pregnant with me; he was surrounded every day with a cloud of asbestos dust that his bosses told him was “safe.” Dad died of mesothelioma in 2006.

One of the best known of the many fabulously rich heirs to the Manville fortune was Tommy Manville, who became famous for marrying eleven blonde 20-something showgirls thirteen times. Seriously. The first paragraph of his obituary in The New York Times reads: “Tommy Manville, who took 11 wives in 13 marriages and was heir to the Johns-Manville asbestos fortune, died of a heart attack yesterday at his estate in Chappaqua, N.Y. He was 73 years old.”

To this day, no asbestos fortunes have been attached and none of the criminal liars went to prison: we missed that opportunity a generation ago.

Similarly, thousands of million-dollar estates across our country are owned by heirs or current executives of the tobacco industry, which also knew their product killed Americans and lied to us. We missed that chance to do right, too: none of these wealthy executives have ever gone to prison, even though their product continues to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.

When it finally came out a few years ago that Roundup causes cancer, none of the multimillionaire heirs to the Monsanto fortune lost their mansions and none of Monsanto’s executives went to jail.

Neither did the owners of chemical companies that left behind deadly Superfund sites like the one that caused birth defects and stillbirths at Love Canal; others do so to this day across the nation.

When it came out that the Sackler family decided to lie that their new Oxycontin drug was less addictive than normal opioids they walked away with billions; none have seen the inside of a jail cell for even an hour.

Owners and operators of mining operations across the country lied to communities for generations that they’d clean up their poisonous waste: instead, they routinely bankrupt their companies and walk away with millions, leaving behind moonscape-like devastation.

Even banksters like “Foreclosure King” Steve Mnuchin, who reveled in “earning” around $200 million by throwing over 36,000 of California families out of their homes while his Wall Street buddies stole trillions of dollars, continues to troll us with his twitter pontifications like he’s some kind of elder statesman worthy of our respect.

As Honoré de Balzac noted in 1834 (in slightly less compressed language), “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”:

Americans are quick to forget about the families of the thousands of small businessmen John D. Rockefeller destroyed before Congress outlawed and Teddy Roosevelt broke up his predatory monopoly.

Seven tobacco CEOs lied to Congress and took home millions in bonuses; their families are still morbidly rich and their children and grandchildren are the toast of high society.

Defense contractors take over half of our Pentagon budget and steal billions from us every year; their mansions, complete with servants’ quarters and riding stables, still ring Washington, DC. and we haven’t literally never been able to successfully audit them.

Historically, the only corporate criminals we hold to account are those who rip off rich people: Ken Lay, for example, defrauding his Enron investors, and Bernie Madoff scammed millions from Wall Street oligarchs.

On the other hand, if you can make billions exploiting, poisoning, misinforming, or ripping off working-class Americans you’re generally guaranteed a soft landing.

We have to change the rules.

We’re now confronted with a crisis that goes far beyond this routine orgy of corrupted capitalism: climate change isn’t just killing a few Americans; it’s threatening civilization itself and perhaps even the future of the human race.

Fossil fuel companies have known for two generations that their products would at the least disrupt society and at worst produce a great extinction on the order of what killed off the dinosaurs.

Not only did they cover it up: they actively funded climate change “disinformation” campaigns with front groups and bought-off scientists openly lying in the press and before Congress.

And now, like with asbestos, tobacco, and dozens of other known-as-deadly products, the bill is coming due.

In the face of this fossil-fueled climate change we need immediate and expensive action: America needs to harden its infrastructure, and fast.

If high-tension power lines had been buried underground in California and Colorado, for example, the worst of the wildfires would have been avoided, as they were caused by wind-downed wires.

Cities from Miami to New York are regularly crippled by sea-level-rise flooding and therefore must spend hundreds of billions on levees, pumps and reconfiguring water, power, mass transit, and sewage systems.

So many American homes have been destroyed by global-warming-worsened fires and freezes (see: “Texas”) that building materials have exploded in price and fireproof “intumescent” house paint is the hot new product.

The bad guys should be paying for this. We’ve certainly established a legal framework for it.

Before my dad died, he joined an asbestos lawsuit that, after lawyer fees, got his estate around $40,000 which eased life for my mom. Similarly, states have received compensation from tobacco companies for their costs treating lung cancers and the federal government steps in to remediate old mines and superfund sites.

While the majority of people injured by the kind of raw capitalism we practice in this country never see a penny, there is precedent for holding lying industries responsible for the harms they intentionally and knowingly cause.

At the very least, this could take the form of a carbon tax, with the revenue going to reimburse victims and harden our infrastructure.

But given how egregious these companies have behaved — and how many are still, to this day, funding climate denial and lobbying against green energy — Congress should extract restitution and recompense from the companies and punish the psychopathic executives who oversaw their campaigns of deadly lies.

This goes way beyond garden variety crime, even dwarfing the damage caused by asbestos or tobacco. These are quite literally crimes against the American people and crimes against our larger humanity.

It’s time to hold the perpetrators to account and make them pay.

corps brk promise not to fund sedition caucus,  pro publica?  accountability?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/kevin-mccarthy-2656215140/

no lnx may

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/conspiracy-theories-aside-there-something-fishy-about-great-reset/

Conspiracy theories aside, there is something fishy about the Great Reset

It’s a corporate takeover of global governance that affects our food, our data and our vaccines

Ivan Wecke

16 August 2021, 11.12am

Last year’s WEF summit had the theme ’the Great Reset’ | ]

‘The Great Reset’ conspiracy theories don’t seem to want to die. The theories were triggered by the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) summit last year, which had the theme ‘The Great Reset’ and argued that the COVID crisis was an opportunity to address the burning issues facing the world.According to the BBC, the term ‘Great Reset’ has received more than eight million interactions on Facebook and has been shared almost two million times on Twitter since the WEF initiative was launched.

The set of conspiracy theories around the Great Reset are nebulous and hard to pin down, but piecing them together gives us something like this: the Great Reset is the global elite’s plan to instate a communist world order by abolishing private property while using COVID-19 to solve overpopulation and enslaving what remains of humanity with vaccines.

Intrigued by the palaver around last year’s summit, I decided to find out what the WEF’s Great Reset plan was really about. At the heart of conspiracy theories are supposed secret agendas and malicious intent. While these may be absent from the WEF's Great Reset initiative, what I found was something almost as sinister hiding in plain sight. In fact, m ore sinister because it’s real and it’s happening now. And it involves things as fundamental as our food, our data and our vaccines.

The real Great Reset

The magic words are‘stakeholder capitalism’, a concept that WEF chairman Klaus Schwab has been hammering for decades and which occupies pride of place in the WEF’s Great Reset plan from June 2020. The idea is that global capitalism should be transformed so that corporations no longer focus solely on serving shareholders but become custodians of society by creating value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities and other ‘stakeholders’. The way the WEF sees stakeholder capitalism being carried out is through a range of ‘multi-stakeholder partnerships’ bringing together the private sector, governments and civil society across all areas of global governance.

The idea of stakeholder capitalism and multi-stakeholder partnerships might sound warm and fuzzy, until we dig deeper and realise that this actually means giving corporations more power over society, and democratic institutions less.

The plan from which the Great Reset originated was called the Global Redesign Initiative. Drafted by the WEF after the 2008 economic crisis, the initiative contains a 600-page report on transforming global governance. In the WEF’s vision, “the government voice would be one among many, without always being the final arbiter.” Governments would be just one stakeholder in a multi-stakeholder model of global governance. Harris Gleckman, senior fellow at the University of Massachusetts, describes the report as “the most comprehensive proposal for re-designing global governance since the formulation of the United Nations during World War II.”

Multi-stakeholder partnerships are public-private partnerships on the global stage

Who are these other, non-governmental stakeholders? The WEF, best known for its annual meeting of high-net-worth individuals in Davos, Switzerland, describes itself as an international organization for public-private cooperation. WEF partners include some of the biggest companies in oil (Saudi Aramco, Shell, Chevron, BP), food (Unilever, The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé), technology (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple) and pharmaceuticals (AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna).

Instead of corporations serving many stakeholders, in the multi-stakeholder model of global governance, corporations are promoted to being official stakeholders in global decision-making, while governments are relegated to being one of many stakeholders. In practice, corporations become the main stakeholders, while governments take a backseat role, and civil society is mainly window dressing.

The multi-stakeholder ecosystem

Perhaps the most symbolic example of this shift is the controversial strategic partnership agreement the United Nations (UN) signed with the WEF in 2019. Harris Gleckman describes this as a move to turn the UN into a public-private partnership, creating a special place for corporations inside the UN.

The multi-stakeholder model is already being built. In recent years, an ever-expanding ecosystem of multi-stakeholder groups has spread across all sectors of the global governance system. There are now more than 45 global multi-stakeholder groups that set standards and establish guidelines and rules in a range of areas. According to Gleckman, these groups, which lack any democratic accountability, consist of private stakeholders (big corporations) who “recruit their friends in government, civil society and universities to join them in solving public problems”.

Multi-stakeholderism is the WEF’s update of multilateralism, which is the current system through which countries work together to achieve common goals. The multilateral system’s core institution is the UN. The multilateral system is often rightly accused of being ineffective, too bureaucratic and skewed towards the most powerful nations. But it is at least theoretically democratic because it brings together democratically elected leaders of countries to make decisions in the global arena. Instead of reforming the multilateral system to deepen democracy, the WEF’s vision of multi-stakeholder governance entails further removing democracy by sidelining governments and putting unelected ‘stakeholders’ – mainly corporations – in their place when it comes to global decision-making.

Put bluntly, multi-stakeholder partnerships are public-private partnerships on the global stage. And they have real-world implications for the way our food systems are organized, how big tech is governed and how our vaccines and medicines are distributed.

The future of food

In autumn 2021, the UN is set to host the World Summit on Food Systems (FSS) in Rome. This is necessary, given that 3.9 billion people – more than half of the world's population – are currently battling hunger and malnutrition, even though there is enough food to feed the world. But this year’s summit differs significantly from past UN food summits, embracing ‘multi-stakeholder inclusivity’, in which the private sector has ‘an important role’. A concept note from 2019 showed that the WEF was set to be involved in organising the summit, though it is not now clear what the role of the WEF will be.

“Abandoning pesticides is not on the table. How come?” asks Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International, a human rights organisation focused on food and nutrition.“There is no discussion on land concentration or holding companies accountable for their environmental and labour abuses.” This fits into a bigger picture Monsalve sees of large corporations, which dominate the food sector, being reluctant to fix the production system. “They just want to come up with new investment opportunities.”

FIAN International together with 300 other organizations have expressed their concerns about the multi-stakeholder setup in an open letter to the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres. In a meeting with civil society groups who signed the letter, Amina Mohammed, the UN deputy secretary general, assured them that strong safeguards would prevent a corporate capture of the event, “by allowing only platforms or networks and no single corporation to the summit.”

Related story

How the United Nations is quietly being turned into a public-private partnership

2 July 2019 | Harris Gleckman

A new agreement with the World Economic Forum gives multinational corporations influence over matters of global governance.

But for Monsalve, “this only makes it worse. Now corporations can protect their interests and hide behind these platforms because it's unclear who is in there.” Indeed, a corporate partner list is nowhere to be found on the official website. The FSS organisers were contacted for comment but had not responded by the time of publication.

The signatories to the letter fear that, with corporate involvement in the summit, food will continue to be treated “as a commodity and not as a human right”. If unchanged, industrial food systems will continue to have irreversible impacts on our health and the health of our planet.

Big tech governing big tech

Another landmark in the development of stakeholder capitalism can be found in the Big Tech sector. As a part of his 2020 Roadmap for Digital Cooperation the UN Secretary-General called for the formation of a new ‘strategic and empowered multi-stakeholder high-level body’. Again it's not easy to find a list of stakeholders but after some digging a long list of ‘roundtable participants’ for the roadmap includes Facebook, Google, Microsoft and the WEF.

Although the functions laid out for this new body are quite vague, civil society organizations fear it will come down to Big Tech creating a global body to govern itself. This risks institutionalising these companies' resistance against effective regulation both globally and nationally and increasing their power over governments and multilateral organizations. If the body comes to fruition, it could be a decisive victory in the ongoing war GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) is waging with governments over tax evasion, antitrust rules, and their ever-expanding power over society.

More than 170 civil society groups worldwide have signed another open letter to the secretary general of the UN – this time to prevent the digital governance body from forming. The secretary general was approached for comment but had not replied at the time of publication.

COVAX

Then there’s COVAX. The COVAX initiative aims to “accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world”. That, again, sounds wonderful, especially given the staggering inequalities in vaccination levels between rich and developing countries.

But why is the World Health Organization (WHO), which is part of the UN, not calling the shots? “Countries together, through multilateral agencies like the WHO, were supposed to take decisions about global health issues, with maybe some technical support by others,” says Sulakshana Nandi from NGO People's Health Movement, which has recently brought out a Policy Brief on COVAX.

They just want to come up with new investment opportunities

COVAX was set up as a multi-stakeholder group by two other multi-stakeholder groups, GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), in partnership with the WHO. Both GAVI and CEPI have strong ties with the World Economic Forum (which was one of the founders of CEPI) as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and both are also connected to companies like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson through manufacturer partnerships (GAVI) or as 'supporters' (CEPI). Even though COVAX is funded predominantly by governments, it is these corporate-centred coalitions that are overseeing its roll-out.

The contrast between the multi-stakeholder approach and a 'classic' multilateral one came to the surface when South Africa and India proposed the so-called TRIPS waiver at the end of last year. They requested a temporary lifting of intellectual property rules on all COVID-19 technologies in order to boost the manufacturing and distribution of vaccines and other essential medical products in mainly developing countries. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a speech that he backed the proposal. “But GAVI, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – even Bill Gates himself – and Big Pharma opposed this proposal very strongly,” said Nandi. “It's more important for them to protect their interests and market mechanisms than to protect universal health or protect people from COVID.” The WHO was approached for comment but has not replied.

Again, there is a stark choice between a human rights-led approach carried out by the UN and a profit-led approach carried out by multistakeholder bodies representing the interests of corporations. In the case of COVAX – which is failing to meet its modest aim of vaccinating 20% of the populations of low- and middle-income countries – the former has won out.

Stake out stakeholder capitalism

So even if the WEF (or Bill Gates) is not responsible for the COVID pandemic, even if the vaccines are not laced with microchips to control our thoughts, something fishy really is going on in the realm of global governance. If you value your right to public health, to privacy, to access healthy food or to democratic representation, be wary of the words 'stakeholder capitalism’ when they pop up at the next Davos summit.

The WEF was approached for comment on the issues raised in this article, but had not replied at the time of publication.

How to change the narrative on corruption in the UK

Thanks to Owen Paterson, British politicians are at last starting to use the C-word. It’s not just a Westminster bubble story, though: our panel have spent years tracking lobbyists and other professional enablers of corruption and tax avoidance. Join this free live discussion to find out where we can go from here to force transparency and accountability on our self-serving elite.

so not completely evil or just recognize own interests?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/heres-why-the-twice-impeached-disgraced-loser-trump-is-a-favorite-for-2024-conservative-2655472026/ oops longer versins lists co's?

For decades, Reagan Republicans promoted themselves as the "pro-business party." But former President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have pushed a pseudo-populist message, dramatically cutting taxes for large corporations while railing against big tech and "woke capitalism." And according to Time's Molly Ball, corporate CEOs panicked when, after the 2020 election, Trump refused to accept the election results and attempted a coup d'état or golpe de estado.

One of the people who sounded the alarm, Ball reports in an article published on November 1, was Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a well-known business professor at the Yale School of Management.

According to Ball, "The CEOs of leading media, financial, pharmaceutical, retail and consulting firms all wanted to talk…. For decades, Sonnenfeld has been bringing business leaders together for well-attended seminars on the challenges of leadership, earning a reputation as a 'CEO whisperer.' A committed capitalist and self-described centrist, he has informally advised presidents of both parties and spoke at Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell's wedding."

Ball goes on to say that a "group of 45 CEOs" got together during a conference call on November 6 — a group that, according to Ball, "represented nearly one-third of Fortune's 100 largest companies: Walmart and Cowen Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Comcast, Blackstone Group and American Airlines."

"Disney's Bob Iger rolled out of bed at 4 a.m. Pacific time to join, accompanied by a large mug of coffee," Ball reports. "Sonnenfeld, who promised the participants confidentiality, declined to disclose or confirm their names. But Time spoke with more than a dozen people on the call, who confirmed their and others' participation."

Timothy Snyder, a Sonnenfeld colleague at Yale and author of the book "On Tyranny," participated in the call and discussed it with Time — which was, according to Ball, was something he "never previously discussed" with the media.

Snyder told Time, "I went through it point by point, in a methodical way. Historically speaking, democracies are usually overthrown from the inside, and it is very common for an election to be the trigger for a head of state or government to declare some kind of emergency in which the normal rules do not apply. This is a pattern we know, and the name for this is a coup d'état…. If you are going to defeat a coup, you have to move right away. The timing and the clarity of response are very, very important."

10 21 an common dr

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/31/refusing-compromise-human-progress

The once ambitious "Build Back Better" legislation is being whittled down daily by right-wing democrats and their unwavering corporate loyalties. Progressives like Sanders have dug in refusing to let the bill be completely gutted - standing firm, for instance, on preserving Medicaid expansion. Progressive leader Nina Turner declared that "If Manchin and Sinema can push their will on the entire U.S. Senate and president, then the progressives—almost 100-strong—should damn sure be able to push their will too. They should not move. They got to hold. There's too much at stake."

At stake, for both sides, is much more than just another legislative negotiation. It finds the nation and the world at a historical crossroads for preserving the planet and advancing the causes of justice, equality, and democracy. The question is the degree to which progressives can compromise without compromising human progress.

Progressive Compromises

From almost the beginning, there were concerns of whether the Bill would ever be a reality. It seemed to most of the Washington establishment and media commentators like a radical left-wing "wish list" that would not even be up for serious political debate. The fact that much of its social democratic "human infrastructure" provisions including almost half a trillion dollars in clean energy investments, expanding universal pre-K programs, and affordable housing now feel close to inevitable is a testament to the growing grassroots and legislative power of progressives.

Still, there remains an almost constant mantra of whether progressives would fall into a "purity" politics and - borrowing from one of Obama's favorite phrases – forget that "perfect is the enemy of the good". Yet it is often forgotten that the 3.5 trillion version of the bill was the compromise. Quoting Sanders, "That $3.5 trillion is already the result of a major, major compromise, and at the very least this bill should contain $3.5 trillion".

There are also deeper compromises at play. Namely, the investment in time, resources, and energy in getting elected and trying to progressively change the Democratic Party and US democracy generally. These efforts came at the cost of building an independent mass left-Wing movement that could both foster more revolutionary transformation and new forms of radical democracy at the workplace and in communities. If nothing else, these events have reinforced how important these struggles are for enacting even basic top-down reform.

Compromised Corporate Centrists

The compromise of Centrist holdouts, of course, us of a very different sort. It is not about the pace and strategy for averting the climate apocalypse or reducing global inequality. Instead, they must balance their need to appear concerned about basic human welfare with their larger commitment to defending corporate interests.

It is easy and right to critique Manchin and Sinema. However, they are the political symptoms of our malignant capitalist disease. Tellingly, it has been reported that they are covering for many "moderate" Democrats who also feel the same but are too ashamed (and politically scared) to publicly admit it.

The implicit bargain between Democrats and corporations is as simple as it is troubling. We will continue to promote profitable wars abroad and destructive free-market capitalism at home in exchange for being allowed minor reforms and the money needed to keep getting elected. Ultimately, it was and is a profoundly morally compromised politics that has put the very future of human survival and wellbeing in severe peril.

Refusing to Compromise on Human Progress

While it looks like they have reached an agreement on a $1.75 trillion bill, the conflict between progressives and Wall Street Democrats has only just begun. For the Left, this is only the first of many steps to delivering radical progress and justice. For those in the extreme Center, they are hoping against all hope that this is the last progressive step against corporations they will ever be made to take.

It is tempting to believe that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice". The recent past paints a much more dispiriting picture. It is one not of slow progress but resistance and co-optation. Progress does not stop at legal proclamations though it can end there.

The lessons to be learned are many and are still emerging. The refusal of the progressive caucus to simply cave is heartening and is a minor victory in and of itself. Nevertheless, the real work is creating such powerful alliances and such a shift in public ideology that the march toward real progress will continue regardless of who is in power.

The Right won in just this fashion - eliminating unions and protest movements while convincing the public that wealth from the 1% would trickle down to everyone. At their peak, both Democrats and Republicans were embracing their values and policies. If we are to "Build Back Better" let alone realize real revolutionary changes to our economic and political system, then it is time to dismantle corporate power at its roots. In the meantime, those negotiating on our behalf may make temporary concessions in the short term but refuse to compromise on human progress.

aha/yikes scam to avoid class action:

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/katie-porter/

no lnx

Rep Porter (D-Calif.) recently blasted Johnson & Johnson for moving to split its baby powder from the rest of the company amid a highly publicized class-action lawsuit from thousands of women.

Since the group of plaintiffs, some of whom have been diagnosed withovarian cancer, are alleging that the corporation's baby powder and other talc products were contaminated with asbestos, Porter is criticizing the company's push to treat its baby powder as a separate company, Business Insider reports.

On Tuesday, October 19, the Democratic lawmaker questioned the corporation's decision and criticized its attempt to shield assets from litigation.

"Johnson & Johnson filed in court last week to split its Baby Powder from the rest of the company," the congresswoman tweeted. "Why? J&J knew asbestos laced some bottles but kept it a secret for decades. Tens of thousands of women with ovarian cancer are suing, and the company wants to shield its assets."

"J&J sold the powder for 60 years, and now that it has to pay for these women's medical bills, it wants the courts to treat 'Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder' as a separate company," the California congresswoman continued.

Linda Lipsen, who works for the American Association for Justice, also released a statement criticizing the corporation's actions, according to ABC News.

"There are countless Americans suffering from cancer, or mourning the death of a loved one, because of the toxic baby powder that Johnson & Johnson put on the market that has made it one of the most profitable pharmaceutical corporations in the world," Lipsen said in the statement. "Their conduct and now bankruptcy gimmick is as despicable as it is brazen."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/economist-paul-krugman-increasingly-radical-republicans-are-scaring-businesses-in-gop-led-states/

1021 an

For generations, the GOP has pushed itself as the "pro-business party." But when MAGA Republicans take extremist measures in states they control — voter suppression, opposing vaccine requirements and public safety measures during a pandemic — it makes a compelling argument for operating businesses in blue states. And liberal economist Paul Krugman, this week in his New York Times column, argues that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP governors are frightening businesses with their "radicalism."

Krugman explains, "Big business is overwhelmingly in favor of requiring that workers get vaccinated against COVID-19. A recent CNBC survey of chief financial officers found that 80% of them say they 'totally support' the Biden Administration's plan to impose a vaccine-or-test mandate on companies with more than 100 workers — and many companies have already announced vaccination requirements for their employees. Yet Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, just issued an executive order banning vaccine mandates in his state. That is, he's not just refusing to use his own powers to promote vaccination; he's interfering in private decisions, trying to prevent businesses from requiring that their workers or customers be vaccinated."

The GOP and large corporations, Krugman notes, were joined at the hip for many years.

"Republicans have been closely allied with big business since the Gilded Age, when a party originally based on opposition to slavery was in effect captured by the rising power of corporations," Krugman notes. "That alliance lost some of its force in the 1950s and 1960s, an era in which the GOP largely accepted things like progressive taxation and strong labor unions, but came back in full with the rise of Ronald Reagan and his agenda of tax cuts and deregulation."

But thanks to the "rise of Trumpism," Krugman adds, "Republican politicians are at odds with Corporate America on crucial issues."

"It's not just vaccines," Krugman observes. "Corporate interests also want serious investment in infrastructure and find themselves on the outs with Republican leaders who don't want to see Democrats achieve any policy successes….Just to be clear, corporations aren't being good guys. They support vaccine mandates and infrastructure investment because they believe that both would be good for their bottom lines."

In the past, Krugman writes, businesses "could live with a bit of craziness" from Republicans "so long as they got their tax cuts and deregulation. But "Trumpism," according to Krugman, has made the GOP's "craziness" much worse.

"The conflict between the GOP and corporations is a striking new turn in American politics," Krugman emphasizes. "And I wonder if some corporate leaders find themselves asking, in the privacy of their own minds, 'My God, what have we done?' For the truth is that the Republican Party has been growing increasingly radical — and decreasingly rational — for a long time."

CORP CAPTURE COURTS = NAZI

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/capital/

Judge Loretta Preska, an advisor to the conservative Federalist Society, to which Chevron is a major donor, sentenced human rights attorney and Chevron nemesis Steven Donziger to six months in prison Friday for misdemeanor contempt of court after he had already spent 787 days under house arrest in New York.

This article originally appeared on ScheerPost.]

Preska's caustic outbursts — she said at the sentencing, "It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law"— capped a judicial farce worthy of the antics of Vasiliy Vasilievich, the presiding judge at the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union, and the Nazi judge Roland Freisler who once shouted at a defendant,"You really are a lousy piece of trash!"

Donziger, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has been fighting against polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador. His only "crime" was winning a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011 against Chevron for thousands of plaintiffs. The oil giant had bought Texaco oil company holdings in Ecuador, inheriting a lawsuit alleging it deliberately discharged 16 billion gallons of toxic waste from its oil sites into rivers, groundwater, and farmland. Since the verdict, Chevron has come after him, weaponizing litigation to destroy him economically, professionally, and personally.

The sentencing came a day after Donziger petitioned the court to consider an opinion by the United Nations human rights council that found his house arrest a violation of international human rights law. The U.N human rights council said his house arrest counted as detention under international law and it was therefore illegal for Judge Preska to demand an additional six months in jail. Amnesty International also called for Donziger's immediate release.

Donziger and his lawyers have two weeks to appeal the judge's order that Donziger be sent immediately to jail. Preska denied Donziger bail claiming he is a flight risk. If the Federal Court of Appeals turns down Donziger's appeal he will go to jail for six months. The irony, not lost on Donziger and his lawyers, is that the higher court may overturn Preska's ruling against him, but by the time that decision is made he will potentially have already spent six months in jail.

"What Judge Preska is trying to do is force me to serve the entirety of my sentence before the appellate court can rule," Donziger told me by phone on Monday. "If the appellate court rules in my favor, I will still have served my sentence, although I am innocent in the eyes of the law."

Donziger, his lawyers have pointed out, is the first person under U.S. law charged with a "B" misdemeanor to be placed on home confinement, prior to trial, with an ankle monitor. He is the first person charged with any misdemeanor to be held under home confinement for over two years. He is the first attorney ever to be charged with criminal contempt over a discovery dispute in a civil case where the attorney went into voluntary contempt to pursue an appeal. He is the first person to be prosecuted under Rule 42 (criminal contempt) by a private prosecutor with financial ties to the entity and industry that was a litigantin the underlying civil dispute that gave rise to the orders. He is the first person tried by a private prosecutor who had ex parte communications with the charging judge while that judge remained (and remains) unrecused on the criminal case.

"No lawyer in New York for my level of offense ever has served more than 90 days and that was in home confinement," Donziger told the court. "I have now been in home confinement eight times that period of time. I have been disbarred without a hearing where I have been unable to present factual evidence; thus, I am unable to earn an income in my profession. I have no passport. I can't travel; can't do human rights work the normal way which I believe I am reasonably good at; can't see my clients in Ecuador; can't visit the affected communities to hear the latest news of cancer deaths or struggles to maintain life in face of constant exposure to oil pollution.

In addition, and this is little known, Judge [Lewis A.] Kaplan has imposed millions and millions of dollars of fines and courts costs on me. [Kaplan is the judge for Chevron's lawsuit against Donziger; Preska is his handpicked judge for the contempt charges.] He has ordered me to pay millions to Chevron to cover their legal fees in attacking me, and then he let Chevron go into my bank accounts and take all my life's savings because I did not have the funds to cover these costs. Chevron still has a pending motion to order me to pay them an additional $32 [million] in legal fees. That's where things stand today. I ask you humbly: might that be enough punishment already for a Class B misdemeanor?"

Judge Preska was unmoved.

"Mr. Donziger has spent the last seven years thumbing his nose at the U.S. judicial system," Preska said at his sentencing hearing. "Now it's time to pay the piper."

The six-month sentence was the maximum the judge was allowed to impose;she ruled that his house arrest cannot be counted as part of his detention. From start to finish, this has been a burlesque. It is emblematic of a court system that has been turned over to lackies of corporate power, who use the veneer of jurisprudence, decorum, and civility to make a mockery of the rule of law.

When the law is neutered, judges become the enforcers of injustice. These corporate judges, who epitomize what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, now routinely make war on workers, civil liberties, unions, and environmental regulations.

Preska sent Jeremy Hammond to prison for a decade for hacking into the computers of a private security firmthat works on behalf of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, and corporations such as Dow Chemical. In 2011, Hammond released to the website WikiLeaks and Rolling Stone and other publications some three million emails from the Texas-based company Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor. The sentence was one of the longest in U.S. history for hacking and the maximum Preska could impose under a plea agreement in the case. I sat through theHammond trial. I watched Preska spew her bile and contempt at Hammond from the bench with the same vitriol she used to attack Donziger.

Preska is also infamous for her long judicial crusade to force New York public schools to provide tax-subsidized free space for evangelical churches based on blatantly illogical readings of the Constitution.

The persecution of Donziger fits a pattern familiar to millions of poor Americans who are coerced into accepting plea deals, many for crimes they did not commit, and sent to prison for decades. It fits the pattern of the judicial lynching and prolonged psychological torture of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. It fits the pattern of those denied habeas corpus and due process at Guantánamo Bay or in CIA black sites. It fits the pattern of those charged under terrorism laws, many held at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan, who cannot see the evidence used to indict them. It fits the pattern of the widespread use of Special Administrative Measures, known as SAMs, imposed to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media, and people outside the jail. It fits the pattern of the extreme sensory deprivation and prolonged isolation used on those in our black sites and prisons, a form of psychological torture,the refinement of torture as science. By the time a "terrorist" is dragged into our secretive courts the bewildered suspect no longer has the mental and psychological capability to defend themselves. If they can do this legally to the demonized they can, and one day will, do it to the rest of us. The Donziger case is an ominous warning that the American legal system is broken.

Ralph Nader, who graduated from Harvard Law School, has long decried the capture of the courts and law schools by corporate power, calling the nation's attorneys and judges "lucrative cogs in the corporate wheel." He notes that law school curriculums are "built around corporate law, and corporate power, and corporate perpetration, and corporate defense."

Victor Klemperer, who was dismissed from his post as a professor of Romance languages at the University of Dresden in 1935 because of his Jewish ancestry, astutely noted how at first theNazis "changed the values, the frequency of words, [and] made them into common property, words that had previously been used by individuals or tiny troupes. They confiscated words for the party, saturated words and phrases and sentence forms with their poison. They made language serve their terrible system. They conquered words and made them into their strongest advertising tools [Werebemittle], at once the most public and most secret." And, Klemperer noted, as the redefinition of old concepts took place the public was oblivious.

This redefinition of words and concepts has, as Klemperer witnessed during the rise of fascism, allowed the courts to twist the law into an instrument of injustice, revoking our rights by judicial fiat. It has seen the courts permit unlimited dark money into political campaigns under Citizens United, defending our money-saturated elections as the right to petition the government and a form of free speech. The courts have revoked our right to privacy and legalized wholesale government surveillance in the name of national security. The courts grant corporations the rights of individuals, while rarely holding the individuals who run the corporations accountable for corporate crimes.

Very few of the legal rulings that benefit corporate power have popular support. The corporate disemboweling of the country, therefore, is increasingly given cover by Christian fascists, who energize their base around abortion, prayer in schools, guns and breaking down the separation of church and state. These issues are rarely addressed in cases before federal courts. But they distract the base from the slew of pro-corporate rulings that dominate most court dockets.

Corporations such as Tyson Foods, Purdue, Walmart, and Sam's Warehouse have poured millions into institutions that indoctrinate these Christian fascists, including Liberty University and Patrick Henry Law School. They fund the Judicial Crisis Network and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which campaigned for Amy Coney Barrett's appointment to the Supreme Court. Barrett opposes abortion and belongs to People of Praise, a far-right Catholic cult that practices "speaking in tongues." She and the other far-right ideologues are hostile to LGBTQ rights. But this is not why she is so beloved by corporations, who are not interested in abortion, LGBTQ equality or gun rights.

Barrett and the Christian fascists embrace an ideology that believes that God will take care of the righteous. Those who are poor, those who are sick, those who go to prison, those who are unemployed, those who cannot succeed in society do so because they have failed to please God. In this worldview there is no need for unions, universal health care, a social safety net or prison reform. Barrett has ruled consistently in favor of corporations to cheat gig workers out of overtime, green-light fossil fuel extraction and pollution and strip consumers of protection from corporate fraud. The watchdog group Accountable.US found that as a circuit court judge, Barrett "faced at least 55 cases in which citizens took on corporate entities in front of her court and 76% of the time she sided with the corporations."

The Christian fascists, allied with organizations such as the Federalist Society, under the Trump administration gave lifetime appointments to nearly 200 judges, roughly 23 percent of all federal judgeships. That included 53 to the nation's appellate courts, the court immediately under the Supreme Court. The American Bar Association, the country's largest nonpartisan coalition of lawyers, has rated many of these appointments as unqualified. There are currently six Federalist Society Supreme Court justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, who Nader calls "a corporation masquerading as a human being." Two Federalist Society Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, who was an original faculty advisor to the organization founded by conservative law students in 1982, were supported in the nomination process by Joe Biden.

The stacking of the courts with corporate puppets, however, began long before Trump. It was carried out by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Preska was appointed by Republican President G.W. Bush. However, the judge who preceded Preska in the Donziger case, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, a former lawyer for the tobacco industry who had undisclosed investments in funds with Chevron holdings, according to his public financial disclosure statement, was appointed by Democratic President Clinton.

The targeting of the courts was one of the key goals of Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer later elevated to the Supreme Court by President Nixon. In Powell's 1971 memo to the Chamber of Commerce, a blueprint for the slow-motion corporate coup that has taken place,he called on business interests to pack the judiciary with corporate-friendly judges.

The courts in all tyrannies are dominated by mediocrities and buffoons. They make up for their intellectual and moral vacuity with a zealous subservience to power. They turn courtroom trials into opera buffa, at least until the victim is shackled and pushed out the door to a prison cell. They fulminate in caustic tirades at the condemned, whose sentence is never in doubt and whose guilt is never in question.

"It started when Texaco went into Ecuador in the Amazon in the 1960s and cut a sweetheart deal with the military government then ruling Ecuador," Donziger told me for a column I wrote about his case a year ago. "Over the next 25 years, Texaco was the exclusive operator of a very large area of the Amazon that had several oil fields within this area, 1500 square miles. They drilled hundreds of wells. They created thousands of open-air, unlined toxic waste pits where they dumped the heavy metals and toxins that came up from the ground when they drilled. They ran pipes from the pits into rivers and streams that local people relied on for their drinking water, their fishing, and their sustenance. They poisoned this pristine ecosystem, in which lived five indigenous peoples, as well as a lot of other nonindigenous rural communities. There was a mass industrial poisoning."

"The verdict came down, about $18 billion in favor of the affected communities, which is what it would take at a minimum to clean up the actual damage and compensate the people for some of their injuries," Donziger told me. "That eventually got reduced on appeal in Ecuador to $9.5 billion, but it was affirmed by three appellate courts, including the highest court of Ecuador. It was affirmed by the Canadian Supreme Court, where the Ecuadorians went to enforce their judgment in a unanimous opinion in 2015."

Chevron promptly sold its assets and left Ecuador. It refused to pay the fees to clean up its environmental damage. It invested an estimated $2 million to destroy Danziger. Chevron sued him, using a civil courts portion of the federal law famous for breaking the New York Mafia in the 1970s, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO Act. Chevron, which has more than $260 billion in assets, hired an estimated 2,000 lawyers from 60 law firms to carry out its campaign, according to court documents. But the oil giant, which did not want a jury to hear the case, dropped its demand for financial damages, which would have allowed Donziger to request a jury trial. This allowed Judge Kaplan to decide the RICO case against Donziger alone. He found credible a witness named Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorian judge, relocated to the US by Chevron at a cost of some $2 million, who claimed the verdict in Ecuador was the product of a bribe. Kaplan used Guerra's testimony as primary evidence for the racketeering charge, although Guerra, a former judge, later admitted to an international tribunal that he had falsified his testimony.

John Keker of San Francisco, one of Donziger's lawyers on that case, said he was up against 160 lawyers for Chevron and during the trial he felt "like a goat tethered to a stake." He called the court proceedings under Kaplan "a Dickensian farce" and a "show trial."

In the end, Kaplan ruled that the judgment in the Ecuadorean court against Chevron was the result of fraud. He also ordered Donziger to turn over decades of all client communication to Chevron, in effect eradicating attorney-client privilege, a backbone of the Anglo-American legal system with roots dating to ancient Rome. Donziger appealed what was, according to legal experts following the case, an unprecedented and illegal order. While Donziger's appeal was pending, Kaplan charged him with misdemeanor criminal contempt for this principled stance — carrying a maximum sentence of six months — as well as his refusal to turn over his passport, his personal electronics and to refrain from seeking the collection of the original award against Chevron. When the U.S. attorney's office declined for five years to prosecute his criminal contempt charges against the environmental lawyer, Kaplan, using an exceedingly rare judicial maneuver, appointed the private law firm of Seward & Kissel, to act in the name of the government to prosecute Donziger. Neither the judge nor the law firm disclosed that Chevron has been a client of Seward & Kissel.

Kaplan also violated the established random case assignment protocol to personally assign Preska, who had served on an advisory board of the Federalist Society, a group to which Chevron has been a lavish donor, to hear the case. Kaplan had Preska demand Donziger post an $800,000 bond on the misdemeanor charge. Preska placed him under house arrest and confiscated his passport, which he has used to meet with attorneys around the world attempting to enforce the judgment against Chevron.Kaplan managed to have Donziger disbarred. He allowed Chevron to freeze Donziger's bank accounts, slapped Donziger with millions in fines without allowing him a jury, forced him to wear an ankle monitor 24 hours a day and effectively shut down his ability to earn a living. Kaplan allowed Chevron to impose a lien on Donziger's apartment in Manhattan where he lives with his wife and teenage son.

None of this would surprise those targeted by the tyrannies of the past. What would be surprising, perhaps, to many Americans is how advanced our own corporate tyranny has become. Donziger never stood a chance. Neither does Julian Assange. These judges are not, in the end, focused on Donziger or Assange, but on us. The show trials they preside over are meant to be transparently biased. They are designed to send a message. All who defy corporate power and the national security state will be lynched. There will be no reprieve because there is no justice.

===

omg

1021

an

The far right wing cable network One America News (OAN) is funded almost entirely by telecom and tech giant AT&T.

OAN, which is even more far right than Fox News or Newsmax, served as a mouthpiece for the Trump administration and is being sued in a $1.6 billion defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems. The extremist network regularly promotes far right wing conspiracy theories as it attacks Democrats and the left.

OAN, according to aReuters special report, is "at the center of a bitter national divide over politics and truth."

But it's how OAN got there that is disturbing for the AT&T brand.

"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN," Reuters notes, adding: "Ninety percent of OAN's revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."

AT&T, the world's largest telecom company and majority owner of DirecTV, has funneled "about $57 million" into OAN. The "news" network's founder and CEO, Robert Herring Sr., "has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network's value 'would be zero.'"

"If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow," OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, a transcript shows.

How did a far right wing "propaganda machine," as The Daily Beast called OAN in 2019, come into being, seemingly overnight?

"They told us they wanted a conservative network," Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. "They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one."

Numerous reports have documented OAN's lies, propaganda, and mistruths, yet despite – or because of – that, Reuters notes, over a two-year period "Trump touted the network, known as @OANN online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times."

Read the entire Reuters report here.

an 1021

new analysis out Friday makes clear the wide gap between corporations' stated commitments to fighting the climate crisis and the lengths they are currently going to in order to stop the passage of the biggest climate action spending package in U.S. history.

The research by the progressive advocacy group Accountable.US examined statements and pledges made in recent years by companies including American Airlines, Amazon, Apple, and Google regarding the corporations' plans to end carbon emissions, shift to fleets of electric vehicles, and take other steps to help combat the climate emergency.

Those stated commitments mean little, Accountable.US said, considering the companies' close ties with lobbying firms that are actively working to kill the Build Back Better Act, the spending package which would invest $3.5 trillion over 10 years to transition towards renewable energy and bolster the wellbeing of working Americans.

"Major corporations love to tell us how committed they are to addressing the climate crisis and building a sustainable future, but behind closed doors, they are funding the very industry trade groups that are fighting tooth and nail to stop the biggest climate change bill ever," Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, told The Guardian.

Microsoft,for example, said last year it would be carbon negative by 2030, emphasizing that "the scientific consensus is clear" about the human-caused climate emergency and the danger planet-heating carbon emissions pose to humanity.

The company also unveiled a plan to establish a $1 billion climate innovation fund "to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies."

The analysis by Accountable.US showed that despiteMicrosoft's claimed commitment to climate action, some of the company's executives are among the board members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the largest lobbying group in the United States—which has made no secret of its goal of tanking the Build Back Better plan, which progressives hope to pass through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process.

The Chamber said in August that it was prepared to "do everything we can to prevent this tax raising, job-killing reconciliation bill from becoming law."

On social media, Accountable.US pointed to other examples of large corporations whose stated concerns over the climate emergency are inconsistent with their involvement with powerful lobbying groups.

The group responded to a tweet fromAmerican Airlineson helping to "accelerate the technologies needed to reach net zero emissions" by pointing out that the aviation company is opposed to the reconciliation bill, which would invest in electric vehicle infrastructure, create millions of good-paying clean energy jobs, and reduce emissions from transportation, among other measures[twt]

executives at retail giant Walmartare among the board members of the Business Roundtable, which is also fighting the passage of the spending bill, saying it is "deeply concerned" about the tax increases progressives have called for to fund anti-poverty measures as well as climate action.

On Twitter, Accountable.US scoffed at a recent call for "strong climate policy" by the company's chief sustainability officer.

"Let's be clear: Walmart, one of the biggest companies in America, says they support the climate initiatives in the Build Back Better Plan," said the watchdog. "But the company is actively fighting its passage."

The Business Roundtable's members also include executives at Alphabet—Google's parent company—and Amazon. The latter company has pledged to cut its own emissions to net zero by 2040 while Google was lauded last year for announcing what The Verge called "one of Big Tech's most ambitious environmental commitments... to run its operations purely on carbon-free energy by 2030."

Some of the lobbying firms fighting against the spending plan are bombarding the airwaves with ad campaigns attacking the legislation, claiming its provisions will hurt working families.

In a memo published Thursday, Accountable.US noted that right-wing corporate Democrats including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) "banked over $150,000 in campaign donations from corporate interests—including those that are helping lead business groups opposing the bill."

"Corporate interests will say or do anything to preserve the broken status quo, including lie to families that overdue investments in child care, education, and climate change are somehow not in their interest," wrote Herrig in the memo. "Democrats in Congress are the last people who should be saying and doing it for them."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/corporate-scheme-biden-agenda/

common dr

Corporations threatened by the prospect of paying a slightly higher tax rate and exercising a little less power over working people are spending millions to sabotage a far-reaching Democratic reconciliation bill that would expand the social safety net and bolster climate action.

That's according to Behind the Curtain: The Corporate Plot to Upend Democracy, a new report released Wednesday by People's Action, a nationwide network of groups organizing for social justice, and Dēmos, a progressive think tank.

"While everyday people are calling on Congress to put people first and safeguard their basic rights to housing, healthcare, and a clean environment, corporations are prioritizing profits and working hard to preserve an inequitable status quo," Dēmos senior policy analyst Daniella Zessoules said in a statement. "As we've witnessed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, this greed hits Black, brown, and low-income people hardest."

The report exposes how corporations are trying to ensure that the United States' wealthiest and most powerful entities "can reap obscene profits year after year at our expense" and "keep our elected officials from taking action to restore communities."

Just 20 corporations or industry groups—keen to preserve nearly $2.3 trillion in tax cuts the GOP passed in 2017and to make permanent billionaires' $1.8 trillion pandemic windfall—have spent more than $201 million in lobbying so far this year, the report finds. Much of that corporate cash has been aimed at derailing progressive provisions in the popular and potentially historic tax reform and spending package that would invest up to $3.5 trillion over a decade to strengthen the welfare state and decarbonize the economy.

Although the reconciliation bill encapsulates the agenda demanded by tens of millions of voters who elected President Joe Biden and put Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, an ongoing "power grab"—led by several corporations and trade associations that represent them, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the National Realtors Asscoaition, and supported by aligned right-wing lawmakers—has put its passage in jeopardy, the report notes.

"We pulled the curtain back on corporate America to find they were trying to put Congress in a headlock," People's Action campaign director Sondra Youdelman said in a statement. "Now, Congress needs to do its job, fight these bullies, and pass a budget package for the people."

While "corporate influence to stop progressive change is nothing new," the report states, "the concentration of wealth and monopoly powers in recent years has added fuel to the flame."

"Corporate America wants to keep profits high and taxes low forever," adds the report. "They simply don't want to pay their fair share. That's why they're throwing millions of dollars into lobbying, campaigns, and political advertising to divide us and get legislators to back their agenda of permanent inequality."

The report highlights anti-democratic corporate spending and opposition to the Build Back Better Act's proposed reforms in the following six key issue areas, all of which are backed by a majority in the U.S.: increasing taxes on corporations and the ultra-rich, lowering drug prices, providing affordable healthcare, investing in public and affordable housing, tackling climate change, and providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people.

For each issue area, the report explains measures included in the reconciliation package, shows polling results indicating popular support for the proposed investments and policies, and details what corporations are doing to obstruct the bill's passage.

According to the report:

And yet—even though the Build Back Better Act would take steps toward meeting the needs of millions of Americans who are facing rampant tax injustices, the world's highest prescription drug prices, skyrocketing healthcare costs and lack of insurance, evictions and foreclosures, extreme weather disasters, or the threat of deportation—corporations have vehemently fought against the reconciliation bill.

Leading offenders include Anthem, JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, Walmart, Exxon, Amazon, Pfizer, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, the report finds. Big Pharma and private health insurance companies have spent $171 million so far in 2021 on lobbying, the most of any industry.

As the report notes:

Rich corporations are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the American people from getting what they want: a government that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few. Their massive use of corporate power to frustrate the will of the people on an issue-by-issue basis is part of a larger anti-democracy effort backed by corporate America.

As corporations seek to undermine the Biden plan's much-needed tax provisions, historic investments in drug pricing reform, healthcare, housing, climate, and immigration reform, they are also attacking our freedom to vote. Many of the same companies combating elements of the Build Back Better proposal are also bankrolling voter suppression legislation.

"Now we know who the real villains are behind the curtain, who want to keep our communities from getting what we need and deserve," the report concludes. "Corporations and the wealthy few are undermining our democracy. They are lobbying hard to preserve an unequal status quo, using money to steer government rather than allow a real democracy to bring about what the people overwhelmingly want—a country that works for all of us."

The report's publication coincides with a National Day of Actionduring which People's Action members plan to hold rallies denouncing opponents of the Build Back Better Act for undermining the well-being of the nation's economy and democracy.

Following Tuesday's action against JPMorgan in New York, demonstrations against these organizations are planned for Wednesday:

"We can't call the U.S. the greatest democracy in the world if our legislators allow a handful of corporations to derail the critical and wildly popular provisions in the Build Back Better package," Lisa Tyson, director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, said in a statement (pdf).

"These companies are lining politicians' pockets in hopes of securing a future of extreme inequality and climate catastrophe," Tyson added. "It's time for lawmakers to grow spines and show us who they work for: the people, not massive corporations."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/companies-lobbying-against-infrastructure-tax-hikes-have-dodged-millions-in-taxes-report/

ah

President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan proposal would raise the United States' corporate tax rate to 28% in order to pay for infrastructure projects. Some large corporations, journalist Akela Lacy stresses in an article published by The Intercept on September 6, have been aggressively lobbying against that proposal — and they include everything from pharmaceutical companies to financial firms, some of which dodged a fortune in taxes.

"Companies that…. lobbied earlier this year on issues related to tax rates in Biden's American Jobs Plan include Walmart, Oracle, Accenture, Bristol Myers Squibb, Shell and Walgreens, according to an analysis by Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on public corruption," Lacy explains. "Executives at companies that have historically avoided paying taxes, like Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, FedEx, and DuPont, have spoken out publicly against Biden's proposed tax increases."

Lacy continues, "Shell and Walgreens lobbied earlier this year on corporate tax issues in the American Jobs Plan. Walmart hired a lobbying firm tasked with 'monitoring of tax proposals related to infrastructure' in the plan and proposed legislative efforts related to Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts. Accenture hired another firm to 'monitor the American Jobs Plan as it relates to corporate taxes.' Oracle and Bristol Myers Squibb, a multinational pharmaceutical company, used the same firm hired by Accenture to monitor and lobby on similar issues in the proposal."

Lacy goes on to note how successful some of these mega-corporations have been when it comes to dodging taxes — and not only in the United States.

"A Reuters report last year found that from 2018 to 2019, Shell reported $2.7 billion through offshore tax havens and avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes," Lacy writes. "In 2019, Australia charged Shell $755 million for six years' worth of taxes the company did not pay. The company reported that after getting tax refunds related to the closure of oil platforms, it paid no corporate income tax in the U.K. in 2018 on $731 million in profits."

Lacy points to Walgreens as another company that knows how to dodge taxes.

"Between 2008 and 2014," Lacy explains, "Walmart held more than $23.3 billion in offshore accounts and avoided paying more than $4.59 billion in U.S. taxes, according to a 2016 Oxfam report. In an arrangement internally known as Project Flex, the company routed money through an allegedly fictitious Chinese subsidiary, Quartz reported, which allowed it to avoid paying $2.6 billion in U.S. taxes between 2014 and 2017. The 2016 report from the U.S. PIRG, CTJ, and ITEP also found that Walmart reported zero tax haven subsidiaries despite having as many as 75."

flip had art'l  RAGA 821

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/corporations-jan-6/

amanda m

Six months ago, the insurrection Donald Trump incited at the U.S. Capitol in a last bid attempt to steal the presidential election from Joe Biden, was experienced as a cataclysmic event. Many assumed it would remake American politics permanently — so much so that dozens of major corporations rushed forwardto declare they were withdrawing all financial support from Republican politicians who aided Trump's effort by voting against certifying the results of the electoral college vote count.

In the past half-year, however, a combination of Republican intransigence and Trump's talent as escaping justice has already served to move the insurrection from the category of "unthinkable" to "mainstream GOP politics," allowing it to be viewed through the lens of partisan bickering instead of what it actually was, a violent attempted coup. In turn, a lot of the companies who swore they were cutting off the money spigot to insurrectionist Republicans have quietly turned it back on.

Judd Legum is the investigative journalistbehind Popular Information, where he keeps track of both the corporations who have reneged on their promise and the lazy excuses they produce for doing so. He spoke with Salon's Amanda Marcotte about the role corporations continue to play in normalizing the violent assault on American democracy six months after Jan. 6:

It's been six months since the insurrection at the Capitol. Nearly 200 major corporations in the immediate aftermath of the Capital riot said that they were ending donations to the insurrectionist Republicans who voted to overturn the election. My question to you is how well are they sticking with that promise?

Well, it varies by corporation.

Overall, if you look at the whole group of 200 corporations, most of them are, at least at this point, sticking to what they said around January 6th. But there are a number of corporations that have resumed giving money to the Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Corporations like Toyota, Cigna, a few others. A larger group is doing so indirectly by not giving to those individual candidates, but by giving money, for example, to the National Republican Campaign Committee, which is the fundraising arm to support the reelection of Republican members of the House. Two-thirds of that group were objecting to the electoral college. There's a group that has resumed business as usual. So far, that's the minority, but obviously, it's still significant and the size of that group could increase over time.

Toyota has gotten the most attention for reneging on their promises and why is that?

Just because they have given to the largest number of Republican objectors. The most recent count is 39 Republican objectors that they've given money to, $62,000 in total. While there's some other corporations who've given to one or two or three or four, they stick out because they've given to so many. The only companies that are kind of up there with them are some of the defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Boeing. They've started at similar numbers.

In your reporting on this, you found that the wording that these companies use to justify the decision sounds an awful lot like the language from a memo circulated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this year. What's going on there?

In the immediate aftermath of January 6th, the Chamber of Commerce seemed like they were taking this very seriously. They said, without getting too into specifics, that there were members of Congress who they would no longer support as a result of what happened that day. It really seemed to validate a lot of the decisions that their member corporations were making to cut off these donations. But that changed in March, when they released a memo saying that they no longer believed that it was appropriate to cut off funds just on the basis of that vote.

Then when you look at Toyota, who has been under some scrutiny since April 1st, before all of this, they use that exact same language to describe why they were donating to so many of these Republicans. It sets up this idea that there were some Republicans who did really bad things that day, but just the vote itself wasn't really that bad. But Toyota has given to, for instance, Andy Biggs, who's one of the most outspoken members of Congress on the idea that the election was stolen.

Why would anybody think that there should be a distinction between the supposedly insurrectionists Republicans, the ones that are the really bad and the ones who "merely" voted to overturn the election?

Well, I think companies are getting worried about cutting off so many, particularly of the House Republicans, because they're worried that they're going to be in power in 2022. That includes Kevin McCarthy, who would be the Speaker. It includes Steve Scalise, who's one of the biggest fundraisers for the House Republicans. They're looking to make it easier on themselves, effectively.

I hate to sound cynical, but it seems to me that these companies mostly just wanted to bet on the winner. In the days after the insurrection, companies thought that the pro-democracy side would prevail. Now they think the authoritarians are winning and they've switched sides. Is that too simplistic?

I focus on the corporations that have violated their pledge because that's the news, right? That's what people are interested in and I think that's important. Still, six months later, you have a lot of major companies who have not resumed business as normal, who normally would have given a bunch of money to the NRCC and the NRSC, and most of them still have not done that.

I think some cynicism is warranted, but I think we should temper that cynicism, because there's a possibility that, at least in some quarters, there will be lasting change. I try to keep that in perspective, although sometimes it can be hard.

That makes me feel better. It really does.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an interesting organization. I think most Americans hear that name and they think it's like a town's local Chamber of Commerce, like a booster group that is there just to generically promote commerce and kind of that sort of thing. Why are they running defense for what can only be described as a literal fascist insurrection?

Well, I think there are habits and practices of Washington, D.C., especially as it relates to how corporations exercise power, that are very hard to let go of. Principally, it's the idea that corporations write a $5,000 check or a $10,000 check to a member of Congress. That money is not a huge amount of money, but it gets them a connection. It allows them to know who to talk to, when they want a meeting. It makes sure that they get that meeting and it smoothes the whole process for them of trying to influence key policy issues in D.C.

The Chamber of Commerce is very much in the business of having corporations exercise the maximum amount of influence over the political system. When they see corporations bowing out of this and cutting off people who if they aren't powerful today may be very powerful in 2022 or beyond, they want to figure out a way around that.

A lot of corporations give to politicians and then argue those donations as functionally apolitical because they spread money on both sides, right?

Anytime you would ask a company about a donation prior to January 6th, that's what they said in response to almost any inquiry: they give to both sides, that they don't agree with everyone. That just because say that they support LGBTQ rights, but they are supporting this person who's said all of these offensive things about trans people. They dance around that by describing these as essentially apolitical donations.

January 6th was the one time when you did have a bunch of corporations draw a line and say, this goes beyond what we're sort of willing to tolerate. What we're observing now is whether that line will hold. For some companies, it already has not held. Other companies have held the line, but I will say that just holding the line for six months really doesn't mean much because it's a two-year cycle, right? If you give the money in the beginning of 2022, instead of the beginning of 2021, that doesn't mean that much. You can only donate $5,000 per election anyway, and they'll need the money in 2022. The question will be, are there companies who are in it for the long term?

Why do you think the insurrection caused a lot of companies that otherwise try to keep their brand out of politics to publicly say that they were going to withdraw donations, whether they renege on that promise or not?

I think it was the imagery. The seriousness of what happened that day. I don't think companies wanted to be associated with, as clumsy as it was, an attempted overthrow of the government led rhetorically by Trump. Watching his supporters attack the Capitol, attack police officers with American flags: The visceral images of that day that really pushed companies.

Now, maybe there's some companies who've taken a principled stand. I know that for instance, American Express, when I was reporting on this in January, told me that they will never donate to any of these Republicans again. For some companies, it may have been a real moment of principle where they said "enough, we're not going to be doing business with these kinds of politicians anymore." Other companies, it was more about short-term public relations. There's another set of companies where it's still up in the air.

From a kind of practical standpoint, nothing has changed. Trump incited this insurrection. The people that stormed the Capitol are going to prison for their crimes. There's been no material change to justify, or somehow minimize what's happened. Why do companies, at least some of them, feel more comfortable now being like oh okay, that's in the past, it didn't matter, it wasn't that big a deal?

I think part of it is just time, right? It's not dominating the news every day as it was in the weeks immediately after January 6th. So it's less of a public relations headache for some of them. The other issue is that Trump remains such an influential part of the Republican party. Nothing's really changed, but there hasn't really been any fallout. Right after January 6th, it could have been for a hot second, it looked like, well, Trump might actually get in trouble for this. Mitch McConnell was considering supporting impeachment, whether or not you were credulous about those reports or not. The conventional wisdom was that really maybe this was going to be a real inflection point about our politics and what's within the realm of acceptable conduct and what's not.

The reality is that these folks are going to be very influential for years to come. For companies that are taking a purely practical approach, where they just want influence with whoever's in power, they're looking at these Republicans and they're saying, hey they may be in power pretty soon.

On your newsletter, Popular Info, you give people information they can use to organize pressure campaigns, to keep corporations from doing things like donating to insurrectionist Republicans. Why do you put your focus on these particular corporations? How do you think that that particular activism can be effective in stopping what is functionally a rising anti-democracy movement in the U.S.?

My role is to get the information out there. Certainly, there's a lot of folks who use that and take action, who write these companies, tweet at these companies and make their voices heard. I do think that the information is valuable. Part of the reason that corporations thought that they could just donate to who whomever they wanted, regardless of whether those politicians were in line with their state and corporate values, is because there really wasn't much attention paid to it on an ongoing basis. So if you can change that dynamic and people that you actually have people who know what's going on, that can ultimately may change behavior.

The other group of folks that I think really need access to this information is the employees themselves. It's very unlikely that some sort of consumer action is going to have a meaningful impact on Amazon's bottom line or Microsoft's bottom line. But if there's a dozen or two dozen of their engineers or other types of key employees who say, hey you were telling us how much you support democracy and now you're supporting these Republicans. Why are you doing that? That's something that they pay attention to. That played out pretty publicly with Microsoft. It was the employees who drove them to a much stronger position. They initially had said that they were just going to temporarily suspend all donations, but they eventually committed to cutting off the 147 Republican objectors for at least two years. It was really driven by the employees.

These companies are, like you said, are buying access. Will convincing them to stop donating to Republicans really change anything? Because the Republicans are acting against democracy itself for their own reasons. Do you think that this inflection point would actually change their behavior?

No, I don't think so. I think it is about the longer term. For instance, all of this corporate PAC money is only a small portion of what these companies spent on politics. Much larger amounts of money are spent on big nonprofit groups, Super PACs, independent political expenditures. Money, that for the most part, does not have to be reported publicly. But the criticism that these companies are taking over their corporate PAC expenditures is also motivating shareholders to demand more transparency from corporations about the whole scope of their political spending. A number of high profile companies, there were shareholder resolutions that passed demanding more reporting on how they're spending their money on politics.

This whole process over time can hopefully create more transparency and accountability for corporations and how they use their influence, and over time, that could have some influence over the political system overall. I don't think it's all of a sudden going to make Steve Scalise think about politics differently, but it can kind of change overall the playing field in which we decide who the political winners and losers are. So I think that's more of the way that it plays out.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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defund pols who backed big lie/insurrection short-lived like usual?

woke corp pending

see jacobin raga coc rslc: Health insurance giant Centene Corporation contributed $250,000, while Anthem chipped in $50,000. Pharmaceutical companies continued donating, too, including Novo Nordisk ($125,000), Novartis ($60,000), AbbVie ($50,000), and Gilead Sciences ($50,000).

Fossil fuel companies ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips both gave $100,000 to RSLC. Tech money poured in as well, including donations from Google ($25,000), Uber Technologies ($25,000), PayPal ($25,000), and Amazon ($10,000). Other corporate names, like Bank of America and Best Buy, each donated $25,000 to RSLC. General Motors chipped in $10,000.

Some of those same corporate donors signed the “We Stand for Democracy” letter last month, including Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Bank of America, Best Buy, General Motors, and PayPal.

omfg

msnbc? calls it rommney exxn bill, not the bipart infra

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/senior-exxonmobil-lobbyist/

raw story

Channel 4 in the U.K. published a startling expose on ExxonMobil's lobbyists who revealed the top most important U.S. Senators who are the ones behind any legislation that might hurt the oil industry.

While many oil companies are diversifying with natural gas, it appears ExxonMobil is going all-in battling to keep "big oil" alive and well.

"Keith McCoy is a senior ExxonMobil lobbyist on Capitol Hill and has represented the company in its liaison with the U.S. Congress for the last eight years," explained the report.

"Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes. Did we hide our science? Absolutely not," said McCoy on camera. "Did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true. But there's nothing, there's nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders."

McCoy compared his work with elected officials to fishing with ExxonMobil who supplies the "bait" before it "reels in" the official on issues like a carbon tax, electric cars, taxation and infrastructure.

"When you have an opportunity to talk to a member of Congress, I liken it to fishing, right? You know you have bait, you throw that bait out. And they say: 'Oh, you want to talk about infrastructure, yeah,'" McCoy continued. "And then you start to reel them in and you start to have these conversations about federal leasing programs, you start to have these conversations about a carbon tax.You know, it's all these opportunities that you use and to use the fishing analogy again just to kind of reel them in."

"I make sure I get them the right information that they need so they look good. And then they help me out. They're a captive audience. They know they need you. And I need them," McCoy also said.

He went on to explain that lobbyists aim to have close relationships with officials.

"You want to be able to go to the chief… and say we need congressman so and so to be able to either introduce this bill, we need him to make a floor statement, we need him to send a letter. You name it, we've asked for everything," he said.

But it was the shocking revelation that he has 11 U.S. Senators on the hook.

"Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Senator Jon Tester, Senator Maggie Hassan, Senator John Barrasso, Senator John Cornyn, Senator Steve Daines, Senator Chris Coons, Senator Mark Kelly and Senator Marco Rubio," were all cited.

He went on to explain that the last thing they want is to appear in a public hearing before Congress where the American people can see.

"We don't want it to be us, to have these conversations, especially in a hearing. It's getting our associations to step in and have those conversations and answer those tough questions and be for, the lack of a better term, the whipping boy for some of these members of congress," McCoy confessed.

"There was something we were working on earlier this week where we, where our CEO was invited to a hearing from a member of congress who we know is just going to rip him to shreds when he goes there. So, we look at it and we say: well, why us?" he asked.

See the video below and read the full story at Channel 4:

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/global-minimum-tax/

// tax haven country? see stieglitz on DN

RoN

United States

At the local level dozens of ordinances with rights of nature provisions have been passed as of 2019 throughout the United States, and in tribal lands located within the U.S. boundaries.[99][135][136] Most were passed in reaction to a specific threat to local well-being, such as threats posed by hydrofracking, groundwater extraction, gravel mining, and fossil fuel extraction. For example, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania passed an anti-fracking law that included the following provision to buttress protections: "Natural communities and ecosystems... possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and flourish." The ordinance continues that "Residents... shall possess legal standing to enforce those rights."[137][138][40]

Santa Monica State Beach - in 2013 the city adopted a "Sustainability Rights Ordinance",[139] recognizing the "fundamental and inalienable rights"[139] of "natural communities and ecosystems"[139][21]

Residents in Santa Monica, California proactively sought to recognize nature's rights in local law after the U.S. Supreme Court's expansion of corporate rights in Citizens United v. FEC. In 2013 the Santa Monica City Council adopted a "Sustainability Rights Ordinance",[139] recognizing the "fundamental and inalienable rights"[139] of "natural communities and ecosystems"[139]in the city to "exist and flourish".[139] The ordinance emphasized that "[c]orporate entities... do not enjoy special privileges or powers under the law that subordinate the community's rights to their private interests".[139] It specifically defined "natural communities and ecosystems" to include "groundwater aquifers, atmospheric systems, marine waters, and native species".[139][21] Santa Monica updated its Sustainable City Plan in 2014 to reinforce its codified commitment to nature's rights. In 2018, the city council adopted a Sustainable Groundwater Management Ordinance that specifically referenced the inherent rights of the local aquifer to flourish.[21]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/capitol-riot-2653051980/

Corporations have sent $2.6 million to ‘Sedition Caucus’ Republicans who promoted the January 6 sinsurrection': report

ah 521

A common talking point among far-right Trumpistas — from Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri to Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida — is that Corporate America, especially big tech, has it in for Republicans and is using "cancel culture" in an effort to bully them into silence. Hawley, in his fundraising e-mails, has claimed that "woke" corporations are "canceling" him for promoting election security. But according to a new report by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, corporate dollars have been flowing, in a big way, to Republican "insurrectionists" in Congress who voted against certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

CREW members Robert Maguire and Caitlin Moniz, in an article published by its website this week, explain, "In just the first few months since the (January 6) insurrection, corporate and industry PACs have contributed more than $2.6 million to campaigns, leadership PACs, and party committees allied with the 147 members of Congress who fed the Big Lie that led to the deadly attack on the Capitol. In all, 170 business PACs — some of which had previously committed to stop giving — have donated to political committees that support and defend the members who voted not to certify the election results."

The many Senate and House Republicans who voted against Biden's Electoral College certification have been slammed as "the Sedition Caucus" by Democrats as well as by some Never Trump conservatives. And Corporate America, according to CREW, has been generous with Republicans who promoted the Big Lie.

"So far, at least 103 of the 147 members of the so-called Sedition Caucus, along with the two main GOP congressional party committees, the (National Republican Senatorial Committee) and (National Republican Congressional Committee), have benefited from corporate giving after January 6," Maguire and Moniz note. "The ten members with the most corporate donations as of the end of March, which is the latest date for which data is available, have nettedmore than $22,000 each from an average of ten business PACs per member."

Maguire and Moniz cite Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania as a member of the GOP "Sedition Caucus" who received "$44,000 from 17 corporations and industry groups." Another Republican they mention is Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri.

"The NRCC and NRSC — the two main party committees backing Republicans in the House and Senate — have brought in a combined $1.7 million from PACs tied to more than 57 companies and industry groups," Maguire and Moniz note. "The list includes household names like Pfizer, Intel, T-Mobile, and CVS, as well as PACs tied to trade groups that represent industries as varied as real estate, mortgage banking, and insurance agents."

Another company mentioned in CREW's report is Cigna.

According to Maguire and Moniz, "Thehealth insurer Cigna…. released a statement after the insurrection saying that it would "discontinue support of any elected official who encouraged or supported violence, or otherwise hindered a peaceful transition of power." But within a month, its PAC was back to making contributions, starting with a $15,000 contribution to the NRSC — soon followed by another $15,000 to the NRCC."

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/louis-dejoy-2652858940

raw dc rept

After the failed union vote at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, the critical postmortems ignored a reality that may result in another election: Amazon cheated.

And Louis DeJoy, the Trump-era holdover dismantling the U.S. Postal Service, helped.

A May 7 labor board hearing will consider a request for a new vote sought by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Its complaint details a campaign of intimidation to pressure employees to reject the union.

The Labor Board has a long history of looking the other way when given evidence of cheating by employers in union elections. But this time may be different because of who helped cheat --- from local on up to national officials.

The Jeff Bezos company installed drop boxes to collect votes on company property. Amazon placed these boxes despite being told by the National Labor Relations Board staff not to do so.

The drop boxes were placed with the connivance ofthe service led by DeJoy. Former President Donald Trump installed this high-rolling donor to worsen mail delivery during the fall presidential election Trump was hellbent to win. Less mail, less votes; less votes, less competition.

Here, we use the pejorative verb connivance because the drop box installed inside Amazon's Bessemer parking lot did not carry any postal insignia.

Amazon can leverage the Postal Service because Amazon has made itself crucial to USPS finances.

The Postal Service generated nearly $4 billion in revenue from Amazon in 2019 and counted an eye-popping $1.6 billion of that in profit. The volume of business Amazon delivered grew bigly last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

This reliance on Amazon for highly profitable business likely explains why, beyond his well-documented anti-union animus, DeJoy would help Amazon fight the union.

The struggle between American workers and the bosses has been, and continues to be, fantastically lopsided.

A pro-union worker, Jennifer Bates, told reporters last month that colleagues at the Bessemer Fulfillment Center were reluctant to deposit ballots in the mysterious drop box that suddenly appeared in the parking lot.

Workers Feared Amazon

"Some of the people are afraid to put them in there," Bates said. "The 'yes' voters feel that Amazon will probably try to steal their ballots."

Labor lawyer Brandon Magner tweeted: "If Amazon did install these mailboxes, or if they exercise control over the mailboxes, such as having a key to the ballot box, that would clearly merit setting aside the election if the union were to lose."

During the voting, which lasted from Feb. 8 to March 29, Amazon demonstrated just how crucial controlling the Bessemer warehouse parking lot — and what went on inside it — was to the company.

'Coercion and Intimidation'

The union made the following claims:

Without a union, individual workers have no power. And while some who voted against the union told journalists after the vote that Amazon paid them well, the issue is whether it should pay them even better along with improving their benefits and work rules.

Record Profits

Last year, Amazon reported a profit of $24.2 billion before taxes, up from $13.9 billion in 2019 and almost 10 times its 2016 pretax profit.

Amazon pays little in federal income tax. In 2020 its "effective federal income tax rate of just 9.4%, less than half the statutory corporate tax of 21%." So said Mathew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy earlier this year when Amazon announced its latest financial success.

Amazon has been so successful that a dollar invested when it first sold stock in 1997 has now grown to $2,300, making it one of the most fantastically profitable investments even in this era of high profits in high tech.

While the company doesn't want to share more of its gains with the blue-collar Americans whose labor makes its profits possible by quickly fulfilling orders, it does lavish money on its executives. One reason to favor the top is that the way Amazon pays executives provides a stealth financial and tax subsidy.

Costly Stock Options

The company showered so many valuable stock options on its highest-paid people that the tax savings alone came to more than $600 million last year, Gardner calculated.

Stock options save companies on corporate income tax. The companies get to deduct their value even though the cost is borne by existing stockholders. The stockholders' share of the company is diluted by the new shares given to executives. In other words, it's a tax deduction that costs the company nothing.

Options are also a form of compensation that cost the company nothing, unlike the hard cash it must pay out to rank-and-file workers like those at the Bessemer warehouse.

What's most troubling about this union election is that a federal government corporation worked with management against the workers. That's a troubling sign of authoritarianism.

Remember Amazon worked inconcert with the service to install the dropbox to collect ballots on company property. The service acted after staff at the Labor Board, the federal agency tasked with protecting the rights of American workers in the private sector, told them they couldn't do it. But just as it pressured workers, Amazon pressured the service into pleasing Bezos, the richest person in America.

No Answers

Dave Partenheimer, a postal public relations manager, would not talk about who ultimately gave the go-ahead to install the dropbox in the Amazon warehouse parking lot.

Partenheimer declined to say whether the service knew that the Labor board already denied Amazon's request for such a dropbox. He also declined to identify who ultimately approved installation.

Instead, Partenheimer reiterated an earlier statement about a "Centralized Box Unit [CBU] with a collection compartment" being "suggested by the postal service as a solution to provide an efficient and secure delivery and collection point."

The Labor board isn't talking about the dropbox either, at least not while it considers the 23 separate objections filed by the Retail Store, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

The Labor board spokeswoman, Kayla Blado, declined to comment on whether the Postal Service has the authority to supersede her agency's decisions. She would not even confirm that the agency did, in fact, deny Amazon's request to have a ballot drop box installed on its property.

DeJoy Strikes Again

The persistent controversy about the dropbox and the Bessemer vote overall, however, parallels the madness that surrounded mail-in ballots during the last presidential election. DeJoy ordered the removal of mail sorting machines in the run-up to the vote, while the rest of the Trump administration whined about the supposed inability of the Postal Service to properly deliver ballots.

Trump also complained throughout his four years in office that the Postal Service was subsidizing Amazon. This was to advance his attacks on the aggressive reporting by The Washington Post, which Bezos owns, but whose newsroom he has never influenced according to the top editor and reporters working there.

We now know that the prices Amazon paid generated outsize profits for the Postal Service, exposing yet another Trump lie though only a few Americans, like DCReport readers, know this.

Fought Mail-in Votes, Then Didn't

At first, Amazon fought hard to block mail-in voting. It dismissed the potential dangers of in-person voting during the pandemic. Then it reversed course and challenging the ability of the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots in a timely fashion. Taken together it was a classic case of Amazon talking out of both sides of the company's mouth.

Lisa Y. Henderson, the Labor board's acting Region 10 director, dismissed the company's contradictory arguments in January and ordered that balloting be conducted by mail.

How the Labor board rules, and whether the long list of federal rules that hobble union organizing, will be addressed by President Joe Biden's administration. Decisions will be crucial to whether Americans as a whole prosper, or we continue to create inequality through policies that tilt heavily to the side of business owners and investors.

The struggle between American workers and the bosses has been, and continues to be, fantastically lopsided.

The Economic Policy Institute's Unequal Power Project, for instance, notes an "inherent imbalance in bargaining power between employers and employees" that creates "a lack of freedom in the workplace."

Pro-union workers at Amazon's Bessemer Fulfillment Center remained undaunted after losing the initial vote, declaring, "This battle has just begun."

"I'm not discouraged, Linda Burns told reporters after losing the vote by a more than 2-to-1 margin. "This is the beginning. [Jeff] Bezos, you misled a lot of our people. We're going to fight for our rights."

Co-worker Emitt Ashford said if the Labor board does order a new election, "We would see a change in the tide now that people have the information."

"We would win," he said.

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521

https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclair-pushes-unlikely-claims-bidens-proposed-corporate-tax-increases

an alexh 421

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, like many other far-right Republicans, has been railing against corporate America for what he sees as promoting "woke" liberalism and has been tweeting "get woke, go broke" — a phrase that has become popular on the far right. Cruz, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on April 28, warned corporations, "When the time comes that you need help with a tax break or a regulatory change, I hope the Democrats take your calls, because we may not. Starting today, we won't take your money either." And the Washington Post's Philip Bump, in an article published the following day, stresses that Cruz has said something that many other politicians are reluctant to come out and say.

Bump explains, "A senator is not only suggesting that he may ice out an affected constituency when developing policy, but also, that he understands that both access and contributions can be used as leverage against them. It's like the guy who runs the sausage factory taking out an ad on television to ensure everyone knows the manufacturing process."

Railing against large corporations is a recent trend among Republicans, who for many years, defended them vigorously. But the Republican Party took a pseudo-populist turn with Donald Trump's presidency, which brought Patrick Buchanan's ideas — a combination of far-right nativism, protectionism and isolationism — to the forefront of the GOP. And Cruz is among the Republicans who has been attacking corporations for speaking out against the voter suppression bills that members of his party have been pushing in Texas, Arizona and many other states. Georgia's so-called Election Integrity Act of 2021 has been vehemently criticized by Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola and other major companies based in the Peach State.

"It's important to recognize that some of the motivation for the corporate response to the Georgia law and the attempt to upend the 2020 presidential election — that Cruz also supported and that led to some corporations halting their contributions to him — is a simple capitalist calculation," Bump observes. "Younger Americans skew heavily Democratic and embrace corporate activism. Businesses that want young people as customers at times see politics as a way to build that loyalty."

Bump continues, "What's more, the working-age population itself skews more heavily Democratic. If we roughly combine data on the distribution of the workforce by age with the 2020 presidential exit polls, it suggests that workers tend to be more than five points more Democratic than Republican. This makes sense, given how much more Republican older Americans are."

Obviously, major companies like Delta, Coca-Cola and Texas-based Dell Computers aren't being totally altruistic when they criticize voter suppression laws that are designed to make it harder for African-Americans to vote. African-Americans buy Dell laptops, book flights on Delta and purchase smartphones made by Apple — and corporations, mindful of their bottom line, know that, which is why they sometimes do the right thing for selfish reasons.

"If workers skew more heavily Democratic, companies will often listen," Bump notes. "Combine that with a corporate leadership that itself is more likely to skew left than in years past, and you get a business community that's less interested in aligning overwhelmingly with the GOP than it had been in the past…. I still think it's the case that policy influence happens one-on-one, but the senator does make a compelling counterpoint."

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/marco-rubio-2652807547/?rs=182

alex h

after decades of bowing down to large corporations, prominent Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio are now attacking corporate America for coming out against the suppression bills that have come from state legislatures in Georgia, Texas, Arizona and many other states. Rubio angrily attacked "woke" corporations in an op-ed published by the New York Post on April 25. And liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg slams the Florida senator's empty posturing in her April 27 column.

In his op-ed, Rubio wrote that large corporations need to be called out for "bending a knee to woke progressive craziness." According to Rubio, "Corporate America eagerly dumps woke, toxic nonsense into our culture, and it's only gotten more destructive with time."

Goldberg, in response, writes, "This analogy is slightly confusing, because usually, corporate polluters should expect no pushback whatsoever from Republicans. But Rubio wants us to assume that his party thinks dumping toxic waste is bad."[good one]

The Times columnist goes on to say that Rubio's posturing is meaningless in light of how much Republicans have kowtowed to Corporate America.

Goldberg explains, "If Republicans actually wanted to scare corporations into quiescence on social issues, they have a bunch of policy options. They could, for example, support President Joe Biden's plan to increase the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% to help fund infrastructure. It was 35% before Donald Trump's tax cuts. But Rubio's not going to do that: He described Biden's corporate tax proposal as part of 'a radical agenda full of left-wing priorities.'When Senate Republicans unveiled their counterproposal on infrastructure, it called for 'protecting against any corporate or international tax increases.'"

During the 2016 GOP presidential primary, Rubio was a blistering critic of Donald Trump. But after Trump won the primary and the general election, Rubio — not unlike Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — flip-flopped and became much more Trumpian rhetorically. And the empty anti-corporate rhetoric in his Post op-ed is full of Trump-like pseudo-populism.

According to Goldberg, "Rubio is following a model pioneered by Trump: rail against big corporations, occasionally bully those that defy you, but ultimately, put their profits and influence first."

Goldberg points out that Rubio has no problem with corporations until they embrace "cultural liberalism" in some respect.

"Last month," Goldberg observes, "Rubio did support the union drive by some Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, framing it explicitly as payback for Amazon's cultural liberalism. 'If Amazon thinks that conservatives will automatically rally to do its bidding after proving itself to be such enthusiastic culture warriors, it is sorely mistaken,' he wrote in a USA Today essay. But the union drive, which Amazon opposed ferociously, failed, and Rubio isn't willing to back the kind of legislation that would make unionization easier…. The most Rubio is willing to do is to make a temporary rhetorical alliance with workers driven by spite."

Goldberg discussed her column during an April 28 appearance onMSNBC's "Morning Joe," slamming Rubio once again for being hypocritical in his "sudden" disdain for Corporate America and described his rhetoric as "toothless."

The Times columnist told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and guest Willie Geist, "I think it's prompted by Georgia and other instances where corporations have criticized right-wing legislation…. He's not talking about esoteric language policing. He's not talking about human resources fads that some people object to; when he talks about wokeness, he's talking about voting rights. And he is really, really angry that companies, after all the deference that they've been given by the Republican Party, would intervene in political issues on the side of Democrats."

...

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aha, these are corps that use force to enforce the will of other corps:   

a pvt (intel) corp, will not disclose proprietary methods; taking pvt $ no disclose

https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/never-heard-of-them-anonymous-arizona-gop-ballot-auditing-firm-unknown-its-home-state/

ME

An Arizona judge is demanding more information about a Florida-based ballot firm's audits of the 2020 presidential election results as others raise concerns about the firm's reputation.

According to Politico, Cyber Ninjas consulting firm has caused a stir with its controversial audit of voting results in Maricopa County, and many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are asking: who are the Cyber Ninjas?

In Arizona and the firm's home state of Florida, no one seems to have a clue who they are.

When Christian Ziegler, vice-chair of the Republican Party in Florida was asked about the firm's founder, Doug Logan, she admitted she had no idea who he is. Like many other Florida Republican leaders and lawmakers, Ziegler said, "Doug Logan? Cyber Ninjas? No. I don't know these guys. Never heard of them."

On Monday, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) and other Democratic leaders also criticized the firm's audit as Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury in Phoenix demanded more information about it. On Monday, April 26, Hobbs appeared on "Cuomo Prime Time" where she expressed concern about the audit as she insisted it is yet another attempt by Republicans to "appease" the voters in their party.

"A group of Republicans are continuing to try to appease their base who refuse to accept that ... Trump lost Arizona and that he's not the president anymore," Hobbs told CNN's Chris Cuomo.

Hobbs also noted that her office has been focused on working "with a lawsuit that's been filed to try to address the security's concerns at a minimum, but at this point, this seems like such a farce that it would be a good idea to stop it."

Amid Republicans' push for election audits, organizers have reportedly been very selective when it comes to revealing details about who will be conducting the audits and if the selected teams will be bipartisan.

CNN also reports that organizers have "ignored requests from election integrity groups to allow nonpartisan election administration experts to observe the process," adding that "journalists who want to report on the endeavor are allowed to do so only if they agree to participate as election observers, and will be barred from taking notes or video."

Hobbs shared her reaction to the scarcity in the details.

"We have so many concerns about this exercise," Hobbs said Monday. "I kind of don't want to call it an audit. I think that's an insult to professional auditors everywhere because they're making this stuff up as they go along."  She added, "I think there was a high level of expectation that whoever had their hands on the ballots and the equipment would adhere to some level of security measures and transparency, and that clearly has not happened."

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/arizona-recount/

alexh

Five months after the 2020 presidential election and three months into Joe Biden's presidency, Republicans in the Arizona State Senate are using a Florida-based firm, Cyber Ninjas, to conduct an audit of votes in Maricopa County (which includes Phoenix). And attorneys for the company, according to the Arizona Republic, are asking a judge to keep its procedures for the audit secret and exclude the public and the media from a hearing where documents pertaining to the recount might be discussed.

The Arizona Republic's Andrew Oxford reports that Judge Christopher Coury, on Friday, asked Cyber Ninjas to turn over its plans and procedures for the audit, but attorneys for the company said that filing the documents publicly would compromise the audit's security. And Cyber Ninjas believe the documents enjoy legislative privilege because the company is conducting the audit at the request of the Arizona State Senate.

Coury has since recused himself from the case, and a new judge will need to be assigned to it.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Democratic Party and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo have filed a lawsuit against the Arizona State Senate to stop the audit altogether and argue that it violates the state's election laws.

According to Oxford, "The prospect that a court might block voters from seeing how their ballots will be handled during the unprecedented undertaking adds to mounting concerns about its transparency, given that its funders remain a mystery and news briefings were immediately placed on an indefinite hiatus."

Oxford quotes Roopali Desai, an attorney representing the Arizona Democratic Party, as saying, "This is a simple case that asks for simple relief: that agents of the Arizona Senate who purport to be conducting an 'audit' of Maricopa County's election results follow state law and ensure the safety and security of ballots, voting equipment, and voters' personal information."

Arizona, which was deeply Republican in the past, has evolved into a swing state in recent years — and Biden was the first Democrat to win Arizona in a presidential election since President Bill Clinton in 1996. Although Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey supported former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, he acknowledged Biden as president-elect after he won and certified the Electoral College results in his state — much to Trump's chagrin. Ducey has maintained that Biden won Arizona fair and square, but some far-right Republicans in Arizona, including those in the Arizona Senate, have promoted Trump's false and totally debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.

Cyber Ninjas' Maricopa County audit is being livestreamed by One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel that prides itself on being to the right of Fox News.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/anti-corporate-gop/

no lnx twt

how 'anti-corporate rhetoric' captured 'the paranoid, vindictive post-Trump GOP': conservative

Alex Henderson April 27, 2021

Historically speaking, right-wing Republicans are strident defenders of corporate America. Economist Milton Friedman argued that corporations had no obligation to anyone but their shareholders, and the late talk radio host Rush Limbaugh equated anti-corporatism with anti-capitalism — that is, before he flip-flopped and endorsed former President Donald Trump's pseudo-populism. And in 2021, railing against "woke corporations" is a badge of honor for Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and other Trumpian GOP wingnuts. Never Trump conservative Amanda Carpenter takes an in-depth look at the strident "anti-corporate rhetoric" coming from the far right in an article published by The Bulwark on April 27 — stressing that it underscores the "paranoid, vindictive" nature of the "post-Trump GOP."

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}:

The message of Republicans who have been railing against "woke capitalism," according to Carpenter, is "Screw with our elections…. and we'll screw your trusts, tax cuts, loopholes and credits."

"Republicans try to pretend that their bullying is something more principled — that it's anti-woke corporate populism — but in reality, it's little more than grievance weaponized as policy," Carpenter explains. "But don't laugh. The way things are going, this could be the next grand unifying theory for the GOP."

Carpenter points out that everyone from Hawley to Fox News' Tucker Carlson to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has been lambasting Corporate America for being "woke." Cruz, who once employed Carpenter as his communications director, came up with the hashtag #GoWokeGoBroke.

"The GOP's clash with business over the last few weeks is different in two ways from what came before," Carpenter observes. "First, on the business side, this case is different because the 'activism' in question — the holding back of donations, the criticism — is not related to some matter of policy or party, but rather, to election administration and the preservation of democracy itself. And on the GOP's side, this case is different because it is based solely upon the politics of retaliation."

The Republicans who have been raging against corporations, Carpenter notes, are upset because the companies have acknowledged Joe Biden as the legitimate president of the United States — rejecting Trump's false claims of voter fraud — and spoken out against GOP voter suppression bills.

"Republicans are proposing punitive action in direct response to political speech from companies about the post-election Big Lie, the attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and Georgia's recently enacted voting law," Carpenter observes. "Threatening to use the power of the state to crack down on that speech is repulsive…. This anti-corporate rhetoric has captured the paranoid, vindictive imagination of the post-Trump GOP."

By "post-Trump GOP," Carpenter isn't saying that the former president is no longer influential in his party. Most Republicans are afraid to say one word against him. Rather, Carpenter means "post-Trump White House GOP" or "post-Trump presidency GOP." And she stresses that the GOP, following Trump's presidency, has maintained his mean-spirited nature.

"There is a culture clash underway," Carpenter writes. "Hawley and the rest of the anti-woke crusaders are saying that Corporate America must heed their 'values' or get smashed — just like Hawley's rioters smashed up the Capitol when the Democrats didn't agree with their 'values' about 'election integrity.' It's all the same brute idea. Comply with my party, or get the fist."

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The basic deal between corporate America and the GOP is alive and ... ›

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2014 guk

In the case of Alec, expect campaigners like Forecast the Facts and CMD to shift the pressure to remaining group members with prominent brand recognition, such as Expedia, Comcast, FedEx, Pfizer, and Shell. In the broader marketplace, businesses striving for sustainability should recognize that their influence – and therefore their accountability – spreads further than they think.

andy young dtr grabbed Delta ceo after airport ceremony got him on bd ~ GA voter suppression, coke belated follow (after signed) but MLB -->Colo McConn threats corps tp stay out of politics

Unhinged': Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw mocked for calling companies opposing voter suppression 'fascism'

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

April 08, 2021

**Republican U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw** of Texas is getting roundly criticized and mocked after attacking the growing number of major corporations publicly opposing voter suppression laws, like Georgia's, and...

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/clean-coal/

no lnx

A hilarious euphemism': US probe underway over 'clean coal' moniker that actually increases pollution

Kenny Stancil and Common Dreams March 15, 2021

Following the emergence of evidence that power plants using a chemically treated coal—purportedly designed to reduce smog—generated more smokestack pollution not less, the Government Accountability Office has reportedly launched a congressional probe of the "refined coal" tax credit program that yields at least $1 billion per year for U.S. corporations.

:{

}:

With the multibillion-dollar fossil fuel subsidy set to expire at the end of 2021, the outcome of the GAO investigation could influence whether federal lawmakers vote to renew it, Reuters reported Monday.

:{

}:

According to Reuters, Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) called for the probe in 2019 after the news outlet's December 2018 reporting "revealed that many power plants burning the fuel, which supporters call 'clean coal,' pumped out more pollution than previously."

:{

}:

A subsequent analysis conducted by the nonprofit group Resources for the Future showed that "power plants using refined coal were not cutting mercury, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide pollution to levels required by the tax credit program."

twt

As Reuters reported:

Over the past decade, a who's who of American companies have reaped at least several billion dollars in benefits from investing in refined coal operations.

:{

}:

Just last year, some 150 million tons of refined coal was burned in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Producers get a tax credit of $7.30 for each ton burned.

:{

}:

Beneficiaries include global insurance brokerage Arthur J. Gallagher & Co, Detroit utility DTE Energy Co, Boston-based Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co Inc, pharmaceutical giant Mylan NV and Waste Management Inc, according to disclosures reviewed by Reuters.

The Internal Revenue Service, which oversees the tax credit program, allows the companies to qualify by testing relatively small amounts of refined coal in a laboratory once a year, in lieu of real-world emissions measurements at power plants, the Reuters Special Report found.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/big-pharma/

'Outrageous': Big Pharma using loophole to get taxpayers to fund billions in fines for fueling opioid crisis

Four pharmaceutical corporations that agreed to pay a combined $26 billion to settle lawsuits resulting from a deadly opioid crisis they helped create reportedly plan to recoup a portion of those costs by deducting roughly $4.6 billion of the payouts from their taxes—sparking intense condemnation.

Big Pharma is attempting to make the public cover some of the fines related to lawsuits filed by dozens of state and local governments highlighting the culpability of opioid manufacturers and distributors in the deaths of an estimated 70,000 people per year.

As Public Citizen president Robert Weissman put it in a statement released Friday, "The drug companies are settling with taxpayers (local government entities) and then demanding that taxpayers pay part of the cost (via a federal tax subsidy)."....

aha 221: wage theft, not just farmworkers or indic rest mgr:  amazon and other bigs corps do it, algo? max profit /extract built into corp DNA

// gig economy? stole tips for wages; bezos steps down/sideways?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/amazon-wage-theft/

Nancy Alexander

ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE PROGRAM DIRECTOR, HEINRICH BÖLL FOUNDATION

Nnimmo Bassey

DIRECTOR OF HEALTH, MOTHER EARTH FOUNDATION

Saqib Bhatti

CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACTION CENTER ON RACE AND THE ECONOMY, WATER

David Boys

DEPUTY GENERAL SECRETARY, PUBLIC SERVICES INTERNATIONAL

Donald Cohen

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Ronnie Cummins

FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION

Richard Daynard

UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF LAW, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW

Wendy Fields

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE

US Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva

REPRESENTATIVE, ARIZONA’S 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

David Hall

FORMER DIRECTOR, PUBLIC SERVICES INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH UNIT

Wenonah Hauter

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FOOD & WATER WATCH

Muyunda Ililonga

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ZAMBIAN CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION

Philip Jakpor

HEAD OF MEDIA AT ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ACTION/FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, NIGERIA

Saru Jayaraman

CO-FOUNDER, CO-DIRECTOR, RESTAURANT OPPORTUNITIES CENTERS UNITED (ROC UNITED); DIRECTOR, FOOD LABOR RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Satoko Kishimoto

COORDINATOR, WATER JUSTICE PROJECT, TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTE

Naomi Klein

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR

Anna Lappé

FOUNDER, REAL FOOD MEDIA

Frances Moore Lappé

CO-FOUNDER OF FOOD FIRST: THE INSTITUTE FOR FOOD AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY AND SMALL PLANET INSTITUTE

Annie Leonard

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREENPEACE USA

Susan Linn

CO-FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, CAMPAIGN FOR A COMMERCIAL-FREE CHILDHOOD

Nancy MacLean

HISTORIAN, AUTHOR OF "DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS", PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND PUBLIC POLICY

Eric Mar

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY; FORMER SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Bill McKibben

CO-FOUNDER AND SENIOR ADVISER, 350.ORG

Juan Camilo Mira

OPERATIONAL COORDINATOR, EDUCAR CONSUMIDORES

Labram Musah

PROGRAMS DIRECTOR, VISION FOR ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT, GHANA

Cecily Myart-Cruz

VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED TEACHERS OF LOS ANGELES/NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Lidy Nacpil

COORDINATOR, ASIAN PEOPLES' MOVEMENT ON DEBT AND DEVELOPMENT

Hellen Neima

CONSULTANT ON TOBACCO CONTROL

Samuel Ochieng

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CONSUMER INFORMATION NETWORK

Raj Patel

AUTHOR OF “STUFFED AND STARVED” AND “THE VALUE OF NOTHING”

Meena Raman

LEGAL ADVISER, THIRD WORLD NETWORK, MALAYSIA

Asad Rehman

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WAR ON WANT

Irene Patricia Reyes

TOBACCO CONTROL EXPERT AND CONSULTANT

Jim Shultz

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEMOCRACY CENTER

Maureen Taylor

STATE CHAIR, MICHIGAN WELFARE RIGHTS ORGANIZATION

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/mark-zuckerberg/

The sudden lurch from Trump to Biden is generating vertigo all over Washington, including the so-called fourth branch of government – CEOs and their army of lobbyists.

Notwithstanding Biden's ambitious agenda, dozens of giant corporations have said they will not donate to the 147 members of Congress who objected to the certification of Biden electors on the basis of Trump's lies about widespread fraud, which rules out most Republicans on the Hill.

After locking down Trump's account, social media giants like Twitter and Facebook are policing against instigators of violence and hate, which hobbles Republican lawmakers trying to appeal to Trump voters.

As a result of moves like these, CEOs are being hailed – and hailing themselves – as guardians of democracy. The New York Times praises business leaders for seeking "stability and national unity." Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Airlines, says "our voice is seen as more important than ever." A recent study by **Edelman** finds the public now trusts business more than nonprofit organizations, the government or the media.

Give me a break. For years, big corporations have been assaulting democracy with big money, drowning out the voices and needs of ordinary Americans and fueling much of the anger and cynicism that opened the door to Trump in the first place.

Their assault hasn't been as dramatic as the Trump thugs who stormed the Capitol, and it's entirely legal – although more damaging over the long term.

A study published a few years ago by two of America's most respected political scientists, Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern's Benjamin Page, concluded that the preferences of the average American "have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy." Instead, lawmakers respond almost exclusively to the moneyed interests – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns.

The capture of government by big business over the last several decades has infuriated average Americans whose paychecks have gone nowhere even as the stock market has soared.

The populist movements that fueled both Bernie Sanders and Trump began in the 2008 financial crisis when Wall Street got bailed out and no major bank executive went to jail, although millions of ordinary people lost their jobs, savings and homes.

So now, in wake of Trump's calamitous exit and Biden's ascension, we're to believe CEOs care about democracy?

"No one thought they were giving money to people who supported sedition," explained Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase and chairman of the Business Roundtable, referring to the disgraced Republicans.

Yet Dimon has been a leader of the more insidious form of sedition. He piloted the corporate lobbying campaign for the Trump tax cut, deploying a vast war chest of corporate donations.

For more than a decade Dimon has driven Wall Street's charge against stricter bank regulation, opening bipartisan doors in the Capitol with generous gifts from the Street. (Dimon calls himself a Democrat.)

When Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg shut Trump's Facebook account, he declared "you just can't have a functioning democracy without a peaceful transition of power."

Where was Zuckerberg's concern for a "functioning democracy" when he amplified Trump's lies for four years?

After taking down Trump's Twitter account, CEO Jack Dorsey expressed discomfort about "the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation."

Spare me. Dorsey has fought off all attempts to limit Twitter's power over the "global conversation." He shuttered Trump only after Democrats secured the presidency and control of the Senate.

Look, I'm glad CEOs are penalizing the 147 Republican seditionists and that Big Tech is starting to police social media content.

But don't confuse the avowed concerns of these CEOs about democracy with democracy itself. They aren't answerable to democracy. At most, they're accountable to big shareholders and institutional investors who don't give a fig as long as profits keep rolling in.

If they were committed to democracy, CEOs of big corporations would permanently cease corporate donations to all candidates, close their PACs, stop giving to secretive "dark money" groups, and discourage donations by their executives.

They'd stop placing ads in media that have weaponized disinformation – including Fox News, Infowars, Newsmax and websites affiliated with right-wing pundits. Social media giants would start acting like publishers and take responsibility for what they promulgate.

If corporate America were serious about democracy it would throw its weight behind the "For the People Act," the first bills of the new Congress, offering public financing of elections among other reforms.

Don't hold your breath.

Joe Biden intends to raise corporate taxes, increase the minimum wage, break up Big Tech, and strengthen labor unions.

The fourth branch is already amassing a war chest for the fight.

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an 121

orange-washing?

Following the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, dozens of major corporations, including financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies, have opted to sever ties with President Donald Trump and his businesses. Some corporations have even gone a step further by halting political donations to the Republican Party. In more drastic cases, political donations have been halted for both political parties.

However, an editorial published by Mother Jones highlights how these same companies had no issue backing Trump and the Republican Party when the president began pushing the envelope to distance from democratic norms in order to bring his own agenda to fruition. At the time, these same companies benefited from Trump and Republican lawmakers' passing of laws that ultimately saved corporations millions of dollars.

Dennis Kelleher, president of the Wall Street non-profit for financial reform, Better Markets, noted the "hypocrisy" in corporations' stance as he detailed his concern about their swift efforts to distance from the embattled president.

"Trump has not only broken norms of democracy but broken the law for years, while they comfortably stuffed their pockets with cash from tax cuts and deregulation," Kelleher said. "Now that Trump is merely days from leaving office, they have claimed to have suddenly found their values. It is, in many ways, hypocrisy."

The publication went on to highlight the "biggest prize" corporations received in 2017 from the Republican-led House and Senate that ultimately paved the way for major corporate tax breaks.

The biggest prize won by the corporations from Republican policy-making in the Trump era came with the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The bill—his first major legislative achievement—enacted historic changes that have disproportionately benefited corporations and the wealthy.

According to William Gale, the co-director of the Tax Policy Center, that particular bill, which slashed corporate taxes by a staggering 14%, served as a "windfall gain" for corporate entities. Some of the companies that benefited greatly from the pandemic have also been criticized. Amazon and Verizon have been specifically criticized.

Amazon, for instance, called Republicans' actions last week an "unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process." Yet for two of the last three years, Amazon, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying Congress and the White House for the Trump tax cuts, has enjoyed a negative effective federal tax rate.

Although Kelleher noted that the abrupt decision is likely one that was not planned, he still sees it as more of a "PR campaign" as opposed to a commitment that companies will stick with for the long-term.

They know going into 2021 how much they have estimated they're going to give, to who, and when. So let them disclose that information, and tell the public exactly which contributions they're no longer going to make," Kelleher says. "Until and unless they do that everybody should be deeply skeptical of the genuineness of what is so far a PR campaign."

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aha interesting that both left and right use ID pol (emotion anger hype hate of other) images to distract from systemic inequality, which of course then gets worse, which amplify fdbk death spiral to trump/ insurrection; ID pol still me vs we, just bigger me = tribe

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/trump-nixon/

an 121 salon

Americans were shocked to watch as American stormtroopers assaulted the U. S. capitol building, smashing windows, roaming through the building and the floors of both Senate and House, including sitting in the seat of the Senate's presiding officer, leaving incendiary devices nearby, etc.).

This was more than a whiff of fascism. This is what fascism looks like.

So, we have to ask: beyond the lying, insurrection-instigating, so-called President, how did we get here?

The story actually goes a long way back.

First, the more obvious Republican side of the story:

Although his administration did eventually oversee some environmental protections, President Richard Nixon gained the White House via a law and order campaign in 1968, appealing to the so-called "silent majority" who were frightened, if not alienated, by the images of antiwar protesters, inner-city "rioters," and counterculture "freaks" during the 1960s.

The mass media, of course, fed this dynamic by refusing to take seriously the actual claims of Black, antiwar, and feminist activists; instead, making sure the public saw the most inflammatory examples of their behaviors and appearances. That's a story I have documented elsewhere.

Nixon's election and his "Southern Strategy" set in stone the future of the Republican party, although it remained for Ronald Reagan to seal the deal. Reagan's rhetoric about basic "decency" and "family values," fed the grievances of those who felt left out of, or alienated by, the '60s. But crucially, Reagan's actual policies focused oneliminating ways the government addresses public needs, instead cutting taxes on the wealthy CORPS], rebuilding a huge military complex and aggressive foreign policy, and deregulating the economy.

However, the people drawn to so-called conservative rhetoric — whether religious traditionalists, rural folks or members of the white working class — were not the actual winners under Reagan. Instead, they lost more and more ground economically. They basically got symbolic gratification. Their attention was instead diverted to the Democrats, liberals and "Eastern elites" who "caused" their problems.

That's the path that leads directly to Trump and his True Believers.

What, then, of the Democratic Party?

That, too, is a long story. In the midst of the Reagan years, smarting from Nixon's humiliating victory in 1972 and Reagan's in 1984, Democratic centrists — names like Dick Gephardt, Sam Nunn, Bill Clinton [TONY COELHO]— took steps to move the party away from its more liberal wing and into the corporate-dependent center. In its more liberal moments the Democratic Party typically expressed hopeful rhetoric about defending the rights of minorities, women and LGBTQ people, defending the environment, etc. The reality consistently fell far short of the rhetoric.

So, in our two-party system, Republicans have been all about give-aways to the rich while manipulating the emotions of less well-off white Americans. Democrats have essentially ignored the latter populations, becoming increasingly dependent on corporate money while also manipulating the aspirations of marginalized communities.

Neither party speaks a word against a capitalist system that feeds inequality, threatens the planet's ability to sustain life, and generates a foreign policy marked by militarism and war. The "problem" is always the "other party."

In their more liberal moments, Democrats embrace what is often called "identity politics" — race, gender, and sexuality in particular. This rhetorical embrace is used by Republicans to feed the emotional attachment of their rank and file supporters. Democrats gain support when Republican rhetoric becomes outrageous. Clearly, the political center, with all its sanctimonious rhetoric, is reinforced when something like the Capitol assault occurs.

Yet the country remains stuck in this see-saw battle that goes nowhere. Beholden to corporate wealth, neither party dares to confront class inequality. Yet, unlike identity concerns about discrimination, hate speech, and oppression — all serious problems — class analysis reveals the systemic forces that lie behind these and keep both parties' rank-and-file in their place at the margins of American politics.

Ultimately, the only way out of this will occur when enough people becomeaware, not only of the seriousness of the hazards facing us, but of the need to come together in a well-mobilized mass movement addressing systemic concerns.We already see where we're heading if we don't do this.

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trojan horse for long awaited tort reform?!  never waste a crisis?!

Probably the most under-reported story of the year has been how Mitch McConnell is holding Americans hostage in exchange for letting big corporations kill Americans without any consequence.

Mitch took you and me hostage back in May, when the House of Representatives passed the HEROES act that would have funded state and local governments and provided unemployed workers with an ongoing weekly payment.

Mitch refused to even allow the Senate to discuss the HEROES Act until or unless the legislation also legalized corporations killing their workers and customers. To this day, he refuses to let it even be discussed in the Senate.

We've seen companies fire people for refusing to take their lives in their hands, executives organize betting pools on which employees are going to die first, and companies lying openly to their workers and customers about the dangers of Covid-19.

Mitch McConnell wants to protect them all. Even worse, his immunity can extend well beyond the pandemic and sets up a process that could put corporations above the law permanently, across every community in America, in ways that state and local governments can never defy.

While Republicans have fought against raising the minimum wage or letting workers unionize for over 100 years, what McConnell is doing now is giving corporations the ultimate right: the right to kill their employees and customers with impunity.

And McConnell's holding your local police and fire departments, public schools, and state healthcare programs hostage in exchange for his corporate immunity.

This is beyond immoral. This is ghastly, and should have been at the top of every news story in America for the past six months. But many of the corporations that are looking forward to complete supremacy over their workers include the giant corporations that own our media.

America has suffered for over 40 years under Reaganism's neoliberal mantra, picked up from Milton Friedman, that when corporations focus exclusively on profit an "invisible hand" will guide them to do what's best for people and communities. It's a lie.

This is an assault on workers' rights, but, even greater, it's a corporate assault on human rights. McConnell is saying that a corporation's right to kill its workers and customers is more important than the lives of human beings.

As unemployment benefits are running out, evictions loom, small businesses are dying left and right, millions of families have been thrown into crisis and more than 10 million Americans have lost their health insurance, McConnell continues to hold us all hostage.

It's time to fight back. If corporate media continues to refuse to discuss McConnell's blackmail, we must individually speak up among friends and communities, and also let our lawmakers know what we think. It's time to raise some hell.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/mitch-mcconnell-2649519136/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/corporate/

Americans are divided and polarized — but large majorities want to curb corporate influence in government

Sean McElwee Salon  December 07, 2020

After the most turbulent election cycle in American history, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by a comfortable margin in both the Electoral College and popular vote. With political polarization at an all-time high, the question of how President-elect Biden plans

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/billionaire-tax/

$427 billion lost each year to tax dodging by corporations and the rich: landmark study

Julia Conley and Common Dreams November 23, 2020

A first-of-its-kind international report released Friday shows how wealthy countries are the primary drivers of tax revenue loss each year—contributing to $427 billion in losses to public funding annually and affecting the ability of countries all over the world, including developing nations, to provide services to the public.

The Tax Justice Network's inaugural State of Tax Justice report is the first study to thoroughly measure how much money each country loses each year to corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion, using data that was self-reported by corporations to tax authorities.

The report notes that in light of the global coronavirus pandemic, the loss of revenue to tax abuse and evasion has major implications for public health efforts. One nurse's annual salary is lost every second to tax havens—the equivalent of 34 million nurses' salaries each year.

"A global tax system that loses over $427 billion a year is not a broken system, it's a system programmed to fail," said Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.

"Under pressure from corporate giants and tax haven powers like the Netherlands and the U.K.'s network, our governments have programmed the global tax system to prioritize the desires of the wealthiest corporations and individuals over the needs of everybody else," he continued. "The pandemic has exposed the grave cost of turning tax policy into a tool for indulging tax abusers instead of for protecting people's wellbeing."

Lower-income countries are particularly affected by tax evasion during public health crises like the current pandemic, with losses are equivalent to 52% of their public health budgets. While rich countries lose hundreds of billions more dollars each year to tax evasion and abuse, their losses only make up about 8% of their public health budgets.

Latin America and Africa's tax losses are equivalent to about 20.4% and 52.5% of their public health budgets, respectively.

Contrary to data compiled in the European Union's "highly politicized blacklist" of tax havens, the Tax Justice Network said, high income countries are behind a vast majority of global tax abuse. The British territory Cayman Islands is responsible for other countries losing $70 billion in public funding each year, while the U.K.'s tax laws take away more than $42 billion. The U.S. is in fifth place globally, robbing other countries of $23.6 billion each year.

While countries including Palau and Trinidad and Tobago are on the EU's blacklist and are not cooperative with international tax regulations, the Tax Justice Network reported, they "did not create any observable tax losses for other countries."

Meanwhile, high-income countries are behind 98% of public funding losses around the world, contributing to a loss of $419 in annual tax revenues.

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Corporate abuse by multinational corporations is directly responsible for the loss of $245 billion each year, with companies shifting $1.38 trillion in profits out of the countries where those profits were earned into tax havens, the report said. Private tax evaders also stored a total of $10 trillion in offshore accounts, leading to a loss of $182 billion in public funding.

Joe Boughner, public affairs director for Canada-based labor union ACFO-ACAF, tweeted that corporations which penalize workers for "crippling our economy" by taking time off should focus far more on the $5.7 billion lost each year to tax evasion and corporate abuse.

Rosa Pavanelli, general secretary of the global labor union Public Services International, who took part in Tax Justice Network's webinar launching the report, pointed to the notion of "building back better" after crises like the pandemic, which has been adopted by the United Nations and U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.

"If you really believe in building back better then pay your taxes!" Pavanelli tweeted. "If governments don't act now our democracies are really in trouble."

To ensure countries around the world don't continue to lose hundreds of billions of dollars each year which could go to strengthening their public health, infrastructure, and education systems, the Tax Justice Network said, governments must promptly take three far-reaching actions:

Introduce an excess profit tax on multinational corporations making excess profits during the pandemic, such as global digital companies, in order to cut through profit shifting abuses.

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Introduce a wealth tax to fund the Covid-19 response and address the long term inequalities the pandemic has exacerbated, with punitive rates for opaquely owned offshore assets and a commitment between governments to eliminate this opacity.

Establish a UN tax convention to ensure a global and genuinely representative forum to set consistent, multilateral standards for corporate taxation, for the necessary tax cooperation between governments, and to deliver comprehensive, multilateral tax transparency.

The report also called on G20 member countries, which are collectively responsible for 26.7% of global tax losses and cost countries $114 billion each year through their tax laws and loopholes for the wealthy, to address the issue at their summit this weekendand require the publication of individual multinational companies' tax reporting, "so that corporate tax abusers and the jurisdictions that facilitate them can be identified and held to account."

"Now more than ever we must reprogram our global tax system to prioritize people's health and livelihoods over the desires of those bent on not paying tax," Cobham said.

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aha this is a kind of extraction, pvtize profits, socialize costs

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/bernie-sanders/

'The Walton family is the real welfare queen': GAO report details how taxpayers subsidize corporate giants' low wages

pinpointing a reality denounced as "morally obscene" by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a new government study shows how some of the nation's largest and most profitable corporations—including Walmart, McDonald's, Dollar General, and Amazon—feast upon taxpayer money by paying their employees such low wages that huge numbers of those workers throughout the year are forced to rely on public assistance programs such as Medicaid and food assistance just to keep themselves and their families afloat.

According to a statement from Sanders' office, the study he commissioned the Government Accountability Office to carry out—titled "Millions of Full-time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs"—found that an estimated 5.7 million Medicaid enrollees and 4.7 million SNAP(Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients who worked full-time for 50 or more weeks in 2018earned wages so low that they qualified for these federal benefits. In addition, an estimated 12 million wage-earning adults enrolled in Medicaid and 9 million wage-earning adults living in households receiving SNAP benefits worked at some point in 2018.

Upon the study's release Wednesday, Warren Gunnels, staff director and policy adviser for Sen. Sanders, tweeted: "The real looting in America is theWalton family becoming $63 billion richer during a pandemic, while paying wages so low that 14,541 of their workers in 9 states need food stamps—all subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Yes. The Walton family is the real welfare queen in America."

According to the Washington Post:, based on the GAO report:

*Walmart was one of the top four employers of SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries in every state. McDonald's was in the top five of employers with employees receiving federal benefits in at least nine states.

In the nine states that responded about SNAP benefits—Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington—Walmart was found to have employed about 14,500 workers receiving the benefit, followed by McDonald's with 8,780, according to Sanders's team. In six states that reported Medicaid enrollees, Walmart again topped the list, with 10,350 employees, followed by McDonald's with 4,600.

In Georgia, for example, Walmart employed an estimated 3,959 workers on Medicaid—an estimated 2.1 percent of the total of non-elderly, non-disabled people in the state receiving the benefit. McDonald's was next on the list, employing 1,480 who received Medicaid, or 0.8 percent of the total of non-elderly, non-disabled people on the program.*

"At a time when huge corporations like Walmart and McDonald's are making billions in profits and giving their CEOs tens of millions of dollars a year, they're relying on corporate welfare from the federal government by paying their workers starvation wages," said Sanders in a statement. "That is morally obscene."

With the individual wealth of high-ranking executives and members of billionaire families like the Walton's, who own Walmart, soaring even as front-line, minimum wage employees and their families struggling to stay afloat amid the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, Sanders argues that the stark contrast should be a wakeup call for those who have refused to see how unjust and economically backward it is for the federal government, meaning taxpayers, to subsidize the cruel wages that massive profitable companies force their workers to accept.

"U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America," said Sanders. "It is time for the owners of Walmart, McDonald's and other large corporations to get off of welfare and pay their workers a living wage."

*The Walton family is worth $238 billion. Yet they pay wages so low, 14,541 of their workers in 9 states are forced… https://t.co/NHcullycqz*

— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders)1605742875.0

"No one in this country should live in poverty," Sanders added. "No one should go hungry. No one should be unable to get the medical care they need. It is long past time to increase the federal minimum wage from a starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to $15, and guarantee health care to all Americans as a human right."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/tyson-foods/

alexh

One of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in a meat-packing facility occurred in April at a Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where more than 1000 employees were infected with COVID-19. At least five of them died. And a wrongful death lawsuit, according to Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Clark Kauffman, alleges that managers at the Tyson plant "ordered employees to report for work while supervisors privately wagered money on the number of workers who would be sickened by the deadly virus."

Isidro Fernandez was among the Tyson employees who died from COVID-19 in April, and his family's lawsuit alleges that he was exposed to the novel coronavirus at the Waterloo plant. Tyson, the lawsuit alleges, showed a "willful and wanton disregard for workplace safety" by forcing employees to work in cramped conditions during a global pandemic and failing to observe social distancing guidelines at the Waterloo plant.

[twt]lack Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson visited the plant in mid-April — Fernandez died on April 20 — and said that the conditions he observed "shook (him) to the core." And according to Kauffman, it was during that period that plant manager Tom Hart "organized a cash-buy-in, winner-take-all, betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many plant employees would test positive for COVID-19."

Kauffman notes that John Casey, one of the plant's senior managers, "is alleged to have explicitly directed supervisors to ignore symptoms of COVID-19, telling them to show up to work even if they were exhibiting symptoms of the virus." Casey, according to Kauffman, allegedly told a sick supervisor who was on his way to get tested for COVID-19, "We all have symptoms — you have a job to do."

One Tyson employee, according to Kauffman, was so sick that he "vomited on the production line" — and managers "reportedly allowed the man to continue working and then return to work the next day."

"In late March or early April, as the pandemic spread across Iowa, managers at the Waterloo plant reportedly began avoiding the plant floor for fear of contracting the virus," Kauffman explains. "As a result, they increasingly delegated managerial authority and responsibilities to low-level supervisors who had no management training or experience. The supervisors did not require truck drivers and subcontractors to have their temperatures checked before entering the plant."

Here are some Twitter responses to the Iowa Capital Dispatch's reporting on the wrongful death lawsuit:...[twt]

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/biden-transition-team/

Among the many challenges Joe Biden's administration will have to confront after Donald Trump ends his temper tantrum is deciding what posture to take toward big business.

There will be a battle for the soul of the new president as corporate Democrats vie with progressives to influence policy in areas such as regulation and antitrust.

Initial signs are encouraging.

The Biden transition just released a list of some 500 individuals who will be staffing the Agency Review Teams charged with preparing the way for a transfer of power in all parts of the executive branch.

Most of the people are from academia, state government, law firms, non-profits, unions, think tanks and foundations.

Surveying the list of affiliations,I found only about 20 for large corporations. Most of the people are from academia, state government, law firms, non-profits, unions, think tanks and foundations.

It is likely some of the law firms are there to represent specific corporate interests, but the numerous representatives from progressive public interest, environmental and labor groups should serve as an effective counterweight.

Unions in Labor Department

In the Labor Department list there are no law firms or corporations; in their place are representatives from five different unions along with people from the National Employment Law Project and other progressive groups.

What is particularly significant is the near absence of people affiliated with Wall Street banks.

The Defense Department list has someone from JPMorgan Chase; Homeland Security has a representative from Capital One; and the International Development group includes someone from U.S. Bank. There is no one from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo or Morgan Stanley.

The Treasury Department group is led by someone from Keybank, which is based in Cleveland and ranks about 29th among U.S. banks. Fortunately, the Treasury group also includes representatives from places such as the Center for American Progress, the American Economic Liberties Project and the AFL-CIO.

Environmentalists at EPA

Other balancing acts include the list for the Environmental Protection Agency, which includes a representative from Dell Technologies but also from Earthjustice (the lead person) and The Sierra Club.

Some of the corporations show up in surprising places. Walt Disney is represented on the Intelligence Community list. The cosmetics firm Estee Lauder has someone on the State Department list. Someone fromAirbnb is in the National Security Council group.

Tech Companies at OMB

Looking at current corporate villains, the one that stands out is Amazon.com. It shows up on two lists—the one for the State Department and the one for the Office of Management and Budget.

Lyft and Airbnb are also on the OMB list, along with some academics, a consultant, state officials and someone from Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe-based non-profit that produces immersive art experiences.

Given that OMB oversees regulatory policy, the absence of public interest, union and environmental people raises a concern. Otherwise, it appears that the Biden team is limiting corporate influence in the emerging administration.

Let's hope it stays that way.

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an 1120

The core of the Republican Party strength is concentrated in the 27 Right to Work states.As discussed in a previous article, Right to Work laws are designed to weaken unions by cutting their revenue and membership. Unions represent just 7.5% of the workforce in right to work states but almost 16% in "fair share" states. The 27 "right to work" states account for 83% of the currently seated Republican Senators and 70% of their Representatives. In 2016, Trump carried 25 of the 27 these states.

JUDICIAL BRANCH – Anti-Union/Pro Business Judges Dominate the Supreme Court and Appellate Courts

The Republican Party has worked for a long time to ensure that the federal court system is dominated by conservative, pro-business/anti-union judges over the long term. Indeed, Republicans basically packed the court system when Senate Majority Leader McConnell refused to allow the Senate to vote on 105 judicial vacancies during the Obama administration which were later filled by Trump appointees.

Supreme Court. The Supreme Court now has 6 Republican appointed justices and 3 Democratic Justices. Each of the three Trump appointees had a proven anti-union/pro-corporate bias before being nominated.

Amy Coney Barrett. During her term on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett ruled in favor of corporate interest more than 75% of the time. She ruled that corporations are entitled to set job requirements that exclude older workers and that they may segregate workers at different locations by race. She has also expressed support for striking the entire Affordable Care Act which would deprive health insurance for 20 million people and end protections for 100 million people with pre-existing conditions.

Neil Gorsuch. During his term on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Gorsuch repeatedly ruled against workers and in favor of corporations. For example, Gorsuch dissented from a majority ruling upholding a National Labor Relations Board decision that an employer must give full back pay to workers it illegally fired for union activity. Gorsuch dissented in cases in which the circuit court majority supported pro-worker NLRB decisions stating that the NLRB exceeded the scope of its authority. However, Gorsuch made no such dissent when the court ruled in favor of NLRB decisions that supported management.

Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh served on the extremely important US District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This court is second only to the Supreme Court in terms of prestige and power because it has jurisdiction over Congress and most federal regulations and agencies. The People for the American Way compiled a list of rulings showing that Kavanaugh consistently ruled against workers and for corporations during his 12½ years on the DC Circuit Court. Examples include Kavanaugh's opinions that would "entirely eviscerate collective bargaining;" his support for corporations seeking criminal citations for lawful union protests; and support for corporations that failed to protect workers health and safety.

Other Federal Courts. In almost 4 years Trump and the Republican Senate have appointed 24% of all active federal judges (194 of 792). There are 35 more nominations currently pending. Trump has appointed 30% of all active federal appeals court judges (54 of 179). This is more than any other president over the last 40 years. Overall, Republican appointees now account for 54% of all federal circuit court judges. The circuit courts are especially powerful because they function as final arbiter for the vast majority of cases since the Supreme Court accepts fewer than 2% of the 7-8,000 cases filed with it annually. These courts ultimately determine what the federal government can and cannot regulate – this is especially important to unions in relation to the right to organize and collectively bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions as well as the relative power of unions and corporations....

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/deregulatory-rush-shows-even-if-defeated-the-trump-white-house-willing-to-scorch-the-earth-before-they-go/

no twt lnx

Deregulatory rush shows Trump White House willing to 'scorch the Earth before they go'

Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams October 18, 2020

With President Donald Trump's re-election very much in doubt, his administration is rushing to ram through regulatory rollbacks that could adversely affect millions of Americans, the environment, and the ability of Joe Biden—should he win—to pursue his agenda or even undo the damage done over the past four years.

Reporting by the New York Times details how the administration is cutting corners as it scrambles to enact as much of its agenda as possible before ceding power on January 20 if Trump loses the election. Required public comment periods and detailed analyses, according to the Times, are being eschewed in favor of streamlined approval processes that have left even staunch deregulation defenders sounding the alarm.

[EricLiptonNYT

JUST POSTED: Facing the prospect that President Trump could lose his re-election bid, his cabinet is scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges]

"Two main hallmarks of a good regulation is sound analysis to support the alternatives chosen and extensive public comment to get broader opinion," Susan E. Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center and formerly head of regulation in the George W. Bush White House, told the Times. "It is a concern if you are bypassing both of those."

Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that the president has always "worked quickly... to grow the economy by removing the mountain of Obama-Biden job-killing regulations."

However, critics are warning that some of the proposed changes are being rushed through with insufficient regard to the harm they might cause. Some of the issues that are raising red flags include:

Refusing to lower limits on dangerous particulate and ozone pollution, which cause thousands of annual premature deaths.

Allowing so-called "bomb trains" that transport highly combustible liquefied natural gas on freight trains.

Determining when workers can be classified as employees orindependent contractors.

Exempting certain commercial drivers from mandatory hour limits and rest periods.

Placing limits on how science is used in the air pollution rule-making process.

Expanding regulation of immigrants by requiring citizenship applicants to submit biometric data, by forcing sponsors of immigrants to stay off welfare and prove their financial independence.

In response to the reporting, critics of the administration like writer Matthew Kressel said that it helps make clear that if the Republicans in the White House cannot win reelection, they'll "scorch the earth before they go."

And Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, tweeted: "I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind."

MattGertz

I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind.

Many of the changes reflect the agendas of the powerfulcorporate and other business interestswhose key players have donated generously to Trump, belying the president's oft-repeated claim that he is "draining the swamp." Other regulator rollbacks come despite warnings from career officials within federal agencies about the harm they could cause.

carlzimmer

EPA’s scientific advisers warn its regulatory rollbacks clash with established science

Alarmed by the administration's rushed rate of regulatory rollbacks, a group of over 15 Democratic senators earlier this month sent a letter (pdf) to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia warning of "profound economic implications" for some 143 million U.S. workers that would result from curtailing public comment periods for the proposed rule change regarding independent contractors.

"Workers across the country deserve a chance to fully examine and properly respond to these potentially radical changes, and a 30-day comment period is not nearly enough," the letter states.

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corps packing scotus:

https://www.republicreport.org/**2018/**how-did-powerhouse-gop-pr-firm-crc-mess-up-kavanaugh-so-bad/

We now know that when conservative lawyer and close Brett Kavanaugh friend Edward Whelan attempted his disastrous Perry Mason tweetstorm suggesting that one of Kavanaugh’s prep school classmates was the one who assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, he did not do so alone. He was, at least, aided and abetted by the big DC firm CRC Public Relations. According to Politico, CRC “guided” Whelan through the unveiling of the accusation, with CRC’s president, Greg Mueller, helping Whelan in advance of the tweets to “stoke the anticipation”; key conservatives touted the announcement in advance.

CRC is one of the most powerful and influential conservative political PR operations. Its clients include the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, and the climate change denying Institute for Energy Research. It also has advised an enormous number of major corporations and trade associations, including Amazon, Chevron, General Motors, Microsoft, National Association of Manufacturers, Northrop Grumman, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers Association, and Pizza Hut. The firm is perhaps best known for its work devising the ugly Swift Boat attack on 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

More relevant to this discussion, though, CRC has been aiding the dark money advocacy group Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), the people behind the determined, expensive public campaign to confirm conservative judges and, in the last administration, to block Obama picks for the federal courts. JCN, tied to the conservative lawyers’ group the Federalist Society, spent big to help confirm Neil Gorsuch and now has pushed hard to get Kavanaugh on the court, including with a relentless TV ad buy (e.g., the female friend of Kavanaugh who endlessly tells viewers “I’m a teacher, I’m a coach”).

UPDATE 09-25-18: Politico [reports that Federalist Society executiveVP Leonard Leo has “raised upwards of $15 million from conservative donors” for the JCN communications campaign supporting Kavanaugh. Politico also reports that Whelan “worked feverishly” with Leo (as well as CRC) to “hype” Whelan’s mistaken identity theory.]

From 2013 to mid 2017, according to IRS filings, JCN paid CRC about $5.1 million. The group is obviously spending even more for CRC’s help on Kavanaugh.

If CRC’s people are talented enough to get all this business, how could they have guided the Whelan disaster, the Thursday evening tweetstorm that used maps of Chevy Chase, Maryland, and photos of a house there and two prep school boys to point the finger, by name, at Kavanaugh’s classmate — a debacle so bad, so thoroughly denounced by a wide range of commenters, that the next morning Whelan deleted the thread and apologized for what he called “an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment”?

I think it was a Hail Mary pass. I doubt CRC saw the thinly-sourced Whelan accusation as a sure thing. I suspect they hoped the bizarre Twitter attack would spook Dr. Ford and deter her from testifying: Perhaps if she saw that the Kavanaugh forces were prepared to attack an innocent bystander classmate — now a middle school teacher — and burden his life, they would stop at nothing, perhaps Swift-Boating her friends and family with similar recklessness.

I think CRC believed that they had to try, because if Dr. Ford testified, the Kavanaugh nomination might be dead.

Hours after the tweetstorm, Ford issued her resolute statement — “I knew them both, and socialized with [the other classmate]…. There is zero chance that I would confuse them” — and the charge was thwarted. Whelan had to retreat.

But of course his phony theory will stay alive in the hearts and memes of Trump supporters.

The White House and Senate Republicans all denied they had anything to do with the Whelan attack. But there are suggestions otherwise. Whelan was caught by Dr. Ford looking at her LinkedIn profile before her name was made public, but after the Washington Post had asked the White House about her, so it’s apparent that he’s closely tied to the Trump administration’s efforts to confirm his friend Kavanaugh. And this morning, Garrett Ventry, a Grassley Judiciary Committee communications aide, resigned his post after it was reported that he left his previous political job, in North Carolina, amid a charge of sexual harassment. When Ventry joined Grassley’s staff he took a leave of absence from his employer — CRC Public Relations.

It’s been clear for a while that there’s a multi-million dollar campaign by shadowy special interest donors to make a Supreme Court justice out of Brett Kavanaugh, whose judicial record indicates he will cast the deciding vote for big corporations and against workers and consumers. What we didn’t know — until the Whelan/CRC attack and Friday’s nasty misogynist tweet by Donald Trump — was how vicious the architects of this effort were prepared to play it.

But Dr. Ford has not backed down.

===

https://www.republicreport.org/2018/who-kavanaugh-is-really-for-big-corporations/

ref

Brett Kavanaugh now faces a credible charge of sexual assault, as well as powerful evidence that he repeatedly lied to the Senate to conceal, among other bad deeds, his improper use of stolen documents as a Bush White House aide. Even religious conservatives and others at the grassroots who have supported Kavanaugh should take this moment to reconsider whether this particularly nominee is worth fighting for. Because, although as a Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh might well vote to advance the social conservative agenda, his real specialty as a judge has been supporting large corporations and harming the interests of American workers and consumers. And the millions of dollars supporting his candidacy are coming from a network of Washington lobbyists and big business interests.

Here are some of the key figures in the corporate special interest network that’s aiming to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court:

— C. Boyden Gray is the D.C. swamp personified. He’s a corporate lobbyist who was the White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush. He has been a central player in pushing GOP judicial nominees for decades, while also serving the interests of some of America’s wealthiest corporations. Gray published an essay this month arguing that Kavanaugh should be confirmed in part because he will protect the rights of small businesses over those of big business and big government. But the argument hardly seems credible coming from Gray, whose own business is based on trading on the relationships he developed as a top Washington insider to advance the interests of clients in the oil and chemical industries and other monied special interests.

Gray, a wealthy heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune, has served on the board of the corporate-backed legal group the Federalist Society as well as of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a business group that was founded by the billionaire oil and chemical industry Koch brothers and later morphed into the Koch advocacy mega-operation Americans for Prosperity. Gray invited President Trump to his fancy Georgetown home earlier this year for a dinner with wealthy Republican donors, including other lobbyists and oil and banking executives, as part of efforts to raise $100 million this year, mostly in big donations, to support Trump and GOP candidates.

—The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) is the conservative advocacy group that is leading a multi-million dollar public campaign, with heavy TV advertising, to confirm Kavanaugh. JCN is guided by Leonard Leo, who is also the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, and the man who has Trump’s ear when it comes to picking judges. The “dark money” JCN doesn’t reveal its donors, but it’s tied to the political network of the Koch brothers, Boyden Gray, and mysterious wealthy contributors. JCN was launched with seed money from real estate magnate Robin Arkley II — who has made big money foreclosing on the homes of working people.

— Jon Kyl was, until recently, a lobbyist at the DC mega law firm Covington & Burling, which has represented big tobacco’s Philip Morris, oil giant BP, retailer Wal-mart, energy and construction titan Halliburton, and other big corporations. Last year, the Judicial Crisis Network paid Kyl, who had been a U.S. senator from Arizona, to push the nomination of Trump’s previous Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch. The Trump administration this year hired Kyl to shepherd the Kavanaugh nomination, a role that ended when Arizona’s governor tapped Kyl to return to the Senate to take John McCain’s seat and, presumably, to vote to confirm Kavanaugh for the high court.

— Lisa Blatt wrote an article last month entitled, “I’m a Liberal Feminist Lawyer. Here’s Why Democrats Should Support Judge Kavanaugh,” and she introduced Kavanaugh at his Senate hearing. Each time, in vouching for Kavanaugh as a person of integrity and empathy, Blatt stressed her liberal credentials as well as her impressive background as a lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court more times than any other woman. What Blatt failed to explain is that she’s a partner at the big DC corporate law firm Arnold & Porter, where she represents giant tobacco and pharmaceutical interests seeking to defeat claims by workers and consumers.

We haven’t heard from the feminist Blatt in the wake of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during high school, but a group of D.C. Republican women have spoken out on his behalf. As Politico reports, there are a lot of lobbyists for big corporations, like Dow Chemical and Citigroup, in this band of women for Kavanaugh.

—The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) is running a “Confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” campaign on its website. State attorneys general frequently represent their states before the U.S. Supreme Court, and the concept of a group of them lobbying for their own Supreme Court justice is ethically concerning. But it’s worse when you consider that RAGA’s activities are funded by big corporations. RAGA’s biggest donor — providing $2.9 million in 2017 and $1.7 million already in 2018 — is the Judicial Crisis Network. It also gets money from numerous large corporations including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, Monsanto, Facebook, Altria, Coca Cola, Wal-Mart, Mastercard, Johnson and Johnson, UPS, and Murray Energy, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association (RAGA’s second largest donor in 2017).

— The Ethics and Public Policy Center is a Washington think tank whose president, Edward Whelan, briefly shook up the Kavanaugh debate Thursday night when he played Twitter Sherlock Holmes and accused a Kavanaugh classmate by name as the possible assaulter — only to delete his thread and apologize the next morning for “an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment.” Whelan is a close friend of Leonard Leo and of Brett Kavanaugh, with whom he worked in the George W. Bush White House. In devising this Twitter rollout, Whelan was advised by the big DC PR firm CRC Public Relations; CRC’s clients include the Judicial Crisis Network ($3 million from JCN to CRC in 2016), the Federalist Society, and the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity, as well as corporations:{ including Chevron, Visa, and Microsoft. UPDATE 09-22-18 11:30 am: Garrett Ventry, a Grassley Judiciary Committee communications aide on leave from CRC, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[resigned this morning:{ after it was reported that he left his previous job amid a charge of sexual harassment.] The Ethics and Public Policy Center has received }:funding:{ from the family foundations of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers as well as other wealthy interests.}:

Why are all these corporations and swampy DC lobbyists fighting so hard for Brett Kavanaugh? They have important interests, every year, in cases before the U.S. Supreme Court — cases that decide whether companies can bust unions and discriminate against workers, whether banks must treat customers honestly, whether companies must treat investors fairly, whether big tech companies can charge tolls to use the Internet and can spy on customers, whether predatory for-profit colleges can get away with deceiving students, whether makers of defective products and dangerous pharmaceutical can get away with harming consumers, and whether companies can create monopolies that allow them to control markets and jack up prices.

While a range of Americans are focused on the impact of a five-justice conservative bloc on issues like civil rights, reproductive choice, and other political values, perhaps the most powerful and unifying feature of such a bloc would be its deference to the interests of big business over workers and consumers.

Brett Kavanaugh’s record as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit shows that he has usually sided with big business interests — like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute — in cases involving protection of labor, consumers, health, safety, and the environment.

That’s why big money and big corporations want so badly to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, despite enormous questions about his honesty and integrity.

===

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trumps-nomination-of-amy-coney-barrett-another-step-toward-christian-fascism

originally appeared at Scheerpost. Used by permission.

The Christian right is content to have the focus on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett revolve around her opposition to abortion and membership in People of Praise, a far-right Catholic cult that practices "speaking in tongues." What it does not want examined is her abject subservience to corporate power, her hostility to workers, civil liberties, unions and environmental regulations. And since the Democratic Party is beholden to the same donor class as the Republican Party, and since the media long ago substituted the culture wars for politics, the most ominous threat Barrett's appointment to the court represents is going unmentioned.

All fascist and totalitarian movements paper over their squalid belief systems with the veneer of morality. They mouth pieties about restoring law and order, right and wrong, the sanctity of life, civic and family virtues, patriotism and tradition to mask their dismantling of the open society and silencing and persecution of those who oppose them. This is the real game being played by Christian fascists, who since the early 1970s have been building institutions with tens of millions in corporate donations to take power.

Donald Trump, who has no ideology, has allowed the Christian right to fill his ideological void. He is the useful idiot. And the Christian right, awash in money from corporations that know their real political intent, will mobilize in this election to use any tool, no matter how devious, from right-wing armed militias to the invalidation of ballots, to block Joe Biden and Democratic candidates from assuming office. The road to despotism is always paved with righteousness. This was as true for Soviet communism as it was for German fascism. And it is true in the United States.

Capitalism, driven by the twin obsessions of maximizing profit and reducing the cost of production by slashing workers' rights and wages, is antithetical to the Christian Gospel, as well as the Enlightenment ethic defined by Immanuel Kant. But capitalism, in the hands of the Christian fascists, has become sacralized in the form of theProsperity Gospel, the belief that Jesus came to minister to our material needs, blessing believers with wealth and power. The Prosperity Gospel delights the corporations that have carried out the slow-motion corporate coup. 

This is why large corporations such as Tyson Foods, which places Christian right chaplains in its plants, Purdue, Walmart, and Sam's Warehouse, along with many other corporations, pour money into the movement and its institutions such as Liberty University and Patrick Henry Law School. This is why corporations have given millions to groups such as the Judicial Crisis Network and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to campaign for Barrett's appointment to the court. Barrett has ruled consistently in favor of corporations to cheat gig workers out of overtime, greenlight fossil fuel extraction and pollution and strip consumers of protection from corporate fraud. The watchdog group Accountable.US found that as a circuit court judge,Barrett "faced at least 55 cases in which citizens took on corporate entities in front of her court and 76% of the time she sided with the corporations."

Her version of Catholicism is at odds with most of the positions championed byPope Francisand traditional Catholic teaching on women's rights, voting rights, immigrants' rights, health care and environmental protections. The pope calls on the downtrodden to change the world economic order and denounces what he terms a "new colonialism" imposed by "the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor." He speaks of the "sacred rights" of labor, lodging and land. He says the unfettered pursuit of money is "the dung of the devil" and castigates industrial nations for exploiting the raw materials and labor of the developing world.

Pope Francis has repeatedly warned that time is running out to save the planet from perhaps irreversible harm to the ecosystem. "Let us not be afraid to say it: We want change, real change, structural change," the pope has stated, decrying a system that "has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature."

"This system is by now intolerable: Farm workers find it intolerable; laborers find it intolerable; communities find it intolerable; peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself — our sister, Mother Earth, as Saint Francis would say — also finds it intolerable," he said.

Barrett's religiosity, like that of other Christian fascists, is in the service of almost everything the pope condemns.

These corporations don't give a damn about abortion, gun rights or the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. But like the German industrialists who backed the Nazi Party, they know that the Christian right will give an ideological veneer to ruthless corporate tyranny. These corporations view the Christian fascists the same way the German industrialists viewed the Nazis, as buffoons. They are aware that the Christian fascists will trash what is left of our anemic democracy and the natural ecosystem. But they also know they will make huge profits in the process and the rights of workers and citizens will be ruthlessly suppressed.

If you are poor, if you lack proper medical care, if you are paid substandard wages, if you are trapped in the lower class, if you are a victim of police violence, this is because, according to this ideology, you are not a good Christian and not blessed by God. In this belief system you deserve what you get. There is nothing wrong, these homegrown fascists preach, with the structures or systems of power. It is the mantra of self-help that made gurus like Oprah and Tony Robbins rich dressed up as the voice of God.

The Christian fascists, allied with organization such as the Federalist Society, have appointed two Supreme Court justices — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — as well as nearly 200 other judges with lifetime appointments to lower federal courts during the Trump administration.They claim to be strict "originalists." Originalists argue that the meaning of the constitutional text is fixed and immune to interpretation. Originalists denounce jurists who argue that constitutional law should respond to changing circumstances and values. The Originalists already have five Federalist Society Supreme Court justices. Barrett would be the sixth. (Two of them, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia, were supported in the nomination process by Joe Biden.)

The legal calculus for the Christian right no longer revolves around the concept of universal human rights but around the tenets of "Bible-believing Christians" who supposedly authored the Constitution. Huge segments of the population are stripped of moral worth and legal protection. This process is incremental and often unseen. As the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels understood: "The best propaganda is that which, as it were, works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the public having any knowledge of the propagandistic initiative."

Victor Klemperer, who was dismissed from his post as a professor of Romance languages at the University of Dresden in 1935 because of his Jewish ancestry, astutely noted how at first the Nazis "changed the values, the frequency of words, [and] made them into common property, words that had previously been used by individuals or tiny troupes. They confiscated words for the party, saturated words and phrases and sentence forms with their poison. They made language serve their terrible system.They conquered words and made them into their strongest advertising tools [Werebemittle], at once the most public and most secret." And, Klemperer noted, as the redefinition of old concepts took place the public was oblivious.

These Christian fascists understand the deep sickness that infects American society. They know how to exploit the moral and physical decay, as well as the despair it causes, to lure its followers towards their brand of tyranny. They are not wrong when they lambast the cruelty, corruption, emptiness and hypocrisy of the ruling elites, especially the liberal elites. They are not wrong when they mock cultural relativism, the idea that good and evil, right and wrong, truth and untruth, do not exist. It is part of the sad irony that the Christian right effectively exploits this cultural relativism to seize power. The failure of the liberal Christian church to denounce the Christian right as heretics, in the name of tolerance and cultural relativism, has given the Christian fascists religious legitimacy. At the same time, the Christian right seeks to delegitimize the liberal church as apostates. History has shown that it is unwise to tolerate the intolerant.

The Christian fascists, like all fascist movements, seek to create their own truth. It discredits verifiable fact, science, law and rationality. It promises a new, glorious world of moral renewal and prosperity.It promises a creator who will carry out miracles for believers and for America. It calls on followers to abandon the world of cause and effect and replace it with a world of magic. The reality-based world, as in all totalitarian movements, is snuffed out.

The Trump administration has implanted Christian fascists in senior positions of government, including Mike Pence to the vice presidency, Mike Pompeo to secretary of state, Betsy DeVos to secretary of education, Ben Carson to secretary of housing and urban development, William Barr to attorney general, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and televangelist Paula White to Trump's Faith and Opportunities Initiative. Trump gave the Christian right veto and appointment power over key positions in government, especially in the federal courts. Almost all the judges he has appointed were selected by the Federalist Society and the Christian right. Many of the extremists among his judicial appointees have been rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association, the country's largest nonpartisan coalition of lawyers.

Trump has embraced the Islamophobia of the Christian right to ban Muslim immigrants and roll back civil rights legislation. He has made war on reproductive rights by restricting abortion and defunding Planned Parenthood. He has degraded LGBTQ rights. He has allocated federal money to Christian charter schools. He has ripped down the firewall between church and state by revoking the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches, which are tax-exempt, from endorsing political candidates. His Christian right appointees, including Pence, DeVos and Pompeo,regularly use biblical strictures to justify an array of policy decisions including environmental deregulation, war, tax cuts and the replacement of public schools with charter schools, an action that permits the transfer of federal education funds to private "Christian" schools.

The Christian fascists are not finished. Brick by brick they are building a Christian fascist state. Barrett fills one more hole in the wall. They will do this with or without Trump.

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aha/yikes:  the ppl's tools ~ corps hijacked by them; jiu jitsu?  asset/buffer flips to liability/vulnerability?

note gun to head soda tax, juul fail on local prop b/c of bad PR at inopportune moment? prop 37 beat by last minute TV ads?

relentless ads on roku "free" tv:

an 1020 also lyft and doordash

===

soda tax initiative/prop // juul

an 1020

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/expert-uber-funded-ballot-measure-in-california-would-create-permanent-underclass-of-workers/

no lnx (bad code?)

Expert: Uber-funded ballot measure in California would create 'permanent underclass of workers'

Angry young man driver, pissed off shaking hands and shrugging shoulders, has problems with the car. Displeased perplexed guy has a road accident. Traffic jam rush hour.

Nicole Karlis October 03, 2020

Those who took high school civics may recall that our democracies lives on fractions. A majority vote — one-half plus one — is what it takes to pass a bill in most legislative bodies. The constitution requires a "supermajority," meaning two-thirds of a governing body, for only the most important and crucial matters: to override a presidential veto, or remove an officer via impeachment, say.

If two-thirds seems like a high threshold for a congressional body, what about seven-eighths? That's the super-duper-majority that would be required to overturn Proposition 22 — the Uber- and Lyft-funded ballot measure that will appear on California ballots this November — should it pass this fall.

You read that right: the astroturf ballot measure written by some of Silicon Valley's biggest corporations, which is written to keep these companies' contractors from achieving benefits or a stable, salaried job, would require a seven-eighths majority of state legislators in both state chambers in order to be overturned — such a difficult threshold to meet that experts say it would be effectively permanent.

:{

}:

The origin of Proposition 22

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It all goes back to California's Assembly Bill 5, which went into effect on January 1, 2020. The impetus for AB5 was to make gig economy work into more stable and reliable work, and reduce worker exploitation; currently, driver-contractors like those who work for Uber or Lyft are not guaranteed health care of any other benefits if they work more than 40 hours a week, as they are legally contractors rather than employees.

Likewise, such drivers and deliverypersons often make less than minimum wage after their own expenses are accounted for. AB5, which put into place a "test" to determine whether someone is a contractor or employee, was designed to lift these kinds of workers out of poverty.

Yet since AB5 passed through California's state legislature, Uber and Lyft have refused to comply; instead, they chose to pour over $180 million into the astroturf campaign for Proposition 22. Similar gig worker-reliant companies have chipped into the campaign, too. DoorDash has donated $47.5 million; Instacart has donated $27.5 million, and Postmates has contributed a little over $10 million.

According to Ballotpedia, Proposition 22 is the most expensive ballot measure contest in California, and the United States — and if it passes, it will set an example for the corporations that funded it that they could use as a model in other states. Indeed, the companies are funneling so much money into this campaign because there's a lot at stake. For example,Los Angeles and San Francisco are two of the five largest markets for Uber, which has stated in financial disclosures that new regulations in major metro areas could negatively affect their financials. Many of their workers have criticized these companies for pouring so much money into a campaign as they struggle to receive basic support, like personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer, from their employers during the pandemic.

Proposition 22 is more than just a determination of classification, though. Labor experts fear it will be a major setback for labor rights, the community at large, and that it will send the wrong signal to other states who have been exploring ways to regulate these companies.

"They have basically operated as though the law does not apply to them," Ken Jacobs, the chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, told Salon. "And I think that signals to other states around the country, 'Don't try to enforce your laws because we have the political power and resources to defeat you if you do.'"

We spoke to experts about the fine print of Proposition 22, and how it will affect Uber and Lyft drivers in the state of California if passed.

1. Very few drivers will actually qualify for health insurance benefits

Uber and Lyft have positioned Proposition 22 as a "third way" solution to provide more benefits to drivers. The campaign states on its website that voting "yes" on Proposition 22 will provide drivers with "new benefits and protections in these tough economic times including a minimum earnings guarantee,access to health carebenefits and insurance against illnesses and injuries acquired on the job."

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Yet this depends on a driver's "engaged time," according to the proposition, meaning the time between accepting a ride and completing the ride. This doesn't factor the time a driver is waiting in between drives. For drivers who average 25 hour per week of engaged time during a calendar quarter, Uber and Lyft will provide "subsidies equal to 82% the average California Covered (CC) premium for each month." For those who average between 15 and 25 hours of "engaged time" each quarter, the companies will provide healthcare subsidies equal to 41 percent the average CC premium for each month.

"They purport to have a healthcare reimbursement piece here, but it's very weak and very few drivers would qualify, or at least qualify for the larger amount of it,"Jacobs said.

Rey Fuentes,Skadden Fellow at the Partnership for Working Families, told Salon that drivers would essentially have to drive 40 hours a week to get that 25 hours of engaged time to qualify for the best offer. In a report Fuentes co-authored, he notes a second way in which drivers will be essentially cheated of quality healthcare options. "By using the definitions section to ensure that the maximum benefit is actually 82 percent of an average premium payment for the lowest-cost healthcare plan on the Covered California insurance exchange, not a worker's actual premium expenses," the report states.

2. Drivers won't be guaranteed paid leave or paid sick days

Under the current California state and federal law, app-based workers are required to have a minimum of eight weeks of paid family leave, and three days of paid leave for illness or care of a family member. None of this is part of Proposition 22. In the report Fuentes co-authored, the researchers call this omission "glaring," especially in the pandemic, in which many rideshare and delivery drivers are considered to be "essential workers."

"Although some app-based companies have created limited sick leave benefits to respond to this crisis, these plans are voluntary and temporary, and cannot be added to this initiative before voters can weigh in on the ballot measure," the authors write.

Fuentes says there are many drivers who drive to make money to help support a sick family member.

"They're doing it because they're caring for individuals who have illnesses and families, or they have an illness themselves that they can't have traditional employment because your work arrangements are precarious," Fuentes said. "That's why it's actually more important that those workers get things like paid sick leave or paid family leave."

Since drivers have to work at least 40 hours a week to reach 25 hours of "engaged time," taking a vacation will likely affect whether they qualify for healthcare benefits.

3. Drivers won't be able to unionize

This year, more drivers have been organizing to protest unfair labor practices and the lack of protections during the pandemic. However, if Proposition 22 passes, drivers won't be able to unionize and leverage the power of collective bargaining. Under federal law, according to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), app-based drivers are said to lack benefits of collective bargaining because they're more like "entrepreneurs," legally speaking. While the legality of this is disputed by various labor organizations, Fuentes said this leaves an opening for states to "establish a separate organizing statute that gives workers the lawful ability to form a union under state law."

"The ballot initiative, however, would prevent the state legislature from ever considering a collective bargaining regime unless it gets a 7/8ths vote of the state legislature, which is an impossible threshold," Fuentes said.

4. Proposition 22 reverses key worker benefit if there's a car accident

"From a driver's perspective this is actually one of the things we think is so harmful about the ballot initiatives," Fuentes said. "California provides workers compensation protection to drivers injured on the job, and that benefit is covered through what is called no-fault coverage."

Even if they are at fault for the accident or contributed to it, all workers in California are covered by the workers compensation statute. Fuentes said Proposition 22 "reverses that."

"This suggests to us very clearly that workers could be denied coverage if they're even partially at fault, which is not something that should ever happen with a workers compensation scheme," Fuentes said. "And the broader part is that workers who are seriously injured and partially disabled or permanently disabled, you can access that up to a lifetime benefit through California's Workers Compensations Temporary Disability Program, but the ballot initiative capped at two years."

5. These reversals and precedents will be most likely permanent

Most astonishing is that Proposition 22, if passed, will be very difficult to amend, since that would require a seven-eighths (87.5%) vote in each chamber of the California State Legislature. Fuentes said this will "lock in" a "permanent underclass of workers."

"All the historic workplace safety protections that California has enacted to protect workers, all of those things are still vitally necessary and even more so now during COVID-19," Fuentes said. "From an abstract perspective, the idea that some of the richest companies in the world are passing a ballot initiative that would exempt their workers from basic labor protections is just, I think beyond the pale."

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mississippi officials say AT&T took $283,000,000 to provide broadband — and pocketed the money

Walter Einenkel Daily Kos

October 06, 2020

One of the things that the FCC and FTC have not done effectively over the last few decades is hold telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon accountable for their tax-subsidized infrastructure obligations. In fact, the FCC under Trump's choice a...

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OMG

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/mike-pence-is-a-reminder-that-destructive-leaders-are-symptoms-of-an-anti-democratic-status-quo/

norm s

If President Trump dies from the coronavirus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans largely due to his deliberate negligence, the man replacing him will be no less dangerous. While Mike Pence has eluded tough media scrutiny -- in part because he exhibits such a low-key style in contrast to Trump -- the pair has been a good fit for an administration that exemplifies the partnership of religious fundamentalism and corporate power.

The vice president, a former Indiana talk-show host who went on to become a six-term congressman and then governor, has described himself as "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order." But he remains at cross-purposes with the biblical admonition (Matthew 6:24) that "you cannot serve both God and money." Whether Pence has truly served God is a subjective matter, but his massive service to money—big money—is incontrovertible.

Pence ranks high as a Christian soldier marching in lockstep with Trump on all major policy issues, a process that routinely puts business interests ahead of human lives. Whatever his personal piety might be, the results of Pence's fidelity to right-wing agendas have further consolidated a de facto coalition of those seeking ever-lower taxes on wealth and corporations; denial of LGBTQ rights; a ban on abortion and severe restrictions on other reproductive rights; voter suppression and barriers to voting by people of color; obstruction of healthcare for low-income people; and on and on.

Pence embodies the political alliance of very conservative evangelical forces with anti-regulatory forces of corporatism. In the arenas of elections and governance, that coalition is the present-day Republican Party, dedicated to imposing the edicts of religious dogma, rolling back democratic reforms and serving the rich at the expense of everyone else.

"As vice president, Mike Pence is doing everything in his power to control people's bodies," the Planned Parenthood Action Fund declares. Meanwhile, those who are inclined toward racism or outright believers in white supremacy are bolstered. And Wall Street has never had a better friend in Washington.

Pence's most consequential role during 44 months as vice president has been as chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Since late February, he has functioned—in effect—as Trump's willing executioner, standing by and blowing smoke while Trump obfuscated and lied as the death toll kept mounting.

"The truth is that we've made great progress over the past four months," Pence proclaimed in a mid-June statement, "and it's a testament to the leadership of President Trump." Pence charged that "the media has taken to sounding the alarm bells over a 'second wave' of coronavirus infections"—but "such panic is overblown."

To underscore his full devotion to Lord Trump's downplaying of the virus, the vice president concluded with a blame-the-messenger flourish: "The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success. We've slowed the spread, we've cared for the most vulnerable, we've saved lives, and we've created a solid foundation for whatever challenges we may face in the future. That's a cause for celebration, not the media's fear mongering."

Pence's June 16 statement made its way into the Wall Street Journal as a prominent op-ed piece whistling past Covid graveyards. "It was so clearly wrong back then and has turned out to be so clearly wrong since that I hope there's some part of him that's embarrassed," Ashish Jha, the head of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said in late summer. "I had already been seeing data for a good week that things were really heading in the wrong direction." The Washington Post editorial board immediately responded with a denunciation under the headline "Mike Pence Is a Case Study in Irresponsibility."

No one with any discernment would associate Trump with religiosity because he held up a Bible at a photo op. But the other half of the ticket is a very different matter. Days after the November 2016 election, Jeremy Scahill wrote that Trump is "a Trojan horse for a cabal of vicious zealots who have long craved an extremist Christian theocracy, and Pence is one of its most prized warriors."

Scahill quoted an author of books on far-right fundamentalism, Jeff Sharlet, who said that "when they speak of business, they're speaking not of something separate from God, but they're speaking of what, in Mike Pence's circles, would be called biblical capitalism, the idea that this economic system is God-ordained."

What does all this mean for progressives? The case of Mike Pence should be an ongoing urgent reminder that—as toxic and truly evil as Donald Trump is—the current president is a product and poisonous symptom of an inherently unjust and anti-democratic status quo.

Instead of focusing our rage on the persona of one destructive leader, we should remember that corporate domination provides an endless supply of destructive leaders.While they come and go, the system of corporate power remains—and we must replace that system with genuine democracy.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/the-end-of-the-liberal-arts-dream/

curtis white salon

Most people know that student debt is a problem, and most people agree that “something should be done about it.” The consensus opinion appears to be that something should be done because it’s “not fair” to young people. According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust, 80% of Americans believe that “the government should make it easier to repay student loans.”

Even so, there is very little understanding of why student debt has become so burdensome in recent decades. It’s as if we thought student debt were an unhappy fact of nature, like a weather front that has passed through leaving us with no option but to put on a warmer coat if we can find one, and if we can’t find one, it’s welcome to the Brave New World of Cold and Indifference.

And yet, it was not so long ago that things were very different. I was born in a working class suburb of San Francisco in 1951. At that time, public education was good, teachers still had some social prestige, universities were affordable (cheap actually), and few students graduated with debt. It was possible for me to sally forth without the threat of young adult bankruptcy.

In other words, at that time students were freer to choose what they wanted to study and freer to explore careers. As for me, I was free to be a student of literature and philosophy at the University of San Francisco. I learned to play the classical guitar up the hill at Lone Mountain College. I was also a longhair war resistor and draft counselor in the chaplain’s office. And I was mostly sure that I wouldn’t be punished for these decisions, or not punished any time soon.

unhappily, the university as I knew it no longer exists.Through the decades of Reaganomics and neo-liberal austerity, an elite determination was made that the state should no longer pay for public higher education; henceforth, universities would be funded through personal debt. Tuition to public colleges and universities became a bloated “user fee” for access to a government-affiliated service, like gaining access to a parking lot. Novel arguments gained force:students were just another type of consumer, and “student demand” should determine the content of the curriculum. What was lost in such market logic was the fact that programs in the arts and humanities—not just in universities but at all levels of education—had become the primary way in which we were allowed to think about who we are, where we are, how we got here, and what, if anything, we’d like to see changed. In the place of that worthy process, we were left with what David Harvey described succinctly: “The traditional university culture, with its odd sense of community, has been penetrated, disrupted, and reconfigured by raw money power.”

In both the public and private sectors, the corporate university has been slowly growing for many years, but it has now become more brazen in its destructive tendencies. For an example that is close to me personally, the Board of Trustees at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) in Bloomington, Illinois, announced in May of 2020 that it was considering the elimination of many long established programs all of which were in the liberal arts and social sciences. I say this is personal because my wife, Georganne Rundblad, taught sociology at Wesleyan for twenty-five years, and many of the faculty there were among our friends.

Without the consent of the faculty, the Board of Trustees sent pre-termination letters to twenty-five faculty members and instructional staff in philosophy, anthropology, music, foreign languages, sociology, art, and religion — in total, about a quarter of IWU’s faculty.A liberal arts university without philosophers is a contradiction in terms, but a Wesleyan university without a department of religion is an exercise in self-mockery. No doubt, IWU will continue to claim that its “primary focus” is in “opening students’ minds,” but the college of business will have to do most of the opening.

That, too, is already happening. Those departments that were not eliminated were said to be in need of “transformation.” Provost Mark Brodl told faculty member Scott Sheridan that “philosophy will support business and accounting, computer science and data science.” In another example of what Harold Bloom called the trahison des clerks, university president Georgia Nugent (a classicist by training) said that the department of art will “move more in the direction of art and design,” including graphic design and product design. In other words, before the arts can transform students, commerce will first transform the arts. Andy Warhol saw it coming: art is a can of soup.

Of course, there’s no reason to think that this is the end of these transformations, these latest shudders of what Bill Readings called “the university in ruins.” (Readings: “The contemporary University is busily transforming itself from an ideological arm of the state into a bureaucratically organized and relatively autonomous consumer-oriented corporation.”) Remaining faculty and programs can’t sleep comfortably, wondering who and what will be cut next, a year from now, five years or ten. University boards can wait — they’ve been waiting patiently for fifty years. For fifty years American universities have moved toward a sense of mission that a businessman can recognize, respect, and, most importantly, donate money to.

But from the perspective of the liberal arts itself, a liberal arts university that doesn’t recognize the value of the liberal arts shouldn’t transform anything. It should shut its doors, fold it all up. Better that than becoming what Illinois Wesleyan has become: a watery version of the Wharton School of Business.

Wesleyan trustees felt no need to provide a rationale for their actions beyond the crude idea that the affected programs were not cost efficient and that financial exigency threatened them in the near future, somehow — never mind the university’s $200 million endowment. They offered no educational reasons for the changes, and no argument for how the changes were consistent with the values of the institution. Like the bandits in John Huston’s “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” they said, “Reasons? We don’t need no stinking reasons.”

The feelings of faculty and alums are raw now because they feel, rightfully, betrayed. One member of the IWU Alumni for the Liberal Arts, Molly McLay, wrote to me:

I am infuriated by the lack of humanity and empathy in this process. Most of my professional work revolves around understanding, responding to, and preventing trauma. I truly think this experience at IWU has been a collective trauma.

Affirming McLay’s thought, Scott Sheridan, a professor of French and Italian at Wesleyan, commented to me:

I feel like I’m just caught in the middle of an administration that has lost its bearings, that is changing the rules on me late in my career. I’ve bought into the ivory tower model, I’ve done everything asked of me, and now when the economy has tanked, Covid is blazing, higher ed is collapsing, and the University has damaged my professional reputation, I find myself completely cast aside, looking at the necessity not only to retool my professional objectives but to rethink my life.

Professor Sheridan has lawyered up.

Finally, and elegiacally, Professor of English Michael Theune commented to the Chicago Tribune, “It is a bad day. The faculty’s control of the curriculum has been taken away.”

The motto over Wesleyan’s portal should no longer be “Scientia et Sapientia,” knowledge and wisdom. I propose that it should read like the legend over Dante’s Inferno: “No Admittance Except on Business.”

After the second world war, there was an enormous investment in public education. For the first time, the children of the working class had an opportunity to study subjects, like literature, that were formerly a privilege for the children of the affluent. We studied the humanities and the social sciences and in so doing found ways to critique and resist corporate culture and all of its murderous inequalities. In the 1960s, universities became best known for their “student protests.” The protests may now be in the streets and not on campus, but many of the protestors of the present—marching with Black Lives Matter, or against gender bigotry, or against the world as organized for the benefit of oil companies—got their intellectual chops in universities taking courses like Professor Rundblad’s “Sex and Gender in Society” or “Race and Ethnic Relations.”

But all this time our masters have been paying attention, and they have seen clearly and correctly: for many, many students, going to college was and remains a liberalizing experience (thus Biden’s enormous lead over Trump among college-educated voters). Our plutocrat masters concluded, “So this is what happens when you let the working class and minorities go to college. They study things of no value to us, and they learn to hate us.”

As a consequence, slowly, decade after decade, universities were starved and students were put in debt.Meanwhile, the wealthy came to the rescue and became university trustees. In these fallen days, the ideal trustee is someone who has money or knows people with money, ideally both. (The chair of Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees is Timothy Szerlong, former president of worldwide field operations at CNA Financial Corporation.)

The ultimate benefit of all this for our oligarchs, the 1%, is a new but very powerful form of social regimentation. Their message to students: “If you want a job, you will study what we want you to study, or else you will live in debt.” We could call this naked coercion, but for students it is their first adult taste of American Un-freedom.

In 1969, the year before I entered the University of San Francisco, I was working at a McDonalds in the East Bay. The franchise owner liked me and offered me a scholarship to McDonald’s Hamburger University. I laughed. I shouldn’t have.

Curtis White is a novelist and social critic. His most recent book is “Living in a World That Can’t Be Fixed,” published by Melville House.

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https://www.corporateaccountability.org/2020-corporate-hall-of-shame/

British American Tobacco

Big Tobacco wrote the playbook on modern corporate abuse. Literally. From spreading junk science to dividing and undermining opponents, to getting politicians to do their bidding, the tobacco industry was at the leading edge of it all.

And they’re still up to these dirty tricks. This year, British American Tobacco (BAT) has exploited the global COVID-19 pandemic to market its harmful and addictive new products by co-opting hashtags meant to spread public health information and using influencers to push its brand. BAT also helped fund a junk science study that claims tobacco consumption (which leads among other things to respiratory disease) might reduce the danger of the novel coronavirus (a respiratory disease). And cynically using a global pandemic as a marketing ploy, BAT announced it had begun researching a COVID-19 vaccine.

We nominate British American Tobacco for exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to peddle its harmful and addictive products on social media and make unproven, dangerous health claims that further undermine public health policies.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/draft-of-mcconnells-dangerous-corporate-immunity-plan-sparks-alarm-this-is-an-anti-civil-rights-proposal/

Consumer and workers’ rights advocates are warning that new details of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan to shield businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits show just how far the Republican leader is willing to go to ensure corporations are not held accountable for endangering public health and safety.

“Congress must reject this dangerous proposal,” the National Employment Law Project said in response to a draft (pdf) of McConnell’s plan obtained by Politico and other outlets on Friday.

The draft, authored by McConnell and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas.), proposes relieving businesses, schools, churches, and other institutions of legal responsibility for workers, customers, and others who contract Covid-19 except in cases of “gross negligence and intentional misconduct”—a difficult standard to prove in court.

As the Associated Press reported, the Republican plan “offers a broad shield by requiring heightened pleading standards, stiffening burden-of-proof standards, and capping damages on awards. Employers would also be shielded from investigations by federal agencies.”

Additionally, McConnell and Cornyn’s plan would empower companies to move coronavirus-related personal injury and medical liability cases to more business-friendly federal courts. “Defendants are liable,” the draft states, “only if they failed to make reasonable efforts to follow applicable public-health guidelines.”

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wolff sys status:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/why-the-government-mostly-helps-people-who-need-it-the-least-even-during-a-crisis/

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The Divine Right of Capital

Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy

by Kelly, Marjorie

3.4 out of 5 stars

Book - 2001

330.122 Kelly

sjpl

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trump-connected-lobbyists-have-raked-in-10-billion-in-covid-19-aid-for-corporate-clients/

in yet another sign that the “swamp is alive and well in Washington, D.C.” despite President Donald Trump’s repeated promises to drain it, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen released a new report Monday morning identifying at least 40 Trump-connected lobbyists who have raked in over $10 billion in federal Covid-19 relief for their corporate clients since the pandemic began.

The dozens of lobbyists with ties to Trump through his campaigns, his administration, and/or his transition team “collectively have represented at least 150 clients on Covid matters,” Public Citizen notes in its new report titled “COVID Lobbying Palooza” (pdf). Those clients include such corporate behemoths as Pfizer, Comcast, McDonald’s, MasterCard, and American Airlines.

“The crisis offered an especially lucrative opportunity for those lobbyists who enjoy close ties to President Donald Trump and his administration—and they seized it,” reads the report, which briefly profiles all 40 of the lobbiysts and details some of their activities. “They have reported lobbying to obtain special industry carveouts for aid, government approval of their clients’ products and, most commonly, Covid-related aid across a myriad of programs.”

Public Citizen found that 27 clients of Trump-connected lobbyists have secured $10.5 billion in taxpayer coronavirus aid—a sum that is likely an underestimate because it does not include data from the $650 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which the White House has worked to keep under wraps.

the $10.5 billion total, according to Public Citizen “consists of $6.3 billion in grants, $4.2 billion in loans, and $67 million worth of support in the form of corporate bond purchases by the Federal Reserve.”

Five of the lobbyists identified by Public Citizen—including former Transportation Department official Geoffrey Burr and former Treasury adviser Jordan Stoick—”may have violated a Trump executive order that restricts lobbying activities by former officials,” the group said.

“In many cases, the forms indicate that the former officials’ agencies were directly lobbied,” the report reads.

Craig Holman, a registered lobbyist for Public Citizen and a campaign finance expert, told the Associated Press that the group is planning to file ethics complaints with the White House over the apparent violations.

“There does not appear to be anyone who is enforcing the executive order,” said Holman. The report says an investigation into the activity is warranted.

Arguing that sweeping reforms will be necessary to prevent such profiteering in the future, Public Citizen said “few scenarios would better embody most people’s image of the Washington ‘swamp’ than dozens of hired-gun lobbyists cashing in on their government connections during a public health emergency.”

“In the short term, the government, of course, should do everything it possibly can to offer the public an unobstructed window into the details of where the trillions in public dollars are going,” the group said. “In the long term, future administrations and the Congress should embrace systemic reforms to sever the conflicts of interest that incentivize government officials to favor the wealthy and well-connected over the constituents whom they are hired to serve.”

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aha dics have to neuter courts so their crimes and corruption can go unpunished, but also use law to crush dissent:

cdv antifa

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-and-his-regime-have-again-turned-crisis-into-an-opportunity-to-advance-their-neofascist-authoritarian-agenda/

In his 1838 Lyceum Address, a young Abraham Lincoln warned:

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

In the year 2020, the United States in the Age of Trump has arrived at one such moment. Donald Trump is an authoritarian and a neofascist. Such a description does not need the modifiers of “apparent” or “would be” or “impending” or “inclinations” or “autocratic.”

That language is all too often deployed by journalists and others to soften the hard blows of the full and horrible reality that the United States is a failing democracy where Donald Trump is now only barely restrained in his anti-democratic behavior by the country’s now much weakened political norms, institutions and culture.

In his response to the protests and people’s uprising that was sparked by the savage killing of a black man named George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, Donald Trump has fully graduated from “would-be tyrant” and “apparent authoritarian” to full-on membership in such a category of ignoble leaders,

just as Derek Chauvin snuffed out the life of George Floyd, Donald Trump has his knee on the throat of American democracy.

Because he is mentally unwell and lives in his own malignant reality, worships power in the service of his own fabulism, narcissism, ego and greed, lacks empathy and concern for other human beings, and is an authoritarian and a neofascist, Donald Trump is only capable of destruction. Healing and creation are anathema to him.

As such, Donald Trump’s response to the protests was to slur those Americans who are sickened by police thuggery and brutality and are therefore moved to force positive social change as being “thugs.” Trump also summoned his paramilitaries and street thugs to defend him at the White House by participating in “MAGA Night.”

Trump threatened to enforce martial law by invoking the Insurrection Act through which he would deploy at least 10,000 active duty soldiers to crush and “dominate” protesters.

Trump also threatened to attack the protesters outside of the White House with the Secret Service and their “ominous” weapons and “vicious dogs.” The protesters outside of the White House were shot with rubber bullets, choked with tear gas, and beaten by police and other law enforcement forces at Trump’s and William Barr’s command. Why? So that Donald Trump could have a photo op where he could look “strong” as he walked from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street in what was a Christian fascist authoritarian spectacle.

The resulting images were supposed to be akin to Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” but instead Trump and his coterie looked like something out of an Ed Wood movie.

Donald Trump’s reaction to these protests was so dangerous and reckless and likely illegal that the country’s most senior military and civilian leaders decided to ignore his orders to unleash the United States military on the American people.

Lost in this maelstrom of events is how Donald Trump and his regime have again turned crisis into an opportunity to advance their neofascist authoritarian agenda. In response to the George Floyd protests, Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr declared “antifa” to be a “terrorist organization.” Such a designation means that offering material support to antifaor perhaps even being a “member” is now a very serious federal crime.

In a master stroke unnoticed by most Americans, the Constitutionally guaranteed rights to protest, free speech, and criticize elected officials are imperiled. In total, by declaring “antifa” a terrorist organization Donald Trump has criminalized dissent by the American people (and others) against him.

The facts:

Antifa is not an organization. It is an organizing strategy and an ideology.

As Billie Murray, professor of communications at Villanova University and an expert on rhetoric and social justice, explained to Salon in a phone conversation, “Antifascism is self-defense. They believe they are protecting their community, they are defending their community from fascist organizing and violence.”

Murray also clarifies the false equivalencies that are often made by too many reporters and other members of the commentariat when they discuss and write about “antifascists”:

We have a history of fascist violence that has led to world war. You are forgetting your history when you are assuming that fascist organizing is just a bunch of crazy people. You allow it to be a non-problem in your mind.

Too many people assume that fascism died in 1945. We won the war. Mussolini is gone. Hitler’s gone. Franco’s gone. We’re good. That is absolutely not true.

The first antifascist groups started in the late 1940s by Jewish people who were walking around Germany and seeing fascists on the side of the street touting the same things that Hitler did. Those Jewish people said, “We were soldiers in this war. We won this war and this guy is still on the corner saying such things!”

Clearly, we did not get rid of all of fascism because it’s an ideology. You are never going to completely eradicate it even with a world war. I think people assume that fascism died and, therefore, is no longer a problem.

Then, when you have antifascists on the scene, you can say, “Well, what are they even fighting for? They must just want to engage in violence. They just are being crazy and they’re just crazy just like those other people.”

We talk about these right-wing fascists as being “hate” groups or something like that because fascism is supposed to be dead.

Contrary to Trump’s and Barr’s and the broader right-wing echo chamber’s lies and fantasies, antifa is not responsible for the violence which took place during the protests following George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis police. The FBI’s own data shows that violent acts such as arson, other property crimes, and physical assault was committed by local criminals who took advantage of the chaos, as well as “boogaloo” and other right-wing extremists.

As with “Obamagate,” “antifa” is an empty phrase, a type of signifier that can be made to mean whatever Trump and the right-wing disinformation machine want it to mean in the service of criminalizing Democrats, liberals, and progressives as somehow being “un-American.”

Trump and his agents use of “antifa” also represents the type of conspiracism and propaganda now rampant among American conservatives and other members of the right wing — and the resulting damage it has caused to American politics and society.

Writing at Business Insider, Sonam Sheth details how:

Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights who released a report last year on how disinformation would affect the 2020 election, told Business Insider thatefforts to frame the George Floyd protests as “a violent leftist conspiracy” bear “all the earmarks of current-day disinformation.”

“The now-familiar elements include profuse social media posts of dubious provenance, flat-out falsehoods by President Trump, and deft amplification by right-wing figures on Fox News,” said Barrett, who is also the author of a newly released report on content moderation.

The theory that antifa is behind organizing the riots is the most prominent piece of misinformation flying around about the demonstrations, according to Zignal Labs, which tracked and analyzed certain types of mis- and disinformation connected to the protests.

Out of 873,000 pieces of misinformation linked to the demonstrations, 575,800 mentioned antifa, Zignal Labs told The New York Times.

The allegations gained traction after Trump tweeted on May 31 that antifa and other left-wing radicals were responsible for the violence. But they started bouncing around social media days earlier, according to The Times, which found more than 6,000 Facebook posts linking antifa to the protests that garnered 1.3 million likes and shares from May 25 to June 1.

On Thursday, the hashtag #exposeAntifa began trending on Twitter as the president and his allies continued amplifying the theory.

Legal scholars and others have warned that Trump’s decree against antifa is “unconstitutional“. That may in fact be true. However, Donald Trump, an authoritarian and neofascist, has no respect for the rule of law. “Unconstitutional” is increasingly no longer a useful analytical category.

What role does Trump’s and the broader right wing movement’s misrepresentation and weaponization of “antifa” fulfill?

By criminalizing antifa (which literally means “anti-fascist”), Donald Trump is announcing that he is a fascist. He is doing this through the façade of fighting against “terrorism.”

Trump and the right wing’s lies about antifa legitimates violence against Trump’s political enemies. The logic is simple: To support Donald Trump is to love America. Anyone who stands against Donald Trump or otherwise opposes him is, by definition, a member of antifa and a “terrorist.” It is good and right that terrorists are to be subjected to violence and ultimately destroyed to keep America “safe.”

Trump’s recent comments about Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old man who was pushed to the ground by members of the Buffalo Police Department, suffering a fractured skull while his blood poured out of his ear on to the sidewalk and police officers walked over him like he was human trash, is one such example.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump said via Twitter that: “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

Trump and his followers feel no human care of concern for “protesters” like Martin Gugino because they are supposedly antifa members. In Trump’s authoritarian worldview protesters are enemies of the state who are to be destroyed.

Other Republicans have been even more clear and direct in their public claims that antifa members should be hunted down and killed.On Twitter, Florida Republican Matt Gaetz recently said, “Now that we clearly see antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?”

The criminalization of dissent by labeling anti-fascists as “terrorists” is a preview of how free speech and other rights will increasingly only apply to Donald Trump’s right-wing Christian followers.

Such an escalation is taking place in how the FBI and local police are now interrogating people who they detained during the protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis police.

The Intercept reports how:

Joel Feingold was in his apartment in Brooklyn when he heard the sound of police beating protesters outside of his building Wednesday night. Having spent much of the week in the streets joining the waves of demonstrations against police brutality currently sweeping the nation, Feingold rushed outside. He was swiftly tossed to the ground by a senior New York City police officer in a white shirt, thrown in a police van, and placed under arrest along with four other individuals for having ostensibly violated a recently imposed curfew on New York City residents.

Feingold and the others were taken to the NYPD’s 78th Precinct, where they were told that they were being cited for violating the city’s 8 p.m. curfew. It was there, Feingold told The Intercept, that they were interrogated by the NYPD and the FBI about their political beliefs and their reasons for participating in the nationwide protests — subjects that should, under the Constitution and local NYPD rules, be off-limits from law enforcement inquiries following an alleged curfew violation.

The Intercept continues:

After being processed and taken to a cell, Feingold said he and the three men he was locked up with were approached by two men in plainclothes. “One of them is from NYPD intelligence and the other is an FBI agent,” he said. Feingold said a third officer confirmed the affiliations of the two men as they were being discharged.The FBI agent’s line of questioning was clearly focused on his political views.

“We want to know who’s hijacking your movement and making it violent,” Feingold recalled the agent saying. “That is what he said verbatim.”

The FBI’s involvement in protest interrogations is part of an emerging pattern, New York City civil rights attorneys say, that seems to have followed Attorney General William Barr’s designation of the leaderless movement against fascism known as antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly alleged that outside agitators affiliated with the movement are stoking violence and unrest across the country.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party’scriminalization of dissentby targeting antifa is also best understood as part of a much larger effort to undermine America’s multiracial secular democracy.

This effort consists of: Voter suppression, voter theft, and gerrymandering; attacks on the free press and journalists as being “enemies” and “fake news”; targeted harassment and threats against those reporters, journalists, professors, and other public voices deemed to be enforcing “political correctness” against conservatives and Trump supporters; Trump’s use of white supremacist and other right-wing paramilitaries and extremists to enforce his will through violence and intimidation obedience to Trump’s political-religious cult; legal threats against the news media if they dare to criticize Donald Trump; and an effort to punish Twitter and other corporations if they disobey Trump’s orders.

Donald Trump and his Republican Party also command a massive disinformation propaganda machine consisting of Fox News, the OAN network, social media, radio, television, print, film, websites and other digital means of circulating right-wing lies and propaganda more generally.

Writing in her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt previewed the type of authoritarian movement that Donald Trump now commands:

Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself; in which, through sheer imagination, uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks which real life and real experiences deal to human beings and their expectations. The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda—before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone’s disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world—lies in its ability to shut the masses off from the real world.

There are many examples where Trump and his propagandists have created an alternate reality for members of their movement. These include: “antifa” and “Obamagate” and “Benghazi”; Trump was a “victim” and “exonerated” by the Mueller investigation; a “deep state conspiracy” exists against Donald Trump; and Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden are the real “criminals” and “traitors” in the Ukraine extortion scandal and subsequent impeachment.

The truth and empirical reality as they exist must be silenced if the power of Trump and his movement’s malignant reality is to endure. Dissent is not allowed because the truth threatens the artifice of Trump and his movement’s “greatness.”

* * *

For three weeks, by the many hundreds of thousands (if not more) the American people have been protesting, struggling and engaging in both symbolic and corporeal politics where channeling the power of George Floyd’s death, they have faced down rubber bullets, tear gas, police batons, National Guard troops, militarized police, and literal loss of life and limb, in an effort to force a better and more just America into existence.

These protesters in this nationwide and now global people’s uprising against social inequality in its many forms are also braving death from the coronavirus. This is also true of black and brown and other Democratic Party supporters who have shown in Wisconsin and Georgia that they will wait for hours and days to vote — even during a pandemic — to remove Donald Trump, his regime and the Republican Party from power.

The birth of this new and better America will be painful. Those who engage in such a patriotic struggle are hope warriors.

Donald Trump, his Republican Party, and the other members of the right-wing power elite (and thecorporatocracy)have been temporarily disoriented by these weeks of protests and people’s uprising.

Their response will be crushing. The empire always strikes back. Trump and his enforcers’ efforts to criminalize dissent will be amplified.The American people must not let themselves be cowed.

On Election Day 2020, the American people have a choice to make. Will they save the United States and its democracy by voting for Joe Biden, or will they commit national suicide by reelecting Donald Trump?

The American people will have to be their own heroes in the centuries-long story of defending and improving American democracy. In doing so they should heed journalist and political commentator Bill Moyers’ recent warning and advice that, “because truth is the foe he most fears, he has banned it from his administration and his lips. Yes, Bernie, you are right: the man in the White House has taken all the necessary steps toward achieving the despot’s dream of dominance. Can it happen here? It is happening here. Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes. We may be running out of luck, and no one is coming to save us. For that, we have only ourselves.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/the-cares-act-sent-you-a-1200-check-but-it-gave-millionaires-and-billionaires-so-much-more

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. 

Do you want to see how legislation that was supposed to be a bailout for our economy ended up committing almost as much taxpayer money to help a relative handful of the non-needy as it spent to help tens of millions of people in need? Then let’s step back and revisit parts of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and look at some of the numbers involved.

The best-known feature of the CARES Act, as it’s known, is the cash grant of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child for households whose income was less than $99,000 for single taxpayers and $198,000 for couples. These grants are nontaxable, which makes them even more valuable. Some 159 million stimulus payments have gone out, according to the IRS.

The income limits suggested that the plan benefits the people most in need, those most likely to spend their stimulus payments and thus help the economy. The rhetoric conveyed the same: “The CARES Act Provides Assistance to Workers And Their Families” is how the Treasury’s website puts it. There were no grants to more-fortunate people, who for the most part aren’t in financial distress and are less likely than the less-fortunate to spend any money that Uncle Sam sent them.

but when I began looking at details of the legislation, I realized that several of its provisions quietly provided benefits that were worth much more than $1,200 to some upper-middle-class people who didn’t qualify for stimulus payments. Some other provisions provided vastly bigger benefits to the rich, to corporations and to a relative handful of ultra-rich folks.

So let me show you five provisions of the legislation that benefited the upper middle class (including yours truly); the families of Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; high-income people who make large charitable donations; and Boeing and other corporations that are showing losses; as well as indirectly benefited people who have substantial investments in U.S. stocks.

These five provisions that help the well-heeled will cost the Treasury — which is to say, U.S. taxpayers — an estimated $257.95 billion for the 2020 calendar year. That’s nearly as much as the estimated $292.37 billion price tag for the stimulus grants to regular folks. The numbers are from Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper of the financial impact that legislation has on the Treasury. (I used those figures to calculate the spending for the 2020 calendar year rather than for 10 federal fiscal years because I’m interested in today’s impact, not the projected long-term impact.)

I’m writing this now, more than two months after the CARES Act took effect, as a cautionary tale. That’s because with massive unemployment upon us and the fall elections drawing near, there’s a temptation for Congress and Trump to produce legislation that will help needy people a bit but help the non-needy a lot more by doing things like reducing capital gains taxes.

Now, let me take you through the provisions, only one of which — the break for the Trumps, the Kushners and their ilk — has attracted meaningful public attention.

Eliminating Required Distributions From Retirement Accounts: $11.72 billion

People ages 72 and up who have IRAs or 401(k)s or other “defined contribution” retirement accounts must take federally taxable required minimum distributions from them every year. (Some states also tax these distributions.) People who inherit such accounts are also required to take annual distributions, regardless of their age.

The required distribution amount is based on year-end age and account balances. For example, if you were 75 at year-end — as I was — your RMD for this year is 4.37% of your year-end 2019 retirement account balances. If you were 76, it’s 4.55%.

But this year, thanks to the CARES Act, I don’t have to take any retirement distributions at all.

Not having to take distributions matters a lot to some people. For instance, if I took my full RMD this year, which I don’t plan to do, it would be one of my larger income sources. And I would have to pay federal and state income tax on it, regardless of whether I spent the money or saved it.

I’d like to tell you how many people the JCT expects to benefit from this year’s RMD waiver; how much their distributions would have totaled and what the tax rate on them would have been; and how many people the JCT expects to take distributions this year even though they’re not required to take them. Alas, the JCT doesn’t disclose this information and declined to share it with me.

But even though I don’t have specific numbers, it’s clear that most of the benefit from this year’s RMD waiver goes to well-off people. Why? Because people who need retirement account money to live on are going to take distributions, and people who don’t need the money are unlikely to take distributions.

The reason for the no-RMD provision is that the stock market was sinking rapidly in March, when the CARES Act was being discussed. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, for example, fell by 30.8% from the end of 2019 through its low for 2020 (at least so far) on March 23, a few days before Trump signed the CARES Act legislation. Congress didn’t want to penalize retirees by forcing them to sell stock during a market crash.

So if someone with a 4.37% required distribution had money in an S&P 500 index fund, our investor would have had to withdraw 6.32% of the fund’s balance (4.37 divided by 69.2) rather than 4.37% of it if the investor took the distribution on March 23. That would have hurt our investor’s future financial security.

If the market fell by 50% through year-end, which in the scary days of March seemed to be a distinct possibility and could still happen, our theoretical investor would have to cash out 8.74% of the account if RMDs were still required.

There were other ways to deal with this problem, such as letting people take a pass on their first $15,000 of RMDs, rather than giving a big break to the likes of me and a far bigger break to people with far larger retirement accounts than mine. But Congress and Trump didn’t do that.

Charitable Deductions: $4.83 billion

Normally, people who itemize deductions on their federal tax return can deduct no more than 60% of their adjusted gross income for charitable contributions. But for this year, the limit is 100% of AGI.

The Tax Policy Center, whose research helped inform this article, estimates that about two-thirds of the people who donated more than 60% of their AGI in past years had incomes of less than $100,000. But although such people accounted for the bulk of those making such large contributions relative to their income, the TPC says, “Most of the value of the deduction goes to just a small number of the very wealthy.”

The theory behind raising the limit this year is that it will encourage people to make larger donations than they otherwise would. But I can’t imagine how this provision — like the provision allowing people who take the standard deduction to subtract $300 from their taxable income for charitable contributions — is going to significantly increase donations to charities trying to help people cope with COVID-19.

The $4.83 billion JCT number for this provision’s cost to the Treasury includes tax savings for both individuals and corporations.

Pass-Through Entities: $140.61 billion

Now, we come to the huge item that benefits the likes of Trump and Kushner, their families, other wealthy real estate types, hedge fund investors and all sorts of ultra-high-income people, who derive large amounts of money from partnerships, LLCs and other so-called pass-through entities.

As you’ll see in a bit, this big-time break provides a big-time benefit to a relative handful of people.

Now that it’s a fait accompli, this provision is belatedly getting a lot of media attention. So I’ll spare you most of the details about how it allows the ultra-wealthy to use paper losses to offset income that was taxed in previous years, when tax rates were higher than they are now, and get refunds based on those old, higher rates.

Suffice it to say that the JCT estimates that about 82% of these benefits — let’s call it $115 billion — will go to about 43,000 taxpayers with $1 million or more in annual income. That’s an average of about $2.68 million each.

The new proposed stimulus package passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives — the HEROES (for Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions) Act — would repeal this provision. However, its prospects for passage in the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has called the HEROES Act a “totally unserious effort,” seem remote. He and other Senate Republicans insisted on making the break for pass-through entities part of the CARES legislation. It’s hard to imagine them allowing any new bailout legislation to reverse that benefit. I’m sure Democrats realized this but wanted to go on record as opposing the pass-through break.

The HEROES Act would also repeal the $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local income and real estate taxes, which Republicans included in the 2017 tax cut legislation to reduce the cost to the Treasury of the big cuts they gave to corporations and ultra-high-income people. (Not coincidentally, the cap hurt people in high-income, high-tax blue states.) It’s hard to imagine this provision becoming law, either.

Now, let’s look at two corporate tax breaks inserted in the CARES Act. One lets corporations increase their interest deductions; the second lets them use tax losses from 2018, 2019 and this year to get immediate, substantial refunds rather than having to wait until they show future profits that offset those losses.

The people who benefit most from these corporate tax breaks, of course, are the corporations’ owners. (Workers, in theory, benefit to some extent, as well.)

By increasing companies’ cash flows and reported earnings, these breaks help the share prices of corporations whose stock is publicly traded and help increase the value of privately held corporations.

Stock ownership by individuals is concentrated among higher-income people.

Corporate Interest Deductions: $12.09 billion

One of the reforms of the 2017 tax act was reducing the amount of interest that corporations could deduct on their federal tax returns. The idea was to reduce the attractiveness of debt, which is subsidized by taxpayers and carries big risks to corporate owners as well as employees. (For examples, see the recent bankruptcies of Neiman Marcus and J. Crew, which were burdened with debt, part of it incurred to pay fees and distributions to the buyout firms that had taken them over.)

The CARES Act undid part of the 2017 act by increasing the deductible level to 50% of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from the previous 30%.

Like some of the other provisions that we’ve looked at, this doesn’t involve a lot of money relative to the numbers that we’re dealing with. But it’s symbolic. And the people benefiting the most from it because they have major investments in stocks aren’t likely to be worrying about how to pay for food or avoid losing their homes.

Corporate Loss Treatment: $88.70 billion

This does the same kind of thing for corporations that the pass-through provision we discussed earlier does for LLCs and partnerships and such. But it hasn’t attracted anything like the same attention that the pass-through giveaway has gotten because it doesn’t involve names like Trump and Kushner.

Until now, corporations that had losses last year and this year could carry them forward to offset taxes for future years, but they couldn’t apply them to get refunds of taxes paid in previous years.

Corporations can now apply losses from this year, last year and 2018 to income from the previous five years. That’s going to be a big deal for companies — can you say Boeing? — that are likely to show losses.

What’s more, these companies can get refunds of up to 35% of the losses they carry back to 2017 and earlier years, even though the corporate tax rate is now only 21%. The rationale is that because the corporate tax rate was 35% before 2018, companies should be able to get refunds today based on what they paid then, not on what they’d be paying now.

So this pays off on multiple levels:The beneficiaries not only benefit today from current and recent losses rather than having to wait until they have profits in the future, but they get a much bigger bang for the buck.

Our country is suffering through major, major problems. We’ve got more than 100,000 people dead from COVID-19, unemployment levels not seen since the Great Depression, and protests and civil unrest in cities and towns across the country. We’re appropriately adding trillions of dollars to our national debt to try to forestall an economic meltdown. Let’s just hope that further federal aid goes to those who really need it. And doesn’t go to those who don’t.

Filed under:

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/heres-how-corporate-deals-are-making-ppe-shortages-even-worse/

Here’s how corporate deals are making PPE shortages even worse

Alex Henderson May 22, 2020

When hospitals have an insufficient amount of PPE (personal protective equipment), the chances of doctors and nurses being infected with coronavirus increases. Many hospitals in the U.S. have been complaining…

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aha this is beyond corp personhood?! // long sought class action /tort reform?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mcconnell-vows-to-block-extension-of-boosted-unemployment-benefits-while-pushing-for-corporate-legal-immunity

McConnell vowed in a private call with House Republicans Wednesday that the enhanced unemployment benefits keeping millions of people afloat amid Great Depression-level joblessness will not be extended in the next coronavirus stimulus legislation, effectively endorsing a major income cut for a large swath of the U.S. population.

The boosted unemployment insurance—which provides an additional $600 per week on top of state benefits and is set to expire on July 31—”will not be in the next bill,” the Kentucky Republican reportedly told his GOP colleagues, calling the fact that some people are making slightly more money on unemployment than they did from their jobs “crazy.”

Progressives have said this is a reason to raise wages, not roll back benefits.

Ernie Tedeschi, a former Treasury Department economist, estimated that if enhanced unemployment benefits are not extended, “unemployed workers will effectively get a pay cut of 50-75% overnight."

in a series of tweets Wednesday evening, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) pointed to a Brookings Institution analysis showing that boosted unemployment benefits offset around half of all lost wages and salaries in April. House Democrats passed legislation last week that would extend the boosted unemployment benefits through January of next year.

“Removing that support while eliminating access to food, shelter, and healthcare would inflict untold suffering and could cause widespread civic unrest,” Beyer warned. “Cutting back federal assistance at the height of the crisis would mean self-inflicted disaster, devastation, and additional deaths. That must not happen.”...

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/corporate-lawyers-openly-discuss-suing-nations-over-profits-lost-to-covid-19-measures-ticking-time-bomb/

Corporate lawyers openly discuss suing nations over profits lost to COVID-19 measures: ‘Ticking time bomb’

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almost 150 health and poverty activist campaigns, including Médecins Sans Frontières, have urged Gilead Sciences to waive patent and exclusivity rights for potential COVID-19 treatment remdesivir.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remdesivir

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OMFG

tyson tells cty health and gov can't release covid #       trms 5/5

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-says-hes-aiming-to-shield-corporations-from-legal-liability-for-workers-who-contract-covi-19-on-the-job

no lnx

Trump says he’s aiming to shield corporations from legal liability for workers who contract COVI-19 on the job

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams April 21, 2020

President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Monday evening that his administration is aiming to shield corporations from legal responsibility for workers who contract the novel coronavirus on the job, a move that the Chamber of Commerce and right-wing advocacy groups are aggressively lobbying for as the White House pushes to reopen the U.S. economy against the warnings of public health experts.

“We are trying to take liability away from these companies,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question on the subject. “We just don’t want that because we want the companies to open and to open strong. But I’ll get you a legal opinion on that.”

The president claimed that his administration has not previously discussed the issue of corporate liability, but the New York Times reported that business executives raised the matter with Trump in a conference call last week.

An “issue of great concern to the executives on the call,” according to the Times, “was the need to address the liability companies could face if employees got sick after returning to work, given the possibility that workers who felt that they were brought back too soon—or were not placed in a safe environment—could sue en masse.”

Additionally, the Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump administration officials discussed including in the next stimulus package “a waiver that would clear businesses of liability from employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.”

Watch Trump’s remarks:

JM Rieger

@RiegerReport

REPORTER: [If companies] have employees come back to work and they get sick will these companies be liable?

…

TRUMP: I’ll give you a legal answer to that when we look it up.

…

REPORTER: You guys haven’t discussed that yet?

TRUMP: Nobody’s discussed it, no. But we will now.

Embedded video

In a memo to its members last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the most powerful business lobbying group in the nation—said that legal action from workers who are infected by Covid-19 on the job is “perhaps the largest area of concern for the overall business community.”

The Chamber of Commerce “argues the sheer number of lawsuits could overwhelm businesses,” Roll Call reported.

“Businesses say they keep their workplaces safe,” Roll Call noted, “but the memo indicates that major corporations privately acknowledge that many so-called essential employees will get sick or die.”

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-backed organization, is also urging lawmakers to protect corporations from responsibility for exposing their workers to the coronavirus.

As Common Dreams reported last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been flooded with thousands of complaints from workers in recent weeks accusing employers of violating federal coronavirus guidelines and failing to provide adequate protective equipment.

Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in a series of tweets last week that “the whole point of making employers liable for risking the lives of their staff is to prevent them from exposing their staff to undue risk.”

“Businesses are asking for the right to expose their workers to fatal risks with no consequences. It’s bad economics and bad policy,”said Wolfers. “If this tweet sounds to you at all anti-business, let me be clear: I am absolutely against businesses profiting by exposing their workers to unconscionable risks of death.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/robert-reich-heres-how-ceos-are-ruining-america/

no lnx

Robert Reich: Here’s how CEOs are ruining America

Written by Robert Reich / Robert Reich's Blog April 13, 2020

Today, America’s wealthiest business moguls – like Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase – claim that they are “patriots before CEOs” because they employ large numbers of workers or engage in corporate philanthropy.

Rubbish.

CEOs are in business to make a profit and maximize their share prices, not to serve America. And yet these CEOs dominate American politics and essentially run the system.

Therein lies the problem: They cannot be advocates for their corporations and simultaneously national leaders responsible for the wellbeing of the country. This is the biggest contradiction at the core of our broken system.

A frequent argument made by CEOs is that so-called “American competitiveness” should not be hobbled by regulations and taxes.Jamie Dimon often warns that tight banking regulations will cause Wall Street to lose financial business to banks in nations with weaker regulations. Under Dimon’s convenient logic, JPMorgan is America.

Dimon used the same faulty logic about American competitiveness to support the Trump tax cut. “We don’t have a competitive tax system here,” he warned.

But when Dimon talks about “competitiveness” he’s really talking about the competitiveness of JPMorgan, its shareholders, and billionaire executives like himself.

The concept of “American competitiveness” is meaningless when it comes to a giant financial enterprise like JPMorgan that moves money all over the world. JPMorgan doesn’t care where it makes money. Its profits don’t directly depend on the wellbeing of Americans.

“American competitiveness” is just as meaningless when it comes to big American-based corporations that make and buy things all over the world.

Consider a mainstay of corporate America, General Electric. Two decades ago, most GE workers were American. Today the majority are non-American. In 2017, GE announced it was increasing its investments in advanced manufacturing and robotics in China, which it termed “an important and critical market for GE.” In 2018, over half of GE’s revenue came from abroad. Its once core allegiance to American workers and consumers is gone.

Google has opened an Artificial Intelligence lab in Beijing. Until its employees forced the company to stop, Google was even building China a prototype search engine designed to be compatible with China’s censors.

Apple employs 90,000 people in the United States but contracts with roughly a million workers abroad. An Apple executive told The New York Times, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible” – and showing profits big enough to continually increase Apple’s share price.

American corporations will do and make things wherever around the world they can boost their profits the most, and invest in research and development wherever it will deliver the largest returns.

The truth is that America’s real competitiveness doesn’t depend on profit-seeking shareholders or increasingly global corporations. The real competitiveness of the United States depends on only one thing: the productivity of Americans.

That in turn depends on our education, our health, and the infrastructure that connects us. Yet today, American workers are hobbled by deteriorating schools, unaffordable college tuition, decaying infrastructure, and soaring health-care costs.

And truth be told, big American corporations and the CEOs that head them – wielding outsized political influence – couldn’t care less. They want tax cuts and rollbacks of regulations so they can make even fatter profits. All of which is putting Americans on a glide path toward lousier jobs and lower wages. How’s that for patriotism?

The first step toward fixing this broken system is to stop buying CEOs’ lies. How can we believe that Jamie Dimon’s initiatives on corporate philanthropy are anything other than public relations? Why should we think that he or his fellow CEOs seek any goal other than making more money for themselves and their firms? We can’t and we shouldn’t. They don’t have America’s best interests at heart — they’re making millions to be CEOs, not patriots.

Big American corporations aren’t organized to promote the wellbeing of Americans, and Americans cannot thrive within a system run largely by corporations. Fundamental reform will be led only by concerned and active citizens.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-labor-department-accused-of-quietly-twisting-the-law-to-slash-paid-sick-leave-amid-pandemic

no lnx

Trump Labor Department accused of quietly ‘twisting the law’ to slash paid sick leave amid pandemic

President Donald J. Trump participates in the ceremonial swearing in of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia in the Oval Office, Monday, September 30, 2019. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams April 3, 2020

Two Democratic members of Congress on Thursday accused the Department of Labor of quietly “twisting the law” to limit the scope of already inadequate paid sick leave provisions contained in a coronavirus stimulus package that President Donald Trump signed into law last month.

Over the weekend, the Labor Department—headed by former corporate lawyer Eugene Scalia—published policy guidance on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) that Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said creates several “gratuitous loopholes” allowing corporations to limit the number of employees eligible for paid leave.

“The Trump administration is twisting the law to allow employers to shirk their responsibility and is significantly narrowing which workers are eligible for paid leave,” Murray said in a statement. “This simply can’t stand. This guidance needs to be rewritten so workers get the leave they are guaranteed under the law.”

The FFCRA, which Trump signed into law on March 18, provides two weeks of paid sick leave to eligible workers who fall ill and 12 weeks of leave to workers caring for children whose schools have closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The bill excludes workers at companies with more than 500 employees.

In a detailed letter (pdf) to Scalia on Wednesday, Murray and DeLauro said the Labor Department’s guidance blatantly “contradict[s] the plain language of the FFCRA and violate congressional intent.”

One example Murray and DeLauro highlighted is the Labor Department’s definition of “unable to work.”

“You are unable to work if your employer has work for you and one of the COVID-19 qualifying reasons set forth in the FFCRA prevents you from being able to perform that work, either under normal circumstances at your normal worksite or by means of telework,” the Labor Department wrote in its guidance.

Murray and DeLauro said that definition would “allow all employers to evade the requirements of the Act at any point during this pandemic by informing employees that it does not have work for them to perform at the moment—thereby fully depriving them of a day, a week, or 12 weeks of paid leave.”

“Nothing in the text of the FFCRA indicates the employer must have work for an employee to perform on any particular day for that employee to be able to qualify for paid leave on that day—nor does it give employers the authority to refuse their employees their statutory right to paid leave by not assigning them work, furloughing them, or closing a particular worksite,” Murray and DeLauro wrote in their letter.

In a press release, Murray and DeLauro summarized their concerns with the Labor Department guidance, warning that it would:

Require certification in order for workers to qualify for paid leave. DOL states that employers can require certification for employees to qualify for paid leave, even though the FFCRA does not require for any such certification from employees.

Restrict what qualifies as being “unable to work.” DOL states that employees only qualify for paid sick or family leave if they are unable to work and their employer has work for them, allowing employers to cut off employees’ rights to paid sick or family leave by claiming they have nothing for the employee to do. This guidance is in direct contradiction with the FFCRA, which does not allow employers to use those tactics to prevent employees from receiving paid leave.

Restrict worker’s ability to take leave intermittently. DOL states that an employee may only take their leave intermittently “if your employer allows it.” This conclusion is found nowhere in the text and gives the employer, rather than the employee who has the need for leave, the ability to decide how to use the employee’s leave.

Exempt employees from paid leave. FFCRA exempts narrowly defined “health care providers” from the paid leave provisions due to the nature of the current crisis. But without authority, DOL redefined a “health care provider” to include nearly any employee who happens to work for an employer who also employs a health care provider, works at any type of quasi-medical facility, works as an employee contracted for non-healthcare services in a facility that houses a health care provider, or merely works in the medical supply chain.

Not guaranteeing paid leave during a “shelter in place” order. DOL does not clarify that a government directive to stay at home qualifies for paid leave. In fact, DOL even indicates that employees lose their right to paid leave if their employer closes the employee’s worksite in the event of a government directive. This clearly defies the FFCRA which grants paid leave to employees who are subject to quarantine or isolation orders from government officials.

“In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration is robbing workers of the paid sick days and paid leave Congress passed into law for them. That is unconscionable,” DeLauro said in a statement. “People across the country are struggling to make ends meet, and essential workers who are still able to work need to know that if they or a loved one falls ill that they can take time off.”

“Keeping workers from getting other workers sick is good for employees, employers, and our broader public health,” said DeLauro. “Secretary Scalia needs to immediately rescind this guidance and put workers’ needs first.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/trumps-death-cult-finally-says-it-time-to-kill-the-useless-eaters-for-capitalism/

no lnx

Trump’s death cult finally says it: Time to kill the ‘useless eaters’ for capitalism

Brit Hume Fox News Screengrab

Written by Chauncey DeVega / Salon March 27, 2020

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Donald Trump has given the Democrats a gift — if they are brave enough to use it.

Last Sunday, Donald Trump declared on Twitter: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!”

This slogan, imported from the libertarian far right, signaled an important shift toward ending social distancing and “reopening” the economy, even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread Trump’s mouthpieces at Fox News and elsewhere then began to parrot the same macabre and disturbing argument.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, told Fox News: “Let’s get back to living… And those of us that are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves.”

Right-wing propagandist Glenn Beck told viewers of his BlazeTV show that Americans who are older should just go back to work and prepare to die: “Even if we all get sick, I would rather die than kill the country.”

Brit Hume of Fox News told Tucker Carlson that he supported Dan Patrick’s view of this potentially lethal transaction:

What we’re living in now, this circumstance as we try to beat this virus, is not sustainable — that the utter collapse of the country’s economy, which many think will happen if this goes on much longer, is an intolerable result… [H]e is saying, for his own part, that he’d be willing to take a risk of getting the disease if that’s what it took to allow the economy to move forward. And he said that because he’s late in life, you know, that he would be perhaps more willing then he might’ve been at a younger age, which seems to me to be an entirely reasonable viewpoint.

What are they really saying? Donald Trump and the Republican Party are now openly willing to sacrifice those Americans they consider to be “useless eaters” — in this case older people, people with pre-existing health conditions and anyone else who may die from the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, Trump said the quiet part loud, basically admitting on Twitter that his electoral fortunes are tied to the pandemic’s impact on the American economy:

The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP.  We will be stronger than ever before!

To paraphrase the character Ivan Drago in the movie “Rocky IV”: “If they die, they die”. Or as another famous Russian, Joseph Stalin, is reported to have said: “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”

For Trump and his allies, worsening the coronavirus pandemic, even at the risk of many lives, is of little importance compared to keeping him in office to continue a regime of looting, extortion and massive corruption.

The Democratic Party needs new slogans for the 2020 presidential election, I would suggest these:

Trump wants you to die — so he can stay in office forever.

Trump and the Republicans are trying to kill you — for money.

Are you 60 or older? Have a pre-existing health condition? Donald Trump and his Republican Party don’t care if you die from the coronavirus.

Donald Trump could have stopped the coronavirus. He lied, and people died.

Yes Trump and the right are embracing and celebrating death. It is ghoulish. It is also one more illustration that the Age of Trump is an American dystopia where what was previously unimaginable (for most decent people) has become “normal.”

Yes, Trump and his movement’s death impulses are part of a natural progression in which an authoritarian regime maximizes its power by terrorizing the public.

These calls by Trump and his allies for millions of Americans to sacrifice themselves for such abstractions as “the country,” “the economy” and “the market” should not be a surprise. Such madness and cruelty are the logical and inevitable result of decades of right-wing strategy and policies.

These plans were never hidden. Indeed, they were clumsily obvious. Since the 1970s, predatory gangster capitalism has been accepted as either “normal” or “inevitable” in the United States (as well as the United Kingdom and elsewhere). To that end, the “free market” was presented by the news media, many Democrats and virtually all Republicans, and most of the educational system as somehow synonymous or interchangeable with “freedom” and “democracy.”

This form of predatory gangster capitalism, now often called “neoliberalism,” rests upon several basic tenets:

Profits are more important than people.

Every part of human life and existence should become a commodity or a financial instrument.

Society should be organized around the “survival of the fittest,” in Malthusian or social-Darwinist terms: Those who cannot survive and prosper under “free markets” will be abandoned, quite likely to die.

Notions of the collective good, the commons, the social safety net and other aspects of social democracy, as well as the very idea of government and collective action, are to be undermined and eventually eliminated in service to “freedom” and “individual liberty.”

There should be few if any restrictions on the behavior of corporations, banks and the ultra-rich, or on the financier class.

There are “winners” and “losers” in society, “makers” and “takers” in society. These are natural and almost inexorable categories. The winners are to be subsidized by the state and the public. The losers are to be punished, and if possible eliminated.

Capitalism and democracy are the same thing.

Of course the harsh realities and negative consequences of predatory gangster capitalism have been effectively concealed from the public, which has come to accept this ideology through the use of anodyne language like “entrepreneurship,” “efficiency,” “transparency,” “accountability,” “public-private” and “opportunity.”

All claims that this system has been successful are dubious. Serious economists and other intellectually honest policy experts have repeatedly proven that its premises are fundamentally incorrect.

Gangster capitalists exploit system shocks and other crises (sometimes crises they themselves have caused) as a means of advancing their agenda.

Consider the coronavirus relief bill as originally submitted by the Republicans, which proposed creating a $500 billion slush fund to subsidize the richest corporations and wealthiest Americans, with no accountability and no oversight – a fund that Donald Trump and his vassals could loot at will — while handing out much smaller sums to ordinary Americans who are struggling to survive in a moment of economic calamity.

The moral obscenity of that bill even included petty cruelty: The poorest Americans would receive little if any money in direct payments, while money flowed to corporations and the ultra-rich by the billions.

These disparities have been somewhat painted over in the Democrats’ counterproposals in the House and Senate. But on a grand scale, the picture is not that different: The largest corporations will still receive at least $500 billion — with minor oversight and a few insignificant restraints — that they will inevitably use to enrich their shareholders at the expense of their employees and the public.

In practice, neoliberalism amounts to socialism for the rich and the powerful and the harsh medicine of the “free market” for everyone else. The coronavirus relief bill is more proof of that fact.

This is the logic of “too big to fail.” It’s also a function of the moral hazard that allows a plutocrat like Donald Trump to gain control over a so-called democracy with the goal of funneling resources (through tax policies, government subsidies and other laws) to themselves and other members of his class, while denying resources and opportunities to the vast majority of Americans.

Donald Trump’s proposed 2021 federal budget is a statement of values. As with the coronavirus relief bill, it punishes the poor and vulnerable by gutting the social safety net and transferring more money, both in the form of tax cuts and direct subsidies, to huge corporations and the richest Americans.

As documented by Dr. James Gilligan in his book “Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others” the policies of the Republican Party on issues ranging from health care to guns, the environment and tax policy have shortened the American people’s lifespans and caused other forms of physical harm.

Predatory gangster capitalism needs agents and other actors to advance its goals. The corporation is one of the primary means through which this form of capitalism wages its “revolutionary” struggle against a humane and democratic society.

As has been widely noted, if the corporation was a person, it would be a sociopath. This makes the corporation an indispensable part of Donald Trump’s coronavirus death cult.

James Gamble, a retired corporate attorney who is now director of the National Center for Access to Justice, offered a warning, in a recent article at Medium, about “the extraordinary power of corporate ‘persons’ who are legally obligated to act like sociopaths”:

Sociopath? Yes. The corporate entity is obligated to care only about itself and to define what is good as what makes it more money. Pretty close to a textbook case of antisocial personality disorder. And corporate persons are the most powerful people in our world.

The “maximize rule” does its damage in two ways. Corporate entities are direct actors in the world. A decision to build a factory in a place with weak environmental laws, low wages and poor worker protection matters. Preferring share buybacks to increased wages or lower prices matters. Lobbying for taxpayer subsidies that transfer wealth from poor to rich matters. They contribute to the problems listed in paragraph one in obvious ways. More damaging: the maximize rule infects real people with tragic faith in the magic of markets.

A recent Business Insider article sheds further light on the corporation as sociopath:

The coronavirus crisis in the United States is only just beginning. But it’s not too early for some Americans to flout social distancing and isolation guidelines and return to work, according to some executives.

Dick Kovacevich, the former CEO and chairman of Wells Fargo, told Bloomberg News that healthy workers under the age of 55 should return to work in April if the outbreak is controlled, saying that “some may even die” with his plan.

“We’ll gradually bring those people back and see what happens. Some of them will get sick, some may even die, I don’t know,” said Kovacevich, a current executive at Cisco and Cargill. “Do you want to suffer more economically or take some risk that you’ll get flu-like symptoms and a flu-like experience? Do you want to take an economic risk or a health risk? You get to choose.”

While this iteration of capitalism sells itself to the public as indispensable to “liberty” and “freedom,” its ultimate tendency is authoritarian and fascistic. Such traits and goals make it a natural tool and weapon for Trump and his allies.

While the American people and the world are paralyzed the coronavirus pandemic, Attorney General William Barr is refusing to let a good crisis go to waste. As reported by Betsy Woodruff Swan for Politico, the Trump regime wants to use the coronavirus to enact a de facto state of martial law where basic legal rights are suspended:

The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States….

The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. Already, he has cited the pandemic as a reason for heightening border restrictions and restricting asylum claims. He has also pushed for further tax cuts as the economy withers, arguing it would soften the financial blow to Americans. And even without policy changes, Trump has vast emergency powers that he could deploy right now to try to slow the coronavirus outbreak.

Swan explains that these Justice Department requests “span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated,” and appear to have important implications for habeas corpus, “the constitutional right to appear before a judge after arrest and seek release.”

According to Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, this means that “you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over. I find it absolutely terrifying. Especially in a time of emergency, we should be very careful about granting new powers to the government. … That is something that should not happen in a democracy.”

This union of neoliberal gangster capitalism and authoritarianism can result in a society ruled by “inverted totalitarianism.” In his seminal book “Democracy Incorporated,” philosopher Sheldon Wolin explains how this happens:

Antidemocracy, executive predominance, and elite rule are basic elements of inverted totalitarianism. Antidemocracy does not take the form of overt attacks upon the idea of government by the people. Instead, politically it means encouraging what I have earlier dubbed “civic demobilization,” conditioning an electorate to being aroused for a brief spell, controlling its attention span, and then encouraging distraction or apathy. The intense pace of work and the extended working day, combined with job insecurity, is a formula for political demobilization, for privatizing the citizenry. …

It works indirectly.

Citizens are encouraged to distrust their government and politicians; to concentrate upon their own interests; to begrudge their taxes; and to exchange active involvement for symbolic gratifications of patriotism, collective self-righteousness, and military prowess. Above all, depoliticization is promoted through society’s being enveloped in an atmosphere of collective fear and of individual powerlessness: fear of terrorists, loss of jobs, the uncertainties of pension plans, soaring health costs, and rising educational expenses.

Will the American people follow the commands of Donald Trump’s coronavirus death cult? Are they willing to sacrifice their lives on the altar of “the economy” and Trump’s re-election campaign by returning to work, ending social distancing and ignoring the warnings of scientists and public health experts?

Some will. Trump’s cult members will follow his commands without question. They have been systematically programmed by Trump’s cult and its disinformation machine. They understand that protecting and defending the cult leader must always come first.

Many Americans who do not have sufficient savings, live on stagnant wages, have little if any job security, are not union members, cannot work from home and are otherwise stuck in a precarious economic conditions may well be coerced into risking their lives, because they lack other options.

If public opinion polls are correct, Trump is becoming more popular because of the coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying stagecraft and spectacle of his lie-filled “daily briefings.” Despite his incompetence, a new Gallup poll reports that 60 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s response to the pandemic. (Including nearly all Republicans, of course.)

This evidence suggests that Trump, the Republican Party, the right-wing media and their corporate allies are effectively leveraging decades of programming in which most Americans have been taught to believe that patriotism, capitalism, freedom and consumerism are inexorably connected, if not in fact the same thing. In the Age of Trump and his pandemic, such beliefs can kill.

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omg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/bill-moyers-and-dahlia-lithwick-break-down-how-the-courts-have-proven-they-have-trumps-back/

Bill Moyers and Dahlia Lithwick break down how the courts have proven they have Trump’s back

President Donald J. Trump, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and Anthony M. Kennedy, retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, walk together Monday, Oct. 8, 2018, to the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Written by Bill Moyers / BillMoyers.Com March 24, 2020

Dahlia Lithwick: Hi there.

...

Bill Moyers: I guess you won’t be hanging out at the Supreme Court anytime soon, right?

Dahlia Lithwick: No. No, they’re not hanging out there either, so. It’s really unprecedented to just scuttle arguments. Justice Ginsberg is 87, so I think it is for the best. But it is really extraordinary times that we are living through.

Bill Moyers: Yeah, I remember something you said, “If ever there was a time for the American legal profession to put down its yellow pads and stand up for the rule of law, it’s today—”

Dahlia Lithwick: Yeah, after Donald Trump was elected, I felt so strongly that lawyers were gonna be the bulwark, that it was clear that he was gonna be assailing the rule of law, and then I really believed that lawyers were going to find lines that couldn’t be crossed.

And that the United States was a country that was built on the proposition that there is no king, and that you have nothing if you don’t have the rule of law. I mean, I think I really believed all that. And who are the gladiators in that fight if not the lawyers?

I did expect that lawyers would be on the front lines. And I watched the day of the travel ban a week after the inauguration — it was the lawyers who ran out to the airports. It was the lawyers who parked themselves at the baggage claims [and] held up signs that said, “I’m just a tax attorney, but I’m here to help you get into the country–” I mean, I really thought that was setting a precedent wherein the lawyers were always gonna be the first ones out. And I’m not sure that materialized the way I expected.

Bill Moyers: If lawyers are failing us, where are we?

Dahlia Lithwick: I think there are so many component pieces of that. I think that you can look at the Mueller Report and the ways in which the findings of that report were distorted by Donald Trump’s own attorney general to imply that nothing had gone wrong.

I think you can look at declarations of emergency at the border last year, where no emergency existed, just to get funding that Congress had already said they were declining to offer. The travel ban itself. One after another, actions taken that really pushed the boundaries of what the executive branch can do.

And just the sort of dispiriting ways in which the Justice Department has doubled down on pressing some of those truly lawless actions, and so we saw Bill Barr at the highest levels of the Justice Department interfere with the Roger Stone sentencing.

This was unprecedented. Nobody had ever seen the president by tweet say, “Maybe we should change the sentence,” and have Bill Barr and very, very senior members of the Justice Department intervene — where line prosecutors had been working on this case for years. And I think we saw on that day, we saw four DOJ (Department of Justice) lawyers walk away from the case, one from the Justice Department, rather than be involved in that prosecution anymore.

But I think it can’t be these tiny little acts of resistance. It really does require the kinda thing that I think we saw in the days following, where we had thousands of prosecutors signing memos and immense numbers of former Justice Department officials saying, “We can’t proceed this way.”

But I think maybe the answer to your question is that so much of the rule of law, as it turns out, was built on soft norms, not on regulations and statutes and constitutional directives. And I think that we all think that this machinery is more robust than it really is. It turns out it’s tissue thin if we don’t fight for it.

Bill Moyers: I used to think that norms were sort of the unwritten Constitution like English procedures and propriety. But that doesn’t seem to hold up anymore.

*:{

*}:

Dahlia Lithwick: I remember when Merrick Garland was denied a hearing or a vote or even courtesy meetings in the Senate. And I thought, at the time, this is a norm. It is a norm that the president gets to put up a nominee, and that person gets a hearing and a vote. And I think that, time and time and time again in the last few years, I’ve found myself answering these questions about how can this be happening? How can Bill Barr personally intercede in the Roger Stone sentencing?

I think the answer is those were a bunch of norms that were put together post-Watergate. They never had the force of law. It was a set of decisions that this is how the polity would thrive post-Watergate. And I think it’s just such a chilling lesson for all of us that this is a series of gentlemen’s agreements about how we conduct ourselves; it’s not the law.

Bill Moyers: In the meantime, as you’ve written,Trump has weaponized the law in several ways. Talk about that for a moment.

Dahlia Lithwick: Well, I think the most chilling [thing] that we are seeing now is certainly the use of his own Justice Department to go after anybody who’s been disloyal. And also, as we just mentioned, using the Justice Department to exculpate, whether it’s through a lighter sentence for Roger Stone, or using his pardon power to pardon people like Joe Arpaio right at the very beginning.

Trump: I stand by my pardon of Sheriff Joe and I think the people of Arizona who really know him best would agree with me.

Bill Moyers: Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio who took a hard-line against immigrants.

Dahlia Lithwick: Who had people in camps dying on his watch, who had this hard-line, anti-immigrant worldview that was so brutal — that there was no question that what he was accused of doing, he had done. And I think that time and time and time again, we’re seeing Donald Trump use the pardon power to say, “There’s really no such thing as white collar crime. There’s no such thing as being too hard on illegal immigrants. There’s no such thing as being — whatever it is that he himself — sometimes — engages in.”

And I think that, in addition to really kind of rejiggering the entire Justice Department so that it seems as though it answers to him personally, I mean, that’s always been his worldview. He wanted an attorney general and he complained about Jeff Sessions, that Jeff Sessions wasn’t loyal, and he wanted Jim Comey to be loyal. Even Don McGahn, his White House counsel, who ended up leaving, was not sufficiently loyal.

And I think he’s really got a notion that he’s like a Nero character — an emperor — and that the law works for him and responds to him. And in so many different configurations, we’ve seen him rescinding DACA by tweet. Making decisions about the dreamers thousands and thousands of dreamers on a whim. Making decisions about “don’t ask, don’t tell” on a whim.

And then we have the entire apparatus of government scurrying to effectuate that, to make it happen for him. But I guess the paradox is not just that he’s weaponized the rule of law, but that the rule of law has rushed to meet him, and to bolster his notions that he is above the law.

Bill Moyers: How do you battle with someone who thinks the law is just a win-or-lose game? And a commodity you can buy and sell? How do you deal with that? How do we fight back?

Dahlia Lithwick: One of the most revelatory books I’ve read this year is by an attorney whose name is Jim Zirin. He has a book out that talks about all the ways in which Donald Trump as president is behaving exactly the way Donald Trump as quote/unquote real estate mogul behaved.

There was a playbook, and it long predates the presidency. This was, believe it or not, the Roy Cohn playbook that goes all the way back to Donald Trump and his dad when they were accused of racist practices in rentals long ago. And it’s a really useful sort of road map to know what the behaviors are. And the behaviors are pretty typical if you are a real estate, very, very wealthy real estate mogul because it’s the same things over and over: It’s sue everybody, chill people from coming forward by terrorizing them. Make sure that your plaintiffs are subject to heinous, horrific abuse, repeated abuse, until they can’t [fight back] anymore.

Bill Moyers: And at the right time, to your advantage, you walk away from the mess you’ve created, declare bankruptcy, and leave the laborers, the contractors, the everyday workers, the creditors to bear the costs, right?

Dahlia Lithwick: Just bury them in litigation, bury them in discovery so that they don’t wanna go forward with the lawsuits. File all sorts of frivolous, frivolous claims, knowing that at some point, you’re just exhausting the other side. I mean, these are just the ways that this person who in his capacity as Donald Trump before he was president just used the levers of the legal system constantly.

He would be sued. He would have people who did work on his properties that he never paid. Trump University, the casino bankruptcies, every one of these lawsuits — he just fought back by hiring armies of lawyers who did what he said. And you’re quite right. The cost of picking up the debris afterwards, whether it’s Trump University or Trump steaks or whatever the detritus is, that’s not on the rich guy. That’s not on his lawyers. They profit either way.

That is exactly how he uses his private attorneys. That’s how he was using Rudy Giuliani, to go and stir up dirt and all sorts of false claims about Joe and Hunter Biden in Ukraine. So he has a very myopic kind of transactional view of lawyers are his — they’re his plumbers. They get the job done.

Bill Moyers: And they’re well paid for it.

Dahlia Lithwick: We’re learning there are many fundamental flaws in the system of capitalism that we have tethered ourselves to. But one of the flaws is that, for a very, very long time, rich men — whether it was Harvey Weinstein or Donald Trump — very, very rich men were able to surround their selves with armies of loyal attorneys who would do whatever they were asked to do. And that’s exactly how he’s trying to use his Justice Department today.

Bill Moyers: When a president takes his playbook from a crooked lawyer like Roy Cohn in the 1970s and uses it to run the United States government today, what are we supposed to do?

Dahlia Lithwick: It’s such a different paradigm because every president, whether or not you agreed with George Bush, used his White House counsel in certain ways, [and] used the Justice Department and his attorney general in certain ways. But [now] we have a president who simply just indefatigably using his lawyers to beat up the weak and to protect his own usually financial interests. And so there’s not a model on a big constitutional scale for what you do when the president wanted a Roy Cohn, got a Roy Cohn in Bill Barr, and is proceeding to just break stuff.

Bill Moyers: Has it occurred to you that the president prefers to govern by chaos, I mean, it detracts journalists from covering other things he’s doing. I’m reaching right now on my desk for a story I read just this morning inCounterPunch. The headline is, “The Supreme Court is set to strike a major blow against social and environmental protections.” It would amount to the evisceration of regulations that protect our health and safety as citizens. Did you know about this? Are you aware of this?

Dahlia Lithwick: Yeah. This is part of a really — and you’re so right. This is happening almost in the dark of night. It’s happening on page A12, if there at all, because page A1 is the chaos. And way, way back, under the fold in the middle of the paper, there is this stealth attack on government agencies and their ability to regulate themselves. And you’re also quite right, it is happening, at the U.S. Supreme Court under our noses. And, what you’re describing is the sort of ascendancy of what was once a kind of fringe theory that Justice Antonin Scalia put forth about agencies and the limits on their power.And this idea of the unitary executive, that every single thing in the executive branch is subordinate to the president.

That was a crackpot idea once upon a time. And you are quite right, it is pushing its way into the very epicenter of several arguments that the Court is hearing this year. And this idea that — it’s called technically the nondelegation doctrine, and it essentially says that we can gut agency authority, for instance the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. We can gut agencies’ ability to have kind of ongoing oversight of problems.

It was once seen as a really fringe idea that is now being used. I think Justice Elena Kagan has described it as it is going to be used to end government as we know it.

Bill Moyers: She’s actually said that the conservative majority will eventually essentially rule that, quote, “Most of the government is unconstitutional.” And it makes me think, and I wonder if it does you, that the right wingers on the Court were put there to enact the Republican platform into law.

Dahlia Lithwick: It’s such a good question and it’s funny because it gets ignored. We get very, very focused, I think, on Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh and questions of abortion, and maybe to a lesser degree questions of religious liberty, right? The Hobby Lobby questions about whether religious dissenters can be forced to do things they don’t want to do.

But I think you’re exactly right, that simmering under those issues both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were quite openly kind of auditioning to be on the Supreme Court with their writings, very explicit writings in the vein that you’re describing. Writings that would seek to do away with the administrative state, do away with the power of government regulatory agencies, whether it’s the (CFPB Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) or the EPA. Efforts to essentially say all of those agencies answer to the president and he can hire and fire at whim. And he can constrain their authority at whim.

That was not a stealth campaign. They were doing that, both justices — Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — were doing that very, very openly, talking about those things. And I think you’re quite right, we got very, very hyper-focused in both of their confirmation hearings on other issues, equally important issues. But I think we looked away from their records on hobbling federal government as we know it. And you’re quite right, I think they were put on the Court to do just that. And we’re seeing, in two short years, they are doing just that.

Bill Moyers: Brett Kavanaugh wrote last year in favor of forbidding Congress from allowing federal agencies, quote, “To exercise regulatory authority over a major policy question of great economic and political importance.” But I thought Congress was supposed to deal with questions like that. What do you make of this?

Dahlia Lithwick: What I make of it is exactly the words you just said, which is this would give the Supreme Court itself authority to say, “Yeah, we just don’t like these regulations. These ones are not good. This agency isn’t right.” And to really eviscerate the regulatory state as we know it. And this goes way beyond the 2020 election. If you have a 5-4 majority on the Court that really believes that using these kinds of doctrines to chip away at agency power, this is going to be kind of sealed into the mix for decades.

Bill Moyers: So you’ve written, Dahlia, about how, in recent years, the Supreme Court has issued ruling after ruling awarding more power to large corporations. This would be the biggest payoff ever to the big businesses, wouldn’t it? I mean, the Republican-controlled Court would have a veto power over all federal regulations?

Dahlia Lithwick: It’s unbelievable. And again, I think it is a pincer when you look at it — twinned with — the issues you’re talking about where, the Chambers of Commerce and big, big corporations have never won the way they’re winning now. Their win rate in the John Roberts court is like nothing we have seen since before the New Deal.

And so I think what you’re seeing is, on the one hand,gutting of unionswhich this Court has been involved in. Giving huge rights to corporations, whether it’s Citizens United or Hobby Lobby. This slow progression of doing away with workers’ rights and protections for the little guy, protections in all sorts of contexts.

And, at the same time, as you say, the cherry on top is doing away with agency regulations that regulates big businesses. And these big business cases, whether they’re affording huge new rights to businesses, or big wins to businesses that are trying to fight back any attempt to cabin corporate power and union power.

The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the CFPB — any of these agencies — can be just tossed away at the whim of the Court.Those two things together are a huge, huge boon for business, and they are massively costly, not just for workers, but for the environment, and for women’s rights, and for the rights of the elderly. So many entities that are not afforded protections when the Court is only looking out for corporations...

==

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/economist-paul-krugman-mitch-mcconnell-is-trying-to-create-a-corporate-slush-fund-and-democrats-should-just-say-no/

==

===

OMG

https://theconversation.com/how-ceos-experts-and-philosophers-see-the-worlds-biggest-risks-differently-128382

We live in a world threatened by numerous existential risks that no country or organization can resolve alone, such as climate change, extreme weather and the coronavirus.

But in order to adequately address them, we need agreement on which are priorities – and which aren’t.

As it happens, the policymakers and business leaders who largely determine which risks become global priorities spent a week in January mingling in the mountainous resort of Davos for an annual meeting of the world’s elite.

I participated in a global risk assessment survey that informed those at the Davos summiton what they should be paying the most attention to. The results, drawn from experts in a broad range of disciplines including business, happen to be very different from what company CEOs specifically see as the biggest threats they face.

As a philosopher, I found the differences curious. They highlight two contrasting ways of seeing the world – with significant consequences for our ability to address societal risks.

Two perspectives on the biggest risks

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report consolidates the perceptions of about 800 experts in business, government and civil society to rank “the world’s most pressing challenges” for the coming year by likelihood and impact.

In 2020, extreme weather, a failure to act on climate change and natural disasters topped the list of risks in terms of likelihood of occurrence. In terms of impact, the top three were climate action failure, weapons of mass destruction and a loss of biodiversity.

The specific perspective of corporate leaders, however, is captured in another survey that highlights what they perceive as the biggest risks to their own businesses’ growth prospects. Conducted by consultancy PwC since 1998, it also holds sway in Davos. I’ve been involved in that report as well when I used to work for the organization.

In sharp contrast to the World Economic Forum’s risk report, the CEO survey found that the top three risks to business this year are overregulation, trade conflicts and uncertain economic growth.

Economic or ethical

What explains such a big difference in how these groups see the greatest threats?

I wanted to look at this question more deeply, beyond one year’s assessment, so I did a simple analysis of 14 years of data generated by the two reports. My findings are only inferences from publicly available data, and it should be noted that the two surveys have different methodologies and ask different questions that may shape respondents’ answers.

A key difference I observed is that business leaders tend to think in economic terms first and ethical terms second. That is, businesses, as you’d expect, tend to focus on their short-term economic situation, while civil society and other experts in the Global Risk Report focus on longer-term social and environmental consequences.

For example, year after year, CEOs have named a comparatively stable set of narrow concerns. Overregulation is among the main three threats in all but one of the years – and is frequently at the top of the list. Availability of talent, government fiscal concerns and the economy were also frequently mentioned over the past 14 years.

In contrast, the Global Risk Report tends to reflect a greater evolution in the types of risks the world faces, with concerns about the environment and existential threats growing increasingly prominent over the past five years, while economic and geopolitical risks have faded after dominating in the late 2000s.

A philosophical perspective

Risk surveys are useful tools for understanding what matters to CEOs and civil society. Philosophy is useful for considering why their priorities differ, and whose are likelier to be right.

Fundamentally, risks are about interests. Businesses want a minimum of regulations so they can make more money today. Experts representing constituencies beyond just business place a greater emphasis on the common good, now and in the future.

When interests are in tension, philosophy can help us sort between them. And while I’m sympathetic to CEOs’ desire to run their businesses without regulatory interference, I’m concerned that these short-term economic considerations often impede long-term ethical goals, such as looking after the well-being of the environment.

An uncertain world

Experts agree on at least one thing: The world faces dire risks.

==

mofo mnuchin tax dodge

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-trump-quietly-handed-billions-more-in-tax-breaks-to-huge-corporations-report/

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/federal-prosecutors-target-foreign-corporations-for-illegal-activities-us-companies-commit-all-the-time/

FCPA

no lnx

Federal prosecutors target foreign corporations for illegal activities US companies commit all the time

Written by Phil Mattera / DC Report January 17, 2020

Questions of fairness arise out of recent fines exacted on foreign companies.

Federal prosecutors recently announced telecommunications giant Ericsson will pay more than $1 billion to resolve allegations that it conspired to make illegal payments to win contracts in five countries. The settlement included a $520 million criminal penalty imposed by the Justice Department and a $540 million civil payment to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This was the latest in a long series of cases brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the 1977 law.The act emerged out of the Watergate-era revelations about improper overseas payments by U.S. corporations. But what the case against Sweden’s Ericsson highlights is the extent to which the law is being applied to foreign versus domestic corporations.

$4 Billion in Penalties

In fact, companies based outside the United States increasingly appear to be the primary targets of prosecutors. Since Donald Trump took office, foreign corporations have paid about $4 billion in penalties. That is more than seven times the sum paid by domestic firms. Apart from the Ericsson settlement, the largest combined penalties have been paid by a Russian company, $831 million by Mobile TeleSystems PJSC, and another Swedish firm, $731 million by Telia.

By contrast, U.S.-based firms have gotten off much easier. The only domestic company paying more than $100 million was Walmart. Yet, long-delayed $281 million penalty was well below expectations.

The tougher treatment of foreign companies can also be seen in the prosecution of price-fixing. Violation Tracker shows that during the Trump administration foreign companies have paid more than $723 million to DOJ in criminal penalties; domestic firms, only $44 million. There were seven fines of $50 million or more among the foreign companies; none among those based in the United States.

Not Just Trump

Imposing heavier penalties on foreign companies is not unique to the Trump years. During the Obama administration, seven of the 10 largest FCPA settlements involved foreign corporations, as did nine of the 10 largest price-fixing cases.

There is no evidence to suggest that foreign companies are more prone to law-breaking and thus account for more of the penalties. When it comes to offenses that are more purely domestic in nature – such as environmental, consumer protection and employment violations – U.S.-based companies more than hold their own.

Is the United States using  enforcement powers to put an added burden on the foreign competitors of U.S. companies? Perhaps this is an indirect form of protectionism.

I have no problem with the prosecution of foreign corporations that are engaged in misconduct, as long as wayward domestic companies are not being let off the hook.

Phil Mattera is research director at Good Jobs First and director of the Corporate Research Project. This article first appeared in the Dirt Diggers Digest newsletter.

===

an 1219

‘People have died as a result’: Residents of rural Missouri are furious with greedy corporation for closing their only hospital

==

===

USMC act

CORP COURTS KILLED!

kpfa public citizen house vote 12/19/19

house dems forced fix of nafta, djt made it worse. generic drugs [// china? there is no deal yet]

Bob did not do right on environ and labor for right reasons, but b/c of US sovereignty;

===

==

aha, lessen power of one small aspect of democracy in cap'lism

1219, CoC lobby

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/reuters-america-update-1-u-s-sec-proposes-rules-that-could-limit-shareholder-voices.html

Nov 5 (Reuters) - Wall Street’s top regulator on Tuesday proposed a pair of long-awaited rules that would set new limits on shareholders ability to call for corporate changes on thorny issues like climate change disclosures and executive compensation In one of the biggest wins for the corporate lobby under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 along partisan lines to raise the re-submission thresholds for motions that shareholders file on company ballots and to put new requirements on firms guiding investors how to vote in corporate elections.

Both shareholder proposals and proxy advisory firms are cornerstones of corporate governance and how investors hold management accountable.

Both changes will be subject to public comment.

Democrats Rob Jackson and Allison Herren Lee voted against the rules, saying they tilted the playing field toward corporate management.

==

Corporate Leaders to Trump: Withdrawing From the Paris Agreement Makes Bad Business Sense

12/19

ew

Trump says fulfilling the country's commitment to the Paris climate agreement would be bad news for the U.S. economy, but the growing tally of business leaders pledging to take action anyway suggests otherwise. These businesspeople understand that while climate action costs money, climate change costs far more.

More than 2,200 businesses and investors have signed on to the "We Are Still In" pledge — even as Trump moves ever-closer to official U.S. withdrawal. The group standing behind the 2015 climate deal represents a whopping 70 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), and thousands more have joined other corporate climate and sustainability programs, such as the WeMean Business coalition and the Science-Based Targets Initiatives.

And while many corporations are still contending with their own outsize roles in creating the climate crisis (along with other environmental and social woes), many are already on their way to implementing the changes necessary to meet their carbon emissions targets.

Tech superpower Apple, for instance, is now running all of its facilities in 43 countries on 100 percent clean energy — in some cases sending surplus energy from its solar farms back to the local grid. Apple is also securing commitments from its suppliers to switch to renewables. Over in the fashion industry, sneaker giant Nike has committed to diverting 99 percent of its footwear manufacturing waste from landfills, making certain products with recycled plastic bottles, and reducing carbon emissions across its global supply chain by 30 percent by 2030.

Such commitments multiply daily, even as the Trump administration's rollbacks of the most important federal climate policies continue try to steer America in a different direction: backwards. Here are just a few of the reasons companies are opting to move forward instead.

Bottom Lines

Trump often says that the Paris Agreement "punishes" the U.S., particularly its businesses, but he outright ignores the far more destructive economic force of climate change. According to a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, a business-as-usual high-emissions scenario (like the one Trump touts) could result in a 7.2 percent drop in GDP per capita worldwide by the end of the century. Disruptions to global supply chains are already upon us, and as carbon pollution continues to collect in our atmosphere, more will come. Experts predict far-reaching impacts to the infrastructure that supports nearly all businesses, such as extreme weather affecting the transportation of raw goods and rising sea levels swamping the fiber-optic cables essential to the internet.

Of course, climate change will also jeopardize specific industries, such as winter sports (see: decreases in snowfall), and products, like your morning cup of coffee. In fact, it's little wonder that Starbucks has also signed on to We Are Still In. Climate change may bring increasingly irregular growing seasons (and skyrocketing prices) for coffee beans on top of increased sick days for field workers exposed to extreme heat. Such concerns would apply to almost any business dependent on either agriculture or a global workforce, or both. According to a 2011 National Academy of Sciences report, for every additional degree Celsius that the planet warms, we can expect a 5 to 15 percent reduction in total crop yield.

Big Penance

While many corporations have spewed more than their fair share of carbon pollution, several are now taking the opportunity to have a supersize impact on emissions reductions. Look at the world's two biggest retailers: Amazon and Walmart. Amazon says it will go carbon neutral by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris goals, and recently made moves to start transitioning its fleet of delivery trucks to electric vehicles. Soon after Trump took office, Walmart announced its Project Gigaton initiative, which set the ambitious goal of lowering the company's global carbon emissions — by pressing for action on the part of its suppliers — by one billion metric tons before 2030. Walmart has since reported that it's on track to meet its goal, which is no small feat: the entire U.S. emitted 6.5 billion metric tons of carbon in 2017.

Market Trends

Climate action is no longer seen as the enemy of economic progress. While the clean energy industry has known this for a while, the notion is (finally) catching on in other corners of the economy — and most excitingly it's creating opportunities for market-disrupting innovation.

Take electric vehicles (EVs). While Trump fights the auto industry's progress in manufacturing cleaner cars and trucks, countries such as China are investing in zero-emission vehicle technology at warp speed. According to a recent report by JP Morgan Research, China is expected to account for nearly 60 percent of all global EV sales by next year, and many Chinese businesses (the ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing, for example) are eager to profit while they help the world progress. The same goes for the folks behind other innovations — like plant-based faux meats, and energy-efficient fabrics made from coffee grounds, and petroleum-free plastics, and delivery vans fueled by food waste and ... you get the idea. A poll by the data firm Nielsen showed that 81 percent of consumers feel strongly that companies should help improve the environment. The sustainability economy is booming — and climate-conscious Gen Z'ers and millennials are ready to buy accordingly.

Consumer Trust

At their best, corporate climate pledges open business practices up to public accountability and mark a first step toward real-life emissions cuts. At their worst, they provide a greenwashed shield behind which polluting companies can hide their status quo behaviors. Procter & Gamble, for one, boasts about the forest-friendly sourcing and certifications of its Charmin toilet paper (the company has no climate pledges to speak of). But in practice, P&G has been clear-cutting one of the world's most important carbon sinks, Canada's boreal forest, in the name of softer TP.

We are all in this climate crisis together, which is why it's crucial to make sure our leaders and retailers keep their promises. Presidents have power, but so do corporations. Corporations have power, but so do consumers.

Reposted with permission from onEarth.

==

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/how-corporations-and-their-apologists-blew-up-the-new-deal-order-and-pillaged-the-middle-class/

How corporations and their apologists blew up the New Deal order and pillaged the middle class.

==

===

https://www.whitepinepictures.com/the-corporate-coup-dtat

A democracy should protect its citizens, especially the most vulnerable among them, but increasingly the United States is failing to do so. This investigative and persuasive documentary blends the insights of philosophers, authors and journalists with the experiences of citizens of the Rust Belt in the U.S. Midwest, where the steel industry once flourished, but where closures and outsourcing have left urban areas desolate and hopeless. It’s here that Donald Trump finds some of his most fervent supporters, as he’s not considered part of the hated Washington establishment.

Journalist Chris Hedges, argues that the crisis predates Donald Trump’s election by many years. Like his source of inspiration, the Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul, Hedges regards Trump as the symptom rather than the disease. Decades ago, U.S. democracy began selling its soul to big corporations. Lobbyists and corporatism took control in Washington, gradually undermining the will of the people. Journalist Naomi Klein recently described Trump’s administration as a “corporate coup d’état”. Hedges and Ralston Saul argue that the real coup took place long before.

Featuring: Chris Hedges, John Ralston Saul, Cornel West, Sarah Jaffe, Lee Fang, Maude Barlow, Phillip Martin

==

omg offshore

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/trumps-treasury-dept-pushes-plot-to-fan-the-flames-of-corporate-tax-dodging/

no lnx

Trump’s Treasury Dept. pushes plot to fan the flames of corporate tax dodging

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams November 1, 2019

President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department on Thursday took the first step toward eliminating remaining regulations designed to prevent corporations from avoiding U.S. taxes by storing profits overseas, a move critics decried as yet another harmful giveaway to big business.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, said in a statement that the 2017 GOP tax law—which disproportionately benefited the rich—rendered Obama-era rules against offshore tax avoidance “obsolete” by significantly reducing the corporate tax rate.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, disagreed with Mnuchin’s assessment, warning in a statement that the Treasury Department’s plan “only provides an opening for corporations to again dodge their taxes.”

“The corporations that got a massive taxpayer handout are getting another gift from Donald Trump,” said Wyden. “The Obama administration had essentially shut down inversion—transactions whose only purpose is to help big multinational corporations move overseas to avoid paying taxes.”

According to Bloomberg, the Treasury Department’s proposal, detailed in a policy guidance (pdf) released Thursday, “could make it easier for firms to use accounting tactics to minimize their U.S. earnings and inflate their foreign profits, which are frequently taxed at rates lower than the current 21 percent domestic corporate levy.”

“The existing regulations were aimed at stopping American companies from moving their headquarters to a lower-tax country, a process known as a corporate inversion,” noted Bloomberg.

Contrary to Mnuchin’s claim that the GOP’s 2017 tax law eliminated incentives for corporations to shift profits overseas, advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers have argued the law made it easier for businesses to avoid U.S. taxes.

“The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will allow companies to avoid taxes on $235 billion in profits each year going forward,” a coalition of more than 50 progressive organizations led by Americans for Tax Fairness wrote in a letter (pdf) to Congress last May.

“Moreover, the law created new incentives for multinational corporations to move their real operations offshore,” the groups said. “The law guarantees that U.S. multinational corporations will pay at most one-half the domestic tax rate on their offshore earnings, with many companies paying little or nothing in taxes on these earnings.”

==

==

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/vast-majority-of-corporate-crimes-not-prosecuted-and-not-punished/

Vast Majority of Corporate Crimes Not Prosecuted and Not Punished

By Editor Filed in Uncategorized August 7th, 2019 @ 5:28 pm

The vast majority of corporate crime is not referred for prosecution.

The vast majority of corporations referred for prosecution are not punished.

And substantially all punished corporations are sanctioned in ways that raise fundamental questions.

That’s the somber assessment of over forty years of corporate crime in a paper titled – Prosecution and Punishment of Corporate Criminality by Mihailis E. Diamantis of the University of Iowa College of Law and William S. Laufer of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School.

“Corporate prosecutions and convictions are rare events under state and federal criminal law,” Diamantis and Laufer write. “This is reflected in the ‘dark figure’ of corporate crime or the difference between estimates of wrongdoing in corporations and official data. From millions of corporations and millions of reports of wrongdoing come a very modest number of referrals of corporations for prosecution and, ultimately, very few convictions. Lack of access to federal and state corporate crime data, admittedly, frustrates efforts to offer more precise estimates of the dark figure.”

“To compound gaps in our understanding of corporate victimization and the extent of the government’s response to corporate wrongdoing, there is no empirical or theoretical subfield of corporate victimology. The study of corporate victimology would likely reveal unrecognized or under-recognized layers of victimization across a wide spectrum of stakeholders – reset our perception of corporate culpability in relation to possible prosecutions, and correct the misperception that corporate wrongs are somehow less-than-serious wrongs.”

“In the absence of a corporate victimology, there is a far greater likelihood that criminal justice priorities, resources, and expenditures will be mismeasured. More important, the exercise of prosecutorial and sentencing discretion may be affected by what is not known about the harm coming from the corporate wrong.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

“The present shortcomings and challenges with the prosecution and punishment of corporate criminality – from the ‘compliance game’ to ignorance about what effective compliance looks like – are not baked into the logic of this corner of criminal law,” Diamantis and Laufer write. “Games between and among stakeholders may be addressed. Effective compliance is possible. And the other problems may have remedies lurking just beyond reach.”

“We may not be able to see the path that leads beyond the present roadblocks because our paradigms for thinking have become stale. We tend to address and readdress the same familiar problems using variations on some very familiar themes. The law’s central understanding of what effective compliance means still comes from the highly generalized definition in the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, now over a quarter century old. The dominant frameworks for evaluating corporate criminal policy are the ancient purposes of retribution and deterrence.”

“New technologies and fresh perspectives are in sight and hold the promise of challenging well-worn dialectics. Big data and artificial intelligence are powerful tools that could transform not only how compliance works, but what it means.”

“Enthusiasm in individual criminal justice for constructive approaches to punishment—from character theory to restorative justice – could offer creative new approaches for addressing corporate misconduct. Even if these and related developments do not hold all the answers, they should infuse the continued debate over corporate prosecution and punishment with some inspiration.”

==

CCR

no lnx

Corporate Crime Escape Hatch: The Algorithm Did It

By Editor Filed in Uncategorized August 7th, 2019 @ 12:23 pm

For centuries, the law has defined corporate misconduct in terms of employee misconduct. The legal doctrine for attributing mental states to corporations – respondeat superior – defines corporate mental states in terms of employee mental states.

Mihailis Diamantis

Iowa College of Law

Iowa City, Iowa

But algorithms may soon replace employees as the leading cause of corporate harm.

When corporations using algorithms to break the law, current liability doctrines do not apply.

Unless the law adapts, corporations will become increasingly immune to civil and criminal liability as they transfer responsibility from employees to algorithms.

That’s according to a new paper titled – The Extended Corporate Mind: When Corporations Use AI to Break the Law by Mihailis E. Diamantis, an associate professor of law at the University of Iowa College of Law.

The paper examines the growing doctrinal gap left by what Diamantis calls “algorithmic corporate misconduct.”

“To hold corporations accountable, the law must sometimes treat them as if they ‘know’ information stored on their servers and ‘intend’ decisions reached by their automated systems. Cognitive science and the philosophy of mind offer a path forward,” Diamantis writes. “The ‘extended mind thesis’ complicates traditional views about the physical boundaries of the mind. The thesis states that the mind encompasses any system that sufficiently assists thought – by facilitating recall or enhancing decision-making. For natural people, the thesis implies that minds can extend beyond the brain to include external cognitive aids, like rolodexes and calculators.”

Diamantis adapts the extended mind thesis to corporate law. He puts forward a doctrinal framework for extending the corporate mind to the algorithms that are increasingly integral to corporate thought.

“The law needs such an innovation if it is to hold future corporations to account for their most serious harms,” Diamantis writes.

==

same day, monsanto has a fusion ctr, paid ggl to promote hits on rtk activists DN

==...The vast majority of corporate crime is not referred for prosecution.

The vast majority of corporations referred for prosecution are not punished.

And substantially all punished corporations are sanctioned in ways that raise fundamental questions.

That’s the somber assessment of over forty years of corporate crime in a paper titled – Prosecution and Punishment of Corporate Criminality by Mihailis E. Diamantis of the University of Iowa College of Law and William S. Laufer of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School.

“Corporate prosecutions and convictions are rare events under state and federal criminal law,” Diamantis and Laufer write. “This is reflected in the ‘dark figure’ of corporate crime or the difference between estimates of wrongdoing in corporations and official data. From millions of corporations and millions of reports of wrongdoing come a very modest number of referrals of corporations for prosecution and, ultimately, very few convictions. Lack of access to federal and state corporate crime data, admittedly, frustrates efforts to offer more precise estimates of the dark figure.”

“To compound gaps in our understanding of corporate victimization and the extent of the government’s response to corporate wrongdoing, there is no empirical or theoretical subfield of corporate victimology. The study of corporate victimology would likely reveal unrecognized or under-recognized layers of victimization across a wide spectrum of stakeholders – reset our perception of corporate culpability in relation to possible prosecutions, and correct the misperception that corporate wrongs are somehow less-than-serious wrongs.”

“In the absence of a corporate victimology, there is a far greater likelihood that criminal justice priorities, resources, and expenditures will be mismeasured. More important, the exercise of prosecutorial and sentencing discretion may be affected by what is not known about the harm coming from the corporate wrong.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

“The present shortcomings and challenges with the prosecution and punishment of corporate criminality – from the ‘compliance game’ to ignorance about what effective compliance looks like – are not baked into the logic of this corner of criminal law,” Diamantis and Laufer write. “Games between and among stakeholders may be addressed. Effective compliance is possible. And the other problems may have remedies lurking just beyond reach.”

“We may not be able to see the path that leads beyond the present roadblocks because our paradigms for thinking have become stale. We tend to address and readdress the same familiar problems using variations on some very familiar themes. The law’s central understanding of what effective compliance means still comes from the highly generalized definition in the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, now over a quarter century old. The dominant frameworks for evaluating corporate criminal policy are the ancient purposes of retribution and deterrence.”

“New technologies and fresh perspectives are in sight and hold the promise of challenging well-worn dialectics. Big data and artificial intelligence are powerful tools that could transform not only how compliance works, but what it means.”

“Enthusiasm in individual criminal justice for constructive approaches to punishment—from character theory to restorative justice – could offer creative new approaches for addressing corporate misconduct. Even if these and related developments do not hold all the answers, they should infuse the continued debate over corporate prosecution and punishment with some inspiration.”

===

https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/08/fbi-oregon-anti-pipeline-jordan-cove-activists

no lnx

Law enforcement groups, including the FBI, have been monitoring opponents of a natural gas infrastructure project in Oregon and circulated intelligence to an email list that included a Republican-aligned anti-environmental PR operative, emails obtained by the Guardian show.

The South Western Oregon Joint Task Force (SWOJTF) and its members were monitoring opponents of the Jordan Cove energy project, a proposal by the Canadian energy company Pembina to build the first-ever liquefied natural gas export terminal on the US west coast, as well as a new 232-mile pipeline that would carry fracked natural gas to the port of Coos Bay.

The Trump administration has named Jordan Cove as one of its highest-priority infrastructure projects. Jordan Cove opponents have raised concerns about the project’s significant environmental impacts, impacts on public lands, indigenous rights and climate change.

The emails, obtained via open records requests, reflect the increased scrutiny and surveillance to which law enforcement agencies are often subjecting indigenous and environmental groups, activists say.

'Protesters as terrorists': growing number of states turn anti-pipeline activism into a crime

Read more

It also comes amid an uptick in civil disobedience and direct actions challenging fossil fuel infrastructure projects – particularly in the wake of the Native American-led struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017. They also reflect a nationwide tendency for rightwing partisans, law enforcement agencies and the fossil fuel industry to ally with one another in the suppression of such activities.

An email distribution list associated with the taskforce included addressees in the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Justice (DoJ), the National Forest Service (NFS), Oregon state police (OSP), and various Oregon municipal police and sheriffs departments. But some of its recipients are outside any government agency, most notably Mark Pfeifle, the CEO of the political consultancy Off The Record Strategies.

Pfeifle was previously a Bush administration PR adviser on national security. More recently, Pfeifle worked with law enforcement on a counter-information operation against the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters.

When contacted by telephone about the Jordan Cove project, Mr Pfeifle said “I just don’t have anything for you, I’m not up on it,” before ending the conversation.

Emails circulated on the SWOJTF email list include activists’ social media posts, emails and rally announcements.

Pfeifle appeared on the distribution list of a November 2018 email from the list’s apparent keeper, theCoos county deputy sheriff, Bryan Valencia, which described a recent protest action by Southern Oregon Rising Tide, a direct action climate justice group.

“These are thetactics that are currently being used to forcibly insert their narrative into the conversation,”Valencia wrote. He noted: “There has long been a call for a ‘Standing Rock’ action by the Klamath Tribe in Klamath county.”

Don Gentry, the chairman of the Klamath Tribes, said Valencia’s characterization is false – his tribe has never put out such a call. “We’re working through the readily available channels to get this project stopped,” Gentry said.

In January 2019, Valencia circulated information on Facebook event attendance to a smaller group of SWOJTF officers, related to an upcoming Oregon department of state lands hearing, to some members of the taskforce, despite stating there was a “lack of a criminal nexus”.

The Coos county sheriffs office (CCSO) public information officer, Gabriel Fabrizio, wrote in response to emailed questions that SWOJTF had been set up to “ensure a multi-agency approach to any and all contingencies”.

Fabrizio added: “As potential dangers to the safety of the citizens and businesses of the county are identified, we monitor groups as long as necessary to determine if they will become a danger to others. Once it’s determined a group has not or likely will not conduct criminal activity, we discontinue monitoring.”

He also wrote that “Mr Pfiefle has no relationship with the Coos county sheriff’s office or with the SWOJTF. He was involved with training that was presented by the National Sheriffs Association to emergency responders in Coos county.”

He also denied that SWOJTF had been engaged in surveillance. “Surveillance implies an active gathering of data and images, and any monitoring we have conducted has been passive, simply watching for information,” he said.

The records reveal the existence of other law enforcement intelligence activities related to monitoring the work of environmental groups.

In a November 2018 email to Valencia, a BLM law enforcement analyst noted her role in the “Forest Intelligence Group (FIG)” that is also tracking activists. “I appreciate anything you find, and I am glad to share likewise,” the analyst wrote.

Fabrizio said in an email response to questions that FIG “began its life as a timber investigators meeting in the mid eighties … It has been sharing information about activity including criminal activity in our regions forests since that time. The intent of the group is to identify activities that may require sharing of resources or have an impact across traditional jurisdictional lines.”

In a telephone interview, a spokesman for the US attorney in Oregon also confirmed the existence of another body mentioned in the emails: a “domestic terrorism working group”led by the assistant US attorney, Craig Gabriel, that meets “roughly quarterly” in Portland. He said that the group was mostly made up of federal agencies but included some local law enforcement.

“It’s really just to discuss any current issues in the domestic terrorism arena. This could be local issues, all the way up to international issues,” the spokesman said. He said protest movements would be “within the scope” of its discussions even if no criminal activity had occurred.

In another email exchange, an FBI agent, Michael Frost, offered “open source and social media training” to the Coos county sheriffs, writing to Valencia that “with the significant social media presence of the anti-pipeline individuals, I figured your office would be a good place to start”.

The flyer for the training promises law enforcement officers information on tracking individuals online while minimizing their “digital footprint”, and indicates that it would be hosted by yet another law enforcement “task force”: the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Portland.

A spokesperson for the FBI’s Portland field office said in an email: “The FBI does not comment on what may or may not be an ongoing investigation. However, it is important to note that the FBI can never initiate an investigation based solely on first amendment-protected activity.”

On the training session, the spokesperson said: “The FBI’s Portland field office regularly provides training to local law enforcement agencies. This training covers a wide range of law enforcement topics, includingappropriate and legal use of open source material in investigations.”

Fabrizio said that the offer of training had not been taken up.

Although Coos Bay is located more than 200 miles away from Portland, the Portland police bureau (PPB) officer Andrew Hearst is also part of the SWOJTF email list. Hearst told Valencia in January 2019: “As always if we hear anything about our people heading down to your area we will alert asap.”

Jordan Cove opponents expressed alarm upon learning about the level of scrutiny they are receiving from so many different law enforcement entities.

“It is outrageous that our Oregon public agencies are actually working to plan how to stifle the very southern Oregonians whose drinking water, property and communities are threatened by this project,” said Sylvia Mangan, a retired public health nurse who lives on one of the proposed pipeline routes.

Asked why Pfeifle was included in the distribution of intelligence on protest groups, Fabrizio wrote: “Open source information is posted on public forums and not considered sensitive.”

He added: “Anyone who may be affected by potential actions are involved as an effort in community outreach and according to the tenets of community policing.”

Pfeifle previously described his work with law enforcement at Standing Rock during a 2017 presentation to oil, gas and banking executives during a pipeline conference in Houston. “A lot of things that we were doing were being done to put a marker down for the protesters. And, ‘OK, if you’re going to go protest somewhere? There’s going to be consequences from it.’”

In an email comment, the ACLU of Oregon questioned the legality of the activities revealed in the emails.

“Monitoring and compiling information about Oregonians’ political or social views, activities, or associations violates Oregon law,” said the spokeswoman Sarah Armstrong.

Lauren Regan, the executive director of the Oregon-based Civil Liberties Defense Center, says the SWOJTF’s activities reflect a nationwide trend. “Police and corporations are working together to suppress movements against fossil fuels,” she said.

Holly Mills of Southern Oregon Rising Tide, a group regularly subjected to scrutiny in the records obtained by the Guardian, said: “We know that the state, police and corporations have often tried to stop movements like this one by using fear as a tactic and repressing dissent. We have prepared ourselves with this in mind, and we communicate on social media and over email with the assumption that cops might be reading.”

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A R sorkin

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/business/dealbook/corporate-governance-reform-ethics.html

sociopath

:{Andrew Ross Sorkin:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;text-size-adjust:100%;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline-block"):}:

Jamie Gamble spent most of his career as a partner at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, which counts virtually every major company in the United States — including Facebook, General Motors, Google and JPMorgan Chase — among its clients.

A longtime lawyer for the insurance giant American International Group, Mr. Gamble worked alongside Richard Beattie, Simpson Thacher’s chairman at the time, to advise A.I.G. during the financial crisis of 2008 and in the years of litigation that followed.

Mr. Gamble has had an epiphany since retiring nearly a decade ago that is so damning of his former life that it is likely to give his ex-partners a case of agita.

He has concluded that corporate executives — the people who hired him and that his firm sought to protect — “are legally obligated to act like sociopaths.”

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He made that determination about five years ago when he started to work on a novel that recently inspired him to compose a provocative essay elucidating what he calls, based on his firsthand experience, a “complex network of horribles” in corporate America. He recently shared a draft with a small number of colleagues, seeking their comments.

“The corporate entity is obligated to care only about itself and to define what is good as what makes it more money,” he writes in the essay. “Pretty close to a textbook case of antisocial personality disorder. And corporate persons are the most powerful people in our world.”

Mr. Gamble’s change of heart will not exactly come as a revelation to the increasingly vocal group of investors, politicians and even chief executives who are pushing companies to be more responsible and to focus on metrics like environmental sustainability and corporate governance rather than on simply maximizing profits.

But in the world of corporate lawyers — and the board governance experts among whom it is quietly getting attention — Mr. Gamble’s essay may be a watershed.

He doesn’t blame his former clients, exactly. He blames the law.

Perhaps most significantly, he has devised a provocative new governance rule that he believes will fix what ails corporate America, although he acknowledges in his essay that his idea “is likely to seem insane to senior corporate executives and boards of directors.”

Still, he says, “To everyone else it’s likely to seem far too small a change to make a big difference.”

Mr. Gamble’s proposal is this: that every company devise a set of ethical rules to be part of their bylaws, a move that would potentially open them up to shareholder lawsuits should they fail to stick to those rules.

*Companies, he suggests, should “adopt a binding set of ethical rules, approved by stockholders and addressing the key ethical dimensions of corporate life” including:

■ Their “relationships with employees.” 

■ Their “relationships with the communities in which they produce and sell.” 

■ Their “relationships with customers.” 

■ Their “effects on the environment.”

■ And their “effects on future generations.”*

Once the rules are in place, he writes, “any shareholder could sue the board of directors for violating the ethical rules — just as any shareholder can today sue the board of directors for violating the maximize rule.”

There is something rather elegant about Mr. Gamble’s concept.

Today, corporate directors’ decisions are measured — at least from a legal perspective — on whether they maximize shareholder value. When they stray from doing that in the short term, they are protected by the “business judgment rule” if they can show that whatever decisions they have made are geared toward maximizing value in the long term. It may be an oversimplification, but if they veer from seeking profits in the name of other stakeholders, shareholders may have a legal case against them. Nowhere in their responsibilities are they expected to consider any stakeholder but the company.

Adding a set of ethical principles to a company’s bylaws would mean that “the people charged with acting for the corporation will have to discuss how the corporation should act and will have to account in that discussion for how the corporation’s actions affect others,” Mr. Gamble writes. “They will have to make a conscience.”

His idea is not that different from one proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat and presidential contender, who typically sends shudders through the business community. Last year, Ms. Warren proposed that companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue be required to obtain a federal charter to be a United States corporation that obligates “company directors to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders.”

All of this may sound reasonable, but in fairness, I suggested to Mr. Gamble that his proposal could lead to a host of unintended consequences.

Given that there are already a growing number of do-gooder proxy contests and lawsuits grounded in little more than platitudes, I told him his idea was likely to mire companies in endless litigation (which might be good for lawyers).

He acknowledged the possibility, but he also insisted that “the ethics rules will work within an existing system that is highly deferential to management.” He also argued that “to overcome the business judgment rule in the context of an ethics case, a plaintiff would need to show ‘bad faith’ in legal terms.”

“That’s hard,” he added. “It will deter frivolous lawsuits.”

When I noted that companies could just enact ambiguous ethics polices to deter lawsuits, he dismissed the notion that shareholders, and even board members, would create rules just for show.

“It’s a mistake to see the benefits as one-sided,” he said. “Directors will not want to engage in a required process of ethics formation that is transparently a sham.”

Mr. Gamble believes that enshrining ethics in a company’s bylaws would actually reduce the number of proxy contests and lawsuits because, as he writes, “there would be a defined form of protest (an ethics derivative suit) and because the prior consideration of social concerns by the company would make it harder to portray the company as unfeeling and unreasonable.”

He said that so far he had received mostly positive feedback, with some people, including law students at Harvard and Stanford, telling him the ethics rule did not go far enough.

“All recognized that the politics of getting such a rule passed would be hard,” he said.

And how did he think his former clients would react? He has sent his essay to only a few.

“Most of my clients were smart and thoughtful people who see the failings of the economic system as well as its benefits,” he said. “I expect many will disagree with the idea. I don’t expect any will be offended.”

When I called Simpson Thacher’s current chairman, William R. Dougherty, he declined to comment directly on Mr. Gamble’s essay, saying only that “Jamie was a well-regarded, well-liked partner.”

Ultimately, Mr. Gamble’s proposal is a call to action, to persuade companies to behave not as sociopaths and have a bit more empathy.

“The fix I propose leaves the private islands of power private,” he said. “The only interference by government would be to require that the shareholders explicitly state what kind of person they want their corporation to be.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/investors-consumers-and-workers-are-changing-capitalism-for-the-better-by-demanding-companies-behave-more-responsibly/

no lnx

Investors, consumers and workers are changing capitalism for the better by demanding companies behave more responsibly

Written by The Conversation July 27, 2019

Capitalism’s days may be numbered – at least judging by recent polls.

A majority of millennials reject the economic system, while 55% of women aged 18 to 54 say they prefer socialism. More Democrats now have a positive view of socialism than capitalism.

One problem interpreting numbers like these is that there are many definitions of capitalism and socialism. More to the point, people seem to be thinking of a specific form of capitalism that deems the sole purpose of companies is to increase stock prices and enrich investors. Known as shareholder capitalism, it’s been the guiding light of American business for more than four decades.

As a scholar of socially responsible companies, however, I cannot help but notice a shift in corporate behavior in recent years. A new kind of capitalism seems to be emerging, one in which companies value communities, the environment and workers just as much as profits.

The purpose of business

Nearly 50 years ago, the economist Milton Friedman proclaimed that the sole purpose of a business is “to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”

Within a decade, Friedman’s claim became accepted wisdom in corporate boardrooms. The era of “shareholder primacy capitalism” had begun.

One result has been remarkable growth in the stock market. But critics argue companies and the “shareholder value theory” are also complicit in exacerbating many economic, social and environmental problems, such as income inequality and climate change.

Milton Friedman won prizes for his research on consumption analysis and monetary history.

They also note that putting profits first actually harms shareholders in the long run by encouraging managers to take actions that may eventually reduce earnings.

The rebellion

Many consumers, workers and socially conscious investors have also noticed these shortcomings and increased pressure on corporations to change.

For starters, more Americans no longer find it acceptable for companies to exclusively seek profits. A 2017 poll found that 78% of U.S. consumers want businesses to pursue social justice issues, while 76% said they would refuse to buy a product if the business supported an issue contrary to their beliefs. Almost half the respondents said they had already boycotted a product for that reason.

Workers increasingly expect their employers to share their values. A 2016 study found that most Americans – particularly millennials – consider a company’s social and environmental commitments when deciding where to work. Most would also be willing to take a pay cut in order to work for a “responsible” company – and are demanding their current employers behave that way.

For example, workers at online furniture company Wayfair recently walked out when they learned it had sent beds to detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border. More than 8,100 Amazon employees signed an open letter supporting a shareholder resolution urging the retailer to do more to address climate change.

Finally, investors are becoming more socially aware and putting more of their money behind businesses that behave in sustainable and responsive ways. At the beginning of 2018, portfolio managers held US$11.6 trillion in U.S. assets using environmental, social and governance criteria to guide their investments, up from $2.5 trillion in 2010.

Laurence Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, summed up the growing sentiment when he said, “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

The corporate response

Presumably realizing how important these constituencies are to their bottom lines, businesses are paying attention.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kroger, Walmart and L.L. Bean, for example, responded to growing concerns over mass shootings by restricting the sale of guns. Proctor and Gamble, a major sponsor for U.S. Soccer, expressed support for the quest of the women’s team for equal pay and donated $500,000 to help narrow the pay gap with men.

Airlines including American, United and Frontier refused to knowingly fly children separated from their parents at the border following outrage over the Trump administration’s policy. And even though Amazon shareholders rejected the worker-supported shareholder resolution described above, Amazon set stronger goals for reducing its carbon footprint after the resolution was introduced.

Unilever found that its ‘sustainable living’ brands such as Ben & Jerry’s are growing faster than its other products.

These actions have sometimes hurt the bottom line. The decision to restrict gun sales cost Dick’s Sporting Goods $150 million. Delta lost a $50 million tax break in Georgia after severing ties with the NRA.

But these and other companies didn’t back down. The CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods explained that when something is “to the detriment of the public, you have to stand up.”

Companies are also setting tougher social and environmental goals for themselves and then reporting their successes and failures. Tesla, Unilever, Nike and Whole Foods are among nine companies with annual revenues of at least $1 billion that “have sustainability or social good at their core.”

In 2018, 86% of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies reported on their environmental, social and governance performance and achievements, up from less than 20% in 2011.

And companies have found that putting more emphasis on social justice can pay off. Unilever, for example, said in 2017 that its “sustainable living” brands, such as Ben & Jerry’s, Dove and Hellmann’s, are growing much faster than its other brands. Companies with the best scores on their sustainability reports generally perform better financially than those with lower scores.

The end of shareholder capitalism?

Skeptics can be forgiven for believing these corporate “changes” are not real or are simply public relations stunts designed to appeal to a new generation.

Businesses can, of course, say they will be responsible citizens while doing the opposite. Few sustainability reports in the United States are externally audited, and the companies are asking us to take them at their word.

Even if they are well-meaning, intentions are not enough to create systemic change. A 2017 study showed that many companies with climate change goals actually scaled back their ambitions over time as the reality clashed with their lofty goals.

But businesses can’t afford to ignore their customers’ wishes. Nor can they ignore their workers in a tight labor market. And if they disregard socially responsible investors, they risk both losing out on important investments and facing shareholder resolutions that force change.

The shareholder value doctrine is not dead, but we are beginning to see major cracks in its armor. And as long as investors, customers and employees continue to push for more responsible behavior, you should expect to see those cracks grow.The Conversation

Elizabeth Schmidt, Professor of Practice, Nonprofit Organizations; Social & Environmental Enterprises, University of Massachusetts Amherst

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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https://www.vox.com/**2018/**10/3/17924014/california-women-corporate-boards-jerry-brown

Women are dramatically outnumbered on the boards of directors for the nation’s biggest companies. California just passed a law trying to change that.

On Sunday, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 826, which requires publicly held companies based in California to have a minimum of one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. From there, women’s representation will have to increase: By the end of July 2021, companies have to have at least two women on boards of five members and at least three women on boards with six or more.

The law would mean 684 women would be needed for just the boards of the publicly traded companies that rank among the nation’s 3,000 largest — plus many more for smaller companies, Annalisa Barrett, a clinical professor of finance at the University of San Diego’s School of Business, told the Los Angeles Times.

But it’s not clear that hundreds of women will actually join boards in the state. More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law. Critics point out it might not pass legal muster if challenged in the courts. There are questions about how many companies in California it would apply to at all.

Even Brown seemed skeptical about the law’s long-term prospects, acknowledging “serious legal concerns”: “I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation,” he wrote in an accompanying message upon signing the bill. “Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, DC — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message.”

As if to eliminate any doubt about the message he meant to send by signing the law, Brown referenced the US Senate Judiciary Committee on his statement.

Brown is likely sincere in his desire for more gender diversity, Loyola University law professor Jessica Levinson said. “If this were a month ago, I don’t think he would have been as eager to sign the bill,” she added. “But he has to continue to show California is the capitol of ‘the resistance.’”

Still, the bill — which mimics requirements that European countries have passed to increase women’s representation in business governance — has already drawn attention to women’s underrepresentation on corporate boards.

“If nothing else, what this law is doing is increasing the visibility and awareness on the issue itself and the importance, and that is a win in and of itself,” said Serena Fong, the vice president of strategic engagement at Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on promoting women in business.

The legislation requires companies to add women to their boards or pay a fine

One-quarter of the publicly traded companies headquartered in California don’t have any women on their boards, according to the bill’s authors, California state Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson and Senate President Toni Atkins, who are both Democrats.

Nationally, women on boards are dramatically underrepresented: According to Catalyst, women make up about 20 percent of S&P 500 board seats. There are 12 Fortune 500 companies with no women on their boards whatsoever, and the number of Fortune 500 CEOs dropped by 25 percent this year, from 32 to 24.

Evidence suggests that having more gender and racial diversity in the boardroom is good for business. A Peterson Institutestudy found that the presence of women on corporate boards and in the C-suite may contribute to firm performance, and that among profitable companies, a move from no women leaders to 30 percent representation was associated with a 15 percent jump in profit.

Credit Suisse estimates that companies with more gender diversity in the boardroom see better stock market returns and valuations, and McKinsey found that the most gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to outperform their peers.

Amanda Packel, co-director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, cautioned that these findings can be overstated — a correlation between diversity and business performance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean causation.

“Companies that are more prominent and have better performance might be under more scrutiny, or are more focused on the issue, or are able to attract more women or diverse directors,” she said. “That being said, there is certainly a business case in terms of the need for diversity on the board, whether you can prove it in a regression analysis or not.”

But evidence alone hasn’t been enough to get companies in California to act. In 2013, Jackson sponsored a nonbinding resolution urging each public company to increase the number of women on its boards by 2017. But by December 31, 2016,less than 20 percent of them had followed the recommendation.

Europe has required women on corporate boards

Some European countries, including Germany, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and France, have quotas and fines requiring to add women to their boards. Norway in 2008 required companies listed there to give at least 40 percent of their director seats to women.

Aaron Dhir, an associate professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and the author of a book about boardroom diversity, has studied the issue extensively.

“Like the California quota, the Norwegian quota was hugely controversial, but the directors who I interviewed, most of whom were initially against it, it was only after they saw the law in action and actually experienced it that they actually changed their minds and warmed to the quota,” he said.

Norwegian companies came to understand that sometimes such a blunt instrument is necessary, given implicit biases, and diversity improved the overall quality of governance and decision-making.

Women and people of color have different life experiences and perspectives than white men who typically comprise boards, and that makes a difference. Quotas force companies to look outside of the normal places for diverse candidates who might not have the typical background for such a position.

“Companies expanded their one-dimensional picture of what a qualified board member should be,” Dhir said.

The bill is controversial — and it might not hold up in court

Because so many companies are headquartered in California — 377 of the largest 3,000 publicly held companies in the US are located there — the bill could make a difference if companies comply. But it could also face legal challenges.

More than 30 business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, oppose the law, according to the LA Times. The businesses argue that the law will “displace an existing member of the board of directors solely on the basis of gender” and that it focuses too narrowly only on gender instead of other aspects of diversity, including race and sexual orientation.

Successful equal protection challenges under the US and California constitutions could nullify the law: The government would have to prove not only that there is disparity in board representation among men and women but also that such a divide is a sufficient reason to create a special law for women.

“It makes a categorization based on gender, which is subject to increased scrutiny if the law is challenged, and it’s not 100 percent clear how that would play out,” Packel, from Stanford, said. “The state would have to meet a burden in terms of showing the reason that legislation is needed and why this methodology is necessary.”

There are also questions about whether it will apply to companies that are headquartered in California but incorporated elsewhere. (Most US companies are incorporated in Delaware for tax reasons.)

The “internal affairs doctrine” ensures the state in which a company is incorporated governs issues such as voting rights, dividends, and investor relations,Joseph Grundfest, a Stanford University law professor and former commissioner for the Securities and Exchange Commission, argued a recent paper outlining the legal case against the bill. That would limit the law’s application to just 72 corporations headquartered and chartered in California.

Most of those companies already comply with the bill’s mandates. But one doesn’t: Apple, which has two women on its eight-member board. Apple is one of the most recognized brands in the world and became the first $1 trillion publicly traded company in the US. Adding more diversity to its board would not be insignificant.

Still, if the law does stand, there is also a chance that companies will just pay the fine and move on — a few hundred thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for a lot of companies, particularly Apple.

“I do think for big companies, it could be like any other fine, where it’s just the cost of doing business,” Levinson said. “But for smaller companies, this is a big hit.”

If we wait for the market to just figure this out, we’ll be waiting a while

Waiting for boardrooms to eventually become diverse will take a long time: the Government Accountability Office in 2016 estimated that women in S&P 1500 companies will reach parity with men in 40 years.

Grundfest argues that shareholder activism, not a state requirement, is the way to get more women on boards. Essentially, that means big funds insisting the companies they invest in having diverse boards, engaging with companies to increase diversity, and potentially withholding votes.

Levinson, from Loyola, said the California law is “government overreach” and what matters more is corporate culture. “It feels like kind of a sledge hammer when you actually need a thousand tiny little stitches,” she said.

There are some institutions that have taken more of an interest in diversity as of late, including pension funds CalPERS and CalSTRS and investment giants State Street and BlackRock. And the #MeToo movement has also brought attention to the issue of women in corporate America.

“The bottom line is, we need to make [board diversity] a reality, and the only way you make it a reality is if the marketplace demands it,” David Katz, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City, said.

Still, waiting for the markets to come around and corporate culture to change isn’t exactly a satisfying answer for women who want more equal representation now, not when they’re old or dead. The fact that women need to make an evidence-based case for their inclusion on boards, in some ways, proves the point.

Nobody asks the opposite question, said Fong, the Catalyst vice president: “Where is the business case for keeping a board all white and all male?”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/upshot/california-banning-soda-taxes-a-new-industry-strategy-is-stunning-some-lawmakers.html

June 27, 2018

For years, the soda industry had an ironclad strategy when a city wanted to enact a soda tax:

Spend a lot of money, rally local businesses, and shoot it down.

That strategy worked again and again, until it didn’t. In 2014, Berkeley, Calif., passed the nation’s first tax on sugary drinks, which have been linked to heart disease, obesity and tooth decay. Since then, eight communities, including three more cities in California, enacted similar bills.

Now the beverage industry has a new approach. Instead of fighting the ordinances city by city, it is turning to states, trying to pass laws preventing any local governments from taxing their products.

In California, the legislature passed a bill Thursday that will pre-empt any new local beverage or food taxes for 12 years. Arizona and Michigan have passed similar laws. In Oregon, the state’s grocers have collected enough signatures to bring a ballot initiative barring any taxes on grocery items. And legislators are considering pre-emption bills in other states, including Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Washington.

“It’s a little bit like, instead of playing a game of whack-a-mole, you could just put a sheet of plywood over all the holes,” said Franco Ripple, a spokesman for the Campaign to Defend Local Solutions, a group that was founded last year to oppose state laws that limit local autonomy.

The beverage industry says the statewide measures are an appropriate way to protect local businesses and consumers from higher taxes. “People across the country are taxed enough, and they can’t afford new taxes on what they eat and drink,” said William Dermody, the vice president for media and public affairs at the American Beverage Association, an industry trade group.

In California, the arrival of the bill to pre-empt soda taxes, which was championed by the soda industry and introduced over the weekend, came as a shock to public health advocates and many state lawmakers. The state has passed more soda taxes than any other, shepherded by progressive lawmakers who see them as a source of revenue for schools and public services and a tool to fight obesity and diabetes. Scott Wiener, a state senator who represents San Francisco and parts of San Mateo County, said the beverage industry had successfully held California “hostage.”

Bill Monning, the Senate majority leader, was one of a handful of Democrats who voted against the bill. He called its passage “unprecedented” and said it would stop cities and counties “from being able to take steps to protect the health of their residents.” But he also said that state lawmakers would redouble their efforts to curb consumption of sugary drinks. He pointed out that the Senate health committee had just voted in favor of a bill that would require warning labels on sugary drinks indicating that they contribute to various health problems.

“It’s a sad day for democracy in California,” he said. “But ever the optimist I think that the outrage of Big Soda blackmailing the state legislature and the people of California is going to boomerang.”

Beverage companies spent at least $7 million to get an initiative on the ballot this November that would have prevented local communities from raising taxes without approval from two-thirds of voters or an elected body, rather than a simple majority. Such a change would have made it much more difficult for localities to pay for police, fire, transit and other public services.

According to several state senators, the industry then went to lawmakers in Sacramento with a proposal: Pass a bill banning soda and food taxes, and the industry would drop its November ballot initiative.

“They sent us a ransom note that they will drop this horrible ballot measure if we put a 12-year moratorium on local soda taxes,” said Mr. Wiener, who has long supported soda taxes and voted against the bill that now bars them. “It’s a classic case of picking your poison. The soda industry has gone completely rogue.”

Several top lawmakers said they opposed the measure banning soft drink taxes, known as Senate Bill 872, but many felt obliged to support it because they were so worried about the effects of the broader ballot initiative.

Nancy Skinner, a state senator who represents Richmond, Calif., as well as three cities that passed soda taxes in 2016, voted against the measure but said she recognized that her colleagues who supported it were in a bind. The law will not overturn soda taxes enacted before 2018, but it will prevent any new ones, including a soda tax on the ballot later this year in Richmond. “It is totally wrong to deny the residents of Richmond a vote,” she said.

Gov. Jerry Brown avoided taking a position on the bill until Thursday but has now signed it into law. Critics of the bill pointed to a photo that shows him posing with executives from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and the American Beverage Association at a recent private dinner at the governor’s mansion. The governor’s spokesman said the meeting was unrelated to the soda tax measure.

The push for the pre-emption law began to materialize this year when an industry-financed group, the California Business Roundtable, started collecting signatures for the ballot initiative making local tax increases harder. The American Beverage Association California PAC contributed heavily to the effort, raising $6 million from Coke and Pepsi, $1 million from Dr Pepper Snapple and $100,000 from Red Bull.

The deal, reported by The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, which called it “a shakedown,” provoked a fierce outcry  across the state and the country. The American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society and more than 20 other groups issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling on Mr. Brown to oppose it and chiding the soda industry for “resorting to backroom deals and underhanded efforts to preserve its profits.”

The beverage association, which supported the California legislation, said its turn to pre-emption simply reflected its view that taxes on drinks represented an unfair burden — not just on them, but on retailers, bottlers, shipping companies and consumers.

Mr. Dermody noted that, in several states, the pre-emption bills are backed by a coalition of business interests, including grocery stores, and, in some cases, labor unions.

The California measure is part of a broader national strategy by the beverage industry to head off local soda taxes, which have passed in eight communities. Berkeley’s passage of a major soda tax paved the way for other cities to act. Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Calif., and the county that includes Chicago  imposed their own such measures in 2016, followed by Seattle in 2017. The soda industry spent at least $38 million fighting the taxesin 2016, which were backed by public health advocates and the billionaires Laura and John Arnold and Michael R. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, who contributed $20 million to the Bay Area soda tax campaign.

The experience of the places that adopted soda taxes has been mixed. Research in Berkeley, Philadelphia and Mexico, which has a similar tax, shows that the measures appear to increase beverage prices and reduce sugary drink sales.

But there has been backlash. Cook County in Illinois repealed its tax in the face of voter complaints and industry pressure. And Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia has had to back away from his initial claims that beverage tax revenue would provide enough money to pay for a universal prekindergarten program for the city, as revenue has come in below projections. Definitive evidence about public health effects of the bills is still a long way off.

The beverage companies have borrowed a tactic from the tobacco industry, which used state pre-emption laws in the 1980s to ban cigarette taxes and other municipal antismoking ordinances. Republican-controlled state legislatures have also increasingly used state pre-emption laws to prevent cities and towns from adopting a wide range of local measures, including anti-discrimination laws, bans on natural gas fracking, higher minimum wages, and restrictions on the use of plastic bags.

“The irony is that the soda companies screamed very loudly about government overreach when soda taxes began to get passed,” said Kelly Brownell, the dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. “But now they are looking for the ultimate government overreach when it works in their favor.”

Anahad O’Connor is a staff reporter covering health, science, nutrition and other topics. He is also a bestselling author of consumer health books such as “Never Shower in a Thunderstorm” and “The 10 Things You Need to Eat.”

Margot Sanger-Katz is a domestic correspondent and writes about health care for The Upshot. She was previously a reporter at National Journal and...

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https://theconversation.com/corporate-boards-are-supposed-to-oversee-companies-but-often-turn-a-blind-eye-118162

A lot of giant companies are getting into big trouble these days.

When Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killing a total of 346 people in October 2018 and March 2019, the disasters raised serious questions about the safety of the aviation leader’s anti-stall system.

When some 5,000 Wells Fargo employees fraudulently opened over 1 million bank and credit card accounts, it had to pay billions in penalties and fines.

Then there’s Tesla founder Elon Musk, who tweeted about having “funding secured” to take the publicly traded electric automaker and solar energy company private in August 2018. The Securities and Exchange Commission a month later fined Musk and Tesla US$20 million each for making misleading statements that could manipulate the stock market.

In each case, I wondered: Why didn’t anyone on their boards intervene before it was too late?

I’ve researched corporate boards for more than 15 years. Seeing these problems reminded me that boards of directors often fail to act in time to protect brands, prevent harm to the public and safeguard investors. What’s more, there are few if any consequences for their inaction, especially for independent directors who don’t hold executive positions in the firms.

What boards do

Boeing, Wells Fargo and Tesla are all publicly traded corporations – meaning that they have sold shares to the public. That means they are legally bound to follow rules established by the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.

In addition, they must have a board of directors whose members must follow their own bylaws for board structure, operations and ethics as they exercise their managerial and strategic responsibilities.

Corporate boards hire and fire chief executive officers and monitor their performance and develop succession plans in case the CEO falters, quits or dies. Boards also work closely with the company’s leaders on decisions that promote the company’s long-term success, such as budgeting and personnel management.

Boards are also supposed to set the appropriate tone and cultivate a corporate culture.

The average U.S. corporate board has nine members, but board sizes range from three to more than 30. Directors are, at least technically, elected by shareholders and have what’s known as a fiduciary duty to act on behalf of anyone who owns the company’s stock.

They are supposed to ensure that operations run smoothly, profitably and without any wrongdoing. Directors are supposed to be selected because they can help the business, but it’s often a question of who they know. In practice, directors were traditionally very closely connected to one another, often serving on one another’s boards.

Most board members are paid. At public companies, their annual compensation typically amounts to around $260,000 for a part-time job. Boeing’s directors earned between $315,000 and $371,000 in 2018.

Because their obligations can occupy only a few hours at a stretch, the time commitment is hard to measure. Some common estimates range from eight to 33 days of service a year.

‘No tools’

Many of Boeing’s board members had extensive experience in aviation, related industries and government. Former Boeing board members who asked for anonymity have told The Washington Post that the board considered “safety was just a given” and that “the board doesn’t have any tools to oversee” safety.

But in contrast to other corporations supplying products and services that depend on safety, Boeing’s corporate governance guidelines do not even mention that word. As Boeing’s success truly depends on its safety record, I believe its board should have been held more accountable for safety and actively appointed safety experts to the board.

Consequences

The Federal Reserve cracked down on Wells Fargo to punish it for a lack of oversight following the fake accounts scandal. The Fed demanded that the bank replace four board members, three of whom had been on board for more than 10 years.

Tesla’s board expressed confidence in Musk after his tweet and other bizarre behavior, such as indicating he was drinking whiskey and getting high during a podcast and telling investors and analysts that their “boring, bonehead questions are not cool” during an conference call.

When the SEC fined Musk and Tesla, it also ordered him to stop chairing the board for at least three years. Robyn Ault, an independent member of the board of directors with significant experience in the auto and technology industries, replaced Musk as chair. But Tesla also added two new directors who are Musk’s close friends.

That hardly offers assurance that the board is going to become independent enough to sniff out problems and demand action at a time when the company faces a rising number of safety concerns for drivers and workers alike.

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to step up its oversight of Boeing, starting in July 2019. It remains unclear what steps other government agencies besides the FAA will take to discipline the aircraft manufacturer.

Shirking responsibilities

Perhaps the clearest case of the disasters that await when board members shirk their responsibilities is Enron, the energy company that collapsed in 2001. Enron’s board voted twice to waive the corporation’s ethical code to allow then-Chief Financial Officer Andrew S. Fastow to conduct complex transactions that contributed to the company’s demise.

Even though Enron’s directors failed at their missions most suffered no serious consequences. The only Enron board member who served time behind bars was also one of its executives: CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who completed his prison sentence in 2019. Another, Enron founder Ken Lay, died of a heart attack in 2006 while awaiting what might have been a life sentence.

The only punishment for the rest of Enron’s board was being largely banished from corporate America. As of 2019, based on what I found by searching board data, only one of Enron’s 16 directors still sits on a corporate board. Herbert S. Winokur Jr. is on the board of Nano Terra, a government and corporate contractor that engineers nanomaterials.

I know of only one case where corporate board members have served time and it involved an Icelandic bank in the wake of that country’s banking crisis. To me, it seems clear that greater accountability is warranted in the United States and everywhere else.

*:{

}:*

===https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23052019/carbon-pricing-microsoft-pepsi-stonyfield-corporate-lobbying-congress-climate-change-solutions

An epic quest loomed Wednesday before the largest gathering of business leaders in a decade to advocate for climate action on Capitol Hill.

Could they find a single Republican in the U.S. Senate to take up the cause of carbon pricing?

The answer appeared to be: "Not yet."

Officials from Microsoft, Nike, Pepsi, eBay, Exelon, Gap, Levi's, Mars and Tesla were among more than 75 business leaders making the case for a national price on carbon. They scheduled 80 meetings with lawmakers and staff, half of them with Republicans. Lawmakers and their aides ducked behind closed doors to confer with members of the delegation throughout the day.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who introduced bipartisan carbon tax legislation in the last Congress and would like to do so again, set up one roundtable meeting between his colleagues and six CEOs with a ground rule that he wouldn't name which members of Congress came to hear the pitch. (The bill he introduced last session put a fee on emissions of greenhouse gases and paid the revenues back to the public as a so-called "dividend.")

"By offering an invitation to come have an off-the-record conversation with CEOs, I was partly recognizing that it is politically challenging or sensitive to have conservative Republicans in a room talking about a price on carbon," Coons said. "And I'm trying to find a way to move that conversation forward."

One Republican who is seen by some as a hope for GOP climate leadership did stop and speak briefly with a reporter outside the door on his way out of a half-hour session with CEOs.

"I think we're a long way from legislation of that character at this stage," said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) of their plea for congressional action.

Although Romney maintained a skeptical stance on climate during his 2012 presidential run, his more recent statements show openness to addressing climate change—including a 2017 Tweetpraising the carbon fee-and-dividend proposal by the Climate Leadership Council, a coalition of businesses and environmental groups. But Romney, who represents astate where coal is the state rock,was not ready to commit to any view on what Congress should be doing.

"They made a number of important points about creating incentives for the various industries to consider a carbon-friendly approach as opposed to a less carbon-friendly approach, and creating pricing mechanisms that would encourage them to emit less carbon," Romney said.

Climate Reports, Polls and a Republican Shift

The companies lobbying for carbon pricing together represented combined annual revenues of more than $2.5 trillion, according to the sustainability nonprofit group Ceres, which helped organizing the lobbying effort. Boston-based Ceres works with investors and companies to build networks of leaders on climate issues.

Dawn Martin, executive vice president of Ceres, said the business members of its policy network began pushing for the idea of a group lobbying effort on Capitol Hill after back-to-back climate science reports last fall—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 1.5 degrees report and the Fourth National Climate Assessment—issued stark warnings about the need to rein in greenhouse gases quickly.

"It's been a game-changer for people," said Martin. And while there isn't a GOP standard-bearer in Congress on carbon pricing, Martin said she has seen a shift.

"To have Republicans saying, 'We get it, but it's the wrong solution'—at least they get it now," she said. "And that has happened relatively overnight."

That was also the finding of a national survey released earlier this week by the GOP polling firm Luntz Global. The surveyfound that by a margin of 8 to 1, U.S. voters are more worried about climate today than they were a year ago. Luntz found majority support across party lines for the carbon fee-and-dividend proposal of the Climate Leadership Council, which commissioned the survey. Among Republicans under age 40, 75 percent supported the idea of pricing carbon and returning all revenue to households.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are acting as though they've seen similar polling. Fewer are now openly questioning the core science of climate change, but many are still steering clear of the idea of strong government action.

The Republican-controlled Senate Agriculture Committee, stacked with farm state lawmakers who have largely ignored the topic, held a hearing Tuesday focused on climate change in which several senators and witnesses raised the prospect of carbon markets. With the farm sector battered by a series of natural disasters and suffering under President Donald Trump's trade policies, the idea of possible farm revenue from carbon markets has appeal, and evenAgriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue voiced support for the idea.But Republican lawmakers, who have long fought anything that remotely hints of regulation on American farms, were wary.

"What I would hate to see is heavy handed government regulation," said Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. "I think we can do this on our own."

What Business Leaders Are Saying

Many Republicans are touting technology subsidies—not taxes—as the solution. At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, several Republicans voiced support for increased incentives to spur innovation.

Hugh Welsh, president of DSM North America, a nutrition and health company, said he was telling lawmakers that government incentives are fine for sparking innovation, but not for scaling them up enough to make a difference on climate change. For example, DSM has developed a feed additive that the company says would reduce methane emissions from cows by 30 percent, but he said there's not enough incentive for farms to buy the product unless there is a market imperative to reduce greenhouse gases.

Jeff Eckel, CEO of the Annapolis, Md.-based clean investment firm Hannon Armstrong, is convinced he can make a business case for carbon pricing that should appeal to Republicans. To rely on subsidies and incentives alone, he said, "is a distinctly non-conservative economic position. If you want to go back to free market principles, you put a price on carbon and you stop socializing the cost" of climate change.

The business leaders said they understood, however, that no matter how much progress they made in their lobbying day on Capitol Hill, they were not likely to see legislation in the short-term with the Trump administration maintaining its stance of climate denial.

"We know where this administration is. It's living in a fact-free fantasy," said Gary Hirshberg, chairman of theorganic yogurt company Stonyfield Farm."But this is a matter of enormous urgency. What we need to help our colleagues and representatives understand is that this is not a partisan issue."

Said Welsh, "I think everybody understands that not much is going to get done in this Congress, in the polarized, divisive state we're in. But that's not a deterrent. That does not discourage us. It may be the first time we're up on the Hill, but it won't be the last time."

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BS booktv

tyler Cowen, "Big Business"

Tyler Cowen argued that large corporations play an important role in our…

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Warren's Bold New Tax Plan Would Raise Over $1 Trillion From 'Richest, Biggest' US Corporations

now that green is cheaper than coal in many places:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/corporate-giants-form-alliance-to-create-a-boom-in-us-clean-energy.html

Some of the nation's top tech firms, manufacturers and consumer companies are banding together to create a boom in renewable energy purchases throughout corporate America.

The corporate giants and their nonprofit partners on Thursday launched the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance, a trade organization that will help companies take advantage of new ways to purchase clean energy. The goal is to support construction of new green power projects by striking renewable energy deals pioneered by companies such as Google parent Alphabet, General Motors and Walmart in recent years.

"This is really about bringing as many players to the market as possible and giving everyone access to clean energy," said Michael Terrell, head of energy market strategy at Google.

Over the last six years, a handful of corporate giants have created a new way of meeting their sustainable energy goals. By striking deals to buy blocks of energy from utilities and power plant owners, they are underwriting the construction of new wind towers, solar farms and other renewable projects.

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2017 RU w/ sonali

GUEST: Gordon Lafer, Associate Professor at the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Job Training Charade, and formerly served as Senior Policy Advisor to the US Congress. His new book is called The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time.

BACKGROUND: We are living at a time when corporations are dominant over so many aspects of our lives, especially our work lives. Companies like Uber and Lyft are bringing people on as "independent contractors" rather than employees with stable incomes and benefits. So-called "Right to Work" bills, which directly undermine unions, have been passed in states around the country. Efforts to kill bills raising the minimum wage have been coordinated and effective. In fact, in order to see clearly what corporations are doing to preserve their bottom line at our expense we have to see the patterns of their state-by-state approach. Those patterns are exposed in a new book called The One Percent Solution.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/a-glossary-of-exploitive-economics-lean-in-and-8-other-bad-business-buzzwords-that-should-be-phased-out/

eg

...Moral Hazard:
 The cynical belief that you will automatically behave irresponsibly if not held accountable for your actions, especially in terms of financial responsibility; a moral pretext for demolishing the public sphere; the belief that everyone is a feckless opportunist.

The concept of moral hazard originated in insurance economics. It argues that once people are protected by insurance (say home and contents) they’ll automatically engage in riskier behavior than normal (leaving their homes unlocked, for example). The theory assumes that people are not only stupid but have no sense of civic responsibility. The rationale has been deployed by neocons to lay ruin to the welfare state. Unemployment insurance incentivizes work avoidance. Public health care encourages unhealthy lifestyle choices, etc. We could follow the rationale reductio ad absurdum: public fire brigades shouldn’t be funded because they inadvertently encourage people to be careless in the kitchen, and might result in them burning down their homes.

Office Email: An electronic communication system that has become ubiquitous among the modern workforce; an instrument for spreading wage-theft and unpaid overtime; something 50 percent of the workforce now “check” outside of office hours.

What is colloquially called the “tyranny of email,” started life as a cool invention by Ray Tomlinson in 1971

...

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/12/report-90-percent-world-s-largest-200-industrial-companies-are-using-trade-associations-oppose-climate-policy

Nearly all of the world’s largest 200 industrial companies have directly or indirectly opposed climate policy since the landmark Paris Agreement was signed three years ago, according to new research.

Analysis by InfluenceMap, a UK-based think tank, examined the lobbying activities of 200 of the world’s biggest companies and 75 of the most powerful trade groups and the links between them since December 2015.

It found that 30 percent of all companies analysed have directly lobbied against climate policy in the last three years and that 90 percent of them retain membership to trade associations which have actively opposed climate policy around the world.

While the findings have come as no surprise to campaigners calling out corporate lobbying on climate policy, the research highlights the key role trade associations continue to play in influencing policy-makers and watering down climate policy.

Edward Collins, project manager at InfluenceMap, told DeSmog UK that trade associations are doing the “dirty work” and lobby for much stronger positions than their members support in public.

“A lot of the worst lobbying activities are being increasingly outsourced to trade groups as companies are more weary to take it on themselves to directly lobby government and put their names to it,” he said.

Ranking corporate spin

InfluenceMap used a scoring system to rank companies and trade associations according to how well their actions align with the Paris Agreement target of limiting temperature rise “well below two degrees” above pre-industrial levels.

The analysis selected the top 200 companies of the 2018 Forbes Global 2000, a list of all publicly-traded companies from 60 countries which this year collectively accounted for a market value of $56.8 trillion.

Financial companies and state-owned enterprises listed on Forbes Global 2000 were yet excluded from InfluenceMap’s analysis.

The think tank ranked companies from A to F as an indicator of how ready they are for a global low-carbon policy — taking into account their membership to trade associations.

Among the 25 most influential companies of the list, Ikea, Apple, Unilever and SSE ranked the highest and scored A on their positive engagement with climate policy.

At the bottom of the table, the worst performing companies include a host of fossil fuel firms such as the Koch Industries, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil and BP.

The case of BP and Shell

In the UK, InfluenceMap found SSE and The National Grid to be leading the way in terms of positive engagement with climate policy. But Shell and BP ranked a D and an E+ respectively for obstructing climate policy through covert lobbying means while publicly supporting climate action.

The report argues that BP appears to have “a negative and conflicting approach to climate regulation”.

It says that while BP has shown evidence of support for action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the UN climate negotiation process, the company “ultimately does not appear to be aligned with a transition to a low-carbon future and has stressed concerns against the case for ambitious emission reductions”.

The report cites examples from 2015 when BP CEO Bob Dudley publicly supported a carbon tax and energy efficiency regulation and chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg used his opening speech to investors at the company’s AGM to talk about energy transition and BP’s support for renewable energy subsidies.

Yet, the same year, aGuardian investigation YYY revealed that BP lobbied to undermine EU renewable energy targets and subsidies in favour of gas.

In 2016, another Guardian investigation found that the EU dropped policy to cut pollution and speed-up clean energy uptake after receiving a letter from a top BP executive warning of an industry “exodus” from Europe if the proposals went ahead.

BP is also a member of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association(APPEA), FuelsEurope and the National Association of Manufacturing, trade groups which have consistently opposed ambitious climate change policy in Australia, Europe, and the US.

BP did not respond to DeSmog UK’s request for comment in time for publication.

The report found that Shell had “mixed and sometimes conflicting engagement with climate change policy”.

It argued that while Shell accepts climate change science and has shown support for the Paris Agreement, public statements from the company’s leadership have “repetitively suggested that action on climate change should be balanced against the economic feasibility of emission reduction”.

The report also found that while Shell said it embraced a low-carbon transition, CEO Ben Van Beurden previously said gas will bean indefinite part of the energy mix and that the company repeatedly said that a large-scale dependence on fossil fuels will be necessary “for decades to come”.

Shell is also a member of a number of trade associations obstructing climate action including BusinessEurope, FuelsEurope, Western States Petroleum Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, The American Petroleum Institute, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and APPEA.

Pascoe Sabido, from Corporate Europe Observatory, warned that fossil fuel companies’ “sleek PR” was a “dangerous distraction” from the level of climate action needed to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.

He added that narratives which put gas at the heart of a “clean energy strategy” would allow fossil fuel companies to continue business as usual and should not go unchallenged.

A Shell spokeswoman said climate change is “an immense societal challenge that Shell has long recognised and where we are committed to playing a constructive role, moving in step with society towards a lower carbon future”. She added that society faced a dual challenge of “meeting growing demand for energy, while at the same time transitioning to a lower carbon world”.

She said that Shell belonged to many trade organisations “for a variety of reasons” including “workforce issues, technology innovation or economic development” and that the company did not always agree with the views of these organisations on every issue. “Where this is the case, we look at the totality of the organisation not a single issue,” she said.

Trade Associations: Powerful lobbying vehicles

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Collins, of Influence Map, said the roll back of Obama-era climate and environmental policies in the US did have an impact on the report’s findings but that lobbying continued to be rife in Europe.

“In Europe, lobbyists tend to be more focused on the small print and the technical details of legislation debated in the corridors of the European Commission. This is how a lot of legislation gets watered down without the public understanding what is happening,” he said.

Sabido, from Corporate Europe Observatory, described the work of these trade groups as “lobbying vehicles” engaged in a “race to the bottom”.

He said companies sometimes had to accept other members’ strong lobbying demands if they wanted the trade group to address their own concerns and issues.

“We have to be clear that trade associations are a convenient front for companies, which can pursue their own branding strategies while the trading associations do the dirty work,” he said.

Sabido added that the “symbiotic relationship” between fossil fuel companies and governments across Europe had to end in order for policy-makers to decide on ambition climate policy without interference from fossil fuel lobbyists.

Climate risk and shareholders’ interest

In recent years, the financial sector has ramped up its warning that failing to tackle climate change could disrupt financial stability and the economy.

Earlier this year, Bank of England governor Mark Carney said climate change could have a “catastrophic impact” on the financial system and that companies had to acknowledge and disclose climate-related risks to their business.

Commenting on InfluenceMap’s findings, Tom Burke, chairman of the environment policy think tank E3G, told DeSmog UK that “it was not rare for businesses to speak out of both sides of their mouth” but warned that failing to positively engage with climate policy was not in the interest of these companies’ shareholders.

“If climate policy succeeds, it will be tough on the fossil fuel industry who will be out of business. But they represent about 10 percent of the market.

“If climate policy fails, the remaining 90 percent of the market will have its interest damaged. The fossil fuel industry is effectively eating the lunch of the rest of the financial sector,” he said.

https://influencemap.org/filter/List-of-Companies-and-Influencers

IKEA33RetailingEuropeEurope
AApple28Information TechnologyNorth America
A-Unilever42Consumer StaplesEurope
A-SSE39UtilitiesEurope
B+National Grid31UtilitiesEurope
BNestle29Consumer StaplesEurope
BIberdrola44UtilitiesEurope
B-Enel33UtilitiesEurope
C+Microsoft16Information TechnologyNorth America
DBHP32MaterialsOceania
DRoyal Dutch Shell28EnergyEurope
DTotal32EnergyEurope
D-Rio Tinto Group32MaterialsEurope
E+Dow Chemical28ChemicalsNorth America
E+BP29EnergyEurope
E+Bayer24HealthcareEurope
E+BASF29ChemicalsEurope
EArcelorMittal23MaterialsEurope
EExxonMobil28EnergyNorth America
E-ConocoPhillips21EnergyNorth America
E-Berkshire Hathaway16IndustrialsNorth America
E-Chevron32EnergyNorth America
FValero Energy27EnergyNorth America
FPhillips 6611EnergyNorth America
FSouthern Company32UtilitiesNorth America
FKoch Industries29EnergyNorth America

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https://theconversation.com/spotting-the-political-calculus-behind-some-acts-of-corporate-charity-95743

the past few years, I have teamed up with fellow economists Marianne Bertrande, Matilde Bombardini and Francesco Trebbi to look into one underappreciated way that businesses may attempt to influence politicians: corporate philanthropy.

We found that what we call “politically linked charities” get more money from corporate foundations in general. We also find that when politicians gain leverage on issues tied to a company’s interests, charities in their districts get more gifts from that company’s foundation. For example, a nonprofit is more than four times more likely to receive grants from a corporate foundation if a politician sits on its board.

This means, in our view, that some corporate giving may influence members of Congress in both major political parties to a degree – indirectly bending laws and regulations in ways that boost profits rather than serve the public’s interests.

Political charity

Why would businesses rely on charitable donations rather than, say, campaign funds or lobbying efforts, to influence government? One big reason is that there are limits on campaign contributions, but effectively no limit on what what corporations may give to charity.

And it appears that corporate charity is deployed in ways that look a lot like influencing.

Second, companies may support nonprofits that serve the voters of individual politicians’ districts – thereby indirectly helping him or her get re-elected. For example, an investigation by The New York Times of former Democratic Rep. Joe Baca of Californiaconcluded that he used his family foundation and its generous giveaways “to run something akin to a permanent political campaign.” But much of the foundation’s largesse was funded by local companies and major corporations “that have often turned to Mr. Baca’s Washington office for help,” not by his family.First, companies may give to politicians’ pet charities. For example, as detailed in a recent New York Times article highlighting our research, the foundations of AT&T, ConAgra Foods, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Medtronic, Merck, Monsanto, Nationwide Insurance, Principal Financial Group and Rockwell Collins all contributed to either the University of Northern Iowa or the Partnership for a Drug-Free Iowa. Perhaps not coincidentally, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is a trustee of one of these organizations and an honorary board member of the other.

Then there is the stealth factor. It’s relatively easy to look up how much investment management giant BlackRock’s political action committee, or PAC, gave Rep. Carolyn Maloney, in the 2016 election cycle. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets database, the New York Democrat got US$10,000. That’s because federal law has required all such donations to be publicly disclosed since the 1970s.

It’s harder, however, to connect the dots between BlackRock’s charitable giving that indirectly benefits Maloney and her colleagues who have New York City’s financial service businesses as their constituents.

Striking patterns

To uncover potential links between corporate donations and legislative interests, we looked at the grants provided by the foundations of companies in the S&P 500 and Fortune 500 lists that comprise many of America’s largest companies. Because these grants must by law be disclosed on tax returns, we could link most donations to specific nonprofits. That, in turn, meant we could pinpoint in which congressional districts the nonprofits were located.

As the Grassley and Baca examples indicate, it is fair to say that corporate foundations are more likely to give to nonprofits tied to politicians if those lawmakers belong to committees that matter to the company.

We also have also found that companies’ foundations give more to nonprofits in districts represented by politicians who also get campaign cash from those same enterprises. That suggests that corporate giving does double duty as a form of stealth campaign finance.

What can be done about it

Corporate charitable contributions totaled nearly $18 billion in 2014, the most recent year that we analyzed in our data. My colleagues and I estimated that 7 percent of them were politically motivated – about $1.3 billion. At that level, the political donations delivered through charity may be as important as more easily observable channels of influence.

For example, corporate PACs spent less than $500 million in 2014 while lobbying expenditures amounted to $3.3 billion.

In light of our findings, we believe that corporate-funded activities of all kinds should require more disclosure, including the donations companies give to charity.

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hmmn girl effect

https://www.alternet.org/economy/corporations-do-damage-poor-women-their-global-philanthropy

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/10/exxon-accuses-california-cities-misleading-investors-climate-change

In January, ExxonMobil filed a legal petition seeking to depose more than a dozen city and county government officials in California, claiming that the municipal officials are defrauding investors by not fully disclosing the risks posed by climate change.

You read that right. Exxon is legally challenging cities and counties for not talking up the risks of climate change enough to the investors who purchase municipal bonds for those localities. Has Exxon had a change of heart and now become concerned about transparency and the impacts of climate change?

Let's take a closer look.

Exxon is responding to the municipalities which have filed lawsuitsseeking to hold Exxon and other oil companies accountable for the damages to their cities from sea level rise. Exxon's legal petition is calling those lawsuits a “conspiracy” because — according to its petition — “A collection of special interests and opportunistic politicians are abusing law enforcement authority and legal process to impose their viewpoint on climate change.”

The oil giant goes on to say: “ExxonMobil finds itself directly in that conspiracy’s crosshairs. Even though it has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change …”

You have to give Exxon’s lawyers credit for the sheer audacity of this legal maneuver and the claims that Exxon “has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change.”

According to its legal filing, Exxon just wants to be able to talk about climate change but claims its First Amendment rights are being taken away by the lawsuits the various municipalities have filed:

“Through abusive law enforcement tactics and litigation in California, Respondents and others are attempting to stifle ExxonMobil’s exercise, in Texas, of its First Amendment right to participate in the national dialogue about climate change and climate policy.”

How the lawsuits have stifled Exxon’s free speech is not clear from the legal document, but law experts say it certainly looks like an attempt to intimidate anyone considering holding Exxon and the industry accountable for the impacts of climate change.

“It’s an aggressive move,” Howard Erichson, a law professor at Fordham with expertise in the procedure and ethics of complex litigation, explained to Bloomberg. “Does Exxon really need these depositions or is Exxon seeking the depositions to harass mayors and city attorneys into dropping their lawsuits?”

Misleading Investors — Pot Meet Kettle

Exxon’s claim that these municipalities are misleading investors on climate change is interesting because that is — of course — exactly what Exxon has been accused of in multiple lawsuits and in the national dialogue over climate liability.

One recent example of Exxon’s failure to disclose the risks of climate change to investors is its 2018 Energy and Carbon Summary. This is the report in which Exxon says none of its oil and gas reserves are at risk of becoming stranded assets due to climate action and that all of those reserves can be produced and consumed as the world pursues efforts to limit global warming to 2°C (3.6°F).

Kathy Mulvey of the Union of Concerned Scientistshighlighted how she believes Exxon is misleading investors in a recent statement:

“Already facing liability from a rising number of climate-related lawsuits, the company has chosen to add another layer of risk by failing to disclose the challenges to its business model posed by assets that may not be profitable to extract in a carbon-constrained world, costly litigation, and climate impacts to its operations. ExxonMobil is leaving its shareholders in the dark as climate change barrels down the tracks.”

In an interesting turn of events, Exxon is using the tactic of accusing its opponents of what it appears to be guilty of when it comes to climate risks.

Panic in San Francisco

San Francisco is one of the cities targeted in Exxon's latest legal effort. The company makes the following claim:

“The San Francisco Complaint contains panicked allegations about the 'imminent threat of catastrophic storm surge flooding' that global warming purportedly poses to San Francisco.”

Yet earlier in the same legal document, Exxon said it had “long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change.” Bit of a change of tone.

As for the “panicked allegations” about the threat of flooding in San Francisco, a brand new peer-reviewed study from UCBerkeley and Arizona State University appears to give San Francisco reason to panic. The study notes that San Francisco is even more vulnerable to sea level rise than previously thought because — unfortunately — the city is sinking. When combined with rising seas, concern about the city's future seems to be warranted.

Considering sea level rise alone, models show that, on the low end, 20 square miles could be inundated by 2100. But factor in subsiding land and that estimate jumps to almost 50 square miles. The high end? The San Francisco Bay Area is looking at 165 square miles lost.

The image below shows various scenarios for San Francisco’s future. The colored sections represent areas that would be experiencing “significant inundation by 2100.” SFO is the city's main airport.

[maps]

Scenarios for local land subsidence only (top), sea level rise in 2100 under a business-as-usual emissions pathway (middle), and a combination of the two (bottom) for Foster City, Union City, and San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Credit: Shirzaei and Bürgmann 2018, Science Advances

Exxon Sticking to its Playbook

Exxon has known about the reality of climate change and its contribution to it for decadesand actively worked to mislead the public, both directly and by funding climate science-denying groups, about that reality ever since. However, 40 years ago when Exxon realized the impact its business was having on the world’s climate, it was much easier to deny the scientific evidence.

The idea of regular flooding in downtown Bostonprobably seemed like science fiction at the time. In all likelihood, no one used the phrase “sunny day flooding” back then. Major prosperous cities weren’t running out of water. No one was sailing through the Arcticwithout an icebreaker. Those were different times.

The stakes have been raised as today the very real impacts of climate change are much more difficult to deny. But after committing to decades of climate science denial, it appears that Exxon intends to continue that approach and is even upping the ante with aggressive legal actions.

Because even though Exxon fails to mention the company’s exposure to climate liability to its investors, the possibility remains that international efforts to address climate change could seriously cut into Exxon’s profits. It should be expected that as the impacts of climate change continue to intensify, Exxon’s attacks on those looking to hold them accountable will ramp up as well.

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/17/community-environmental-legal-defense-fund-pennsylvania-grant-township-fracking-waste-ban

In early January, a federal judge ordered the nonprofit law firm Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to pay $52,000 to an oil and gas exploration company for defending a rural Pennsylvania township’s ban on underground injections of frack waste.

This sanction comes at the request of Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil &Gas Association, but is part of a growing trend to prevent municipalities across the nation from pushing back against state and federal attempts to overrule them.

Starting in 2012, PGE proposed an injection well which, according to Grant Township’s Board of Supervisors, “would receive 30,000 barrels [1.26 million gallons] of frack wastewater per month for 10 years.” The board of supervisors for this small community near Pittsburgh warns that the injection well “threatens to subject every resident of Grant Township to a slow poisoning, and threatens thousands more who depend on Grant Township’s watershed for clean water.”

The community’s law, they go on, bans the injection well “as a violation of our basic civil rights.” PGE operates multiple gas-extraction wells in the township.

Rights of Nature, Local Governance

CELDF, which has defended Grant’s efforts to prevent waste injection wells for over three years, has worked with some 200 municipalities in the United States to defend local laws challenging similar corporate projects. The group aims to drive state constitutional change to bolster the rights of local residents and ecosystems against what it calls regressive state preemption and corporate personhood.

Grant Township, for example, is elevating a “right of self-government,” rights “to clean air, water, and soil” and “ecosystem rights” above corporations’ “rights” to inject waste from oil and gas extraction in the township.

These types of local laws often face substantial legal pushback from private corporations and states which claim authority over issues such as fossil fuel production. Along with the sanctions against CELDF,PGE is suing Grant Township itself, population 741, for damages that would likely be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.Among its claims: The injection well ban violates the corporation’s rights as a “person” under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Contract Clause and Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Grant Township is the fourth local government CELDF has defended in federal court.

‘Frivolous’ Legal Arguments

At the heart of the court’s decision awarding PGE sanctions against the legal nonprofit (the company originally asked for $500,000) is an argument that the sanctions are justified because CELDF’s legal arguments are contrary to “settled” law and therefore “frivolous.” This reasoning asserts that corporate personhood and Pennsylvania’s authority over municipalities on issues affecting drinking water and fossil fuel development is settled, and therefore CELDF’s defense of Grant’s claim to the contrary is “clearly unreasonable.”

Grant Township, the court writes, “seeks to disavow constitutional rights afforded corporations so as to prevent PGE from the lawful exercise of its right to pursue gas extraction related activities within its borders.” On top of all this, Grant’s law recognized legal rights for a local ecosystem. CELDF’s attempt to represent that ecosystem in court, the judge ruled, violates the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a set of rules that govern how legal proceedings take place in  United States district courts.

Local Governments Sanctioned Across US

CELDF is not alone in facing sanctions for challenging so-called settled law on similar issues. Defend Local Solutions is a campaign led by Tallahassee’s Mayor Andrew Gillum which is aimed at expanding the powers of municipalities in Florida. The campaign says at least seven states have “super preemption” bills on the books that sanction local officials who dare challenge specific state preemption bills that rescind powers from municipalities.

In Florida, for example, Gillum personally faced the threat of sanctions after he refused to repeal a local law that banned fire arms in public parks (even though the ordinance wasn’t being enforced).

New bills, such as Texas’s highly controversial “show me your papers” and sanctuary city preemption bill (SB4), also include punitive language for municipalities pushing back against state and federal authority.

Texas’s bill would fine local officials and employees $25,000 per day or even remove them from office if they defy the law, according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Parts of this section of the law, however, are hung up in court. However, the court ruled that local officials can be sanctioned if they outright ban police from asking for people’s immigration papers, and other sections of the bill are in effect, including a section that threatens punishment for local jail officers. The concept of economic retribution for noncompliance is spreading.

Georgia’s 2017 bill, HB37, removes funding from any private college that “prohibits or restricts officials or employees … from communicating or cooperating with federal officials or law enforcement officers with regard to reporting [immigration] status information.” And in 2016 Arizona passed a bill which withholds state funds from localities that enact policy that challenges the state’s claimed supremacy.

In CELDF’s sanction case, the court acknowledges that sanctions can have the effect of “chilling novel legal or factual arguments.”

Thomas Linzey, CELDF’s director and one of the two attorneys being personally sanctioned, says “that’s exactly the point. For years, the oil and gas corporations believed that they could stop the community rights movement by suing municipalities to overturn their local laws; but having failed to do so, they’re now coming after the lawyers who are helping those communities to stop drilling. In many ways, the industry’s filing for sanctions against us is just proof of how strong the community rights movement is becoming.”

In court records, CELDF points to Brown v. Board of Education (which overturned “separate but equal” schools for Black and White students, 1954), courts striking down bans on gay marriage, and other novel legal arguments as evidence that sanctions against lawyers who challenge “settled” law could set a dangerous precedent.

“We understand that the real problem isn’t the injection well, but the system of law that keeps trying to shut us down,” the Grant Township Board of Supervisors said in a statement. “We’re not going anywhere.”

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/these-corporations-have-biggest-influence-climate-policy

For better or worse, corporations have a major influence on climate change policy. Just look at Koch Industries, a multinational conglomerate owned by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch that has contributed hundreds of millions to federal candidates and lobbying over the last 25 years.

The "Corporate Carbon Policy Footprint," a new analysis from U.K. nonprofit InfluenceMap, now ranks Koch Industries as the company with the strongest opposition to the Paris climate agreement and most intensely lobbies against policies in line with the landmark global accord.

The InfluenceMap scoring system does not measure a company's actual greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, it measures "the extent to which a corporation is supporting or obstructing the climate policy process."

For the InfluenceMap report, researchers analyzed more than "30,000 pieces of evidence" on 250 global companies and 50 major trade associations on their lobbying records, advertising, public relations and sponsored research, according to Bloomberg.

The research group gave the Wichita-based company an "F" grade for its anti-climate actions:

"Koch Industries appears to be actively opposing almost all areas of climate legislation. In 2014 in the US, they were reportedly active in their opposition to a carbon tax, funding politicians and campaigns to oppose the tax. Similarly, in 2014 they appear to have opposed the U.S. EPA Clean Power Plan in consultation and through direct engagement with policy makers, and boasted about their success in blocking the US Cap and Trade Scheme in 2010. Additionally, they appear to be opposing measures to transition to a low carbon economy, advocating against renewable energy subsidies, and funding groups that have opposed energy efficiency standards, the repeal of fossil fuel subsidies and the need for action on climate change. They seem to be exceptionally active in opposing renewable energy standards across the U.S. Both the organization and its CEO, Charles Koch, appear to have questioned climate change science, and have reportedly funded climate denial. Senior executives are active in both the National Association of Manufacturers and ALEC, which also appear to be resisting climate change related regulations and policies."

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Silicon Valley tech giant Apple was ranked highest on the list and has an A+ for its support of climate change action and its positive engagement with a number of climate change policy areas.

Here are the report's key findings:

"The data shows the climate policy agenda, in terms of corporate influencing, is being driven by a small number of massive global corporations," Dylan Tanner, InfluenceMap executive director, said in a statement. "It also shows a group of powerful of companies in the tech, consumer goods and utilities sectors increasingly pushing for policy to implement the Paris Agreement."

InfluenceMap also ranked "influencers" or powerful trade associations that actively lobby against climate policies. A number of trade associations received an "F" grade, but here are the bottom five: U.S. Chamber of Commerce; American Petroleum Institute; American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity; National Mining Association; and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Check out the full list here.

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A+Apple28Information TechnologyNorth America
A-Unilever38Consumer StaplesEurope
A-Amazon15RetailingGlobal
B+Deutsche Telekom16TelecommunicationsEurope
BCoca Cola21Consumer StaplesNorth America
B-Enel39UtilitiesEurope
B-Nestle27Consumer StaplesEurope
B-Facebook14Information TechnologyNorth America
B-Softbank10TelecommunicationsAsia
B-Cisco Systems8Information TechnologyNorth America
B-Google18Information TechnologyNorth America
B-Samsung Electronics4Information TechnologyAsia
C+United Technologies13IndustrialsNorth America
C+Walt Disney8MediaNorth America
C+Microsoft15Information TechnologyNorth America
C+PepsiCo15Consumer StaplesNorth America
C+Johnson & Johnson12HealthcareNorth America
CNovartis5HealthcareEurope
CWalmart Stores11RetailingNorth America
CSiemens18IndustrialsEurope
C-Oracle9Information TechnologyNorth America
C-Verizon Communications4TelecommunicationsNorth America
C-Honda Motor15AutomotiveAsia
C-IBM6Information TechnologyNorth America
C-Intel15Information TechnologyNorth America
D+Nissan21AutomotiveAsia
D+Statoil32EnergyEurope
D+Pfizer7HealthcareNorth America
DGeneral Electric32IndustrialsNorth America
DSanofi9HealthcareEurope
DVolkswagen16AutomotiveEurope
DToyota Motor10AutomotiveAsia
DGeneral Motors16AutomotiveNorth America
DRoyal Dutch Shell33EnergyEurope
DBMW Group18AutomotiveEurope
DAT&T6TelecommunicationsNorth America
D-BHP Billiton33MaterialsOceania
D-Merck6HealthcareNorth America
D-Total32EnergyEurope
D-Procter & Gamble8Consumer StaplesNorth America
D-Hyundai Motor12AutomotiveAsia
D-Roche Group4HealthcareEurope
D-Daimler14AutomotiveEurope
D-Boeing9IndustrialsNorth America
E+Bayer25HealthcareEurope
E+Ford Motor15AutomotiveNorth America
E+Rio Tinto Group32MaterialsEurope
EDow Chemical21ChemicalsNorth America
EBASF28ChemicalsEurope
E-Berkshire Hathaway16IndustrialsNorth America
E-Exxon Mobil29EnergyNorth America
FSouthern Company32UtilitiesNorth Americ

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The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time 1st Edition

by Gordon Lafer

In the aftermath of the 2010 Citizens United decision, it's become commonplace to note the growing political dominance of a small segment of the economic elite. But what exactly are those members of the elite doing with their newfound influence? The One Percent Solution provides an answer to this question for the first time. Gordon Lafer's book is a comprehensive account of legislation promoted by the nation's biggest corporate lobbies across all fifty state legislatures and encompassing a wide range of labor and economic policies.

In an era of growing economic insecurity, it turns out that one of the main reasons life is becoming harder for American workers is a relentless―and concerted―offensive by the country’s best-funded and most powerful political forces: corporate lobbies empowered by the Supreme Court to influence legislative outcomes with an endless supply of cash. These actors have successfully championed hundreds of new laws that lower wages, eliminate paid sick leave, undo the right to sue over job discrimination, and cut essential public services.

Lafer shows how corporate strategies have been shaped by twenty-first-century conditions―including globalization, economic decline, and the populism reflected in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns of 2016. Perhaps most important, Lafer shows that the corporate legislative agenda has come to endanger the scope of democracy itself.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Percent-Solution-Corporations-Remaking/dp/1501703064

pt 1 06.05.17 - 8:00AM

Rising Up With Sonali – June 5, 2017

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https://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/

Even just two years ago, it was almost unimaginable that the conflicts of interest posed by the presence of fossil fuel corporations would be a primary topic at any U.N. climate treaty meeting. But our steady campaigning has paid off in a big way: During the last two weeks, practically everyone involved in and covering the treaty meetings in Bonn, Germany, had something to say about the fossil fuel industry's conflicts of interest.

A few days before the meeting, we released a report, Inside Job, which exposed how groups representing industry interests are allowed access to climate treaty negotiations despite a hefty track record of undermining climate action. Media outlets from the Financial Times, to NPR, to Mother Jones, to mainstream German outlets, to the French Le Monde covered the report. And when our team arrived in Germany, it was clear many government delegates had already read the exposé.

Big polluters and governments that represent their interests (namely the U.S., Australia, and the European Union) quickly shifted from doubting this issue would gain traction to spending the first day and a half of the meetings intensifying their attempts to keep the issue from being discussed.

You know you are doing something right when one of the most powerful industry front groups feels compelled to respond to your research. The Chamber of Commerce, which was featured in Inside Job and has received millions of dollars from Exxon Mobil, wrote an unconvincing blog post about why fossil fuel corporations need to be at the negotiating table.

But despite the attempts by the industry to put the kibosh on discussions of conflicts of interests, we successfully made it the centerpiece topic during a workshop about the participation of non-Parties (read: all entities that are not government delegates). During the workshop, governments and civil society representatives demanded the U.N. treaty body address the irreconcilable conflicts of interest between the fossil fuel industry and the policies that must be made to slow and address the effects of climate change. International Policy Director Tamar Lawrence-Samuel reminded everyone that weeding out vested interests through conflict of interest policies is not the exception, but the norm, in governments and similar forums around the globe.

For the first time, parties officially discussed conflicts of interest at UNFCCC meetings during #SB46. Learn more: https://t.co/OFQF92NJ6O pic.twitter.com/4Ha5iFn4On

— Road Thru Paris (@RoadThruParis) May 10, 2017

Predictably, business groups and the governments that represent their interests intervened in defense of corporate inclusion. At one point, a delegate from Australia even went so far as to call Exxon Mobil a corporation that was leading on climate action!

We followed the workshop with a packed press conference, and continued to keep this issue front and center throughout the rest of the meetings.

With this success under our belts, we will continue to organize governments and allies to support the adoption of a policy that kicks big polluters out of the U.N. climate treaty for good. We know it's ambitious, and we also know it's possible. Most importantly, we know it must be done to save people and our planet from climate catastrophe.

Kelle Louaillier is the president of Corporate Accountability International.