15 October 21
Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News
Actually only four of them are blocking reform. And there's a terrible reason why.
Three House Democrats and one Democratic senator are now blocking a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Medicare is such a big purchaser of drugs that it has the bargaining leverage to cut drug prices for everyone — if allowed to do so. This would save at least $450 billion over the next 10 years and significantly lower prescription drug prices.
But four Democrats are standing in the way.
Before I get to why they’re doing this, let me identify them. In the House: Scott Peters (whose district includes San Diego), Kurt Schrader (Oregon’s central coast), and Kathleen Rice (central and southern Nassau County on Long Island).
And in the Senate: Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona).
Okay, so why are these four Democrats blocking this measure?
Not because this policy is unpopular with the public. To the contrary, 88 percent of voters favor allowing the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices, including 77 percent of Republicans.
In fact, at least 90 percent of these four lawmakers’ own constituents support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Get this: The idea is so popular that both Kathleen Rice and Kyrsten Sinema actively campaigned on it.
And not because the pharmaceutical industry needs extra money in order to continue to generate new drugs. Taxpayers already fund much of its basic research through the National Institutes of Health. Also bear in mind that a big portion of the costs of bringing a drug to market goes into advertising and marketing — which shouldn’t even be allowed for prescription drugs (and isn’t in most other rich countries, and wasn’t in the US until Big Pharma lobbied for the law to change).
Oh, and pharmaceutical firms have been overflowing with so much cash they’ve been buying back their own shares of stock.
In other words, allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices should be a no-brainer.
So what gives? The question should be who gives. Follow the money.
From 2019 to 2020, Kyrsten Sinema received over $120,000 in Big Pharma contributions, even though she’s not up for re-election until 2024. Throughout her political career, she’s taken over half a million dollars from Pharma PACs and executives. Just before Sinema officially came out publicly against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, a group bankrolled by Big Pharma began running TV and digital ads and sending mailers praising her for “fighting as an independent voice.”
If you think this was a coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Scott Peters, meanwhile, happens to be the House’s single biggest recipient of Big Pharma campaign cash in the 2022 election cycle so far. Since being elected in 2012, Peters has socked away over $860,000 from Big Pharma. The day after his letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing using Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices was published in May 2021, Peters began receiving thousands of donations from executives at pharmaceutical companies and the industry’s powerful lobbying group.
Another coincidence? P-l-e-a-s-e.
Kurt Schrader has raked in nearly $615,000 from Big Pharma since taking office in 2008. This election cycle he’s already got $24,500 from Pharma PACS, the second most of any industry donating to him. One of former his top aides left his office earlier this year and is now lobbying for Big Pharma. According to ethics disclosures, the former aide’s lobbying efforts focus on … guess what? Drug pricing.
The third House Democrat, Kathleen Rice, has received over $84,000 from Big Pharma.
The grand total of Big Pharma cash going to these four lawmakers: over $2 million. When you consider the billions that Big Pharma will rake in for keeping drug prices high, this is a small potatoes for them. You might even call it a great investment.
But it’s a huge cost for the rest of us.
The measure isn’t being blocked solely because these four Democrats oppose it. No Republican members of Congress are in support.
But it does seem odd that Democrats would stand in the way of this sort of reform, rebuffing their own president and party — and rejecting the overwhelming preference of voters, including their own constituents — to tank a policy that they themselves campaigned on. I mean, what’s the Democratic Party for if it won’t reduce drug prices for average people? Why were these four Democrats elected in the first place?
Sometimes I worry that pointing out this sort of corruption (and it is a form of corruption) will make people even more cynical than they already are about American politics, resulting in a kind of fatalism or resignation that causes many to give up — and thereby cede the entirety of our democracy to the moneyed interests. My hope is just the opposite: that when people hear about this sort of thing, they’re outraged enough to become even more politically active.
In my experience spanning fifty years of American politics — from interning for Senator Bobby Kennedy in 1967 to serving as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration to advising President Obama — most of the elected lawmakers I’ve dealt with sincerely want to do the right thing. Some don’t feel they can do the right thing if they want to be reelected, and confuse means and ends. A very few are on the take.
By which I mean to say that the situation is hardly hopeless. I refuse to give up on democracy. And I won’t give up on the Democratic Party. But I’m only going to fight for candidates from the Democratic side of the Democratic Party.
What can you do? For one thing, contact your members of Congress and tell them that the first step in getting big money out of politics is to support the Freedom to Vote Act. (You might put in an extra call to Joe Manchin’s office and say you expect him to deliver 10 Republican senators’ votes for this bill — which he helped author — or else agree to reform the filibuster to let voting rights bills be enacted with a bare majority.)
Here’s something else you can do: If you happen to be a constituent of one of these four Democrats, don’t vote for them when they’re up for reelection. Make sure they’re primaried, and then vote in the Democratic primaries for true public servants — who care more about advancing the public good than protecting private profits.
Pro-choice activists hold signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. (photo: Stefani Reynolds/Getty)
That law, which bans most abortions after as early as six weeks of pregnancy and empowers private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” in the procedure, took effect Sept. 1 after the high court refused to grant an emergency request to stop it. Nearly a day later, in a 5-4 ruling issued late at night, the court, without hearing arguments in the case, voted down the bid for an injunction.
The DOJ filed a lawsuit in Texas shortly thereafter, arguing that the law, S.B. 8, “insults the rule of law” and violates the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, which protects the right to an abortion before fetal viability, which is generally around 22 weeks or later.
Earlier in October, a federal judge granted the DOJ’s bid to temporarily block enforcement of the law, saying, “this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”
But the law was allowed to go back into effect after that judge’s ruling was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
“The Justice Department intends to ask the Supreme Court to vacate the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the preliminary injunction against Texas Senate Bill 8,” spokesman Anthony Coley said in a statement.
Asked when that request would be filed, Coley told CNBC he “should have a better sense on Monday.”
Separately, a group of abortion providers and advocates in late September asked the Supreme Court to quickly review their challenge to the Texas law, even though a lower court had yet to deliver a final ruling on the issue.
The Trump campaign is leading a legal effort to challenge Biden victories in key states, including in Michigan and Georgia. (photo: Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters)
The campaign’s latest legal failures come as the Electoral College votes to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win on Monday.
Trump and his allies have lost 59 times in court since Nov. 3, according to a running tally on Twitter from Marc Elias, the lawyer leading Democrats’ fight against the GOP’s post-election challenges. The Supreme Court’s one-paragraph rejection of Trump and Texas' bid to invalidate more than 20 million votes on Friday night was just one of a string of fresh losses that the president has faced over the past 72 hours alone.
The odds that the justices would step in on the eve of Monday’s Electoral College vote to throw the presidential race into turmoil were slim to none. The justices stopped Texas’s unprecedented attempt to sue Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan — all states that Biden won — at the door. But judges ruled over the weekend in other, narrower legal fights that the president filed in recent weeks, and rejected those, too.
Trump’s back-to-back losses highlighted the breadth of Trump and Republican’s failure to convince judges of every political background and at every level of the US judicial system to undo Biden’s victory. The fact that the Electoral College is meeting on Monday to make the results official makes it even less likely that judges will do anything dramatic going forward.
“This Court has allowed plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits,” US District Judge Brett Ludwig wrote in an opinion on Saturday, dismissing a Trump campaign lawsuit that accused Wisconsin election officials of violating state law and asking the court to effectively void Biden’s 20,000-vote lead and let the Republican-controlled state legislature decide what to do.
Ludwig, who joined a small but notable group of Trump’s own judicial nominees who have ruled against the president’s election challenges, made clear that what Trump wanted the court to do was extreme, using the word “extraordinary” in italics three times. He concluded with a statement that read like a rebuttal to the baseless claims of Trump, his lawyers, and his supporters that the courts, along with voting systems across the country, were rigged against them.
“In his reply brief, plaintiff ’asks that the Rule of Law be followed,’” wrote Ludwig. “It has been.”
Ludwig’s order came one day after a state court judge rejected Trump’s appeal of recounts that failed to change Biden’s win in the most racially diverse counties in the state, Milwaukee and Dane counties.
The campaign’s lawyers immediately appealed and the Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments on Saturday. On Monday, the state justices issued a 4-3 decision denying the campaign's challenge, finding Trump and his lawyers had waited far too long to bring challenges to how the state ran absentee voting this year.
"Election claims of this type must be brought expeditiously. The Campaign waited until after the election to raise selective challenges that could have been raised long before the election," Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for the majority. "The Campaign is not entitled to relief, and therefore does not succeed in its effort to strike votes and alter the certified winner of the 2020 presidential election."
In Georgia, meanwhile, the state Supreme Court on Saturday refused to take up Trump’s statewide election contest. The state justices wrote that they didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case because the campaign had skipped ahead and filed a petition before there was any lower court decision to appeal. The campaign argued there was “significant systemic misconduct, fraud, and other irregularities” in how Georgia ran the election, but the justices found Trump failed to show that it was “one of those extremely rare cases” that they could take up right away.
Trump and Republicans have lost dozens of lawsuits filed since Election Day, sometimes losing a single case multiple times when they’ve tried to appeal. That number could continue to grow; Trump immediately took Ludwig’s decision in Wisconsin to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
The GOP election challenges have come in roughly two waves after Nov. 3. The first wave largely focused on objections to specific clusters of ballots or election practices at the city and county level. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s campaign and Republicans challenged sets of absentee ballots — ranging from several dozen to several thousand votes — where the voter didn’t include pieces of information on the outside envelope, such as their address or the date. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled those ballots could be counted.
There were cases claiming Republican poll watchers were denied access to watch ballots processed at counting sites in Philadelphia and Detroit; that late-arriving absentee ballots were improperly mingled with valid ballots in Chatham County, Georgia; and that election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, violated state law by using computer software to verify signatures and may have miscounted ballots filled out using Sharpies. Judges rejected those cases, citing a lack of evidence, or the challengers dropped them before a judge ruled.
There was also Trump’s first big attempt at nullifying Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, in the form of a federal lawsuit led by Rudy Giuliani. It was chaotic litigation, marked by multiple changes to Trump’s legal team and multiple attempts at changing what they were arguing and asking the courts to do. At a Nov. 17 court hearing, Giuliani revealed a lack of understanding of basic legal principles and was forced to admit that it was not a voter fraud case — their claims were based on objections to some counties allowing voters to fix or “cure” absentee ballots with defects while others did not and issues with poll watcher access.
“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here,” Judge Stephanos Bibas — one of Trump’s own nominees — wrote in a 3–0 federal appeals court decision upholding a district court judge’s refusal to allow Trump’s campaign to relitigate the case after it was dismissed.
That initial round of litigation yielded Trump’s only win to date — an order from a judge in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania tossing out a narrow subset of absentee ballots that arrived during a three-day window after Election Day where the voter failed to provide proof of identification by Nov. 9. The secretary of state’s office hasn’t confirmed how many ballots were affected, but the state had agreed to separate them out while the case was pending, meaning they didn’t contribute to Biden’s 80,000-vote lead in the state.
As the weeks went on and states began formally certifying results, the legal challenges morphed to increasingly mirror Trump and his allies’ lies about widespread voter fraud and wild theories of a nationwide conspiracy to rig the election for Biden.
Sidney Powell, a Texas-based lawyer who had earned Trump’s praise for her TV attacks on the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference and her legal defense work on behalf of Trump’s now-pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, vowed to “release the Kraken.” She filed lawsuits in federal court against election officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, alleging widespread fraud and asking judges to invalidate the results statewide.
Judges in all four cases rejected Powell’s claims. They issued opinions that eviscerated the legal underpinnings of her lawsuits and made clear they were unpersuaded by any of the evidence she’d put forward. The judge in Michigan described Powell’s proof of fraud as “speculation and conjecture.” The judge in Arizona wrote that the allegations were “sorely wanting of relevant or reliable evidence.” All of the judges found that Powell’s cases failed on multiple levels, including that her plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue and that the cases were moot because the states had already certified results.
The judges dinged Powell for procedural missteps and issued full-throated condemnations of the effort to have courts decide a presidential election and overrule voters.
“Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country. One wonders why the plaintiffs came to federal court and asked a federal judge to do so,” US District Chief Judge Pamela Pepper wrote in a Dec. 9 opinion dismissing Powell’s case in Wisconsin. “After a week of sometimes odd and often harried litigation, the court is no closer to answering the ’why.’”
US District Judge Linda Parker in Michigan wrote in a Dec. 7 opinion that Powell’s lawsuit in that court “seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek—as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court—and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government.”
“Plaintiffs ask this Court to ignore the orderly statutory scheme established to challenge elections and to ignore the will of millions of voters. This, the Court cannot, and will not, do,” Parker wrote.
Powell is appealing all of her losses, and has petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear the Georgia case.
More attempts at undermining Biden’s win or clawing back state certifications have fallen flat over the past two weeks. The US Supreme Court on Dec. 8 refused to immediately take up a challenge in Pennsylvania brought by Rep. Mike Kelly and other Republicans after they lost in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; that case, initially filed in late November, contested a state law expanding mail-in voting that passed more than a year ago. Kelly filed another petition asking the Supreme Court to consider the case on the merits on Friday.
Republican state lawmakers and voters in Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit in state court on Dec. 4 featuring a laundry list of claims of election irregularities and state law violations and then dropped it a week later after the court denied their request for an emergency order.
The Arizona Supreme Court on Dec. 8 rejected an election contest brought by Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward challenging ballots cast in Maricopa County. An analysis of a random sample of ballots showed an error rate that didn’t “come close” to meeting the threshold for a recount, the court concluded, and there was no evidence of signature forgery or other “misconduct.” Ward filed a petition on Friday asking the US Supreme Court to take the case.
Another new case was filed in the US Supreme Court on Dec. 8 by L. Lin Wood Jr., a conservative lawyer who repeatedly lost a case he filed in federal court in Georgia challenging the election results there. In a 3–0 decision, a federal appeals court panel that featured two of the court’s more conservative judges, including Judge Barbara Lagoa, another one of Trump’s nominees, agreed with the district court judge that Wood lacked standing to bring the case. Wood has petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear his case as well.
In Michigan, the Trump campaign recently attempted to revive a case it had lost challenging how officials in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, had managed the election and claiming poll watchers were denied access to observe ballots being processed. A judge had rejected the case on Nov. 5, and the campaign opened a case in the Michigan Court of Appeals the next day but didn’t complete the appeal until Nov. 30 — nearly two weeks after the state certified the election results.
The appeals court rejected the case as moot on Dec. 4 and wrote that the campaign “failed to follow the clear law in Michigan” that the way to allege fraud after results were certified was to seek a recount. The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday issued an order denying the Trump campaign’s effort to press the case there.
Former Democratic lawmakers now earn a living as drug company lobbyists. (photo: iStock)
Former Democratic lawmakers now earn a living as drug company lobbyists.
“We tried desperately to allow the secretary of [the Department of Health and Human Services] to negotiate, using all 42 million seniors as a negotiating tool, to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals,” said Lincoln, staring down her Republican opponent during a televised debate. “And we weren’t allowed to do that. At least two times I voted on that amendment.”
Days later, she won her reelection campaign. But six years after that race, Lincoln was swept out of office during the 2010 congressional midterm elections, due in part to an infusion of drug company dark money that flowed into the race.
Lincoln now serves Pfizer as a lobbyist focused on blocking the very cost-saving proposal she once championed. The Lincoln Policy Group, a firm she founded, brings in about $20,000 per month working to maintain the ban on Medicare negotiating lower drug prices that is now being weighed in Congress’s budget reconciliation package.
In strategy calls with other drug company officials, Lincoln has worked to fight the drug pricing proposal. And in recent weeks, the former senator has continued to socialize with Democratic leadership, including making an appearance at a recent rooftop party in Washington, D.C., where House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., were in attendance.
The popular, once bipartisan idea to hold down Medicare costs is now at the center of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. Legislation backed by the administration calls for Medicare to mirror other government agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, in being able to negotiate for cheaper medicine through the Part D program.
The idea could potentially save the government nearly $500 billion over a decade, freeing up funds to pay for the expansion of other Medicare programs, including a new proposed benefit to cover dental, vision, and hearing care that is part of the president’s so-called Build Back Better plan. The drug pricing proposal could also translate to lower prescription costs across the board, as private health insurers would also have access to the reduced prices.
The drug industry, according to its top lobbyist, Stephen Ubl, has made defeating the provision its top priority, calling the legislative effort “an existential threat to the sector.” The industry has marshaled major resources, including calls from patient advocacy groups and sponsored advertising in key districts.
But inside the Beltway, the opposition is coming from familiar faces. Many leading Democratic lawmakers and staff have been hired by the drug industry to convince their former colleagues to abandon the drug pricing proposal.
The Democratic National Committee held its very first indoor, in-person fundraiser this year on the rooftop of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a prominent law firm that helps drug companies such as Eli Lilly and Co., Johnson … Johnson, and Roche influence the drug pricing debate. Lobbyists from the firm mingled with DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and other prominent Democratic officials, according to a report about the event.
Lincoln’s onetime colleague, former Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., also works at Brownstein as a lobbyist for Eli Lilly and Co. Pryor, like Lincoln, voted to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices when he served in office, before making the jump to the private sector. In 2007, Pryor appeared with other Senate Democrats and activists to demand action on lowering prescription drug prices by lifting the prohibition on Medicare’s negotiating power.
Pfizer alone has assembled a lobbying team that includes Dean Aguillen, a former adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Remy Brim, a former health policy adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; and over half a dozen aides to senior Senate Democrats.
Ann Jablon, former chief of staff to Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the current chair of the Ways and Means Committee, with jurisdiction over tax-writing policy, currently represents several drug companies as a lobbyist, including Amgen Inc., Astellas Pharma, and Bayer.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade group that represents the largest drug companies in the world, has also gone on a hiring spree of Democratic lobbyists, adding Vin Roberti, a prominent fundraiser close to Pelosi, to its roster of 185 registered lobbyists earlier this year. In recent months, PhRMA has hired other firms with close ties to congressional Democrats, including Thorn Run Partners, Foley … Lardner LLP, and Tiger Hill Partners. In July, PhRMA hired Christopher Putala and his firm, Putala Strategies, as a contract lobbying firm. Putala is a former aide to Biden.
The drug industry has even retained some influence among its most outspoken critics. Michaeleen Crowell, former chief of staff to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is working as a lobbyist on behalf of drug company Horizon Therapeutics PLC against the Medicare pricing proposal.
Of course, it’s not only Democratic staff and lawmakers retained by drugmakers. Former Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is retained by both Merck and PhRMA, while former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., works for Pfizer. Dozens of former GOP aides make a living as drug industry lobbyists.
The tidal wave of influence spending appears to be paying off. Not only are GOP lawmakers standing firm against any measure to allow Medicare to use its bulk buying power to bring down prices, but a few conservative Democrats have also broken ranks to threaten the proposal.
Last month, a group of centrist House Democrats, including Reps. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.; Scott Peters, D-Calif.; and Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., joined with Republicans to vote against adding the Medicare drug pricing language to the $3.5 trillion social spending bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Instead, they support a counterproposal that would limit the drugs Medicare could negotiate. Schrader and Peters have both received significant campaign cash from the pharmaceutical industry.
A September MoveOn 'Hold the Line' rally encourages members of Congress to pass President Joe Biden's entire Build Back Better recovery package. (photo: Paul Morigi/Getty)
It’s not always clear what the public wants. But a new poll shows strong support for taxing the rich to pay for Democrats’ Build Back Better Act.
But at least one thing seems clear from public polling: People want to pay for the bill by taxing the rich.
A Vox and Data for Progress poll, conducted October 8-12, found that 71 percent of voters support raising taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans to pay for the bill. Eighty-six percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans backed the idea. Other tax provisions focused on the wealthy that could be included in the bill — such as tax increases on corporations and capital gains — found 65 percent or more support overall.
Sixty-three percent of voters in the poll said they supported the $3.5 trillion overall plan that includes spending on health care, long-term care, child care, and clean-energy jobs.
It’s less clear which priorities voters most want to spend that money on. When asked to choose the most and least important parts of the Build Back Better Act’s many policies, taxing the rich was most frequently cited as a top priority, with 13 percent of respondents choosing the measure. (The poll surveyed 1,224 likely voters and had a sampling margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.)
Expanding Medicare benefits to cover dental, vision, and hearing also showed strong support, with 12 percent of respondents ranking it the highest priority, and another 12 percent picked policies to increase access to long-term care for older adults and people with disabilities. Republicans were especially supportive of the provisions for health care and long-term care for older adults, compared to Democrats, who most frequently cited the tax increases and clean-energy measures as top priorities.
Democrats face tough choices in keeping a promise of “transformative” policies in the Build Back Better Act: Do programs need to be made permanent, increasing their price tag? Should funding child care or prekindergarten win out over expanding Medicare benefits? How fast must the country move to cut fossil fuels and fight climate change?
This is Democrats’ first chance in years at crafting major legislation not directly tied to the pandemic — and given the electoral map’s skew toward Republicans, it could be their last for another decade.
The popularity of the Build Back Better Act may or may not make it easier for lawmakers to get the bill over the finish line. In the Vox/Data for Progress poll, voters were presented with arguments for and against removing a particular provision to reduce costs, such as Medicare benefits expansion or clean-energy policy. Only about a third of voters or fewer supported the cuts. And respondents showed a diversity of opinion on what’s most important in the bill.
That likely reflects the fact that Democrats’ big bill touches on important issues for people at various stages of life, said Ethan Winter, a senior analyst for Data for Progress.
Winter noted that a policy like free prekindergarten would be especially favored by a young parent, while expanding Medicare benefits appeals more to older adults — who make up a larger swath of the electorate. The somewhat stronger support for tax increases on the wealthy and spending on care for older adults suggests those ideas are a core appeal of Democratic politics, for both the party’s base and swing voters.
“People elect Democrats because they will raise taxes on the rich to do modest economic redistribution, and [policies] for seniors are always very popular,” Winter said.
Polls have shown solid majority support for most pieces of the bill as standalone policies. (The child tax credit expansion has seen majority approval but seems to fare worse in polling when voters are explicitly asked about making the expansion permanent.)
The bill’s popularity could shift as Americans learn more about it and are exposed to partisan messaging; an October CBS News poll found that few Americans say they know much about what’s in the bill, and only a third think it will affect them directly, despite many provisions focused on helping middle- and lower-income families.
On climate issues, 63 percent of voters in the Vox/Data for Progress poll expressed support for the clean electricity program that is a key component of the bill’s climate crisis strategy. Fifty-seven percent said tax credits for electric cars in the Build Back Better plan would make them more likely to purchase one.
Democrats’ bill is popular. So why are they shrinking it?
Americans largely like the Build Back Better Act. Most don’t seem fazed by the $3.5 trillion price tag. The strong support for tax increases on the rich — after big tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations under President Donald Trump — suggests skeptical centrist Democrats may have other concerns in backing cuts to the bill.
The precariousness of the bill largely comes down to Democrats’ very thin majorities in the House and Senate. That gives Joe Manchin, a senator from a Trump-voting coal state, the power to dictate demands on climate provisions as well as the overall size of the bill.
It also means another centrist senator, Kyrsten Sinema, is a key figure in the negotiations, even though it’s not totally clear what she wants in the bill — and she left this week for Europe on a fundraising tour. (While Manchin’s approval in his home state of West Virginia has remained fairly steady overall, Sinema’s resistance to the legislation has caused her approval rating to plummet among Democrats and prompt stirrings of a primary challenge in Arizona, a state more evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.)
Manchin, Sinema, and other moderate Democrats have sometimes appeared at odds with each other on how to pay for the bill, making things even more complicated.
At New York magazine, Eric Levitz chalks pushback by some House Democrats up to America’s skewed representation in Congress and the decline of labor as a lobbying force. Plus, perhaps, old-fashioned stubbornness: Many Democrats in Congress came of political age in the era of Bill Clinton, deficit reduction, and welfare reform. “I think that’s why we can’t have ($3.5 trillion worth of) nice things: Labor is weak, Congress is malapportioned, and some old rich Democrats have annoying beliefs,” Levitz wrote.
No matter what happens with the Build Back Better Act, it won’t end debates around what pursuing popular policies really means. Even if the final bill is embraced by the public, it might not lead Democrats to electoral victory, either.
But if Democrats are just looking for legislation that most Americans want, taxing the rich to pay for policies that help families, seniors, and the planet seems like a safe bet.
Sixteen-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in southern Yemen in 2011. (photo: Facebook)
On the tenth anniversary of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki's killing, legal advocates say the US' legacy has been 'impunity for civilian deaths'
An American citizen born in Denver, Colorado, Awlaki had spent the first seven years of his life in the United States and was described by his grandfather as a caring child with a mop of curly hair and a wide, goofy smile.
"We had heard really great stories about how sweet a boy he was," Brett Max Kaufman, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Middle East Eye.
Yet his age and his US citizenship did not protect Awlaki from a fate shared by many civilians living in areas devastated by the American-led war on terror.
After dinner, Awlaki planned to travel back to his grandfather's home. He never made it. During his meal, he was killed by a US drone strike, with his body "blown to pieces", according to local residents.
A decade later, Washington has done little more than admit he was an unintended victim, advocates say. No compensation has been given to the family, no US official has been held accountable, and the government's targeting killing programme has continued.
"The case revealed just how dominant and impenetrable the culture of secrecy is inside the intelligence community, and the CIA in particular," Kaufman said.
"As a young boy with a lot of promise, and a bright future, his life was taken away by the US government.
"The government hasn't been willing to publicly and on the record come to terms with that. That is a failure of the responsibilities of public officials."
Unintended target
Awlaki's killing came just two weeks after his father, Anwar, was also killed in a US drone strike. That time, however, the US had intended to kill Anwar, who they accused of being a high-level al-Qaeda operative. He was the first US citizen to be targeted and killed in the US drone programme.
In 2012, Nasser al-Awlaki, Anwar's father and Abdulrahman's grandfather, filed a lawsuit with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU against the US government over the killings.
Nasser had hoped to receive justice, saying of his grandson that he "never thought that this nice boy would be killed by his own government".
"We were really in a very sad situation and we're still suffering today," he said at the time. "I hope that any American will look to what happened to my grandson as an injustice."
The lawsuit, however, was thrown out after a court ruled "the judiciary has an exceedingly limited role" in matters of war and national security.
"Here we have the killings of US citizens abroad, and the courts found they weren't going to review them, basically abdicating their role," said Maria LaHood, deputy legal counsel at the CCR. LaHood was a counsel for the lawsuit.
Nasser ultimately chose not to appeal the case, saying he had no confidence in the American court system.
"I have no faith left in a judiciary that refuses even to hear whether Abdulrahman, an American child, was wrongfully killed by his own government," he said in 2014.
"Although the court failed to fulfill its role in this case, my family and I continue to hope that answers to our questions about why our son and grandson were killed will someday see the light of day, and that there may someday be accountability for the government's actions."
But, far from accountability for the killings, Nasser would see only more tragedy.
In 2017, US commandos killed his eight-year-old granddaughter, Nawar, also a US citizen, during a raid in Yemen that was approved by Trump.
After a decade in which he saw his son, grandson and granddaughter killed; and having failed in his quest for justice in the American court system, Nasser passed away last month.
'Spotlight on drone killings'
LaHood noted that the two drone strikes which killed father and son had brought the issue of the lethal strike programme to national attention.
"The case definitely put a spotlight on drone killings and focused attention on the US policy behind them, and forced some transparency and information being released around the killings," she said.
After the case, the Obama administration introduced measures to increase transparency and limit civilian casualties, but ultimately continued to conduct strikes at a consistent rate.
From 2012 to 2016, the US conducted 138 further strikes in Yemen, killing at least 41 civilians, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
In 2017, President Donald Trump got rid of the transparency measures and the number of US strikes in Yemen tripled from those conducted in 2016.
Now, US President Joe Biden has issued a new interim guidance on these strikes, and his administration is conducting a review of its policy.
An NSC spokesperson told MEE the "review is ongoing" and that it "will seek to ensure appropriate transparency measures, and ensure we are taking all possible steps to prevent civilian deaths and injuries".
However, legal advocates say despite the review, there has been no attempt at holding the US accountable for the damage that it has caused.
"Because of the secrecy and the lack of accountability that has surrounded the US drone programme for more than a decade, there has been no real attempt to grapple with the true impact of it on the communities targeted," said Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer at the human rights organisation Reprieve.
Killings continue
Just like Awlaki, thousands of civilians have been killed as a result of US bombings. According to a report released last month by the group Airwars, at least 22,679 people have been killed as a result of US air and drone strikes in the 20 years of the "war on terror".
That number could even be as high as 48,308 civilians, the large gap between the two numbers highlighting the lack of transparency "when it comes to civilian harm in war".
"The legacy of the US drone programme is impunity for civilian deaths," Gibson said.
"For the hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent men, women and children killed in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, there has not only not been an apology - there has been absolutely no engagement from the US at all.
"Time and again, the US intelligence has been wrong and innocent people have been killed, including children. Yet nobody has ever been held accountable. So the killing continues."
There have been many calls by lawmakers, rights groups, and the victims of US drone strikes themselves to end the use of lethal force, particularly outside of active war zones.
Biden, has however repeatedly touted US air power as a means of being able to maintain a bulwark against militant groups without having a physical presence in certain parts of the world.
The most recent known killing of civilians took place in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August when the US conducted an air strike that it initially said targeted a high-level Islamic State (IS) militant. It later admitted, however, that it mistakenly took the lives of 10 civilians, all members of the Ahmadi family.
Gibson noted that while accountability for a US killing is welcome, whether it be Abdulrahman al-Awlaki or the Ahmadi family, the US cannot reconcile the past decades of civilian harm with one-off apologies.
"It's never too late for accountability. But true accountability requires the US to reckon with the hundreds of other innocent men, women and children it has killed, and with the impact on their families. They too deserve full accountability," she said.
Over 530 climate activists were arrested during Indigenous-led civil disobedience actions in Washington, D.C. (photo: Getty)
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We begin today’s show in Washington, D.C., where over 530 climate activists have been arrested in a historic week of civil disobedience calling on President Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop approving fossil fuel projects. The Indigenous-led protests have been part of a mobilization dubbed “People vs. Fossil Fuels.” On Thursday, Indigenous activists occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the first time since the 1970s. Indigenous leaders issued a series of demands, including the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, restoration of 110 million acres of land taken away from Native nations, the return of Indigenous children buried at residential schools, and no new leases for oil and gas or extractive industries on public lands. Fifty-five people involved in the takeover were arrested. Indigenous activists have also been leading daily acts of civil disobedience outside the White House. This is a member of the Red Lakes in Minnesota speaking Monday.
RED LAKE ACTIVIST: We are the voice of the animals, we are the voice of the trees, because they don’t have the voice. Creator, to us, gave us stewardship over the land, so that’s what we are doing. We are fighting for clean water for future generations, for Mother Earth, for the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Indigenous youth activists are scheduled to lead a march to the U.S. Capitol today. This week’s protests in D.C. come just weeks before the start of the critical U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. CNN is reporting President Biden is planning to attend along with 13 Cabinet members in the first week. But U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is already admitting the talks will likely fail to reach a global target on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. During a protest outside the White House Monday, Joye Braun of the Indigenous Environmental Network called on President Biden to uphold promises made to Indigenous communities.
JOYE BRAUN: You need to be held accountable. You made promises to the Indigenous communities across this land that you were going to uphold. But you haven’t upheld those promises. You’ve been speaking with a forked tongue, just like that one that was before you.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Joye Braun speaking Monday outside the White House. She’s joining us now in Washington. She’s a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a frontline community organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. She was deeply involved in the Standing Rock protests to stop the Dakota Access pipeline.
And we’re joined by Siqiñiq Maupin, the executive director of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic. She lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. She was arrested yesterday during the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and that’s where we’re going to begin.
Siqiñiq, can you talk about this protest? We didn’t know if we’d have you on the show today because we didn’t know if you were going to be getting out of jail, but we got word last night that you were.
SIQIÑIQ MAUPIN: Yes. We had gathered to let Biden know that we’re not going anywhere. Signing petitions and giving them and following these laws have not gotten us where we need to be. There is a climate emergency. People are dying right now. And we needed to make a statement. And I think that we did.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what you’re demanding of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
SIQIÑIQ MAUPIN: The BIA was created to erase Indigenous people. It has always been against us. And today, or yesterday, and every day, we demand that it be abolished. We do not need a blood quantum to say how Indigenous we are or to qualify that. We know our Indigenous ways to protect this land, this Earth, this water. And we understand that the Earth is unbalanced. And we do not have time for negotiations, for compromises. We need to take this serious and take action now.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what happened in August, when your group, along with others, were able to get the U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason to throw out the approvals of a major oil project in your state of Alaska?
SIQIÑIQ MAUPIN: Yes. That was a extraordinary time, considering, during the heart of the pandemic in 2020, the Bureau of Land Management decided to hold the hearings for opening the Willow Master Project, located outside of Nuiqsut, where my mother lives and my family is from. And we heard testimony from tribal administrators, corporation presidents, Native corporation presidents, begging the Bureau of Land Management to stop these hearings until the pandemic was over, until we got it under control. And they, quite literally, did not listen. You can just hear sobbing, and they continued on. They made the record of decision. And it felt a little hopeless, especially with Biden’s approval of this project even though he promised he was going to take the climate crisis serious. So, having the 9th Circuit overthrow this was such a big win, especially when the corruption is so rampant within our government.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about specifically your action yesterday? I think it was reported some 55 water protectors were arrested and taken from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And to talk about how significant this is, the last time it was occupied was by Native Americans in the 1970s. On November 3rd, 1972, a group of 500 American Indians with the American Indian Movement took over the Interior building, the culmination of a cross-country journey that was called the Trail of Broken Treaties, intended to bring attention to Native American issues, such as living standards and treaty rights. Why did you focus on the BIA? Are you calling for it to be disbanded?
SIQIÑIQ MAUPIN: Yes. And we wanted to make a statement that we are still here. We have been fighting against the genocide of our people, colonization, since contact. And we are not going away. We came with matriarchs that led us, and that was, I think, a powerful statement to have our women come in front again and to lead us into that building. I followed their guidance. And we were able to, again, make a statement at the BIA, an organization created to, quite literally, erase us from this place, this Earth, with blood quantum. We do demand the abolishment of BIA and to also say that Indigenous people have always been the caretakers of this land, and we will continue to be the caretakers.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Joye Braun into this conversation, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, frontline community organizer with Indigenous Environmental Network, which organized this week of historic protest. I dare say, with President Biden now saying he and 13 members of his Cabinet are going to go to the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, may well be a result of what you all have done this week right outside the White House. We last talked to you, Joye, at the standoff at Standing Rock. Can you talk about the organizing of this week, what’s happened and what you want to see come out of it? You, along with over 500 people, like Siqiñiq, have been arrested.
JOYE BRAUN: Hi. It’s good to be on the show again and to see you today.
Well, I certainly hope that President Biden is listening. You know, the United States government brought the frontlines to us, to the Indigenous people, to our doorsteps, and we wanted to bring the frontlines to his doorstep, to let him see that we are very serious about climate change and declaring a climate emergency.
People vs. Fossil Fuels came out of Build Back Fossil Free, a coalition of over 200 frontline organizations around the United States that came together and said, “We’re not being heard. We’re not being listened to. And we have to unite. We need to unite together to let this administration know that we are serious, and, you know, we’re tired.”
We go to all the hearings. We do the petitions. We make the phone calls. And it’s not working. They’re still allowing pipelines to go through illegally. Dakota Access pipeline is still an illegal pipeline. And, of course, they did not do a full EIS o Line 3, and they’re ignoring treaty rights on Line 5 and Mountain Valley pipeline.
AMY GOODMAN: Joye, these protests are historic. You knew people who, back in the 1970s, were part of that AIM takeover, the American Indian Movement takeover, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
JOYE BRAUN: I was a little kid back in the 1970s, so that I was, like, maybe like 3 years old. So I was just a toddler at that time. But we definitely heard about those times. And we did have elders with us this week who were part of that particular movement in the ’70s.
What happened this time, again, was organic. There was no leadership. It was just the people saying that we need to go and make a statement that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has — you know, it only was designed to eliminate us, like my new daughter — because we like to adopt children — like my new daughter Siqiñiq has said. We need to erase blood quantum. What other people in the world must still carry a card saying what percentage of blood you are, like a horse or a dog? I mean, that’s crazy.
So, plus, you know, the DOI did give 2,500 new oil and gas leases on BLM property, when President Biden said, “Oh, we’re going to stop all new leases,” but then opens it back up and then also threatens the Arctic with new leases, and the Gulf Coast, of course, with new leases and new LNG projects.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe some of the other actions, Joye, that have been taking place in Washington? For example, the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House was — the words “expect us” were written across it. What did that mean?
JOYE BRAUN: Well, it came out of “Respect us or expect us.” And that is a saying that was said, geez, many, many times over the years during the fight, from the 1970s and ’80s, in the ’90s. It was something that one of my mentors, Deb White Plume, used to say. And, of course, I said it at Standing Rock when we were at Treaty Camp. But I woke up, like many people, and saw the redecoration of that statue. Jackson was the one that caused mass genocide to Indigenous people. I mean, tens of thousands of Indigenous people died at his hands, and, of course, started the Trail of Tears, for many tribes, including the Cherokee.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this week, protesters climbed a flagpole outside the Army Corps of Engineers office demanding a stop to the Line 3 crude oil pipeline?
JOYE BRAUN: Yes, yes. I was there. Two flagpoles were climbed by Indigenous activists. And the flags were — those became coup presents. We kind of grabbed and nabbed them. But, you know, that’s kind of something that we would have done if we were in battle. We like to go grab the enemy’s flag. So that’s what happened.
AMY GOODMAN: Yet, at the same time, you have the first Indigenous, the first Native American cabinet member to be named, under — and this was under President Biden, Deb Haaland, who is a former congressmember from New Mexico. She is the interior secretary. Now, according to AP, she was not in the Interior Department’s building, where the BIA is, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, on Thursday. But can you talk about her role and if you’ve had conversations with her?
JOYE BRAUN: Well, of course, different organizations have been trying to reach out to who we call Auntie Deb. We love Auntie Deb. Make no doubt about it. We love Auntie Deb. We love that she was appointed by President Biden. We love that she’s been able to get some really good, positive work done. However, her hands have been tied by the Biden administration when it comes to climate change. Like I said, the DOI allowed 2,500 new oil and gas leases, when President Biden could have said, “We’re going to stop them, and we’re not going to allow this to happen.”
In order for us to truly make a climate change in the world, in order for us to say, “Hey, we are leaders in climate,” then we must stop all new oil and gas infrastructure, especially on public lands. And unfortunately, Auntie Deb hasn’t been able to do those types of things because her hands are tied by the Biden administration’s policies.
So, we love Auntie Deb. She’s doing an amazing job. We’re really, really proud of her. But President Biden needs to be held accountable for not following through.
AMY GOODMAN: Siqiñiq Maupin, we’re giving you the last word. You came down from Alaska, a leading Indigenous rights activist at your young age. What do you take away from this week?
SIQIÑIQ MAUPIN: I take away knowing that this is not an isolated incident in Alaska, where children are getting cancer, asthma. We are seeing our caribou with black bone marrow, with mold on our fish. And we come to our relatives, and the same things are happening in communities all over the world. And we are saying enough is enough, and standing with leadership with no leader but an entire group of an Indigenous peoples and allies that are saying, “Expect us,” because we have not been respected.
AMY GOODMAN: We thank you both for being with us. Siqiñiq Maupin is the executive director of the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, and Joye Braun, member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, a frontline community organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, which has organized this historic civil disobedience in Washington that have lasted throughout the week. At this point, over 530 people have been arrested.
Coming up, we look at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the world’s largest jail complex, right here in New York City, Rikers Island. Stay with us.
Follow us on facebook and twitter!
PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611
No comments:
Post a Comment