Author Archives: JacintoWare2

The Alabama Governor’s “Inappropriate Relationship” Wasn’t the Whole Scandal

by JacintoWare2 Posted on April 10, 2017

Mother Jones

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican whose relationship with a former aide earned him the nickname “Love Gov,” is expected to resign this week under threat of impeachment. But Bentley’s departure won’t resolve every scandal plaguing his administration.

On Friday, the special counsel leading the impeachment investigation released a 130-page report, which found that Bentley had improperly used law enforcement officials to cover up his “inappropriate relationship” with the former aide, Rebekah Mason. “Bentley directed law enforcement to advance his personal interests and, in a process characterized by increasing obsession and paranoia, subjected career law enforcement officers to tasks intended to protect his reputation,” the report says. The findings come days after the Alabama Ethics Commission found probable cause to believe Bentley committed multiple felony violations of state ethics and campaign finance laws.

Apart from Bentley’s fate, the report shed some light on an episode that brought national scorn and a federal civil rights investigation to Alabama—an episode that also involves the state’s junior US senator, Luther Strange (R).

In 2015, the Bentley administration announced it would shutter 31 driver’s license offices. The closures—which were portrayed as a cost-saving measure—hit rural, minority counties the hardest, leaving 8 of the state’s 11 majority-African American counties without an office that issues driver’s licenses. The move was especially problematic given that Alabama requires voters to present photo identification to cast a ballot.

The closures drew widespread condemnation from civil rights activists. The NAACP filed a lawsuit, which led to an investigation by the US Department of Transportation. The department found that the closures violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In December 2016, the state of Alabama agreed to expand hours of operations for some offices—a partial reversal of the 2015 closures.

According to Friday’s report, former Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Director Spencer Collier told investigators that it was Mason who asked him to shutter driver’s license offices. Collier alleged that at a budget meeting in 2015, Mason proposed closing offices and asked his agency to come up with a plan for doing so. Collier also said he contacted that state attorney general’s office because he thought the proposal might violate federal law; Strange was the attorney general at the time.

“It was Collier’s understanding that Mason intended the plan to be rolled out in a way that had limited impact on Governor Bentley’s political allies,” the report states. “Collier claims he reported this to the Attorney General’s office because he was concerned about a Voting Rights Act violation.”

Ultimately, Collier came up with a plan to close offices with the smallest workloads—which hit rural and minority communities the hardest. Bentley approved the plan but, according the report, took an office in the district of a Republican state senator off the closure list.

In an email, Bobby Segall, an attorney for Mason, declined to address Mason’s involvement in the closures but added, “I will say generally there is a good bit in the report with which we do not agree.”

In February, Bentley appointed Strange to the US Senate seat vacated when Jeff Sessions (R) became US attorney general.

Beyond Bentley’s strange saga, the report raises the question of whether Strange’s office green-lighted a plan that the federal government found discriminatory. Collier first noted in the fall of 2015—amid a public backlash over the closures—that he had discussed the plan with Strange’s office. Spokespeople for Strange and the Alabama attorney general’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

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The Alabama Governor’s “Inappropriate Relationship” Wasn’t the Whole Scandal

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Trump’s Economic Plan: Light on Details, Heavy on Tax Breaks for the Rich

by JacintoWare2 Posted on August 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump tried to reset his campaign yet again with a Monday visit to Detroit and a promise of an economic agenda. His speech at the Detroit Economic Club was light on details and full of assurances that his campaign website would soon feature specifics on how he’d tackle the economy. But what details did exist undercut his pledge to make life better for low- and middle-income families, instead serving largely to keep more money in the pockets of the wealthy people in his own income bracket.

The centerpiece of Trump’s new plan is a retooled tax system. “Nothing would make our foreign adversaries happier than for our country to tax and regulate our companies and our jobs out of existence,” Trump said. He had already laid out a vision for rewriting the tax code during the Republican primary, one whose benefits tilted heavily toward a lower tax burden for people earning more than $1 million per year. His campaign website tried to erase his previous plan ahead of the Monday speech, though web archives still retain information on that initial proposal.

During the primary, Trump had proposed four tax brackets, with rates of 0, 10, 20, and 25 percent. While his new plan lacks details, on Monday he said he’d now seek to introduce only three brackets, taxed at 12, 25, and 33 percent. That represents a tax hike from his earlier proposal, but it’s still a major tax cut from current rates for the top income tax bracket, which is taxed at 39.6 percent.

Trump also said he’d like to wipe away the estate tax altogether, using the term “death tax” that’s popular among some conservatives. “American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death—it’s just plain wrong,” Trump said. “We will repeal it.” But the inheritance tax, as currently constituted, touches only a small segment of the population. The federal government doesn’t take any taxes out of estates unless the inheritance exceeds $5.4 million for individuals or $10.9 million for couples. That leaves just the wealthiest 0.2 percent of families paying any estate taxes and makes its repeal less than a great boost to the working class.

Meanwhile, Trump’s speech included many subtle appeals to corporate interests. He promised to reduce the business tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. Under a President Trump, there would be a complete moratorium on new federal regulations, a massive handout to the financial industry. “Next,” he added, “I will ask each and every federal agency to prepare a list of all of the regulations they impose on Americans which are not necessary, do not improve public safety, and which needlessly kill jobs. Those regulations will be eliminated.” Given his previous claims that he’d like to ditch the 2010 Dodd-Frank law intended to rein in Wall Street, it sounds likely that Trump would vastly lower the number of rules banks and financial institutions need to follow.

But Trump’s speech didn’t contain only the normal Republican calls to lower taxes and cut government oversight of business. He also called for an end to the carried-interest loophole, which allows hedge-funders and others to pay a much lower tax rate on earnings, marking a rare policy agreement with Hillary Clinton. And as Trump launched an usual attack against free trade policies, he cited the liberal Economic Policy Institute to explain potential harms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump also proposed a tax deduction for families to offset the cost of child care—but since that benefit is a deduction rather than a credit, its benefits would skew toward the upper middle class rather than working-class families.

Not unlike other Trump speeches, this one was unconstrained by facts. Trump accused Clinton of seeking to raise taxes on the middle class, based on a blatant misreading of a recent speech. (Clinton has in fact vowed to leave taxes untouched for all but the extremely wealthy.) The Republican nominee called the nation’s low unemployment rate a hoax, another claim that has landed him in trouble with fact-checkers in the past.

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Trump’s Economic Plan: Light on Details, Heavy on Tax Breaks for the Rich

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Clinton Blasts Anti-Muslim Bigotry in Aftermath of Orlando Attack

by JacintoWare2 Posted on June 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton never mentioned Donald Trump’s name, but in her first speech since Sunday’s massacre at an Orlando gay club, Clinton sharply rebuked the anti-Muslim sentiment that has been at the center of his presidential campaign.

In a somber foreign policy speech in Cleveland on Monday, Clinton laid out a broad outline of her anti-terrorism strategy, one that mostly targets ISIS. “The attack in Orlando makes it even more clear: We cannot contain this threat, we must defeat it,” she said at a rally that had already been scheduled and was adjusted in the aftermath of Sunday’s events. Referring to the attacks in Paris and Brussels, as well as the one in Orlando, Clinton warned that the “threat is metastasizing.”

Clinton stressed that Muslim communities need to be treated as allies by law enforcement, because extra surveillance or profiling “plays right into the terrorists’ hands.” She noted that hate crimes against Muslims have increased after past terrorist attacks. She singled out Trump’s “inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric” and his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants, which Clinton said “hurts the vast majority of Muslims, who love freedom and hate terror.” With the threat of ISIS, she added, the country should be “strengthening our alliances, not weakening them or walking away from them,” a not-so-subtle rebuke of Trump’s penchant for dismissing the importance of NATO and other longstanding alliances.

When President George W. Bush responded to 9/11, she recalled, he reached out to the Muslim community, even visiting a mosque six days after the attack. “It is time to get back to those days,” she said, drawing another contrast to Trump, who reiterated his proposed travel ban over the weekend.

Clinton also used the speech to push for increased gun control, including reviving the ban on assault weapons that lapsed in 2004. “I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets,” she said, noting that the AR-15 rifle, which was used in Orlando, was also employed in the San Bernardino and Sandy Hook attacks. The presumptive Democratic nominee also pushed to bar individuals on the FBI watch list and the no-fly list from being able to purchase weapons. “If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links,” she said, “you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked.”

Though the bulk of Clinton’s speech focused on the foreign policy implications of domestic terrorism, she did note that the attack in Orlando targeted the LGBT community. “To all the LGBT people grieving today: You have millions of allies who will always have your back,” Clinton said. “I am one of them.”

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Clinton Blasts Anti-Muslim Bigotry in Aftermath of Orlando Attack

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