Tag Archives: united

At Least a Few Republicans Want to Protect Undocumented Immigrants Who Came Here as Kids

by DemetriFarris Posted on December 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says he is preparing legislation intended to protect some undocumented young people whose parents brought them to the United States as minors.

The legislation would extend the legal rights gained under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a 2012 Obama policy that allows the hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who have signed up to legally work in the United States and be exempted from deportation. The November election has created much consternation among those currently protected. During the campaign, President-elect Trump said he would kill DACA, and immigrant advocates now worry that his administration could take the personal information DACA recipients submitted to the Department of Homeland Security while applying and use it to locate and deport.

“The worst outcome is to repeal the legal status that these kids have,” Graham told Politico Wednesday. “Whether you agree with them having it or not, they’ve come out of the shadows.”

The legislation would be pretty straightforward: “It’s going to be basically if you have legal status today, you’ll continue to have legal status,” Graham said. As Politico writes:

Graham said he is working with both Democrats and Republicans, and named Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) as one GOP supporter of the forthcoming legislation. While lawmakers are discussing the proposal now, actual legislation won’t be rolled out until the new Congress next year, Graham said. A spokesman for Flake said the senator is discussing “potential paths forward” in dealing with the DACA issue with several colleagues.

In the past, Graham has been less open to the plight of young undocumented people. In 2010, he said proponents of the DREAM Act, a bill that included, among other things, a path to citizenship for some of the kids in question, were “wasting their time.” The bill has been introduced several times since 2001 but has never made it past Republican opposition. “We are not going to pass the DREAM Act or any other legalization program until we secure our borders,” Graham said at the time.

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At Least a Few Republicans Want to Protect Undocumented Immigrants Who Came Here as Kids

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How Do American Kids Do In Math? Pretty Well, It Turns Out.

by JulianaMabry Posted on December 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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Earlier this evening I promised more on the TIMSS math test, and now I’m here to deliver. I could pretty easily just copy the full ranking table and consider it a job well done, but there’s a problem with that: a bunch of Asian tigers are always at the top, light years ahead of everyone else. There’s not much point in comparing ourselves to them. Do we really care that we do worse than countries that goad their kids into studying math until their eyes fall out? Likewise, there are lots of poor countries clustered near the bottom. There’s not much point in comparing ourselves to them either. It might make us feel good, but do we really care that we beat out Malaysia and Oman?

Really, what we want to know is how we compare to peer countries. We also want to know if we’re improving over time. So without further ado, here’s the answer for 8th graders:

Basically, this isn’t bad. We do pretty well among our peers, and our scores have been improving steadily for the past two decades. The full report is here, and it has lots of interesting tidbits.

It’s worth noting that there are two big international math tests: TIMSS and PISA. The United States usually does fairly well on TIMSS and not so well on PISA, which claims to be more about concepts and actual problem solving. If your ideological preference is to show that American kids are doing fine, you’ll focus on TIMSS. If your ideological preference is to show that American education is a cesspool and needs massive reform, you’ll focus on PISA. Take your pick.

One other note. If you really want a takeaway from the latest TIMSS test, it’s the same as the takeaway from every other test ever administered to America schoolkids: we do a terrible job of educating black children. The single biggest thing we could do to improve education in this country is to cut out the half measures and focus serious money and resources on poor, black school districts. But I guess the white working class wouldn’t be very happy about that.

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How Do American Kids Do In Math? Pretty Well, It Turns Out.

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Forget the Wall. If You Want Less Illegal Immigration, Go After Employers.

by BrandyBergeron Posted on November 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Controlling illegal immigration has never seemed all that hard to me. The vast majority of those who are in the United States illegally—either by crossing the border or overstaying their visas—are here to find jobs. So if you want to reduce illegal immigration, you need to make it hard for employers to hire anyone who’s not authorized to work. But in the LA Times today, Wayne Cornelius says that’s not in the cards:

There has never been much public or congressional appetite for a harsh crackdown on employers, especially the small businesses that depend most heavily on workers in the U.S. illegally. They are pillars of their communities and campaign contributors. Besides, immigration agents have had higher enforcement priorities — tracking down immigrants who committed serious crimes or pose national security threats.

President-elect Trump has called for full implementation of an electronic employment eligibility verification system called E-Verify….E-Verify, however, is no panacea. It does not prevent immigrants who are ineligible to work from getting jobs by providing valid information pertaining to other people (borrowed documents). And as long as penalties are weak, requiring employers to use E-Verify will not significantly reduce violations.

Will Congress approve crippling fines or even prison sentences for business owners who ignore E-Verify rules? Will lawmakers direct the Justice Department to make these scofflaws a top priority? Unless and until that happens, many employers will continue to view hiring those in the U.S. illegally as a low-risk, high-reward crime. In 2014, the probability that one of the nation’s 6 million employers would be investigated for violating immigration laws was 0.03%.

I don’t personally care all that much about the level of illegal immigration. The current numbers strike me as reasonable. But obviously a lot of people do care, and most of them are Republicans. They talk tough, they build walls and fences, and they promise to hire lots of border enforcement agents. But this is all a sham. If the economic incentives continue to exist, so will illegal immigration.

The problem is that Republicans can’t come to grips with their two main constituencies. Social conservatives generally hate undocumented workers and want to deport them all. Business conservatives want no such thing. So Republicans thunder on TV that borders are borders, and by God we need to control them. Then they quietly go back to their jobs and do nothing.

The obvious way to cut down on illegal immigration has always been to go after employers. Not only does this attack the root of the problem, but it’s practically self-funding. You hire lots of ICE auditors and then pay for them by levying big fines on employers who break the law. As the problem diminishes, you collect less money but you also need fewer auditors.

E-Verify isn’t perfect. Nothing is. But it could be made good enough. And once that’s done, enforcement could be made pretty widespread and the fines could be made pretty high. If you do that, you can forget about the wall. It’s just a distraction.

Bottom line: Anyone who claims to be fiercely opposed to illegal immigration but doesn’t support strong employer sanctions is just lying to you.

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Forget the Wall. If You Want Less Illegal Immigration, Go After Employers.

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Trump Likely Broke With His Own Stance in Indiana Manufacturing Deal

by MaureenMahler Posted on November 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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President-elect Donald Trump and his team are celebrating the announcement that a company that came under fire for planning to move 1,400 jobs to Mexico will keep around 1,000 of those jobs in Indiana. The announcement late Tuesday came after Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the outgoing governor of Indiana, applied pressure to Carrier, an Indianapolis furnace manufacturer, to keep jobs in the state. At a rally in April, Trump had promised “100 percent” to rescue the jobs at the plant, and Trump and Pence plan to visit Indiana this week to publicize the victory.

But there are still questions about what kind of deal was struck to persuade the company to keep production in the state. Any deal-making would be an about-face for Trump, who as recently as last month derided government incentives to keep companies in the United States.

“I’ve been watching these politicians go through this for years,” Trump said at a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on October 10. “I’ve been watching them give low-interest loans. I’ve been watching them give zero-interest loans. These companies don’t even need the money, most of them; they take the money. There were a couple of instances where geniuses with great lawyers gave them money and then they moved anyway…I mean, the whole thing is crazy.”

Trump made the same point in August at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania. (The Democratic super-PAC and opposition research outfit American Bridge found these examples and shared them with Mother Jones.) “Over the years, I’ve watched, for years, for 10 years, for 12 years, for 15 years, beyond Obama, and I’ve watched as politicians talked about stopping companies from leaving our states,” Trump said. “Remember, they’d give the low-interest loans. Here’s a low-interest loan if you stay in Pennsylvania. Here’s a zero-interest loan. You don’t have to pay. Here’s a this. Here’s a tax abatement of any kind you want. We’ll help your employees. It doesn’t work, folks. That’s not what they need. They have money. They want to go out, they want to move to another country, and because our politicians are so dumb, they want to sell their product to us and not have any retribution, not have any consequence. So all of that’s over.”

If the Indiana deal is any indication, however, these kinds of corporate incentives are not over yet. Neither Trump nor Carrier, which is owned by Indiana-based United Technologies, has disclosed the terms of the deal. CNBC reported that the state of Indiana offered the company incentives to stay. The report also indicated that the company may have chosen to keep the factory in Indiana in order to curry favor with the new administration. United Technologies does lucrative work for the US government making engines for military jets.

Trump was correct that without strict enforcement mechanisms, incentives often fail to keep jobs in the country in the long term if the company stands to make more money by shifting production abroad. Even as Trump has apparently stopped Carrier’s relocation for now, a company a mile away is in the process of shutting down its plant and sending nearly 300 jobs to Mexico. Both Carrier and the second company, Rexnord, had already benefited from tax incentives to stay in Indianapolis when they both decided to move operations to Mexico. Carrier had agreed to pay back $1.2 million to the city. The Indianapolis Star reported in August that under Pence, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation had awarded $24 million in incentives to companies that sent production overseas. Of that sum, $8.7 million had already been paid out.

Trump had railed against corporate welfare long before he launched his presidential campaign. In 2011 and 2012, he repeatedly criticized the Obama administration’s loans to Solyndra, the solar technology company that declared bankruptcy in 2011 despite receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee through the 2009 stimulus package. “Washington is wasting over $2 billion this year on Solyndra type loans,” Trump tweeted in October 2011. The following March, he tweeted that President Barack Obama “has wasted billions of our tax dollars on speculative green projects like Solyndra. He is an economic ignoramus.”

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Trump Likely Broke With His Own Stance in Indiana Manufacturing Deal

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Donald Trump Flips Out Yet Again

by ScotReese2858449 Posted on November 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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I still wake up each morning thinking it can’t really be true that Donald Trump will be president of the United States in less than eight weeks. I mean, he’s…he’s—he’s a willfully ignorant crackpot. He’s a ridiculous game show host. He’s a five-year-old in a 70-year-old body. He’s addicted to gossip and TV. He’s a trust fund kid who thinks he’s a great businessman. He doesn’t have the attention span to read an actual book. He loves conspiracy theories. And he’s got an ego so fragile it ought to be packed in styrofoam peanuts.

Today, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny said he was looking for evidence that Trump’s allegation of massive voter fraud was true. This instantly sent Trump into a furious tantrum, prompting one of his periodic retweet spasms. Let’s take a look at who he chose to retweet. First up is @HighonHillcrest:

Who is @HighonHillcrest? Earlier today he tweeted that Mitt Romney is the “worst kind of traitor.” A few days ago he wrote this: “When RACIST THUG @angela_rye screams, annoying voice gets higher.” (Don Lemon and Van Jones are also racist thugs. Apparently all blacks on CNN are racist thugs.) And this: “FREEDOM OF RELIGION was meant to apply to religions which do NOT advocate killing non-converts.” Next up is @JoeBowman12:

Who is @JoeBowman12? A few weeks ago he was promoting the conspiracy theory that Bill Clinton has a mixed-race son: “CNN Orders Censorship Blackout on Danney Williams story ( Bill Clinton’s alleged son ) http://Infowars.com/show.” And: “Bill Clinton ‘Son’ Tells Hillary: Step Aside http://www.infowars.com.” And: “Bill Clinton’s ‘son’ Danney Williams conducts his FIRST TV interview LIVE at http://Infowars.com/show – DON’T MISS IT!” Next up is @Filibuster:

Who is @Filibuster? He’s a 16-year-old who lives in Beverly Hills. Next up is @sdcritic:

Who is @sdcritic? Earlier today, in response to the attack at Ohio State, he tweeted: “#IslamIsADeathCult #IslamIsTheProblem #BanMuslimsNotGuns #BanSharia #IslamIsCancer #Muslims did not come to America to be Americans! WAKEUP!” And: “#OhioState: You MUST understand #studentfeed that #Islamists are barbaric 3rd world monsters ruthless subhumans.America has brought this 2U!” Finally, Trump added a last word of his own:

What kind of person is so unhinged that even though he won a presidential election, he goes nuts when he’s reminded that he lost the popular vote and (a) demands that all his minions start writing sycophantic tweets about his historic landslide victory, (b) continues stewing about it anyway and fabricates an allegation of massive voter fraud perpetrated by the Democratic Party, (c) flips out at an anodyne segment from a CNN reporter about his lies, and (d) spends his evening hunched over his smartphone rounding up a motley crew of racists, nutbags, and teenagers to assure him that he’s right?

What kind of person does this? And how easy is it to manipulate someone like this? We have a helluva scary four years ahead of us.

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Donald Trump Flips Out Yet Again

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White Nationalists Celebrate Trump’s Victory and Early Appointments

by ElveraDelee369 Posted on November 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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White nationalists gathered in downtown Washington, DC, on Saturday to celebrate the election of Donald Trump as a victory for their movement. As protesters outside carried signs decrying racism, the mood among the approximately 250 white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building was jubilant.

“The alt-right is here, the alt-right is not going anywhere, and the alt-right is going to change the world,” Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the ascendant right-wing movement centered on xenophobia and often racism and white supremacy, told reporters at a press conference during an all-day conference hosted by his group, the National Policy Institute. “And you all need to pay attention to this.”

White nationalists and white supremacists have cheered Trump’s election and rejoiced in the appointments he has made so far in his administration, including former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon as chief strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general. Spencer called Bannon’s appointment a “wonderful thing.” In July, Bannon, who was still running Breitbart, bragged to Mother Jones that his website had become the “platform for the alt-right.” Spencer said he largely agreed with that statement. “It’s clearly moved away from the conservative movement, it was pro-Trump, and it was also a site that tons of people on the alt-right liked, they get their news from, they share.”

Spencer also spoke approvingly of Sessions, who made a name for himself as the top foe of immigration in Congress. Sessions is also known for allegations that he made racist comments when he was an attorney in Alabama—charges that derailed his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship and will come up again in his confirmation hearings to become attorney general. When Mother Jones asked at the press conference whether Spencer agreed with the neo-Nazi writer Andrew Anglin, who on Friday said that the appointments of Sessions and Bannon meant that he was getting everything he wanted from Trump, the crowd at the conference began to cheer at the mention of Sessions. “It’s getting what is realistically possible,” said Spencer. “Jeff Sessions, again, is someone who is not alt-right but who seems to see eye to eye with us on the immigration question. I think Jeff Sessions might very well resonate with something like a long-term dramatic slowdown of immigration.”

Spencer said Sessions would roll back the Obama administration’s enforcement of civil rights laws as the head of the Justice Department. “The fact that he is going to be at such a high level, I think, is a wonderful thing,” he said. “What he is not going to do in terms of federally prosecuting diversity and fair housing and so on I think is just as powerful as what he might do. So it’s about Jeff Sessions setting a new tone in Washington. I think that’s a good thing.”

Spencer’s top priority for the Trump administration is to change the country’s immigration laws to stop not just undocumented immigration but also legal immigration, with the goal of making sure the United States remains a majority-white country. “I think a goal would be net-neutral immigration with a primary emphasis on Europeans who want to immigrate to the country,” he said. Peter Brimelow of the anti-immigrant website VDARE.com later explained that the policy would mean removing immigrants currently in the country and allowing Europeans to take their place. Spencer said he believed passing such a policy through Congress would be easier than the press might think.

When a reporter asked what the movement’s top priority for Trump was, the room began to chant “build the wall.” Spencer agreed that immigration should be Trump’s “primary objective.”

“This is why he was elected,” Spencer said, “because he was the identity president.”

Controversial media personality Tila Tequila, who has identified with Nazis, tweeted from inside the conference.

An estimated 200 to 300 protesters gathered outside the conference, organized by a group called the DC Anti-Fascist Coalition. At around 1 p.m., a conference attendee who exited the conference got into a violent confrontation with protesters.

On Friday night in DC, protesters followed Spencer, and one sprayed him with a foul-smelling liquid as he dined with supporters at a restaurant.

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White Nationalists Celebrate Trump’s Victory and Early Appointments

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Flint still doesn’t have safe drinking water.

by Danae37X675619 Posted on November 17, 2016

Many have agreed that President-elect Donald Trump has some questionable ideas when it comes to climate policy. Today, we get to add anthropomorphized gym sock O’Reilly and known cup goblin Starbucks to that list!

On Wednesday’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor, he advised Trump on a number of items to consider as he prepares to take office. On this list:

“Finally, President-Elect Trump should accept the Paris treaty on climate to buy some goodwill overseas. It doesn’t really amount to much anyway, let it go.”

Well, the thing is, it does actually amount to a lot.

Here’s a confusing screenshot, because this action item appears under the heading “What President Obama Failed to Do,” when President Obama did, in fact, succeed in accepting the Paris Agreement.

On Thursday morning, a coalition of 365 major companies and investors submitted a plea to Trump to please, come on, just support the goddamn Paris Agreement, because to do otherwise would be a disastrous blow to the United States’ economic competitiveness. The list includes Starbucks (the nerve!!!!), eBay, Kellogg, and Virgin.

Anyway, Trump’s whole “refusing to acknowledge climate change” thing seems like a bad look.

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Flint still doesn’t have safe drinking water.

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The White House Just Made a Huge New Climate Commitment That President Trump Will Definitely Ignore

by ThanhFryeu Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by the Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The United States on Wednesday announced an ambitious new goal to rapidly reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, despite the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, a man who has called the phenomenon a “hoax” invented by the Chinese.

Secretary of State John Kerry said at a news conference in Marrakech, Morocco, that he couldn’t “speculate about what policies our president-elect will pursue.” But he noted that “some issues look a little bit different when you’re actually in office compared to when you’re on the campaign trail,” adding that climate change should cease being a partisan issue.

“It’s abundantly clear we have the ability to prevent the worst impacts of climate change,” Kerry said during the United Nation’s annual climate summit. “But again we’re forced to ask: Do we have the collective will? Because our success is not going to happen by accident.”

Under the newly released strategy, which aims to rapidly “decarbonize” America, emissions would be slashed about 80 percent by 2050, compared with levels set in 2005. The United States has already promised a 26 percent to 28 percent cut in emissions by 2025 and would build on those pledges through a transition to renewable energy production, carbon removal technology, and efforts to curb emissions from agriculture and other sources.

But many of these commitments will be in doubt once President Barack Obama leaves office. President-elect Trump has threatened to withdraw from last year’s landmark Paris agreement, end all funding on the issue and significantly increase domestic production of fossil fuels. While some have hoped the businessman would do an about-face once in office, his current short list to lead the country’s environmental agencies doesn’t bode well.

Nearly 200 nations are signed on to the Paris climate agreement, which aims to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, the level scientists say the planet must stay beneath to avoid the worst effects of climate change. World leaders have been assuaging the public since the election, vowing to continue plans to curb emissions with or without the United States.

Kerry used his speech to urge those in power to “do your own due diligence before making irrevocable choices.”

“No one has a right to make decisions that affect billions of people based solely on ideology or without proper input,” he said. “Anyone who has these conversations, who takes the time to learn from these experts, who gets the full picture of what we’re facingâ&#128;&#149;I believe they can only come to one legitimate decision, and that is to act boldly on climate change and encourage others to do the same.”

The US goal for 2050 drew praise from leading environmental groups, as well as promises of condemnation should Trump scale back America’s role in the climate change fight. The United States is the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, behind China and ahead of the European Union.

“No matter who is in the White House, any leader that wants to create jobs, protect our communities and be taken seriously in the international community must build on the climate legacy of President Obama and Secretary Kerry,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “Anyone who fails to realize that not only poses a very real danger to our economy, our families, and our planet but simply cannot call themselves a global leader.”

Others, including the Union for Concerned Scientists, said the 2050 plan was a “good start” but stressed that the world will need to reach “net zero emissions by midcentury” to avoid the rising seas, melting glaciers and extreme weather of a warmer world.

A recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme found that, even with the world’s ambitious climate pledges, leaders would need to slash emissions 25 percent more, on top of existing plans, to avoid the 2-degree threshold.

“It’s still not good enough if we are to stand a chance of avoiding serious climate change,” Erik Solheim, the head of the UNEP, said earlier this month.

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The White House Just Made a Huge New Climate Commitment That President Trump Will Definitely Ignore

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Trump Admitted to a Conflict of Interest in Turkey

by ChrisUdnan Posted on November 15, 2016

Mother Jones

Donald Trump admitted last year that he had a conflict of interest in dealing with Turkey, a country instrumental in the United States’ fight against ISIS, because he has property there. The December 2015 comment foreshadowed the many questions now surrounding how the president-elect will separate himself from his far-reaching business interests.

“I have a little conflict of interest ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul,” Trump said. “It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers—two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two.”

Trump made those comments to Stephen Bannon, who was then the chairman of Breitbart News, during an interview on Bannon’s radio show Breitbart News Daily. Bannon became the CEO of Trump’s campaign in August, after he secured the nomination. Trump announced shortly after the election that Bannon would serve as his chief strategist in the White House—an appointment widely denounced by Trump’s critics because of Bannon’s history as an enabler of white nationalism as head of Breitbart, not to mention the misogynist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Muslim content the website published.

Trump’s comments about his conflict of interest applied specifically to Turkey. But by the logic Trump used, the conflict would also pertain to US relations with countries around the world where Trump has properties and financial entanglements, from Scotland to Azerbaijan. It would even involve the US government itself. In Washington, DC, Trump operates the Trump International Hotel out of a historic building owned by the federal government.

Trump has said he would eliminate this conflict-of-interest problem by turning his business over to his children, in what he is calling a blind trust. But that questionable solution is even more dubious given that Trump has named his three children to his transition team and likely intends for them to serve as informal advisers on domestic and foreign policy matters. Reports Monday indicated Trump is seeking top-secret security clearances for his kids. That means his children are likely to have access to information they could use to steer their father’s decision-making in a direction friendly to the family business.

Listen to the interview with Bannon here. (The relevant section is at the beginning.)

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Trump Admitted to a Conflict of Interest in Turkey

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Mitch McConnell has already admitted GOP promises to out-of-work coal miners won’t come true.

by CandiceKuefer Posted on November 14, 2016

On Monday at COP22, leaders of 7,100 cities in 119 countries announced progress on locally-driven emissions reductions is already underway.

Launched as the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, the group will formalize city-focused climate action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Local leaders committed to slash emissions by 27 percent by 2020 — higher than some national cuts promised in the Paris Agreement. An analysis from the European Commission shows a smaller group of 6,201 cities had already achieved reductions of 23 percent by September.

The coalition already represents 600 million people, or 8 percent of the global population. According to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, over 66 percent of people will live in cities by 2050, with the most urban growth occurring in developing countries.

Think of the cooperative as a mini-COP agreement of sorts, with cities accountable for establishing, measuring, and achieving climate goals.

“We need the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy to empower cities to take bolder steps in this fight, to challenge other cities to do the same, and to ensure that leaders from around the world recognize the significance of cities,” said Maroš Šefčovič, vice president of the European Commission, in a press release.

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Mitch McConnell has already admitted GOP promises to out-of-work coal miners won’t come true.

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