Tag Archives: united

Hurricane Matthew’s toll continues to climb.

by Robbie4639 Posted on October 10, 2016

The majority of Sunday’s presidential debate involved the candidates trading blows on tax returns, Donald Trump’s so-called “locker room talk” about assaulting women, and Hillary Clinton’s email account. Just when we had given up hope, energy policy got over four minutes of stage time.

Although there was no direct question about climate change, one audience member asked how the candidate’s energy policies would meet the country’s energy needs in a way that doesn’t destroy the environment.

Trump declared affection for “alternative forms of energy, including wind, including solar,” but added “we need much more than wind and solar.” He went on to say: “There is a thing called clean coal … Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country.”

Clinton responded that she has “a comprehensive energy policy, but it really does include fighting climate change, because I do think that’s a serious problem.” She described making the United States a “21st century renewable energy superpower,” while also touting natural gas as a “bridge to alternative fuels.”

This is the third debate in a row (two presidential and one vice presidential) in which environmental issues have been marginalized. The conversation on climate in the first presidential debate amounted to just 82 seconds.

Update: See Grist’s detailed fact check of last night’s energy exchange.

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Hurricane Matthew’s toll continues to climb.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, Ringer, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hurricane Matthew’s toll continues to climb.

Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

by curseuroraiffeisenbank Posted on October 10, 2016

The majority of Sunday’s presidential debate involved the candidates trading blows on tax returns, Donald Trump’s so-called “locker room talk” about assaulting women, and Hillary Clinton’s email account. Just when we had given up hope, energy policy got over four minutes of stage time.

Although there was no direct question about climate change, one audience member asked how the candidate’s energy policies would meet the country’s energy needs in a way that doesn’t destroy the environment.

Trump declared affection for “alternative forms of energy, including wind, including solar,” but added “we need much more than wind and solar.” He went on to say: “There is a thing called clean coal … Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country.”

Clinton responded that she has “a comprehensive energy policy, but it really does include fighting climate change, because I do think that’s a serious problem.” She described making the United States a “21st century renewable energy superpower,” while also touting natural gas as a “bridge to alternative fuels.”

This is the third debate in a row (two presidential and one vice presidential) in which environmental issues have been marginalized. The conversation on climate in the first presidential debate amounted to just 82 seconds.

Update: See Grist’s detailed fact check of last night’s energy exchange.

This article:

Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, Ringer, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Al Gore wants to convince millennials to vote for Hillary Clinton.

We’re Live Blogging Round Two of the Presidential Debates

by KatheriPohlman Posted on October 10, 2016

Mother Jones

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A few minutes ago Donald Trump appeared at an impromptu press event with three women who claim to have been abused by Bill Clinton and a fourth who was treated badly by Hillary. That sets a tone, doesn’t it?

10:37 – And that’s a wrap.

10:36 – Trump likes his children too. Trump: “She doesn’t quit, she doesn’t give up. She’s a fighter.”

10:34 – Is there anything you respect in your opponent? Trump doesn’t want to answer. Clinton says she respects Trump’s children.

10:33 – Still no questions about climate change.

10:32 – Clinton, dryly: “That was very interesting.” I have a comprehensive energy policy etc.

10:30 – How about energy? Trump: Hillary Clinton wants to put all the miners out of business. “There’s such a thing as clean coal.” Now we’re on to the steelworkers for some reason. Now back to coal. Coal, coal, coal.

10:27 – Trump: I would appoint judges like Scalia. Judges who respect the Second Amendment. Now Trump is claiming that he’s not taking money from big donors and corporations. He thinks Clinton is rich enough that she ought to be donating lots of money to her own campaign.

10:24 – How would you choose Supreme Court justices? Clinton: I’d like to appoint people with real-life experience. Overturn Citizens United. Uphold civil rights. Stick with Roe v. Wade and marriage equality.

10:22 – Trump is just all over the place now. I can’t keep up. Benghazi, 3 am, tweeting, sex tapes, etc. etc.

10:20 – Trump on Clinton: “She has tremendous hate in her heart.”

10:16 – Question to Trump: “Do you believe that you can be a devoted president to all of the people of the United States?” Weird question.

10:15 – Clinton says she’s in favor of arming the Kurds. Trump complains again that Clinton is getting too much time to speak.

10:13 – Clinton: “Donald says he knows a lot more than the generals. He doesn’t.” Big smirk from Trump.

10:12 – Clinton opposed to using American ground forces in Syria.

10:10 – Is Trump in favor of intervening in Syria? Or staying out? I can’t tell. Now Trump is ranting about not keeping our military plans secret.

10:08 – I literally don’t even know what Trump is saying about Syria. I guess Radisson doesn’t either. “Let me ask the question again.” Trump then says that he disagrees with Mike Pence about Russia.

10:03 – Raddison finally manages to shut Trump down and move on to another subject even though Trump insists that he should be able to respond yet again. Good for her.

10:02 – So far a grand total of two ordinary citizens have asked questions. This isn’t much of a town hall.

10:00 – Why didn’t Clinton change the tax code? Clinton: “Because I was a senator under a Republican president.” Trump interrupts to insist that she could have done it anyway if she really wanted to.

9:58 – Trump now basically admitting he used his $916 million operating loss to avoid paying taxes. “Of course I did.” Now ranting about how everyone does it and Clinton never tried to fix it because her rich donor pals like the tax code the way it is.

9:57 – Clinton hammering on Trump for paying no taxes for past 20 years. Obviously she’s trying to bait Trump.

9:56 – Clinton: “Everything he just said is false. I’m sorry I have to keep saying that.”

9:54 – What will you do ensure that the rich pay their fair share in taxes? Trump mentions the carried interest loophole, and that’s it. The rest of his answer is a long free association that has nothing to do with the rich.

9:52 – Trump is sniffing again. Maybe he really does do this every time he speaks?

9:51 – Trump is talking about Russia, and without a pause starts talking about how great his balance sheet is.

9:48 – How aggressive would Trump be in the debate? We have our answer. He’s just attacking without stop and now griping about not getting enough time. Bush league.

9:42 – Question about Trump’s Muslim ban. Is it still his policy? Trump: Muslim ban “somehow” morphed into “extreme vetting.” Raddison: How did it morph? Trump just repeats it: It’s. Called. Extreme. Vetting.

9:40 – Clinton: “Trump is playing into the hands of the terrorists.”

9:38 – What are you going to do about Islamaphobia? Trump: We have to say “radical Islamic terrorism” as often as possible.

9:36 – Trump is all over the map on how he’ll replace Obamacare. Mostly he’s doubling down on the notion that allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines will fix everything. Clinton is biting her lip to keep from laughing.

9:33 – Trump: Obamacare is a total disaster. Will collapse on its own in 2017. I guess there’s no real need to repeal it, then.

9:29 – Trump is now interrupting constantly. Anderson Cooper tells him to shut up. He won’t. Then he gripes that Cooper hasn’t asked about Clinton’s emails even though they just spent the last five minutes on the topic. “Great, three against one,” Trump whines. I guess “the media hates me” is going to be a big theme tonight.

9:25 – Clinton: “It’s a good thing you’re not in charge of the law in this country.” Trump: “Because you’d be in jail.” Cheering.

9:21 – Trump: Blumenthal started the birther rumors. Michelle Obama hates you. Hillary won a rigged primary against Bernie Sanders. If he wins, he is going to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her. Etc. Iguess this is how Trump is going to play things.

9:20 – Clinton quotes Michelle Obama: “When they go low, you go high.” Even bigger applause. Lotsa Trump haters out there too.

9:19 – There was applause for that? Yikes. Lotsa Bill haters still out there.

9:17 – Trump goes after Bill Clinton. He abused women, and “Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, attacked them viciously.”

9:13 – Clinton not going easy on Trump. The Pussygate tape does show who Trump is. He’s unfit to be president. And it’s not just women. Etc.

9:11 – Anderson Cooper insists that Trump tell us whether he’s ever kissed or groped women without their consent. He says he hasn’t. “No one has greater respect for women than me.”

9:09 – Trump starts out with a very low-key tone. Will it last?

9:08 – Will Hillary Clinton say that we should “move very strongly” on something or other? She should!

9:07 – Has this been an edifying campaign? Hmmm. I’m gonna say no.

9:05 – No handshake! They’re ready to rumble!

9:01 – Dana Bash says Trump’s goal is to keep the Republican Party from abandoning him completely.

8:56 – John King says the town hall format is unpredictable! Sure it is. I think we have a pretty good idea of what’s coming.

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We’re Live Blogging Round Two of the Presidential Debates

Posted in Citizen, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We’re Live Blogging Round Two of the Presidential Debates

In Which I Take a Second Look at Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches

by EileenRubinstei Posted on October 9, 2016

Mother Jones

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While we pass the time waiting for tonight’s debate, I’m going to talk through something else. Yesterday I wrote about one of the emails in the Podesta hack, and basically dismissed it. It was a review of the most potentially damaging statements from Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches, and none of them struck me as damaging at all. Since then, several people I respect have suggested that they really are problematic. So let’s go through the ones that are getting the most attention. There are eight.

1. Public and private positions: “I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be. But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

I get how this can be spun to make it look like Clinton is advocating that politicians should lie publicly. But seriously? This is just Negotiation 101. You always have a public position—We will never compromise!—and a private one—What will it take for you guys to make a deal? Anyone over the age of five knows this is how all negotiation everywhere works. The faux outrage over this doesn’t impress me.

2. Oversimplification: “That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in February of ’09, so people could, you know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere. Now, that’s an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom. And I think that there’s a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding and really politicizing what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on all sides.”

First, Clinton is acknowledging that it’s an oversimplification to say that the US banking system was solely responsible for the 2008 crash. Surely everyone understands now that this is true? European banks were heavily leveraged too, and were just as eager as US banks to lend too much money with too little oversight. They were also eager to play the derivatives game. What’s more, there was more to the housing bubble than just the banks. Clinton’s statement here seems unexceptional to me.

Second, she suggests that more transparency from the banks might have prevented “politicizing” the crisis. This probably merits a closer look than I originally gave it. Is she referring to Republican opposition to TARP? That would be reasonable. Or is she talking about taking a tough line against bank executives? That would be harder to excuse. Clinton would need to explain what she meant before we can really make any judgment about this.

3. Bankers know the banking system best: “Today, there’s more that can and should be done that really has to come from the industry itself.” AND: “There’s nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.”

This doesn’t sound great, I admit. On the other hand, Clinton is talking to bankers. So naturally she’s talking about the role bankers can play in reforming financial regulation. Her wording may not thrill me, but it’s not as if she’s suggesting that the finance industry should be allowed to regulate itself. It’s hard to get too worked up about this.

4. Principled bankers: “When I was a Senator from New York, I represented and worked with so many talented principled people who made their living in finance. But even thought I represented them and did all I could to make sure they continued to prosper, I called for closing the carried interest loophole and addressing skyrocketing CEO pay. I also was calling in ’06, ’07 for doing something about the mortgage crisis, etc.”

This is a nothingburger. There are plenty of principled people in the finance industry, and there’s nothing wrong with saying so. And anyway, the gist of this excerpt is that even though she represented New York in the Senate, Clinton still called for regulating the finance industry because it was the right thing to do. This strikes me as entirely positive.

5. Bias against successful people: “But, you know, part of the problem with the political situation, too, is that there is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives. You know, the divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes very onerous and unnecessary.”

This is actually a pretty common criticism of public service these days: we lose a lot of good people because we make it too onerous to serve. The disclosure forms are hundreds of pages long. The divestment rules are thorny. The Senate hearings are nasty and partisan. It takes months or more to get through the whole thing. Plenty of people agree that things have gotten out of hand on this front.

6. Simpson-Bowles: “But Simpson-Bowles — and I know you heard from Erskine earlier today — put forth the right framework. Namely, we have to restrain spending, we have to have adequate revenues, and we have to incentivize growth.”

A few people have tried to play this as an attack on Social Security, since the Simpson-Bowles plan included cuts to Social Security. This is ridiculous. Clinton is obviously taking about generalities: tackling the federal deficit by cutting spending and raising more revenue.

7. Open borders: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”

I really have no idea what this is about, but I assume Clinton is talking about some possible far future scenario, and pandering a bit to her Brazilian audience. She’s never even remotely taken any actions that would push us toward a “hemispheric common market.” Meh.

8. Protectionism: “I think we have to have a concerted plan to increase trade….Governments can either make it easy or make it hard and we have to resist, protectionism, other kinds of barriers to market access and to trade.”

I guess the Bernie supporters will take this as some kind of huge betrayal, but I don’t. Clinton is opposed to protectionism. I’ve never thought otherwise, and I don’t think anyone else has either.

Out of all this, I have two questions. What did Clinton mean by “politicizing” the financial crisis? And what did she mean when she kinda sorta implied that we should listen more to bankers because they know the banking system the best?

That’s it. In other news, we learned that Clinton is pretty much the same person in private that she is in public. She’s moderate, pragmatic, and willing to work across the aisle. She dislikes protectionism and thinks we should try to cut the budget deficit in a balanced way. She doesn’t demonize Wall Street.

You may or may not like this, but it’s who Hillary Clinton has been forever. There are no surprises here. So while I may have skipped past a couple of small things too quickly on my first read, my overall opinion remains the same: There’s just nothing here that’s plausibly damaging, even when it’s run through the Donald Trump alternate universe pie hole. I guess we’ll find out tonight if I’m right.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s also worth noting that this is apparently the worst, most banker-sympathetic stuff they could find out of thousands of pages of speeches to bankers. If anything, this suggests that Clinton hasn’t privately said much of anything that’s especially friendly to Wall Street.

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In Which I Take a Second Look at Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches

Posted in Anker, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on In Which I Take a Second Look at Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches

Gary Johnson Thinks Barack Obama and Bashar Assad Are Morally About the Same

by Carey68Hsrqgpwm Posted on October 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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Gary Johnson thinks our foreign policy should be less interventionist. That’s fair enough. I agree with him. But this is ridiculous:

Attacking Hillary Clinton over what he criticized as her overly interventionist instincts, Mr. Johnson pointed to the hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians killed by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, as well as civilian deaths caused by the American-backed coalition, and said Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, bore at least partial responsibility…He charged that Mrs. Clinton “bears responsibility for what’s happened, shared responsibility for what’s happened in Syria. I would not have put us in that situation from the get-go.”

This is nuts. Hillary Clinton played no role in starting the civil war in Syria, and 400,000 people have died there even though Barack Obama chose not to adopt her policy preferences. Our responsibility for what’s happened in Syria—whether you think it’s large or small—belongs to Obama, not Clinton. Then there’s this:

Johnson drew a parallel on Wednesday between the Syrian government’s targeting of noncombatants in that nation’s civil war and the accidental bombing of civilians by United States-backed forces…When pressed four times on whether he saw a moral equivalence between deaths caused by the United States, directly or indirectly, and mass killings of civilians by Mr. Assad and his allies, Mr. Johnson made clear that he did.

Words fail. Yes, the United States is far from perfect. Yes, we sometimes kill innocent civilians. Yes, we often do too little to make sure civilians are safe. All of this is worth protest until we get better.

But we do try to spare civilians. In fact, our rules of engagement are famously restrictive. Bashar Assad, by contrast, deliberately targets civilians in huge numbers. Civilian or not, if you oppose Assad he wants you dead.

Does Johnson really see no difference there? That wouldn’t pass muster in a freshman ethics class, let alone the real world. I’d like to see the United States rely less on a military approach to the Middle East, too, but I sure wouldn’t want our military in the hands of a guy who apparently sees no real moral difference between a butcher like Bashar Assad and decent but imperfect leaders like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

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Gary Johnson Thinks Barack Obama and Bashar Assad Are Morally About the Same

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We’re Live Blogging the Vice Presidential Debate of 2016

by JoyceMerz38 Posted on October 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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This was a more normal debate than last week’s, which makes it harder to call. Tim Kaine was very much the aggressor, interrupting frequently and demanding that Pence defend the most egregious of Donald Trump’s outbursts. Pence was calmer, and kept insisting that Trump had never said the stuff Kaine accused him of saying. This wasn’t true, but there’s no telling if the audience at home believed him anyway. In the future, perhaps candidates should be allowed to have a series of video clips they’re allowed to display during their answers?

On style, then, Pence probably won with his calm demeanor. On substance, it was a KO for Kaine. Trump really did say all the stuff Kaine accused him of, but Pence simply refused to engage with it. Trump did casually say he didn’t care much if other countries got nukes. Trump did say that women who get abortions should be punished.1 Trump’s tax plan does include huge cuts for millionaires. Trump did promise to release his taxes and then reneged on it. Trump (and Pence) have called Vladimir Putin a better leader than Obama. Trump has trash talked the military. And he did call NATO obsolete and then suggest he might not bother defending the Baltics if Russia invaded them.

Neither Pence nor Kaine made any terrible gaffes, and neither landed any killing blows. This means that partisanship probably weighs most heavily here, but even with that in mind I’d give the debate to Kaine. The post-debate commentary is going to make it clear that Kaine was mostly accurate about Trump, and that Pence simply wasn’t willing or able to defend him. I don’t know if that will be devastating for Pence, but it won’t make him look good. Overall, I give Kaine a B+ and Pence a B-.

As for Elaine Quijano, I really don’t know. She didn’t take control of the debate at all, and frequently allowed Pence and Kaine to talk when she should have shut them up—but just as frequently moved on when she should have let them talk. Was this because of the debate rules? Because Pence and Kaine refused to abide by the rules? Or because she’s a bad moderator? I don’t know.

A full transcript of the debate is here.

1He took it back the next day, but he still said it.

In a presidential campaign featuring superstars Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence have faded so far into the background they’re almost invisible. In fact, they’ve both avoided controversy so assiduously that the main attacks against Kaine are about his defense of murderers several decades ago, while the biggest complaint about Pence is that he claimed cigarettes weren’t killers back in the year 2000. I’m exaggerating here, but only barely.

Actually, what most people seem to be looking forward to is Pence’s defense of Donald Trump’s various meltdowns. Sadly, he’s probably well prepped for this. But you never know. There might be fireworks anyway.

10:35 – And that’s a wrap.

10:33 – Pence: We’ll unify America by bringing change to Washington DC, standing tall in the world, and supercharging the economy. Um.

10:31 – How will you unify America if you win? Kaine: Republicans respect Clinton. She has a track record of working across the aisle. Kaine says he does too. Not a bad answer.

10:27 – Pence opposes abortion. Kaine supports women making their own choices.

10:26 – Now it’s a lovefest. Everybody agrees that faith is great. Everybody agrees that the other guy’s faith is great.

10:23 – Now let’s talk about faith. You will be unsurprised that both men are deeply, deeply informed by their faith.

10:20 – Quijano: I remind you both that the question is about North Korea.

10:19 – Now Kaine is talking about foundations too. The Clinton Foundation is great! But the Trump Foundation is “octopus like” and breaks the law all the time.

10:16 – What would you do to prevent North Korea from developing a missile that can reach the United States? Pence delivers a bit of mush and then….returns to Trump’s taxes and the Clinton Foundation. Huh?

10:11 – Finally Kaine says something not really true: that Trump didn’t know Russia annexed Crimea two years ago. Pence goes after it. But he’s still stuck on most of Kaine’s accusations because they’re all on tape.

10:10 – Kaine has generally been pretty aggressive in his accusations against Trump. Pence is constantly rolling his eyes and saying “Oh please” or something similar. But he rarely even tries to explain why Kaine is wrong. He just switches to an attack on Hillary Clinton. I guess he doesn’t have much choice since Kaine has mostly been accurate.

10:07 – Now Kaine makes it explicit: He’s tried to get an answer on nukes “six times.” Pence won’t defend Trump’s position. Quijano bails out Pence by moving to a new subject.

10:05 – Kaine keeps poking Pence on Trump’s casual attitude toward other countries getting nuclear weapons. Pence resolutely refuses to deal with this.

9:58 – A question about Aleppo. And speaking of Aleppo, Gary Johnson says his ignorance of geography is a benefit. Folks who know all those foreign countries and foreign leaders just end up wanting to attack them. Seriously.

9:54 – What is an “intelligence surge”? Kaine: Expanding our intelligence capacity and building better alliances. Okey doke.

9:49 – Is America more or less safe than it was eight years ago? For the record, I’d say it’s about equally dangerous.

9:48 – Kaine doing a pretty good job of running down why Trump is dangerous on foreign affairs: Trash talks the military, wants to tear apart alliances, he loves dictators, and he wants everyone to have nukes.

9:44 – Back to immigration. Pence trying to soften Trump’s plan. Kaine trying to make sure everyone knows every single detail.

9:41 – Pence now trying to make case that “basket of deplorables” is equivalent to all of Trump’s insults. It’s not working.

9:40 – Interesting that Pence rather obviously refused to say the word “wall” when talking about Trump’s immigration plan.

9:34 – Pence: Enough with all this institutional racism crap. Kaine: We can’t be afraid to bring up issues of bias.

9:31 – Both guys agree that cops are great.

9:29 – What is Elaine Quijano doing? She’s not keeping either of these guys in line, and she’s only allowing a minute or two on each subject. Come on. This isn’t a race to see who can talk about the most subjects in 90 minutes.

9:27 – Pence to Kaine: “There they go again.” Oh please.

9:26 – What the heck are the rules for this debate? Are interruptions allowed? Are there time limits? Or what?

9:22 – Pence to Kaine: “You can roll out the numbers” but the economy sucks no matter what all your egghead numbers say.

9:21 – Kaine on Trump: “His economic plan is a Trump first plan.” Meh.

9:19 – Nobody is making any funny faces yet.

9:16 – So far, our moderator is not doing a good job of keeping things in line. Maybe she’s restrained by bad rules?

9:14 – Both candidates are trying to be tough. It’s a little comedic. Sort of like five-year-olds trying to look tough next to John Wayne.

9:12 – Why do so many people think Donald Trump is erratic? How much time do we have to answer this question?

9:11 – Why don’t people trust Hillary Clinton? Hmmm. Let me think.

9:03 – And we’re off. Can I remember to use Eastern time zone time stamps this time? Wait and see!

9:00 – CNN can’t seem to make up its mind whether this debate is going to be a snoozefest or the biggest moment ever in debate history.

8:55 – David Axelrod: There will be no painting outside the lines tonight.

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We’re Live Blogging the Vice Presidential Debate of 2016

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Donald Trump Promised to Release a List of His Creditors. We’re Still Waiting.

by JoanW10cgjdlk Posted on October 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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During the first presidential debate, moderator Lester Holt asked Donald Trump about his refusal to release his tax returns, explaining that part of “the reason nominees have released their returns for decades” is so voters can determine if a potential president’s debts reveal any conflicts of interest. “Don’t Americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts of interest?” Holt asked. Trump brushed the question off, saying that “you don’t learn that much from tax returns.” (As the New York Times reported this weekend, just a few pages of Trump’s tax records from 1995 reveal that the GOP nominee may not have paid federal income taxes for 18 years.) He claimed that the personal financial disclosures he had already filed with the Federal Election Commission provided a more detailed overview of his finances, though those records do not reveal income, tax rates, charitable donations, and loan interest payments. “But,” Trump told Holt, “I could give you a list of banks, I would—if that would help you, I would give you a list of banks. These are very fine institutions, very fine banks. I could do that very quickly.”

Mother Jones has been trying to determine Trump’s full roster of creditors, so we immediately contacted his campaign to request the list Trump offered. A week later, we’re still waiting.

Even without the release his tax returns—a standard practice for presidential candidates since the Nixon era—it is clear that should he reach the White House he would face significant conflicts of interest due to his complex business interests. His personal financial disclosure report provides an incomplete view of his finances. Filed in May, the form lists 16 loans that are valued in vague ranges that make it impossible to determine the total amount he owes. For instance, five of Trump’s loans are valued at $50 million or more (the FEC doesn’t require anything more specific). According to this disclosure, Trump owes a minimum of $315 million. But the real amount appears to be much higher. A search of property records throughout the United States shows that those 16 loans are valued, conservatively, at $675 million.

His financial disclosure forms likely do not reveal the full scope of his intricate finances. As the New York Times reported in August, Trump has invested in partnerships that owe nearly $2 billion—loans, including one from the Bank of China, that are not identified within his personal financial disclosure. Trump’s representatives told the Times that Trump would not be liable for those loans, but because he is an investor in the buildings used as collateral for these loans, his investments are certainly linked to the loans.

And Trump’s most recent financial disclosure is already out of date. For instance, Trump reported to the FEC in May that he owed UBS Real Estate, a subsidiary of the Swiss banking giant, between $5 million and $25 million in connection with a loan for commercial property at New York City’s Trump International Hotel and Tower. But Trump no longer has this loan. According to New York City property records, the loan was for $7 million, and his company paid it off with a new $7 million loan from a much smaller lender named Ladder Capital Finance. Trump’s history of failed deals and repeated bankruptcies has made him persona non grata with many of the world’s top banks, forcing him to rely on smaller institutions such as Ladder Capital. According to public documents, Trump currently owes Ladder Capital at least $275 million.

Ladder Capital specializes in packaging loans into larger portfolios that are eventually sold off to other lenders. This is significant because it would be important to know exactly who owns Trump’s debt—a potential source of leverage over a commander-in-chief. Tax returns would reveal to whom Trump is paying interest. It would be a small step forward in transparency, if the Trump campaign issues a list of his creditors. But the full scope of his finances—and his creditors—will not be known unless he releases his tax returns.

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Donald Trump Promised to Release a List of His Creditors. We’re Still Waiting.

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Child Care Is Finally Getting Some Much-Needed Regulation, But It’s Still Expensive As Hell

by DorieHairfiyu Posted on September 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Obama administration released a new list of regulations today meant to improve the quality of child care in thousands of centers—from small mom-and-pop shops to large nonprofit and for-profit schools—serving infants and toddlers. Currently, every state has its own safety, health, and learning standards for child care centers, whose quality varies widely. The new federal standards aim to raise the bar for every center that works with any of the 1.4 million low-income children currently receiving a federal subsidy to cover their child care fees.

The new rules require, among other things:

More thorough background checks for all staff working in child care centers;
Unannounced inspection visits of child care centers that will be posted publicly for parents;
Regular mandatory training for child care providers, including safe sleeping practices, preventing infectious diseases and administer CPR, and spotting and reporting child abuse;
More professional development of educators.

“In some states, it is easier to become a child care provider than a hairdresser or a dog walker,” Brigid Shulte, the director of New America’s Better Life Lab, told Mother Jones. The new standards are a very important first step, Shulte added, but the rules cover only a small percentage of the roughly 12 million kids younger than five in the United States.

Shulte is the co-author of the just-released “The Care Report,” which analyzed the quality, cost, and availability of child care in 50 states. Using data from Care.com, New America, and many other recent studies, researchers found:

Child care is very expensive in the United States. The average full-time cost of child care centers for children ages zero to four is $9,589 a year, higher than the average cost of in-state college tuition ($9,410). Infant care is particularly expensive: Full-time care for babies in centers ranges from a low of $6,590 in Arkansas to a high of $16,682 in Massachusetts. In 33 states, one year of infant care in a center is more expensive than a year in public college. And while early care is subsidized in virtually every other advanced country, 60 percent of US child care costs are paid by parents, 39 percent by the government, and only 1 percent by businesses and philanthropy. Another study found that in Sweden, parents spend about 4 percent of their net income on child care; in France, Germany, and Denmark, about 10 percent. “It’s not surprising that our fertility is lowest in history,” Shulte said. “We make it very difficult for parents to have kids.”

Early-learning teachers make poverty wages, which contributes to high turnover and poor quality of care. The median wage of a teacher in this field is $9.77—less than what most janitors and parking garage attendants make. It’s no surprise then that nearly half of the 2 million preschool and child care teachers are enrolled in some kind of public support program, receiving food stamps or welfare assistance.

Percentages of Workers in Public Support Systems (2009-13) Source: Early Childhood Workforce Index 2016. Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley

The quality of child care is low and is the worst for ages zero to three—the most crucial stage for brain development. Only 11 percent of child care centers are accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children or the National Association for Family Child Care. The rest operate under state standards and licenses that all have varying—and mostly mediocre—rules and regulations.

Very few poor kids receive help. Only 1 in 5 low-income kids receive federal subsidies to cover child care costs.

Many policymakers still think that taking care of infants and toddlers is “babysitting,” Shulte said. But the research shows otherwise: The first three years of a child’s life are the most important for brain development, and parents or caregivers require specialized knowledge and training to promote important cognitive, social, and emotional skills.

That sort of training costs money, of course, but researchers like Nobel-winning economist James Heckman and others have argued that investments in these early years yield the greatest returns to society. Steven Barnett, a professor of economics and the executive director of the National Institute for Early Childhood Research, calculated that every $1 the government invests in high-quality early education can save more than $7 later on by boosting graduation rates, reducing crime, and increasing tax revenue.

Funding and enrollment for preschool is regaining its momentum since the recession: In 2012, 66 percent of American four-year-olds went to preschool. But despite these gains, the United States still ranks 30th (out of 44) for preschool enrollment among developed nations. And when it comes to child care from birth to age three, the US spends little to nothing: Only 6 percent of total spending goes to this age group, according to Paul Tough, the author of Helping Children Succeed. Compared to other nations, the United States ranks 31st out of 32 developed nations when it comes to government spending on early childhood education.

Getting the United States all the way to high-quality early learning is a long road, the authors of “The Care Report” argue, one that must start with sufficient and sustained funding from the public and private sectors. Other proposed solutions in the report include universal paid family leave, expanding cash assistance programs, and universal pre-K, and providing better training and pay for teachers. “Research tells us that the vast majority of achievement gap you see in high school opens up before kindergarten,” Shulte said. “The work to transform early learning is urgent if we want to reduce these gaps—like other countries with better early childhood policies have done.”

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Child Care Is Finally Getting Some Much-Needed Regulation, But It’s Still Expensive As Hell

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The Time a Trump Aide Sued a Trump Adviser Over an Anti-Hillary Group Called C.U.N.T.

by MarieVandegrift Posted on September 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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These days, veteran GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone and longtime Hillary Clinton foe David Bossie are on the same side, helping GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Bossie was recently named deputy campaign manager for the Trump campaign, and Stone, who used to be a paid adviser to the celebrity mogul, is a fierce surrogate for Trump in the media. But the two have not always been allies. Several years ago, they battled in court over a misogynistic political group Stone had formed to bash Clinton.

At one point in 2008, while Hillary Clinton was first running for president, Stone was sitting in a bar conducting an informal focus group about the former first lady and hatched a toxic and offensive idea for thwarting her. He filed some paperwork with the IRS and created an independent political group called Citizens United Not Timid—also known as CUNT. He recruited a DJ-bartender from Miami who went by the name of Noodles to serve as its chairman. Stone’s group set up a couple of websites, including WhatIsHillary.com, which featured a logo designed to look like a woman’s crotch. Its main mission was to sell T-shirts with this image and the words, “To educate the public about what Hillary Clinton really is.”

Former homepage of Citizens United Not Timid

The group’s work is one example in a long list of misogynistic attacks on Clinton, dating back to Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the presidency in 1992. And in the current presidential campaign, Trump has suggested Clinton doesn’t have “a presidential look,” claimed she lacks “stamina,” and accused her of “shouting” when she speaks forcefully (apparently with encouragement from Stone himself). Citizens United Not Timid’s brashness now seems like a warm-up for the 2016 campaign

Not long after its unveiling, the organization heard from another anti-Clinton outfit that might normally be an ally: Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group that was then run by Bossie. The group was annoyed that Stone’s organization had copied the name of the long-established organization. While Citizens United had spent years attacking Hillary, often hitting similarly misogynistic notes, Stone’s work apparently crossed the line.

Citizens United sent Stone a letter, accusing him of deliberately appropriating its name and trying to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Citizen United’s forthcoming release of the Hillary: The Movie, the histrionic anti-Clinton docudrama that led to the landmark Supreme Court case opening the floodgates to money in politics. Citizens United demanded that Stone give up the group’s name immediately and take down CUNT’s websites. Stone refused, so Citizen Union sued him, DJ Noodles, and CUNT in federal court in Florida, accusing them of deceptive trade practices, unfair competition, and trademark infringement. The complaint alleged that the group’s “sole business appears to be to use its trade name—and specifically the vulgar acronym formed from its trade name—to slur Hillary Clinton, to sell and distribute T -shirts bearing a vulgar and obscene logo and to collect names of those who are similarly inclined to characterize Ms. Clinton.” Citizens United complained that Stone’s appropriation of its name would confuse potential donors and tarnish its reputation.

In response, Stone—who recently published a book accusing the Clintons of waging a “war on women”—argued that CUNT was a constitutionally protected expression of free speech. He argued in a court filing that his group was created to educate the public about a “well known public figure,” not to make money or to sell stuff for traditional commercial purposes. He said the name was chosen after “conducting a survey of like-minded people regarding what they thought of a certain public figure. Specifically, we asked a significant number of people to describe the particular public figure in one word. While the word ‘bitch’ came up most often, we were unable to come up with a name for the organization based thereon.”

After a brief flurry of legal filings, Stone capitulated two months after the suit was filed and agreed to change the name. He came up with a new one that all parties could accept. CUNT, the acronym, would live on, so long as Stone dropped the “United” and the full name of his group would be Citizens Uniformly Not Timid. With all that behind them, Bossie and Stone are now both important foot soldiers in Trump’s sometimes misogynistic crusade against Hillary Clinton.

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The Time a Trump Aide Sued a Trump Adviser Over an Anti-Hillary Group Called C.U.N.T.

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New Report: Poor Americans of Color Drink Filthy Water and Breathe Poisonous Air All the Damn Time

by DieterBainton Posted on September 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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In 2009, trains arrived in Uniontown, Alabama carrying four millions tons of coal ash, the toxic residue from burning coal. The ash was recovered from a spill in Kingston, Tennessee—a town that is more than 90 percent white—and brought to a new landfill less than a mile from the residential part of Uniontown, which is 90 percent black. Soon, Uniontown residents began reporting breathing problems, rashes, nausea, nosebleeds, and more.

“The smell, the pollution, and the fear affect all aspects of life—whether we can eat from our gardens, hang our clothes or spent time outside,” resident Esther Calhoun later said.

Uniontown residents filed a complaint to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Civil Rights in 2013, alleging that the waste was disproportionately affecting black property owners. By allowing the landfill to exist, they said, Alabama was violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which mandates that federeal funds not be used in a discriminatory purpose. The EPA is supposed to respond to such complaints within 6 months. Three years after filing the complaint, Uniontown residents are still waiting for an answer.

The story is one of many detailed in a scathing report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, a government watchdog group, on the EPA’s “long history” of not effectively enforcing its anti-discrimination policies. “EPA does not take action when faced with environmental justice concerns until forced to do so,” it reads. “When they do act, they make easy choices and outsource any environmental justice responsibilities onto others.”

For years, critics have accused the EPA of neglecting communities of color, pointing to cases from toxic air in Richmond, California to lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan.

The report sheds light on why this might be the case: Despite receiving early 300 discrimination complaints since 1993, the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights has “never made a formal finding of discrimination and has never denied or withdrawn financial assistance from a recipient in its entire history,” the report found. Last year, the Center for Public Integrity found that it takes the EPA a year, on average, to decide to accept or dismiss a Title VI omplaint, and that the agency dismisses or rejects the discrimination complaints in more than 9 out of 10 cases.

Much of the US Commission on Civil Rights report focuses on coal ash, which typically contains arsenic, mercury, and other heavy metals that are “associated with cancer and various other serious health effects,” according to the EPA. The ash is America’s second largest industrial waste stream (after mining waste), with 130 million tons generated each year—more than 800 pounds for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Until recently, the coal ash was typically dumped in unlined pits and covered with water, sometimes contaminating local water sources.

In 2014, the EPA came out with the first ever a coal ash storage rule—after environmental groups sued the agency for evading its responsibility to revise its waste regulations. The regulations say that new coal ash pits must be lined, and unlined pits need to be cleaned up—but only if they’re connected to active power plants and found to be polluting groundwater. What’s more, the rule doesn’t allow federal enforcement, leaving lawsuits as the only mechanism of ensuring that the guidelines are followed.

The US Commission on Civil Rights report took issue with these weaknesses, saying the rule “requires low-income and communities of color to collect complex data, fund litigation and navigate the federal court system—the very communities that the environmental justice principles were designed to protect.”

It recommends that the EPA bring on additional staff to respond to discrimination complaints and handle the current backlog (some cases are decades old). It calls for the agency to classify coal ash as hazardous waste, test water near coal ash ponds in poor and minority communities, and study the health effects of the waste. It also points out that all this will be difficult without funding from Congress—currently, only eight EPA staff members are directly responsible for Title VI compliance.

In a statement to the Center for Public Integrity, the EPA said that the report had “serious and pervasive flaws” and included factual inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of EPA findings. Mustafa Ali, environmental justice advisor to EPA head Gina McCarthy, said, “EPA has a robust and successful national program to protect minority and low-income communities from pollution.”

In places like Uniontown, Alabama, it’s hard to see evidence of such a program. “EPA is more focused on process than on outcomes; more focused on rhetoric than results,” wrote commission chairman Martin Castro in in the report. “By any measure, its outcomes are pathetic when it comes to environmental justice.”

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New Report: Poor Americans of Color Drink Filthy Water and Breathe Poisonous Air All the Damn Time

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