Tag Archives: washington

Fox News Flees Interview After Hearing a Critical Take on Comey Firing

by GKEJerrell Posted on May 11, 2017

Mother Jones

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While Washington reels over the fallout from FBI Director James Comey’s abrupt dismissal this week, Fox & Friends’ Griff Jenkins set out on Thursday to check the pulse of the average Joe in real America.

“What do you make of the firing?” Jenkins asked a random patron inside the Tastee Diner in Bethesda, Maryland.

“I think it should have been done much earlier,” he answered. “Not to be too Machiavellian about it—why does it take such a long time for these guys to arrive at this conclusion? Is it because we’re getting too tight, finding out too much information about Putin?”

That response proved too much for Jenkins. Watch him swiftly shut down the interview and move on to another man posted up at the bar:

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Fox News Flees Interview After Hearing a Critical Take on Comey Firing

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Wednesday Was the Most Dangerous Day So Far of the Trump Presidency

by radiomeciurilive Posted on April 29, 2017

Mother Jones

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By now we all know the story of President Trump’s sudden U-turn on NAFTA earlier this week. But just to refresh your memories, here is the Washington Post:

“I was all set to terminate,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview Thursday night. “I looked forward to terminating. I was going to do it.”…At one point, he turned to Kushner, who was standing near his desk, and asked, “Was I ready to terminate NAFTA?”

“Yeah,” Kushner said, before explaining the case he made to the president: “I said, ‘Look, there’s plusses and minuses to doing it,’ and either way he would have ended up in a good place.”

The basic story here is that Trump is a child. He was all ready to pull the trigger, but then his advisors brought in a colorful map showing that lots of red states and counties would be harmed by pulling out of NAFTA. Eventually Trump calmed down and normalcy reigned for another day.

But here’s the part of the story I still don’t understand: what happened on Wednesday that suddenly put a burr up Trump’s ass to pull out of NAFTA? Just a few weeks ago he sent a list of negotiating points to Congress, and both Mexico and Canada have agreed the treaty needs some updating. Things were moving along fairly normally, and then suddenly Trump woke up one morning and decided to light off a nuclear bomb.

What was that all about? Was it really because of Trump’s obsession over having some kind of accomplishment to show for his first hundred days? Did he eat a taco that didn’t agree with him? Did Steve Bannon have a late-night talk with him?

This was the reason all along that Trump was a far more dangerous candidate than Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. From a liberal point of view, his incompetence was a bonus that might restrict the short-term damage he could do. But Trump also brought to the table a noxious racist appeal, an ugly nationalism, an appalling level of ignorance, and a mercurial temperament. All of these were on display Wednesday. Apparently out of nowhere, and for no particular reason, he just strolled into the Oval Office and decided he wanted to formally withdraw from NAFTA.

Why? And what are the odds he’s going to do this again on something more important? Something that, for whatever reason, his aides can’t talk him out of with a colorful map and another diet Coke?

I’m not sure everyone realizes that this is the most dangerous thing Trump has done so far. It was a close-run thing, but next time it might not be. And we still have 1,361 days left to go of Trump’s presidency.

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Wednesday Was the Most Dangerous Day So Far of the Trump Presidency

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Trump Administration Launches Office Focused on Crimes by Immigrants

by stefanberry Posted on April 26, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Trump administration officially launched an office on Wednesday dedicated to the victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants—an effort that immigrant advocates say does not align with actual crime data and appears designed to demonize immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office, which will provide aid to people affected by crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. According to DHS and officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement—which will house the office—this assistance will include a hotline to answer questions about the immigration enforcement process and a notification system to provide updates to registered victims about the custody status of immigrant perpetrators.

The services provide by VOICE are not new: Most are already offered by ICE’s community engagement office, and the office draws upon personnel and resources that the agency already has. But administration officials have shifted the tone of the conversation by focusing on victims of crimes committed by immigrants.

“All crime is terrible, but these victims are unique—and too often ignored,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said during the Wednesday launch event in Washington. “They are casualties of crimes that should never have taken place, because the people who victimized them oftentimes should not have been in the country in the first place.”

In reports and statements leading up to the launch, VOICE has been described as focusing exclusively on people affected by crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. But DHS officials on Wednesday said that the office would provide services to victims of “crimes with an immigration nexus,” suggesting that the scope of the agency could expand beyond the undocumented. DHS officials told reporters that VOICE will focus on crimes committed by anyone who could potentially face deportation, a grouping that could include immigrants with legal status.

The office has been in the works for several months and was developed with input from victims and their families, many of whom attended the launch event. It was first mentioned in the president’s January executive order addressing illegal immigration, and its purpose was further clarified in a memo published by Kelly in February. President Donald Trump first spoke publicly about it in his February address to Congress, when he said, “We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media and silenced by special interests.”

The launch drew immediate criticism from immigration advocates. “The goal of this program is to instill fear of non-white immigrants,” the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said in a statement. “It is another deliberate step taken by the Trump administration towards creating institutions that legitimize racist propaganda. That’s what this is about, instilling fear in order to subject people to double suspicion, double punishment, and deprivation of due process.” Others have argued that while the administration focuses on crimes committed by immigrants, it has pulled back from assisting immigrant crime victims, leaving many immigrants fearful of reporting crimes to police.

“I think it is absurd to highlight the crimes committed by a small group of people without reporting on the crimes committed by everybody,” Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said in an interview before the Wednesday launch. With the establishment of VOICE, he added, the administration appears to be “trying to show how dangerous a group of people is when they have no statistical evidence towards that claim.” Crime data suggests that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.

At Wednesday’s event, DHS officials argued that VOICE is not about demonizing immigrants, but instead will focus on assisting victims and families who are confused about how immigration enforcement works. “The immigration system is so complicated, there wasn’t anyone there to tell victims what has been happening on the immigration side,” said DHS spokesman David Lapan. “This office can help victims’ families understand the immigration elements of the crimes committed.”

But that mission has been complicated by the president’s rhetoric on immigration and the undocumented. Trump has frequently highlighted the immigration records of violent offenders. One of his central campaign promises was to build a wall between Mexico and the United States, and he has pledged to ramp up deportations.

Launching just days before Trump’s 100th day in office, VOICE comes at a difficult moment for the administration. On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked part of the president’s order that would have withheld funding from so-called sanctuary cities, which refuse to comply with Trump’s call to detain and deport undocumented immigrants.

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Trump Administration Launches Office Focused on Crimes by Immigrants

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A Review of Reviews of "The Handmaid’s Tale"

by EmilieLohman229 Posted on April 21, 2017

Mother Jones

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Below are excerpts from a baker’s dozen reviews of Hulu’s new adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. Can you figure out what they all have in common?

New York Times: The television adaptation arrives with a newfound and unexpected resonance in Trump’s America….“We were hoping to be relevant, but we weren’t hoping it would be this relevant.”

io9: It’s incredibly difficult to watch The Handmaid’s Tale and not be affected, to feel like we’re so much closer to it being reality than when it was first written.

Washington Post: The phrase “now more than ever” has become a tiresome cliche in the past few months, but so what: “The Handmaid’s Tale” is here and it demands our attention, now more than ever.

Hollywood Reporter: Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale may be the most unintentionally timely show of the year.

Entertainment Weekly: Their performances — and the show’s consistent sense of textural, lived-in realism — anchor the drama in something beyond speculative sci-fi, making the story feel less like a quasi-fictional fable than an entirely possible preview of what’s to come.

Wall Street Journal: You can’t quite call it a bad dream come true, not yet. But given what might be termed “recent events,” it’s certainly cautionary, and more than urgent.

The Economist: As the Trump administration continues to cut funding and roll back family-planning services, it is easy to hear echoes of its rhetoric on the screen.

Vogue: Could the timing be any more apt?

TV Guide: The show and its source material feel more timely and relevant than ever….With women’s rights again on the chopping block under a Trump administration, and a common refrain from critics on the left to resist normalizing Trump, it’s difficult if not impossible not to draw parallels between the show and real-life events.

Deadline Hollywood: If ever a television series could border on being too relevant, Hulu’s gripping, chilling and brutal adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, which launches with its first three episodes on April 26, would be the one.

Huffington Post: Whether the show sets out to directly compare its dystopian themes with today’s political climate, for some readers â&#128;&#149; and for the story’s author â&#128;&#149; the similarities are ripe for picking.

Vanity Fair: All dystopias are meant as cautionary tales. But at this particular moment in time—one marked by a powerful but misguided nostalgia, and religious zealotry, and an increasing sense that paranoia is justified, with the powers that be seemingly determined to chip away at the rights of women—The Handmaid’s Tale feels especially current, cutting, and vital.

Harper’s Bazaar: You won’t see a more timely or essential onscreen story this year than Hulu’s extraordinary rendering of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, reimagined as a fundamentalist nightmare for the Mike Pence era….Like all the best dystopias, Gilead is not a truly fictional world, and The Handmaid’s Tale is not a dark fantasy. It’s a warning.

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A Review of Reviews of "The Handmaid’s Tale"

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American Carrier Still Not Headed For North Korea

by dylanmalloy8335 Posted on April 18, 2017

Mother Jones

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From the Washington Post:

As tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula, Adm. Harry Harris made a dramatic announcement: An aircraft carrier had been ordered to sail north from Singapore on April 8 toward the Western Pacific. A spokesman for the Pacific Command linked the deployment directly to the “number one threat in the region,” North Korea, and its “reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters on April 11 that the Carl Vinson was “on her way up there.” Asked about the deployment in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired April 12, President Trump said: “We are sending an armada, very powerful.” The U.S. media went into overdrive and Fox reported on April 14 that the armada was “steaming” toward North Korea.

Sending a carrier somewhere is a standard way of huffing and puffing without really doing anything of substance. Every president has done it. Trump, however, has brought it to new levels of irrelevant theater. Defense News tells us where the carrier and its strike group were really headed:

Rather, the ships were actually operating several hundred miles south of Singapore, taking part in scheduled exercises with Australian forces in the Indian Ocean. On Saturday — according to photographs released by the U.S. Navy — the carrier passed north through the Sunda Strait, the passage between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java. It’s about 3,500 miles from Korea.

For the geographically challenged among us, here is the Sunda Strait:

As you can see, the Sunda Strait is south of Singapore. North Korea is north of Singapore. In fairness, neither Trump nor the Navy said when the Carl Vinson was going to head north, so technically no one lied here. Our “very powerful” armada will make its way to the Korean Peninsula eventually, but apparently no one’s in any rush.

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American Carrier Still Not Headed For North Korea

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The Not-So-Crazy Plan to Get Trump’s Taxes

by MiloWight86 Posted on April 18, 2017

Mother Jones

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Unless you filed for an extension, your federal tax returns are due Tuesday night before midnight. Traditionally, it’s around this time that presidents make their own tax returns public as well—in part because presidents have a vested interest in maximizing federal revenue by encouraging people to file their taxes. On April 15, 2016, for example, President Barack Obama posted his 1040 on WhiteHouse.gov, revealing that he and Michelle Obama had earned $436,065 the previous year and had paid $81,472 in taxes. We also learned that they gave $64,066 to various charities, including Habitat for Humanity, the Beau Biden Foundation, and Mujeres Latinas en Accion.

President Donald Trump, however, appears set to end this tradition. He refused to produce his tax returns during the presidential campaign, claiming that he couldn’t do so because he was under IRS audit. Trump has never produced a letter from the IRS that would confirm the audit. It wouldn’t matter anyway—an audit doesn’t preclude anyone from releasing their tax returns. Press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at a briefing on Monday that Trump was already under audit for 2016. Fun fact: Presidents are audited by the IRS each year; it’s the law.

Maybe there’s another way, though. Lawmakers in more than two dozen states—mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans—have introduced bills intended to compel Trump to do what mass demonstrations and public shaming have thus far failed to accomplish. As written, the bills would require all candidates for president to release income tax returns in order to appear on that state’s ballot. New Jersey’s bill passed both houses of the state Legislature last month, although Republican Gov. Chris Christie is unlikely to sign it into law. The effort bears some similarity to a push by conservative lawmakers ahead of the 2012 election to force Obama to release his long-form birth certificate in order to appear on the ballot. (Obama had already taken the unusual step of releasing his short-form birth certificate, but many conservatives, including Trump, continued to insist that he may not have been born in the United States and might not, therefore, have been a legitimately elected president.)

All well and good—but would a tax return requirement be constitutional? A trio of experts—Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe; Norm Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; and Richard Painter, the former ethics chief in George W. Bush’s White House and a CREW vice chair—penned an op-ed for CNN asserting that these bills would be legal. Although courts have held that states cannot add additional “qualifications” to races for federal office—for instance, a state can not impose its own term limits for senators—they do grant states some latitude in deciding which candidates’ names are printed on the ballot.

They write:

Unlike prohibited qualifications, these laws do not impose substantive requirements on candidates beyond those imposed by the Constitution itself; that is, these laws do not limit which candidates may run for office based on any particular information in their tax return. Thus, they do not create an insurmountable barrier in advance to any set of individuals otherwise qualified under Article II of our Constitution. Instead, these laws require federally qualified candidates to comply with a relatively minor process of tax disclosure.

In other words, mandating tax returns might be fine; any conditions about what those tax returns actually say would be too onerous.

But the constitutional question is hardly settled. Pepperdine University law professor Derek Muller wrote in the New York Times that such measures were “probably unconstitutional,” arguing that “the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that states can’t use the ballot as a political weapon.” And in some cases, as with the previous demands for a birth certificate, legislators aren’t even hiding their intentions. New York’s version of the tax-returns requirement is called the Tax Returns Uniformly Made Public Act—or TRUMP Act, for short.

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The Not-So-Crazy Plan to Get Trump’s Taxes

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Left Hook: A Brief History of Nazi Punching in America

by BookerTom7 Posted on April 17, 2017

Mother Jones

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Long before the New York Times wondered, “Is it O.K. to punch a Nazi?,” far-right extremists were confronted by militant anti-fascists. These groups’ roots go back before World War II, when radicals battled nascent fascists and Nazis in the streets of Europe. The rise of violent white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in the 1980s sparked the American “antifa” (anti-fascist) movement. Street squads like Anti-Racist Action and Fuck Shit Up took a nod from their European predecessors and responded with their own brand of extremism. A timeline of the American anti-fascist movement:

One of five anti-KKK marchers killed in Greensboro, North Carolina. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

1979

Members of the Ku Klux Klan open fire on a “Death to the Klan” march in Greensboro, North Carolina, killing five people.

1981

The Dead Kennedys release “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.”

1982

In Southern California, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) forms in response to the growing white power movement.

1983

The Baldies, a multiracial street crew, forms in Minneapolis. They dish out “righteous violence” to members of the Twin Cities’ racist skinhead gangs.

1988

Members of the Baldies join up with other young activists to launch a nationwide network of anti-fascist groups called Anti-Racist Action (ARA). Members commit to confronting right-wing extremists face-to-face: “Whenever fascists are organizing or active in public, we’re there…Never let the Nazis have the street!”

Late 1980s

Fuck Shit Up (FSU), a.k.a. Friends Stand United, which the FBI later classifies as a street gang, expels neo-Nazis and racist skinheads from punk shows in Boston. (In 2011, its founder, Elgin James, released Little Birds, a movie loosely based on his life—and went to prison for extortion.)

1993

A SHARP member shoots and kills a 21-year-old white supremacist in Portland, Oregon.

1998

White supremacists murder two ARA members—a white man and a black man who were best friends—in the desert outskirts of Las Vegas.

1999

A follower of Matt Hale, the neo-Nazi leader of the World Church of the Creator, goes on a three-day murder spree across Illinois and Indiana. His victims include a Korean student shot in Bloomington, Indiana, which becomes a hotbed of anti-racist organizing.

Matt Hale Tim Boyle/Getty Images

2002

ARA and a Boston anarchist group skirmish with white supremacists who turn out for a speech by Hale in York, Pennsylvania. (Hale is currently serving a 40-year sentence for soliciting the murder of a federal judge.)

Police clear out anti-racist protesters in Toledo, Ohio. J.D. Pooley/AP

2005

More than a dozen neo-Nazis try to march through a predominately African American neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. Hundreds, including ARA members, shut down the march. Protesters throw bricks at cops, destroy police cars, and set buildings on fire.

2007

A 25-year-old man is beaten to death outside a punk show in Asbury Park, New Jersey, after reportedly refusing to take off a Confederate flag T-shirt. An alleged FSU member is arrested but not charged.

2009

Holocaust denier David Irving’s tri-state-area book tour is disrupted by ARA members. They also hack into and release Irving’s personal emails. In Chicago, an ARA member tries to infiltrate the National Socialist Front and is stabbed.

Mark Peterson/Redux

2011

Hundreds of protesters, including members of ARA and the New Black Panthers, clash with neo-Nazis in Trenton, New Jersey.

2012

Members of the Hoosier Anti- Racist Movement (HARM) and ARA attack white supremacists at a restaurant in Tinley Park, Illinois, leaving three people hospitalized. The Tinley Park Five are later convicted for their roles in the assault.

2013
Followers of a white nationalist group led by Matthew Heimbach protest a talk by an anti-racist author in Terre Haute, Indiana. They are allegedly beaten by HARM members wielding padlocks inside socks.

Feb. 2016

Ku Klux Klan members and antifas fight in Anaheim, California. Klansmen stab three people.

April 2016

The Bastards Motorcycle Club, an anti-racist motorcycle gang from South Carolina, confronts KKK members in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

June 2016

Antifas and anti-racists spar with white nationalists outside the California state Capitol in Sacramento. Fourteen people are injured, including seven with stab wounds.

“Alt-Right” godfather Richard Spencer is sucker punched on Inaguration Day Australian Broadcasting Cooperation

Jan. 20, 2017

White nationalist and “alt-right” godfather Richard Spencer is punched in the head by an unidentified man on the streets of Washington, DC, on Inauguration Day. He responds by suggesting alt-right vigilante squads for protection; the internet responds with “Nazi punching” memes. That night, an anti-fascist demonstrator is shot in Seattle by a Trump supporter during a protest of a speech by then-Breitbart troll Milo Yiannopoulos.

Feb. 1, 2017

Antifa and “black bloc” protesters violently shut down a talk by Yiannopoulos at the University of California-Berkeley.

Apr. 15, 2017

Pro-Trump supporters hold a “Patriots Day” rally in downtown Berkeley. They are confronted by antifascist counterdemonstrators and fighting breaks out. Police report 20 arrests and at least 11 injuries.

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Left Hook: A Brief History of Nazi Punching in America

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Republicans Just Went Nuclear. Neil Gorsuch Is Heading to the Supreme Court.

by MichealOIEB Posted on April 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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Senate Republicans on Thursday voted to kill the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, invoking the so-called “nuclear option” so that a minority party will no longer have the ability to block a vote for nominees to the nation’s highest court. The rule change cleared the way for the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s nominee to fill the empty seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch is expected to be officially confirmed Friday.

Over the past two weeks, Democrats coalesced around a strategy of filibustering Gorsuch when all but three Democratic senators announced they would oppose him—even though it was widely believed that Republicans would respond by changing the rules to prohibit filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. The decision was risky because it means Democrats will now have even less leverage if one of the more liberal justices leaves the court while Trump is in the White House.

Democrats’ actions were in part a result of the party’s activist and donor base, which has been pushing lawmakers to resist Trump and his nominee to the fullest extent possible. Democrats want to keep their base energized, not demoralized. But Democrats had other reasons for filibustering, as well. There was the issue of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court last year, whom Republicans in the Senate refused to even consider. The Garland episode helped persuade Democrats that temporarily preserving the ability to filibuster would be of little use, since Republicans were already prepared to do whatever it takes to put conservative justices on the court. As a progressive activist explained to Mother Jones, “Any vote that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans take is really just the icing on the cake—this thing has been cooked since Senate Republicans defied any sense of decorum in their treatment of Barack Obama.”

Democrats were also motivated by deep concerns about Gorsuch’s jurisprudence and his performance during his confirmation process. In his confirmation hearings, Gorsuch was so disinclined to reveal anything about his judicial philosophy that it took considerable cajoling to get him to express an opinion on Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark decision that struck down segregation in public education.

What Democrats could ascertain from Gorsuch’s record suggested that he was an ultra-conservative jurist who would go out of his way to issue broad rulings rather than taking a narrow approach to decisions, including in a case that limited aid for special education children in public schools. In remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested that Gorsuch could become the most conservative member of the Supreme Court.

Finally, Democrats were put off by how Gorsuch conducted himself in the meetings he held with senators. Three senators, all women of color, claimed Gorsuch had failed to meet with them after their offices had tried to schedule a meeting.

As Ian Millhiser, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, explained to the Washington Post, Gorsuch hurt his chances with Democrats throughout the process: “He mansplained fairly basic concepts to women senators. He pushed way too hard on the ‘I’m not going to express a view about anything, ever’ fallback—much harder than previous nominees. And then, after the Supreme Court unanimously overturned one of his opinions, he defended himself by misrepresenting his own opinion.” On the third day of Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion overturning Gorsuch’s approach to enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a piece of Gorsuch’s record that had particularly irked Democrats.

Gorsuch will soon be a Supreme Court justice, but his confirmation will go down as a major moment in the continued breakdown of the US Senate.

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Republicans Just Went Nuclear. Neil Gorsuch Is Heading to the Supreme Court.

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California Is About to Ask Its Liberals to Put Their Money Where Their Mouths Are

by ArielMccloskey Posted on April 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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California legislators will vote Thursday on a gas tax and other vehicle fees proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown that would raise $52 billion over ten years to fund repairs to the state’s crumbling roads, bridges, and public transit systems. Though the vote once seemed like a slam-dunk in the this deeply blue state, Brown is facing likely defections from moderate members of his own party who are concerned about the tax’s effects on farmers and suburban commuters.

“Don’t blow it guys,” Brown said at a Tuesday press conference in the Inland Empire district of Democratic state Sen. Richard Roth, one of the last holdouts on the bill. “You’re going to be driving on these damn roads. Fix them now, or we may never get them fixed. I don’t know what opponents expect—the tooth fairy to fix the roads?”

The bill is shaping up to be a key test of Democratic unity. It must overcome a California requirement for a two-thirds supermajority to enact tax increases. Though Democrats hold a narrow supermajority in both houses of the legislature, Republicans are unanimously opposed to the bill, which means that a single Democratic defection can kill the proposal.

The defeat of the bill would be a major blow to Brown, 78, who has positioned his state as a bulwark against right-wing policies and bureaucratic incompetence of the Trump administration. Brown’s proposal to fund infrastructure though increases in the state’s gas tax resembles the approach proposed by Democrats in Congress, where Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is pushing a similar plan known as the “Penny For Progress Act.”

Raising taxes to fund infrastructure isn’t necessarily a partisan issue. If the California bill passes the state would join 17 others—half of them controlled by Republicans—that have increased gas taxes since 2013. “I have a fair amount of rank-and-file Republicans in Congress who like the proposals that I’ve put out there,” DeFazio told Mother Jones. Yet in California, many moderate Republicans have lost their seats to Democrats, leaving behind a more conservative and united GOP opposition.

California already has some of the highest gas taxes in the country, but the falling price of gas, increases in fuel efficiency, and the advent of hybrid and electric vehicles has crimped revenues in recent years, contributing to an estimated $135 billion backlog in road and bridge repairs. According to the Department of Transportation, California’s roads are among the worst in the country, with 68 percent in “poor to mediocre” condition—costing state motorists $13.9 billion annually in extra vehicle operating costs and repairs. Brown’s bill would move to plug the funding gap with a 12-cent per gallon increase in the gas tax, new taxes on diesel, a $100 annual fee on electric vehicles, and higher vehicle registration fees.

To win support for the bill’s diesel tax among rural and moderate Democrats, Brown included a provision that would give the trucking industry more time to comply with antipollution regulations—angering environmental and health advocates. One Democrat, Sen. Connie Leyva of Chino, has withheld her support for the bill due to concerns over how it will affect air pollution.

Brown, who previously served two terms as governor starting in the late 1970s, has a reputation as both a fiscal moderate and an infrastructure hawk. His father, California Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr., oversaw the construction of massive post-war infrastructure projects such canals, aqueducts, and university campuses. Brown has continued that legacy with projects such as a pair of $15.7-billion water tunnels under the Sacramento Delta and a $64-billion high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. Both projects are being financed with bonds and user fees rather than new taxes.

Californians have often shown a willingness to tax themselves in exchange for better services, though the issue tends to cleave along geographic lines. In November, 70 percent of Los Angeles voters approved a permanent sales tax increase to fund a major expansion of the county’s public transit service. Yet voters in the less affluent, more rural Central Valley are more fiscally conservative. A Survey USA poll released last week found that overall only 37 percent of Californians support raising the gas tax to pay for transportation projects, 44 percent oppose the idea, and 19 percent are undecided.

In Washington, where Trump has promised $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending, many Republicans are pushing an alternative approach that would eschew tax increases for “public-private partnerships.” House Speaker Paul Ryan and a faction within the Trump administration led by billionaire leverage buyout specialist Wilbur Ross, Trump’s Commerce Secretary, want almost all of the spending to come from tax credits given to private investors who underwrite infrastructure projects such as toll roads. Ross argues that $137 billion in tax credits over ten years could spur $1 trillion in investment, meeting Trump’s campaign pledge. But even many conservative economists say the approach doesn’t hold water.

“I don’t think that is a model that is going to be viewed as successful or that you can use it for all of the infrastructure needs that the US has,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum think tank, told the Associated Press. It would only work for projects that generate tolls or user fees, he said, and even then, might just reward investors for projects that would have been built anyway.

Brown continued to push hard for the bill on Wednesday. “I know there are a couple of people who are worried about voting for taxes,” he said during a rally on the Capitol steps. “This is a fee, a fee for the privilege of driving on our roads that the people pay for, and we’ve got to keep paying for them. Otherwise, they are not going to work for us. It’s just that simple.”

Originally posted here: 

California Is About to Ask Its Liberals to Put Their Money Where Their Mouths Are

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Trump’s latest environmental evildoing: More pollution, less protection

by MellissaEnoch33 Posted on March 31, 2017

In a single day, President Trump did more environmental damage than during his previous 67 days in office. That’s no small achievement.

With an executive order signed on March 28, he supercharged the process of demolishing President Obama’s climate initiatives, including his signature one, the Clean Power Plan. It’s not just climate hawks, treehuggers, and grandstanding Democratic politicians who are aghast. Mainstream media outlets are, too.

“President Trump’s move to rip up Mr. Obama’s climate policies [is] beyond reckless. Children studying his presidency will ask, ‘How could anyone have done this?’” the Washington Post editorial board wrote. The New York Times ran its own anxious editorial under the headline “President Trump Risks the Planet.”

Trump’s move means the U.S. will pump out a lot more greenhouse gases than it would have if Obama’s policies had been continued.

And it will make climate change still worse by weakening the resolve of other countries to curb their emissions.

Here’s a rundown of what Trump is aiming to do with his executive order as well as other recent moves:

Motley spew
Let power plants emit more pollution

What happened? Old coal-fired power plants may get to keep polluting the air we breathe and the atmosphere that sustains life on earth, thanks to Trump’s call to toss out the Clean Power Plan. And future power plants may not be held to tougher standards that would have largely prevented new coal plants from coming online.

What does it really mean? This is A Big F’ing Deal. These power plant rules were the most significant part of the Obama administration’s effort to meet its emission-cutting pledge under the Paris climate agreement. If the U.S. is wimping out on Paris, other countries will be more inclined to wimp out, too.

But undoing the Clean Power Plan will likely take years and will definitely be challenged in court, so it’s far from a done deal. Plus, cheap natural gas means utilities aren’t likely to build new coal-fired power plants anyway, because gas plants are less expensive to run.

Frack addicts
Make it easier for companies to frack and emit methane

What happened? The Obama administration tried to tighten regulations on fracking on federal and tribal lands to prevent water pollution. It also tried to rein in methane pollution from oil and gas operations on public lands. Trump’s executive order calls for those rules to be reviewed and rewritten.

What does it really mean? The Trump administration is working to remove all obstacles that stand in the way of the oil and gas industry, pure and simple.

Full speed ahead!
Trash other rules that restrain the oil, gas, and coal industries

What happened? Trump’s executive order tells federal agencies to review regulations and actions that potentially “burden” domestic energy development, and gives them 180 days to come up with plans to scale the regulations back.

What does it really mean? We don’t know how many rules will get dragged into this process and ultimately be weakened or tossed out, but the message is clear: Drill, baby, drill. Mine, baby, mine.

The coal ball and chain
Sell off coal from public lands again

What happened? The federal program that leases land to coal companies for mining is a big money loser as well as a climate killer. In January 2016, the Obama administration put a moratorium on the program so it could consider how to improve it, potentially by charging more for coal leases and taking into account the climate impacts of mining. With his executive order, Trump called for the moratorium to be reversed, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke promptly did just that. Zinke also cancelled the big review of the program, so major reforms won’t be coming anytime soon.

What does it really mean? This won’t lead to much new coal mining immediately, as there’s currently a glut of coal on the market and companies already have plenty of reserves. But it means that the coal-leasing program will continue to waste taxpayer money, subsidize coal companies, and worsen climate change.

Global what?
Stop thinking about climate change

What happened? Under Obama, federal agencies were required to consider the full economic cost of climate change when making decisions about projects. The administration determined that a metric ton of CO2 pollution currently costs society about $36 — that’s called the social cost of carbon — and this number has been factored into cost-benefit analyses for regulations and other government actions, often supporting regulations that require emissions cuts.

The Obama administration also asked federal agencies to account for climate change when writing environmental impact statements for federal projects.

With his executive order, Trump is calling for a new review of the social cost of carbon, and he’s tossing out the requirement to consider climate in impact statements.

What does it really mean? Expect the social cost of carbon to drop, even though experts say it’s already way too low. Essentially, these are yet more ways for the administration to say it doesn’t give a damn about climate change.

Phew, that was quite the executive order. But wait, there’s more: Trump found time to pull some other scary moves between trips to Mar-a-Lago.

Having their spray
Allow use of a dangerous pesticide

What happened? Under Obama, the EPA proposed banning agricultural use of the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos, but didn’t finalize the rule. Under Trump, the EPA did an about-face: On March 29, the agency officially declined to impose a ban.

What does it really mean? Scientific studies have linked even low doses of chlorpyrifos to developmental problems in kids. So children will continue to be exposed — especially the children of farm workers — while Dow AgroSciences, manufacturer of the pesticide, will continue to make lots of money selling it.

Dude, where’s my cleaner car?
Roll back auto fuel economy rules

What happened? Just before Obama moved out of the White House, his administration finalized a review of its ambitious gas-mileage standards for future cars and trucks. On March 15, the Trump administration sent those standards back to the drawing board, calling for more review after automakers complained that they were too strict.

What does it really mean? Cars will likely guzzle more gas than they need to, and the shift to electric cars may slow down.

Romancing the Keystone
Clear the way for the Keystone XL pipeline

What happened? Just as promised during his first week in office, Trump revived the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry some of the filthiest oil on the planet down from the tar sands of Alberta, across the American farm belt, and toward refineries on the Gulf Coast. Obama denied the pipeline builder a permit to cross the U.S.-Canada border. On March 27, Trump reversed course and granted the permit.

What does it really mean? Within days of Trump’s move, environmentalists filed two lawsuits attempting to stop the pipeline’s construction. Pipeline builder TransCanada still needs approval from Nebraska and may face financial hurdles. Even so, chances are better than ever that the world’s most controversial pipeline will get built.

Meanwhile, that other highly controversial pipeline, Dakota Access, is now finished and being filled up with oil, thanks to the OK it got from the Trump administration on Feb. 6.

Let’s end on two slivers of good news:

Trump did not pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, as some right-wingers have been calling for. The White House says a decision on that will be made by May 26, and maybe Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson can convince the president to stay in.

Trump did not ask the EPA to reverse its finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health, which is the basis for the agency’s climate actions. The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute has petitioned the agency to review that finding, hoping to overturn it. We don’t know how that will turn out, but in the meantime, the situation is making EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt very uncomfortable.

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Trump’s latest environmental evildoing: More pollution, less protection

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