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The
national elections being held this week bring together a number of historic
story lines and analysts will no doubt be sorting through the results for
weeks. It will take some time to assess the full impact of the virtual merger
between Fox News and the GOP, and weigh the success of efforts by Religious
Right leaders, GOP strategists, and big business to co-opt the Tea Party
movement. But before election night is over, we'll get answers to some of the
most important questions about where our country is headed.
Here's
PFAW's guide to races to watch and to what the outcomes mean for America.
Will
Scapegoating Latinos Backfire?
The
Republicans could win this battle but lose the war. Sharron Angle, arguably the
most high-profile of the Tea Party's Senate candidates, built her pre-election
strategy on flooding Nevada airwaves with toxic, divisive, racially tinged
television ads that feature menacing dark-skinned people threatening
vulnerable white children and families. The national GOP's embrace of Angle
will make it hard for them to distance themselves from her destructive,
scapegoating ads targeting the fastest-growing demographic group in American
society. The outcome of her campaign may depend on whether she was right in
guessing that her ads would win her more votes in this election than they would
cost her. Louisiana Senator David Vitter has also run what some consider the
most offensive anti-immigrant ads of the campaign season.
America's
Voice has identified another dozen or so candidates who have used
distortions and stereotypes regarding immigrants and Latinos. Among races to
watch where candidates have made outrageous statements on immigration:
While
some GOP strategists and Religious Right leaders are worried about the
long-term impact of the Party alienating Latino voters, those concerns seem to
have been pushed aside in the hopes that demagoguery on the immigration issue
will win enough votes this year to help put the GOP in control of Congress. But
playing to the Tea Party base of the party, and its hostility to any
comprehensive approach to immigration reform, will put the GOP in a long-term
bind. Most Americans support reform that includes a path to citizenship for
people living, working, and raising their families here; GOP candidates
answering to right-wing ideologues denounce any such provisions as
"amnesty." Immigration is likely to be one of the issues on which the
newly expanded far-right congressional caucus will find governing more
complicated than campaigning.
Will
Voters Overlook Right-Wing Violence and Calls for Violence?
Tea Party
candidates and right-wing pundits have introduced a frightening amount of
violent rhetoric into this year's campaigns, suggesting that if right-wing
voters don't get their way they should consider resorting to violence or even
revolution against a "tyrannical" federal government. They have
portrayed the president and Democratic congressional leaders not only as
political opponents but as enemies of America bent on crushing individual
liberty and undermining the nation's interest. With that kind of example and
inflammatory rhetoric from right-wing leaders, it's hardly surprising that
members of Congress have faced death threats, or that violence and thuggish
behavior have broken out on the campaign trail:
Among the
races to watch:
All
indications point to widespread Republican gains on Election Day, which should
mitigate against inflammatory charges that President Obama and his Democratic
allies had somehow stolen the election. But if a number of close and heated
races are won by Democrats, don't be surprised by violent reactions among those
who have been amped up by Glenn Beck and other purveyors of paranoia.
Will Right-Wing
'Grassroots' Campaigns Mean Big Win for Government by Big Business?
With a
big push from a Supreme Court granting corporations the same right as citizens
to influence American elections, big business interests are pouring huge
amounts of their record-breaking profits and cash-on-hand into buying a
government that is even more willing to sacrifice the interests of individual
Americans to the demands from corporate America. A coalition of right-wing
groups coordinating with each other to lead the GOP-supporting effort dumped an
additional $50 million into ads in competitive House races in the final weeks
of the campaign. Unless and until a constitutional amendment addresses the
extraordinary damage created by Citizens United and other Supreme Court
decisions that have undermined campaign finance laws, we can count on corporate
America to invest whatever it takes to elect politicians pledged to implement policies
that sacrifice the health of American consumers and workers, and the well-being
of American communities, on the altar of ever-greater profits and wealth for
those who already have the most.
Among the
biggest investments by corporate interests dropped in competitive races are:
How Many Anti-Government Extremists
Will Take Seats in Congress?
Cheered on by right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck, Tea Party and GOP candidates
are portraying this election as a choice between "socialism" and
"constitutional conservativism." They are embracing a radically
right-wing view of the U.S. Constitution, one that ignores the Constitution's -
and the nation's - history, to promote a misguided nostalgia for a time when
huge numbers of elderly Americans lived in poverty and when the federal
government could not protect workers with safety regulations or minimum wage
requirements. Meanwhile, Beck and Religious Right figures are promoting the
idea that this radically restricted view of government is grounded in
Christianity and the Bible. In essence, they are trying to make the size and
scope of government the new culture war, and to convince Americans that relying
on government assistance in hard times is not only un-American but
un-Christian.
Many
Americans who end up voting for Tea Party-backed Republicans because they are
worried about the state of the economy or size of the deficit will be shocked
to find the kind of gridlock that will be caused if and when candidates get
elected to office who have pledged not to support anything they don't find in
their 19th Century view of the Constitution.
A few of
the many races to watch:
Will Voter
Suppression and False Charges of Voter Fraud Help GOP Candidates Win?
Right-wing
strategists have a multi-faceted strategy on voting issues. One tactic is to
depress possible turnout among groups more likely to support Democratic and
progressive candidates, particularly people of color, with disinformation and
intimidation. News outlets have reported on a variety of voter suppression
efforts aimed at lowering turnout among African Americans, including Pennsylvania
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett telling the Delaware County GOP to keep the Philadelphia
Democratic vote below 50 percent; billboards in Milwaukee showing people behind
bars warning against "voter fraud," and the planned deployment by Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk of
"voter integrity squads" in Black neighborhoods in. In Wisconsin, the
Republican Attorney General reportedly colluded with
the state GOP, local Tea Party, and Americans for Prosperity in a voter
"caging" operation designed to purge people from voting rolls. In
Harris County, Texas, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has asked the DOJ to investigate
voter intimidation efforts during early voting
Watch for
stories on and after Election Day involving registered voters who are turned
away because they had been purged from voter lists, stories of intimidation by
"voter integrity" operations. Meanwhile, while there is no credible
evidence that voter fraud - the way right-wing strategists use the term,
meaning individuals casting ballots they aren't eligible to cast - has played
any significant role in any recent election, GOP strategists and right-wing
pundits have made it an article of faith among many Tea Party and right-wing
activists that ACORN somehow stole the 2008 election for President Obama and
that Democrats and people of color are conspiring once again to try to steal
elections. Sharron Angle and right-wing groups have already suggested that
Democrats are making plans to steal the close election. The extent of voter
suppression activities, and the extent to which right-wing pundits and
politicians make irresponsible charges of voter fraud, could tell us a lot
about the extent to which inflammatory and racially divisive politics will
continue to drive right-wing political strategy.
Among the
races to watch:
People For the American Way works to build a democratic society that implements the ideals of freedom, equality, opportunity and justice for all. We encourage civic participation, defend fundamental rights, and fight to dismantle systemic barriers to equitable opportunity. We fight against right-wing extremism and the injustice it fosters.
1 (800) 326-7329"This report should add urgency in Congress as the Trump tax scam expires next year and we negotiate future tax legislation," said Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse.
As a Capitol Hill battle over the "GOP tax scam" looms, U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday pointed to a new nonpartisan government analysis about soaring wealth inequality as proof of the need for serious reforms.
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sought the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, which details trends in the distribution of family wealth—including projected Social Security retirement and disability benefits—in the United States from 1989 to 2022.
"Adjusted for inflation, the wealth held by families in the United States almost quadrupled between 1989 and 2022, rising from $52 trillion (in 2022 dollars) to $199 trillion, at an average rate of about 4% per year," the CBO found. "Over that 33-year period, family wealth was unevenly distributed, and that inequality increased."
"In 2022, families in the top 10% of the distribution held 60% of all wealth, up from 56% in 1989, and families in the top 1% of the distribution held 27%, up from 23% in 1989," the office said. "The share of wealth held by the rest of the families in the top half of the distribution shrank from 37% to 33% over the same period. Families in the bottom half of the distribution held 6% of all wealth in both 1989 and 2022."
"By making the wealthy pay their fair share, we can protect Social Security forever and unrig our tax code."
The report comes as Congress prepares for a tax debate due to next year's expiration of policies signed into law in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump, the Republican facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in this November's election.
Throughout the current election cycle, Trump and congressional Republicans have campaigned on extending policies from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and also benefited wealthy individuals.
"This report should add urgency in Congress as the Trump tax scam expires next year and we negotiate future tax legislation," Whitehouse said of the CBO analysis. "Do we want to reward billionaires, who have already captured so much of the nation's wealth, or do we want to de-corrupt the tax code, ensure the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, and reduce the deficit, all while making necessary investments to better the lives of all Americans?"
Whitehouse noted that the report also comes amid concerns about the future of Social Security. Citing the CBO analysis, his office detailed:
"Social Security is a bedrock of our retirement system and ensures millions of seniors can retire with dignity," Whitehouse said. "Seniors earned their benefits throughout their working lives, but the program is now facing a looming cash flow problem. By making the wealthy pay their fair share, we can protect Social Security forever and unrig our tax code—exactly what my Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would do."
Whitehouse's bill is spearheaded in the lower chamber by U.S. House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who also recently requested a CBO report. That one focuses on the impact of raising the full retirement age for Social Security from 67 to 69, as various Republican groups have proposed.
The CBO's Social Security analysis, released last week, found that for workers now in their 30s and 40s, the average annual benefit cut would be around $3,500 a year—and the GOP's proposed changes wouldn't even extend the program's solvency.
"This independent, nonpartisan report shows just how devastating Republican plans to rip away hard-earned Social Security benefits would be for American workers," Boyle said last week. "Instead of saving Social Security by making the ultrarich pay their fair share, the GOP is hell-bent on gutting benefits for the middle class."
"The desperate plan that Trump embarked on to try and overturn the results of a legitimate election was reprehensible, irresponsible, and—the document shows—criminal," said one consumer advocate.
Jack Smith, the special counsel probing former U.S. President Donald Trump's attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential contest, on Wednesday presented a massive trove of fresh evidence supporting his election interference case against the 2024 Republican nominee.
Smith's sprawling and highly anticipated 165-page motion—which was partly unsealed Wednesday by presiding U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan—states that Trump "asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so."
Trump—who in August 2023 was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights—contends that his actions were taken in his official capacity as president and not as a private individual.
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices—including three Trump appointees—ruled that the ex-president is entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he was in office, raising questions about the future of this case. According to Smith's motion:
Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as president, had no official role.
In Trump v. United States... the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct—including the defendant's use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment—and remanded to this court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized.
The answer to that question is no. This motion provides a comprehensive account of the defendant's private criminal conduct; sets forth the legal framework created by Trump for resolving immunity claims; applies that framework to establish that none of the defendant's charged conduct is immunized because it either was unofficial or any presumptive immunity is rebutted; and requests the relief the government seeks, which is, at bottom, this: that the court determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.
Smith's filing details what Trump told various people in his inner circle, including then-Vice President Mike Pence, his now-disgraced and twice-disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and leading White House and Republican Party figures—some of whose names remain undisclosed.
The motion also highlights Trump's actions on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory. Trump is still pushing his "Big Lie" that Democrats stole the 2020 election; his running mate, U.S. Sen. J D Vance (R-Ohio), on Tuesday
refused to acknowledge that Trump lost to Biden when he was asked about the election during a vice presidential debate against Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
"Upon receiving a phone call alerting him that Pence had been taken to a secure location, [PERSON 15] rushed to the dining room to inform [Trump] in hopes that the defendant would take action to ensure Pence's safety," the filing states. "Instead, after [P15] delivered the news, the defendant looked at him and said only, 'So what?'"
Smith argued that deceit was central to Trump's efforts, specifically, "the defendant's and co-conspirators' knowingly false claims of election fraud," which they used to purvey the Big Lie.
The motion states:
When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (the "targeted states"). His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states; attempting to enlist Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, to obstruct Congress' certification of the election by using the defendant's fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021, directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.
For a historic second time, Trump was
impeached by the House of Representatives following his effort to subvert the election, although he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung
blasted Smith's motion as "unconstitutional" and "falsehood-ridden."
"Deranged Jack Smith and Washington D.C. Radical Democrats are hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power," Cheung said in a statement aping Trump's habit of overcapitalizing words. "President Trump is dominating, and the Radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are freaking out. This entire case is a partisan, Unconstitutional Witch Hunt that should be dismissed entirely, together with ALL of the remaining Democrat hoaxes."
Democracy defenders, however, welcomed Smith's ruling.
"Jack Smith has shown us yet again the merits of his case against former President Trump," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition.
"In his filing, Smith clarifies that the alleged criminal actions occurred while Trump was acting as a private citizen," Gilbert added. "The desperate plan that Trump embarked on to try and overturn the results of a legitimate election was reprehensible, irresponsible, and—the document shows—criminal. Accountability to the American people and our democracy is our only path forward."
Judge Chutkan unsealed the motion five weeks before Trump will face off against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in a tight presidential election. If he wins, Trump will have the power to order the Department of Justice to drop the criminal charges against him.
"A cease-fire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups."
Nearly 100 U.S. healthcare providers who have volunteered in the Gaza Strip over the past year sent President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris a Wednesday letter detailing "the massive human toll from Israel's attack" and urging the administration to "end this madness now!"
Israel has been waging war on Gaza since the Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people last year. During that time, the physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, nurses, and midwives who signed the letter have collectively spent 254 weeks volunteering in hospitals and clinics throughout the besieged enclave.
As of Wednesday, Israeli forces have killed at least 41,689 Palestinians in Gaza and injured another 96,625, according to local officials. Thousands more remain missing in the rubble of civilian infrastructure. Israel—which also launched a ground invasion of Lebanon this week—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
"This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza's population," the health workers wrote to Biden and Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee for the November election.
"Our government must act immediately to prevent an even worse catastrophe than what has already befallen the people of Gaza and Israel," they argued. "A cease-fire must be imposed on the warring parties by withholding military support for Israel and supporting an international arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and international humanitarian law. We also believe it is the right thing to do."
"Gaza was the first time I held a baby's brains in my hand. The first of many."
Even before the October 7, 2023 attack, the United States had given Israel billions of dollars in annual military aid. Throughout Israel's assault on Gaza—and now Lebanon—the Biden administration has continued to provide weapons and diplomatic support.
The American medical volunteers' new letter—published on a website that also features a July missive along with similar ones that Canadian and U.K. health workers sent to their governments—shares accounts from individual signatories. Dr. Thalia Pachiyannakis, an OB-GYN, said that "I saw so many stillbirths and maternal deaths that could have been easily prevented if the hospitals had been functioning normally."
Those who survived birth faced a warzone where thousands of children have died. Last month, Gaza's Ministry of Health released a 649-page document with names and ages of Palestinians killed in the past year—and the first 14 pages are babies.
"Every day I saw babies die," said Asma Taha, pediatric nurse practitioner. "They had been born healthy. Their mothers were so malnourished that they could not breastfeed, and we lacked formula or clean water to feed them, so they starved."
Israeli bombings in the past year have claimed thousands of lives. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic and hand surgeon, said that "Gaza was the first time I held a baby's brains in my hand. The first of many."
The letter to Biden and Harris states:
Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.
President Biden and Vice President Harris, we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget. We cannot fathom why you continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children en masse.
"I've never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources," said Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma and critical care surgeon and the letter's organizer. "Our bombs are cutting down women and children by the thousands. Their mutilated bodies are a monument to cruelty."
The letter notes that "Israel has destroyed more than half of Gaza's healthcare resources and has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinian healthcare workers, more than 1 out of every 20 healthcare workers in Gaza. At the same time, healthcare needs have increased massively from the lethal combination of military violence, malnutrition, disease, and displacement."
It also challenges Israeli forces' attempts to justify attacking the enclave's medical infrastructure, stressing that "not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza's hospitals or other healthcare facilities."
"We urge you to see that Israel has systematically and deliberately devastated Gaza's entire healthcare system, and that Israel has targeted our colleagues in Gaza for torture, disappearance, and murder," the American volunteers wrote, describing Palestinian healthcare workers as "among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world."
While welcoming the administration's efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting, they emphasized that "the United States can impose a cease-fire on the warring parties by simply stopping arms shipments to Israel, and announcing that we will participate in an international arms embargo on both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups."
"President Biden and Vice President Harris, we are 99 American physicians and nurses who have witnessed crimes beyond comprehension," they added. "Crimes that we cannot believe you wish to continue supporting. Please meet with us to discuss what we saw, and why we feel American policy in the Middle East must change immediately."