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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
Ryan O’Donnell (Free Speech For People): 413-‐335-‐9824
Allison Johnson (Avaaz): 617-‐905-‐1536
Layne Amerikaner (People For the American Way): 202-‐467-‐4999 Lauren Strayer (Demos): 212-‐389-‐1413
Today, a petition on the White House website urging President Obama to "use the State of the Union to call for a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics" exceeded the 25,000 signatures necessary to guarantee an official White House response. The petition, launched by the groups Free Speech For People, Avaaz, People For the American Way, and Demos on January 8 took less than two weeks to cross the threshold.
The petition can be found here: https://wh.gov/P9j7
Fixing our campaign finance system has long been a cause President Obama supports, though he failed to make progress on it during his first term. During his re-election campaign, President Obama told supporters that: "Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United . . . . Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change."
The petition calls on the President to reiterate and strengthen this call in the State of the Union, and comes just two days after President Obama delivered an inaugural address that many believe reflected a renewed willingness on his part to fight for core goals he has long supported even in the face of challenges.
"Americans everywhere are asking President Obama to take the lead on the one issue that unlocks all the others: getting big money out of our political system, to restore our government of, by, and for the people," said Peter Schurman, Campaign Director at Free Speech For People. "'We the people' means all the people, not just the wealthy few, and not the corporations."
Ian Bassin, Campaign Director at Avaaz, said: "We the people have spoken and the message is clear: We're sick of oil industry money setting our energy agenda, the Wall Street dollar determining our economic policy, and gun company cash dictating how we protect our kids. We need elections not auctions and we're counting on President Obama to lead us there, starting with his State of the Union."
The petition may also be the last White House petition to garner a response after receiving 25,000 signatures. It also may be the most serious of the latest round. Last week, after responding to petitions to deport Piers Morgan and to build a Death Star, the White House upped the threshold for guaranteeing a response to 100,000. But petitions like this campaign finance one that were launched before the change were grandfathered at the 25,000 threshold.
"This petition provides more evidence for what we already know - that Americans want a solution to the corrupting influence of big money in our democracy," said Marge Baker, Executive Vice President of People For the American Way. "We saw massive amounts of money pour into last year's elections, much of which was undisclosed. Using the megaphone provided to them by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporate special interests are drowning out the voices of ordinary voters. President Obama calling for a constitutional remedy in the upcoming State of the Union Address would draw attention to this critical situation and mobilize even more Americans into action."
"This is the moment President Obama should take a strong and decisive step toward ending big money's stranglehold on our politics and our economy, and cement his legacy by leading the effort to finally forge a democracy in which the strength of a citizen's voice does not depend upon the size of her wallet," said Demos Counsel Adam Lioz.
After the coalition involved in launching this petition posted it to the White House website, its growth came from citizens expressing their frustration with the flood of money infecting our political system. Much of this public frustration stems from the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC that corporations have a constitutional right to spend unlimited sums to influence elections. In the wake of that decision, more than $6 billion was spent in the 2012 elections, much of it by corporations and anonymous billionaires. Congress responded by proposing amendments to reverse that decision and eleven states and nearly 500 cities and towns have joined this call.
This petition tees up for President Obama the key question of what he'll do next to deliver on a core, unfulfilled promise of his first campaign: to change the way Washington works. The groups behind the petition will continue to campaign until he does.
Avaaz.org is a new global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want. "Avaaz" means "Voice" in many Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European languages. Across the world, most people want stronger protections for the environment, greater respect for human rights, and concerted efforts to end poverty, corruption and war. Yet globalization faces a huge democratic deficit as international decisions are shaped by political elites and unaccountable corporations -- not the views and values of the world's people.
"The industry's operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction."
With just a few more days of the United Nations biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, 140 organizations collectively called on government representatives to pursue "an immediate halt" to new planet-heating oil and gas projects and "a managed decline of existing activity."
The letter—signed by civil society groups, Indigenous peoples, and social movements—advocates "prioritizing areas of high biodiversity importance" and stresses the need for "a full, fair, fast, funded, and feminist phaseout of all fossil fuels and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss."
"Oil and gas activity threatens biodiversity at every stage—from exploration and production to transportation and end use," the letter states. "The industry's operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction. The risk oil and gas activity poses to biodiversity grows as these operations expand into vulnerable ecosystems."
"Effective biodiversity protection is not possible without halting the expansion of oil and gas activity."
"Places like the Amazon, including the mouth of the Amazon River, are experiencing significant environmental and social impacts from oil and gas activity," the letter notes. "Deforestation, habitat destruction, and pollution of water sources are threatening biodiversity in one of the world's most critical ecosystems, and severely disrupting the fundamental human rights and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples."
The coalition—which includes Amazon Watch, Center for International Environmental Law, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, Oil Change International, Waterkeepers Alliance, and World Wide Fund for Nature—has a list of recommendations for attendees of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16).
The groups want summit attendees to "recognize the threat that oil and gas activity poses to all biodiversity, particularly in areas of high biodiversity importance." Regarding such vital areas, they want attendees to "identify concrete actions currently being taken and that will be taken in the future to immediately reduce oil and gas activities" as well as "adopt a decision to immediately halt" new fossil fuel activities in such spaces.
The organizations are also calling for a "fossil fuel-free zone" in the Amazon and prioritizing "the protection of environmental and human rights defenders." According to Global Witness, at least 196 such activists were killed in 2023 alone, bringing the total since 2012 to 2,106.
Additionally, the coalition wants COP16 attendees to "enhance equitable international cooperation to ensure that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for driving biodiversity loss and the production and use of fossil fuels move first and fastest to halt the expansion of oil and gas activity, and pursue new enforceable international mechanisms, such as a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty."
"Faced with an unprecedented planetary crisis, the time is now for parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to fulfill their legal obligations and reaffirm their mandate to protect global biodiversity," the letter argues. "Effective biodiversity protection is not possible without halting the expansion of oil and gas activity, and eliminating the threat from ongoing oil and gas activity, particularly in areas of high biodiversity importance."
COP16 kicked off in Cali on October 21 and is set to wrap up on November 1. Reutersreported Tuesday that "countries were at an impasse over how to fund conservation and other key decisions... with nations pledging millions of dollars rather than the billions needed."
At COP15 in late 2022, countries finalized the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to protect 30% of all land and water vital to species and ecosystems by 2030. To reach that goal, "protected and conserved areas must almost double in area on land and more than triple in the ocean, the U.N. Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said Monday.
The IUCN also
warned Monday as part of its "Red List" that more than 16,000 of 47,000 analyzed tree species worldwide are at risk of extinction. The report followed similar warnings of wildlife population decline released ahead of COP16.
"The road to your arrest and The Hague won't be long either, you genocidal war criminal," one observer retorted.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday on social media that Hezbollah's pick of Naim Qassem to lead the Lebanon-based political and paramilitary group would be "temporary"—a remark seen by many as an assassination threat.
Hezbollah tapped Qassem, its longtime deputy chief, to lead the group following Israel's assassination of former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last month.
"Temporary appointment. Not for long," Gallant said on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, in response to Hezbollah's move.
The state of Israel's official Arabic X account said Qassem's "tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors."
"There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organization as a military force," the account added.
Since earlier this month, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion accompanied by a massive ongoing bombing campaign against Lebanon, nearly 2,800 Lebanese have been killed and more than 12,700 others injured, the country's Ministry of Health said Tuesday. The ministry added that 82 Lebanese have been killed and another 180 injured over the past 24 hours alone.
Since shortly after October 7, 2023—when Hamas led the deadliest single attack on Israel in its history—Hezbollah has been launching rockets and other projectiles at Lebanon's southern neighbor, killing and wounding scores of Israelis.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands is currently
weighing whether to approve Prosecutor Karim Khan's application for warrants to arrest Gallant—who responded to the Hamas-led attack by ordering a "complete siege" of Gaza that has been blamed for the starvation and sickening of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Khan also sought ICC arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, at least two of whom have been assassinated by Israel.
Over 388 days, Israeli forces have killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. At least 101,100 others have been wounded. More than 10,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of Gaza. Almost everyone in the embattled Gaza Strip has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times.
Responding to Gallant's threat, Somali-Australian journalist Najat Abdi said on X that "the road to your arrest and The Hague won't be long either, you genocidal war criminal."
Gallant's remarks came amid reports that Israeli and Hezbollah negotiators are "in the advanced stages" of hammering out cease-fire agreement that would lead to Israeli troops withdrawing from Lebanon, where they have been suffering high casualties at the hands of Hezbollah fighters.
One important unanswered question is whether Hezbollah will accept a deal to end hostilities with Israel without a cease-fire in Gaza.
"It's no secret that political spending is a huge way for billionaires to rig the system to their liking," said Americans for Tax Fairness. "Enough is enough."
A new analysis out Tuesday shows that 150 of the nation's wealthiest families have poured nearly $2 billion into this year's U.S. election—the latest evidence bolstering calls for new taxes on the super rich and an end to unlimited campaign spending.
The new report from Americans for Tax Fairness, published Tuesday, shows how spending by 150 of the richest families in the U.S. has smashed campaign spending records, with $700 million more spent than the $1.2 billion that wealthy donors poured into the 2020 campaign.
Republicans, including GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, have been the biggest beneficiary of spending by these billionaire families, including those of Miriam Adelson, widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk; and far-right activists Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein.
Trump "benefited from over $450 million of billionaire donations—more than three times as much as Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, who was the beneficiary of $143 million of billionaire contributions," reported ATF. "That's a 75%-25% split in Trump's favor."
Of the $1.9 billion that was spent on all federal campaigns by the richest families in the country, 72% or $1.36 billion went to Republican candidates, and 22% or $413 million went to Democrats.
The analysis was released weeks after The Associated Press and OpenSecretsreported Trump's small-dollar donations—those smaller than $200—made up fewer than a third of his contributions this election cycle, down from nearly half of his donations in 2020.
"Billionaire campaign spending on this scale drowns out the voices and concerns of ordinary Americans. It is one of the most obvious and disturbing consequences of the growth of billionaire fortunes, as well as being a prime indicator that the system regulating campaign finance has collapsed," said David Kass, executive director of ATF. "We need to rein in the political power of billionaire families by better taxing them and by effectively limiting their campaign donations. Until we do both, we can only expect the influence of the super-rich over our politics and government to escalate."
Trump has made clear that he would push for policies that enrich corporations and the ultra-wealthy if he wins on November 5, promising to extend the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, which disproportionately benefited the rich. An alleged quid pro quo offer from Trump to oil executives, promising deregulation and expanded drilling if they donated $1 billion to his campaign, is being investigated by the U.S. Senate.
Harris has endorsed President Joe Biden's proposal to tax unrealized stock gains for people whose net worth is at least $100 million, and has proposed a minimum income tax for billionaires and a rollback of Trump's tax cuts.
ATF pointed out that the billionaire families in the report have managed to spend billions of dollars on the election while spending just 0.07% of their wealth.
"The median American household is worth about $200,000, making an equivalent political donation for them just $140," said ATF. "This means that a handful of billionaires have the financial political influence of more than 13.5 million ordinary families."
The group emphasized that the $1.9 billion included in the analysis "is almost certainly an undercount," both because it doesn't account for "typical flurries of last-minute fundraising" and "because there are ways of financially supporting campaigns that are anonymous or at least hard to trace back to the original donor."
"These methods include donations to so-called 'dark money' groups that spend the money on outside efforts or in turn donate it to campaign committees; and contributions to super PACs that contribute to each other in long chains," said ATF.
"It's time we end Citizens United and start taxing billionaires on their enormous, untaxed wealth gains," said ATF, referring to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that reversed decades of campaign finance restrictions and allowed unlimited spending through super PACs.
"Our democracy and the voices of working families depend on it," said the group.