December, 19 2017, 01:45pm EDT
CREDO Blasts House Vote on Trump Tax Scam
Cruel, Barbaric and Immoral Legislation Hurts Our Communities While Selling Out Majority of Americans With Deep Cuts for Corporations.
WASHINGTON
This afternoon, the extreme right-wing Republican leaders of the House of Representatives rammed through a vote to advance the Trump Tax Scam to a final vote in the U.S. Senate. In response, CREDO released the following statement:
"Trump's Republican lap dogs in the House have, yet again, demonstrated their steadfast commitment to delivering huge payouts to their super rich and special interest friends," said CREDO Political Director Murshed Zaheed. "Now, House Republicans are hand-delivered an opportunity to jam through the Senate -- as soon as tonight -- their own special version of this morally corrupt, cruel and barbaric legislation, without meaningful hearings, and while effectively silencing the voices of the majority of Americans," he continued, adding, "every member of Congress who voted for the Trump Tax Scam will forever be remembered for hurting our communities and selling out the American people to big corporations and the super-rich mucking it up in Trump's swamp."
CREDO has waged an aggressive, full-court press to stop the Trump Tax Scam. Details on our activism, philanthropy, and viral videos opposing the Trump Tax Scam can be found below:
85,000+ CALLS TO CONGRESS AGAINST THE TRUMP TAX SCAM: CREDO Members have already made more than 85,000 calls to Congress in opposition to the Trump tax scam, including more than 50,000 calls key Senate Republicans and more than 25,000 calls to key House Republicans.
FUNDING THE RESISTANCE TO THE TRUMP TAX SCAM: So far in 2017, CREDO has given more than $344,000 to organizations fully committed to resisting the Trump Tax Scam, including American For Tax Fairness, Social Security Works, The Economic Policy Institute and DEMOS, through its monthly donations program. Since 1985, CREDO has given more than $13 million to organizations fighting for economic justice.
VIRAL VIDEOS EXPOSING TRUMP TAX SCAM REACH OVER 65 MILLION PEOPLE: CREDO'S videos featuring members of Congress speaking out against the Trump Tax Scam have reached over 65 million people, accumulated more than 38 million views and been shared more than 700,000 times on Facebook. Highlights include:
- Rep. Suzan DelBene breaking down the House bill's preferential treatment of corporations over American citizens.
- Rep. John Larson's epic remarks opposing the House bill's assault on his constituents and Republicans' efforts to jam the bill through Congress without meaningful debate.
- Four Democratic congresswomen speaking out about the harm the House bill would cause to their constituents.
- Rep. Judy Chu exposing the House bill's sneak attack on abortion rights.
200,000+ PETITION CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS: NO TAX HANDOUTS FOR SUPER RICH AND BIG CORPORATIONS: More than 200,000 people have signed CREDO's petition demanding that congressional Republicans oppose legislation to give more tax handouts to millionaires, billionaires, Wall Street and big corporations.
210,000+ PETITION CONGRESS: NO TAX LEGISLATION UNTIL TRUMP RELEASES ALL TAX RETURNS: The petition argues that Congress should not "consider changing the tax code while Trump hides potential conflicts of interest from legislators and the public."
195,000+ PETITION MCCONNELL: NO TRUMP TAX SCAM VOTE UNTIL SENATOR-ELECT DOUG JONES IS SEATED: The petition, which was launched on Wednesday, December 13, reads: "Do not schedule a vote on the Trump Tax Scam before Alabama's newly elected senator, Doug Jones, is seated."
175,000+ SIGN PETITION TO CONGRESS: NO TAX LEGISLATION WITHOUT PARADISE PAPERS INVESTIGATION: The petition, which was launched on Nov. 7, reads: "Do not pass any tax-related legislation without first completing a full and public investigation into the offshore tax-dodging schemes revealed by the Paradise Papers, including financial ties between Trump Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and a Russian energy company linked to Vladimir Putin."
CREDO Action, part of CREDO Mobile, is a social change network of over five million activists, sending tens of millions of petition signatures and hundreds of thousands of phone calls to decision-makers each year. CREDO Action members also participate in meetings, protests and other direct action for progressive change.
LATEST NEWS
Rights Group Urges DOJ to Investigate US-Bound Netanyahu for Genocide
"We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza," said the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Jul 19, 2024
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to visit Washington, D.C. next week, an American legal group on Friday pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into him and other officials for committing or authorizing genocide, war crimes, and torture targeting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel launched its retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7, Israeli forces partly armed by the U.S. government have killed at least 38,848 people and wounded another 89,459—according to Gaza officials—while destroying civilian infrastructure and restricting the flow of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
"We believe ample credible evidence exists to sufficiently establish that serious crimes falling within U.S. criminal jurisdiction are systematically being perpetrated in Gaza," says the Center for Constitutional Rights' (CCR) 23-page letter to Hope Olds, who leads the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the DOJ's Criminal Division.
"Given the frequent travel of Israeli officials and citizens to the United States resulting in their presence within U.S. jurisdiction, and recalling that HRSP is part of a coordinated, interagency effort to deny safe haven in the United States to human rights violators," the letter states, "the Department of Justice must urgently investigate and hold accountable those responsible for war crimes and other serious crimes being committed on a wide-scale basis in the occupied Gaza Strip, including potentially U.S. and U.S.-dual citizens."
The Israeli prime minister is expected to be in the United States from at least next Monday to Wednesday for a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—who is currently isolating in his Delaware home due to a Covid-19 infection—and to address a joint session of Congress, despite objections from critics of Israel's war including some lawmakers.
"Netanyahu has killed more than 14,000 precious Palestinian children with U.S. weapons and support and is starving all of Gaza—and now sycophants in the White House and Congress are rolling out the red carpet for him," Maria LaHood, CCR's deputy legal director, said in a statement. "DOJ's Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section must exercise its mandate to investigate Netanyahu and hold him to account for his heinous crimes, just as it would an international criminal from any other country."
The group's letter says that "in light of Netanyahu's imminent visit, HRSP should prioritize investigating him... There is overwhelming evidence that under Netanyahu, Israeli forces and authorities are committing genocide, war crimes, and torture against Palestinians in Gaza, acts that are proscribed under federal criminal statutes and prosecutable by HRSP."
"As the most powerful political figure in Israel, Netanyahu also leads the Security Cabinet, as well as the recently dissolved War Cabinet—the two bodies responsible for setting the strategy for and directing the military assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023," the letter stresses. "He therefore bears criminal responsibility for the serious international crimes committed against the Palestinian population over the past nine months."
Various developments this week have elevated concerns for the people of Gaza. The World Health Organization said Friday that poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples at six locations in the strip, and Amnesty International on Thursday published interviews with 27 former detainees who described being tortured by Israeli forces.
A Wednesday report from Oxfam detailed what the group called Israel's "water war crimes" in Gaza. That same day, Israeli lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing "the establishment of a Palestinian state" west of the Jordan River—widely seen as an effort to send a message to Netanyahu ahead of his trip to D.C.
International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, and Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice—which on Friday issued a nonbinding advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful and must end "as rapidly as possible."
So far, legal efforts to hold the Biden administration accountable for enabling Israel's genocidal violence against Palestinians have been unsuccessful. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit against the president, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher, who represented plaintiffs in the case, said that "this stunning abdication of the court's role to serve as a check on the executive even in the face of its support for genocide should set off alarm bells for all."
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Death of 40 Haitians in Boat Fire Shows 'Crucial Need' for Safe, Legal Migration: UN
"Haiti's socio-economic situation is in agony," said one advocate. "The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."
Jul 19, 2024
United Nations experts on Friday renewed calls to protect migrants following the death of at least 40 Haitians in a boat fire in the Atlantic Ocean.
The New York Timesreported that over 80 people were packed into the vessel when it caught fire off the coast of Cap-Haïtien en route to the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The United Nations' International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that 41 migrants were rescued by the Haitian Coast Guard, with 11 of the survivors including burn victims rushed to the nearest hospital.
"This devastating event highlights the risks faced by children, women, and men migrating through irregular routes, demonstrating the crucial need for safe and legal pathways for migration," said Grégoire Goodstein, IOM's chief of mission for Haiti. "Haiti's socio-economic situation is in agony. The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."
Haiti is enduring a humanitarian and security crisis in which over 1,000 people have been killed, wounded, or abducted by members of gangs that control much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of Kenyan police officers have been deployed to Haiti as part of a multinational force tasked with restoring order.
According to IOM:
The lack of economic opportunities, a collapsing health system, school closures, and the absence of prospects are pushing many to consider migration as the only way to survive... IOM research found that 84% of migrants returned had left to seek job opportunities abroad. For the vast majority of Haitians, regular migration is an extremely challenging journey to consider, let alone pursue, leaving many seeing irregular migration as their only option, a particularly life-threatening one in most instances.
IOM said the Haitian Coast Guard "has observed an increase in the number of attempts and departures by boat" in recent months.
"Coast guards from countries in the region, including the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Jamaica have also reported a growing number of boats originating from Haiti being intercepted at sea," the group said. "More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year. In March, despite a surge in violence and the closure of airports throughout the country, forced returns increased by 46%, reaching 13,000 forced returns in March alone."
Amid pressure from hundreds of advocacy groups—and alleged abuse of Haitian migrants by U.S. border authorities—the Biden administration in 2022 extended deportation protections, known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), for more than 100,000 Haitians already in the United States through this August 3. This marked a departure from the administration's earlier mass deportation of Haitian asylum-seekers.
Last month, the administration further extended TPS eligibility for over 300,000 Haitians in the U.S. for an additional 18 months, a move hailed by migrant rights advocates.
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Student Loan Payments Paused for Millions Amid Court Fight Over Relief Plan
While praising the Biden administration's move "to stave off this reckless attack from extremist politicians and judges," advocates stressed that "broad-based debt cancellation is the only solution."
Jul 19, 2024
The Biden administration responded to an appellate court temporarily blocking one of its student debt relief programs by pausing payments for the 8 million borrowers already enrolled—a move welcomed by advocates, even as some called for further action.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona acknowledged in a statement that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against President Joe Biden's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan "could have devastating consequences for millions of student loan borrowers crushed by unaffordable monthly payments if it remains in effect."
"It's shameful that politically motivated lawsuits waged by Republican elected officials are once again standing in the way of lower payments for millions of borrowers," Cardona continued. "Borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan will be placed in an interest-free forbearance while our administration continues to vigorously defend the SAVE plan in court. The department will be providing regular updates to borrowers affected by these rulings in the coming days."
The appellate court's Thursday ruling was just the latest in a series of legal decisions endangering one of the administration's surviving policies to help Americans with burdensome student loans. Biden's attempt to roll out a broader debt cancellation program last year was thwarted by the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices.
Despite that setback, the Democratic president has continued to pursue relief programs while seeking reelection in November. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are preparing to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Analyses have warned that Trump's return to the White House would worsen the U.S. student debt crisis.
"It wasn't so long ago that a million borrowers defaulted on their student loans every single year, mainly because they couldn't afford the payments," Cardona noted Friday. "The SAVE plan is a bold and urgently needed effort to fix what's broken in our student loan system and make financing a higher education more affordable in this country. The Biden-Harris administration remains committed to delivering as much relief as possible for as many borrowers as possible."
"Already, we've approved an unprecedented $169 billion in relief for nearly 4.8 million Americans, including teachers, veterans, and other public servants, students who were cheated by their colleges, borrowers with disabilities, and more," he added. "And from larger Pell Grants to free community college, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and I continue to believe that college affordability is a cause worth fighting for—and we're not giving up."
The Student Borrower Protection Center, which had advocated for a payment pause after Thursday's ruling, thanked Cardona "for taking swift action to protect the millions of borrowers enrolled in SAVE."
"Opponents of SAVE have inflicted mass confusion and chaos across the entire student loan system—all borrowers are at risk," the group added. "Halt student loan payments and protect borrowers ASAP!"
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten put out a statement on Friday praising the administration's action "to stave off this reckless attack from extremist politicians and judges."
"But we shouldn't even be in this situation," she stressed. "These borrowers are on a roller coaster that's being forced off the rails by far-right politicians who will do anything in their power to hurt them, rather than help them get the relief they deserve."
"We are grateful that the Biden-Harris administration will continue to push for affordable monthly payments as bad faith actors continue to throw up roadblock after roadblock," she added. "In the end, broad-based debt cancellation is the only solution—and we will continue to advocate for it through every avenue available."
While also welcoming the pause as the court battle continues, the Debt Collective said Friday: "But no need to stop there—pause everyone's payments. Unburden them from what has been."
Recalling when student debt payments were halted because of the Covid-19 pandemic, initially under Trump and then Biden, the group also said that the president "never should have restarted student loan payments," calling it "an unforced error."
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