February, 15 2022, 03:52pm EDT
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350.org on Political Boycott of Federal Reserve Nominations
WASHINGTON
Today, Senate Republicans serving on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee boycotted the vote to advance Federal Reserve board nominees to a full Senate confirmation. The slate includes Jerome Powell for Federal Reserve Chair, Lael Brainard for Vice-Chair, Sarah Bloom Raskin for Vice Chair of Supervision, and Lisa Cook and Phillip Jefferson for the remaining vacancies on the Federal Board of Governors.
Activists have been calling for Biden to nominate a Federal Reserve Chair and board representatives who will account for the compound crisis of COVID, inflation and unemployment, and the impacts of the climate crisis in our communities. 350.org is pushing for a Federal Reserve that steers the economy away from high-risk fossil fuel investments, incorporates climate stress tests across policies and lending, and prioritizes racial justice, including through full employment.
Brooke Harper, 350 U.S. Campaign Manager made the following statement on the nominations:
"Shame on Senator Toomey and Republicans of the Senate Banking Committee for boycotting today's vote and delaying the confirmation of this highly qualified slate of Federal Reserve board nominees. This boycott is pure politics, and a rejection of the serious skill, competence, and experience this slate would bring to the Federal Reserve. Combined, we believe that Lael Brainard as Federal Reserve vice-chair, along with Sarah Bloom Raskin, Lisa Cook, and Phillip Jefferson are a strong ensemble that can reinforce the critical independence of the Federal Reserve, while at the same time bringing long-overdue diversity of thought, experience, and perspective to the Board of Governors.
The Federal Reserve is at a critical juncture where it must have the expertise to tackle the compound crisis of COVID, inflation and unemployment, and the realities of the climate crisis in our communities. These nominees can get the Federal Reserve back to work and address these serious crises through smart regulation.
We urge Senator Schumer to move forward to the Senate Floor for a vote on these nominees. We believe Brainard, Raskin, Cook, and Jefferson are critical to the success of the Federal Reserve and its role to protect the interest of the American people. We urge the Senate to confirm these highly qualified economic champions now."
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
65% of Democratic Voters Want Biden to Step Aside: Poll
A majority of respondents said they want both Biden and Trump to quit the race, and were not confident in the mental fitness of either candidate.
Jul 17, 2024
A majority of U.S. voters want both President Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump to drop out of the 2024 presidential contest, with nearly two-thirds of Democrats favoring the Democratic incumbent's withdrawal amid mounting concerns over his mental fitness, a poll published Wednesday revealed.
The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of 1,253 U.S. adults conducted between July 11-15 found that 70% of all respondents want Biden to step aside in favor of an alternative nominee and 57% think Trump should quit the race. Broken down by partisan affiliation, 73% of Republicans, 70% of Independents, and 65% of Democrats want Biden to stand down, while 26% of Republicans, 51% of Independents, and 86% of Democrats say Trump should withdraw.
"I just feel like these two individuals are a sad choice," Alexi Mitchell, a 35-year-old civil servant in Virginia and self-described Democratic-leaning Independent, toldThe Associated Press, adding that Biden has "put us in a bad position where Trump might win."
Black Democrats are Biden's strongest supporters—50% want Biden to continue running—while only 25% of all Democratic voters aged 18-44 want him to stay in the race.
A majority of respondents said they were not confident in the mental fitness of either candidate. Seventy percent of voters said they had little or no confidence in Biden's "mental capacity to be an effective president," while 51% said the same thing about Trump.
The former president was recently convicted of 34 felony charges in New York state related to the falsification of business records regarding hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election. Trump still faces dozens of federal and state charges in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, cases that could be impacted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting presidents "absolute immunity" for acts committed in their official capacity.
Earlier this week, a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed a case involving Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents—a decision Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has led the case since Trump announced his current campaign, is appealing.
Trump was also impeached twice by the House of Representatives—but not convicted by the Senate—during his first presidential term.
A separate survey by Data for Progress published Wednesday found that "swing" voters are increasingly more concerned about Biden's age than Trump's criminal charges.
According to Data for Progress:
Before the debate and before Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts, we found that swing voters were more concerned about Trump's criminal charges (48%) than Biden's age (41%), with 11% unsure.
After the debate, swing voters have flipped. Now, 53% say they are more concerned about Biden's age, a 12-point increase from our last survey of swing voters. Only 37% say they are more concerned about Trump's criminal charges, an 11-point decrease.
Notably, the new AP-NORC survey was conducted before Saturday's attempted assassination of Trump at a Pennslyvania campaign rally. The deadly shooting seemed to take some wind out of the sails of the burgeoning movement of Democrats urging Biden to withdraw from the race: In the four days before the incident, over a dozen Democratic U.S. lawmakers called on Biden to step aside. In the four days since the assassination attempt, only one more has joined the list, Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
"Our nation is at a crossroads," Schiff told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. "A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November."
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House Progressives Rip GOP for Siding With Credit Card Giants on Junk Fees
"It is critical that the American people understand the House Republican Conference's firm and dedicated commitment to protecting the business model of unfettered, predatory fines."
Jul 17, 2024
Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Wednesday slammed their House Republican colleagues for siding with credit card giants over U.S. consumers by attempting to roll back a Biden administration rule banning excessive late fees—a major profit source for card issuers.
The House's Republican majority is expected in the near future to schedule a floor vote on a GOP-authored resolution that would use the Congressional Review Act to undo the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) rule lowering the typical credit card late fee from $32 to $8.
The CFPB is currently
fighting a Trump-appointed judge's injunction against the rule, which the agency estimates would save Americans more than $14 billion a year in fees.
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the chair of the CPC—and more than 50 fellow caucus members welcomed the "opportunity to highlight the Republican majority's enthusiastic support for junk fees, including exorbitant credit card fees."
The letter continues:
We think it is critical that the American people understand the House Republican Conference's firm and dedicated commitment to protecting the business model of unfettered, predatory fines imposed by large corporate banks against ordinary Americans. Thanks to the leadership of the Biden Administration and the CFPB, Americans will collectively receive $10 billion in annual relief from this rule, curbing junk fees levied by profitable credit card giants on consumers.
We look forward to a promptly scheduled vote that allows every House Republican to go on the record opposing an initiative that will rein in a loophole exploited by corporate giants to boost their profits at the expense of American households and create an average savings of $220 per year for more than 45 million people who are charged late fees by large credit card companies.
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A new @POTUS + @CFPB rule means big banks won’t be able to charge over $8 in late fees for credit card payments.
Surprising no one, @HouseGOP is trying to block it 🫠@SpeakerJohnson: bring this bill to a vote & make your members' support for predatory junk fees official. pic.twitter.com/JuzHU921ur
— Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) July 17, 2024
The House GOP's defense of junk fees undercuts the election-year narrative of ascendant pro-worker populism within the Republican Party, which is working aggressively to overturn labor protections enacted by the Biden administration.
In April, Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee voted unanimously to advance Rep. Andy Barr's (R-Ky.) resolution to undo the CFPB's rule on late fees. Every Democrat on the panel voted no.
The House Republicans who backed Barr's resolution have received millions of dollars in donations from leading credit card issuers and industry groups fighting the CFPB rule, according to the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a vocal supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, is leading the Senate effort to roll back the CFPB rule and has criticized the Biden administration for characterizing credit card late-payment penalties as "junk fees."
According to OpenSecrets, Goldman Sachs employees, executives, and PACs have been Scott's largest campaign contributors over the course of his Senate career.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing last month that Republicans are "falling all over themselves to defend these junk fees."
"If you're wondering why Republicans are introducing legislation to protect junk fees and working overtime to come up with fantastical legal theories to kill the CFPB, I think the answer is pretty clear," said Warren. "Republicans are in bed with big business to rip off families and to protect corporate bottom lines."
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"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" said a Palestinian woman sheltering at a school attacked Tuesday. "We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children."
Jul 17, 2024
Israeli attacks have killed 81 Palestinians over roughly the last 24 hours, including an attack on a United Nations-run school shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to data released by the Gaza health ministry on Wednesday.
The Nuseirat strike, which killed 23 Palestinians on Tuesday, was at least the eighth Israeli attack on a school shelter in the last ten days. Six of the schools had been run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" Umm Mohammed al-Hasanat, a woman who was sheltering at the Nuseirat school, askedAl Jazeera.
"We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children," she said.
A Palestinian mother struggles to bid farewell to her son, killed by the israelis in an air strike that targeted the Razi UNRWA school in Nuseirat pic.twitter.com/LbRsw6INhg
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) July 16, 2024
Palestinians inspect the Abdullah Azzam Mosque and its surroundings after the Israeli occupation bombed the area in Nuseirat camp, leaving massive piles of rubble behind. pic.twitter.com/rMEfRK1p5G
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) July 17, 2024
The Nuseirat attack was one of many in the last two days across the Gaza Strip.
A strike near Cairo School in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Wednesday killed at least nine, including three children. An overnight strike on a house in Al-Zawyda in central Gaza killed eight, while an attack on a house Wednesday in the Khan Younis area killed five. An Israeli bombing also killed two in the al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah on Wednesday. Israeli tanks also advanced into northern Rafah, Reutersreported.
The latest string of attacks included another on Tuesday in which Israeli forces killed about 17 in a strike on a "safe" zone in al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis where refugees have gathered.
Even before Tuesday, Gazans were facing one of the deadliest weeks since the war began. Israel bombarded the al-Mawasi camp on Saturday, killing more than 90 Palestinians. Israeli forces also killed at least 17 people on Sunday in an attack on the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban school in Nuseirat, which was housing thousands of displaced people; most of the dead were women and children, according toAl Jazeera.
UNRWA announced last week that Israeli forces have targeted two-thirds of the schools it administers in Gaza and attacked its facilities 453 times overall since the start of the war. Nearly 200 UNRWA staff members have been killed, the U.N. agency said.
The agency reiterated its call for a stop to Israeli targeting of its facilities in a social media message on Tuesday: "Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for U.N. premises and humanitarian law must stop."
Nearly 70% of @UNRWA schools in #Gaza have been hit since the war began.
Over 95% of these schools were used as shelters when hit. 539 people sheltering in UNRWA facilities have been killed.
Nowhere is safe. The blatant disregard for @UN premises and humanitarian law must stop. pic.twitter.com/EKiSiOm2kc
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 16, 2024
News of the atrocities in Gaza came as Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday issued a 236-page report on the atrocities of October 7, in which Hamas-led armed groups killed roughly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped more than 250. The report's authors found that the groups had committed "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes" in their attack in southern Israel.
"Human Rights Watch research found that the Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage," Ida Sawyer, HRW's crisis and conflict director, said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "The October 7 atrocities should spur a global call to action for an end to all abuses against civilians in Israel and Palestine."
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