January, 31 2023, 03:54pm EDT
Common Cause Calls on Senate to Condemn Smear Campaign Against Gigi Sohn and Rapidly Confirm Her to FCC
In recent weeks, industry and big money opposition have continued to run a smear campaign to stall Gigi Sohn’s confirmation to serve as FCC commissioner. These attacks have now turned to a more bigoted and hateful nature in an effort to keep the FCC deadlocked. A deadlocked FCC is unable to advance key priorities that address the communications needs of all households. Common Cause calls on the Senate to condemn these attacks and rapidly confirm her to the FCC.
Statement of Michael Copps, Former FCC Commissioner and Common Cause Special Adviser
“It is disgraceful that the FCC has been forced into deadlocked since the beginning of the Biden administration while big money opposition continues to run a sleazy and bigoted campaign to stall Ms. Sohn’s confirmation. Industry gatekeepers will go to any lengths to smear Ms. Sohn’s name all to derail her confirmation because they know a fully functional FCC will hold them accountable for engaging in anti-consumer practices.
“Ms. Sohn is more than qualified to be a commissioner and has spent her entire career fighting for the public interest – the core mission of the FCC. She has the support of nearly 250 organizations including groups from across the political spectrum. We urge the senate to condemn the continued smear campaign against Ms. Sohn and quickly confirm her to the FCC.”
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
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Trump's Chief of Staff Pick Worked as a Tobacco Lobbyist While Running 2024 Campaign
The president-elect previously vowed to "drain the swamp," but his chief of staff pick, Susie Wiles, co-chairs a firm that has lobbied for tobacco giant Swisher International, Tesla, Uber, AT&T, and other corporate giants.
Nov 08, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday selected Susie Wiles, a longtime GOP strategist who has spearheaded the Republican leader's campaign operations since 2021, to serve as White House chief of staff, saying in a statement that she helped "achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history."
But Trump's team didn't mention in its announcement that Wiles worked as a lobbyist for the tobacco company Swisher International while running the former president's 2024 bid. Citing disclosure forms filed earlier this year, the investigative outlet Sludgereported Thursday that Wiles "worked to influence Congress on 'FDA regulations.'"
"Wiles has not filed a termination report for her work with Swisher, but she has not reported lobbying for the company since the first quarter of the year, when the company paid her firm Mercury Public Affairs $30,000 in fees," Sludge noted.
The outlet pointed out that Mercury—which lists Wiles as a co-chair on its website—has "large lobbying contracts with several junk food companies that will be working to oppose" Trump's stated objective to "Make America Healthy Again" by, among other changes, working to remove processed foods from school meals.
Mercury "lobbies for sugar cereal company Kellogg's, high fructose corn syrup sauce maker Kraft-Heinz, and Nestlé SA, the Swiss company whose brands include KitKat, Hot Pockets, and Nestea," Sludge reported.
"Some of Mercury's other clients, highlighted on its website, include Gilead Sciences, Pfizer, Tesla, Uber, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, NBC Universal, Gavi: The Vaccine Alliance, and the nation of Qatar," the outlet added.
Kieran Mahoney, Mercury's CEO, said in a statement that Wiles' selection as Trump's chief of staff "is great news for the country," calling her "a valued colleague."
Despite his attempt during the campaign to posture as an ally of the working class and an enemy of Washington, D.C.'s pervasive corruption, Trump is expected to fill his Cabinet with billionaires and others with extensive corporate ties.
Two billionaires, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, are leading the transition team tasked with staffing the incoming administration. Politicoreported that Lutnick—who donated more than $10 million to Trump's campaign—has "faced accusations from some Trump insiders that he has improperly mixed his business interests with his duties standing up a potential administration."
"Concerns about potential conflicts of interest for Lutnick include Cantor Fitzgerald and its relationship with one of the most controversial cryptocurrency companies in the world, Tether, which issues a digital token that is pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar and is reportedly under federal investigation," the outlet noted.
Reporting in recent days has indicated that the two top contenders to lead the Treasury Department in the second Trump administration are billionaires: hedge fund manager and Trump megadonor Scott Bessent and investor John Paulson, a vocal proponent of tax cuts and large-scale deregulation.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who pumped more than $118 million into efforts to elect the former president to a second White House term, is also expected to play a major role in shaping Trump's administration.
"Musk is helping staff the top ranks of the incoming White House and will run an unregulated entity to recommend ways to cut and reorganize government," Axiosreported Thursday. "This creates conflicts of interest at an epic scale. But it's hard to see the Trump White House caring, or Musk letting it slow him down."
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen observed in a recent report that at least three of Musk's companies—Tesla, X, and SpaceX—are currently facing scrutiny from at least nine federal agencies "for alleged misconduct."
"Enforcement priorities can shift significantly when administrations change," the group said. "Musk's self-serving desire to thwart the numerous civil and criminal investigations into his businesses seems a likely reason for the billionaire’s increased involvement in electoral politics."
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Progressive Delegation Back From Palestine Boosts Case for Embargo on Israel
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations."
Nov 07, 2024
Progressive International's Palestine Delegation—whose members were attacked earlier this week by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank—on Thursday issued "an urgent call to governments across the globe" to impose "a total energy, economic, and arms embargo against Israel" to punish its ongoing 13-month U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.
The Palestine Delegation—which was co-convened by Progressive International (PI), the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers—released a report containing findings of members Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona and lead delegate; Marc Botenga, a Belgian member of European Parliament (MEP) from the Marxist-socialist Workers' Party; and Jaume Asens, a leftist MEP from Spain.
"The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts."
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations... seeking their liberation, from the concentration camps used by Britain against the national liberation movement in Kenya to the internment of millions of Algerians by France," the report states.
Israel's 398-day assault on Gaza has killed or injured at least 155,000 Palestinians, including those who are missing and feared dead, while forcing nearly the entire population of the coastal enclave from their homes and causing widespread starvation and sickness. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is weighing evidence of genocide presented by South Africa in a case backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs and thousands of experts, advocates, and rights groups around the world.
"Any government providing arms, energy, economic, or diplomatic support to Israel is complicit in these crimes against humanity—and threatens the basic integrity of the international order," PI asserted. "The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts—economic, military, cultural, political, and diplomatic—to lay the groundwork for the end of the genocide and the dismantling of the colonial occupation in Palestine."
The U.S. boosts Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and unwavering diplomatic support. Other nations including Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India also provide Israel with substantial backing.
The PI delegation said it "arrived in Palestine amid sustained efforts by Israeli authorities to prevent access to the occupied territories and obscure the conditions of deprivation, detention, apartheid, and annexation endured by the Palestinian people."
Delegation members got a small taste of what Palestinians living in the occupied territories endure when they were reportedly attacked with tear gas and stun grenades by armed Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops Monday while accompanying West Bank farmers in Qusra as they attempted to harvest from the olive trees that are the lifeblood of Palestine's rural economy and a frequent target of land-grabbing settlers trying to drive Arabs away.
Last month, IDF soldiers fatally shot Hanan Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
"We are dealing with something as simple as harvesting olives," said Colau. "And even this has now been turned into an act of war by the illegal settlers and the army."
Earlier this week, around 50 countries joined in a call for an arms embargo on Israel. All but one of the nations—Norway—are in the Global South. They include: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
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After Plea Deals Revived, Biden Urged to Transfer Uncharged Men at Guantánamo
Rights advocates want the president to fulfill his "long-standing commitment to turn the page on the 9/11 era by closing this shameful site of torture and indefinite detention."
Nov 07, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday faced pressure from legal groups to accept a military judge's revival of plea deals for three alleged plotters of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and to transfer 19 uncharged men out of the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions, this summer reached the controversial deals under which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi agreed to spend the rest of their lives in prison to avoid execution.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin swiftly withdrew the agreements, sparking criticism from some victims' families and legal experts. In a 29-page ruling on Wednesday, the judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, wrote that the Pentagon chief "did not have the authority to do what he did." Thus, the pretrial agreements "remain valid and are enforceable," he wrote, and plea hearings should be scheduled.
It is not yet clear how the Pentagon will proceed, as its press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, only toldThe New York Times that "we are reviewing the decision and don't have anything further at this time." However, legal organizations want the Biden administration to embrace the ruling.
ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero, whose group represents Mohammed, said in a Thursday statement that "McCall rightly recognizes that Defense Secretary Austin stepped out of bounds" and "we are finally back at the only practical solution after nearly two decades of litigation."
"The government's decision to settle for life imprisonment instead of seeking the death penalty in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was always the right call," Romero continued. "For too long, the U.S. has repeatedly defended its use of torture and unconstitutional military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay. As a nation, we must move forward with the plea process and sentencing hearing that is intended to give victim family members answers to their questions. They deserve transparency and finality about the events that claimed their loved ones."
"This plea agreement further underscores the fact that the death penalty is out of step with the fundamental values of our democratic system. It is inhumane, inequitable, and unjust," he added. "We also urge the U.S. government to quickly relocate the men cleared for transfer, and finally end all indefinite detentions and unfair trials at Guantánamo."
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)—which represents two of the 19 uncharged men at the facility infamous for torture—also put out a Thursday statement pressuring the administration to accept the judge's decision and focus on transfers.
"The Biden administration should not appeal this ruling because, after more than 20 years of litigation and uncertainty for victims' families, plea deals are the only responsible way to resolve the 9/11 case," CCR argued. "The president must instead use this opportunity to transfer the remaining 19 uncharged men out of Guantánamo, 16 of whom have been approved for transfer by all relevant agencies based on a unanimous determination that they pose no security threat, including our clients Guled Hassan Duran and Sharqawi al Hajj."
"These two steps are essential to fulfilling Biden's long-standing commitment to turn the page on the 9/11 era by closing this shameful site of torture and indefinite detention," the group added.
Biden's time to make any decisions regarding Guantánamo and the men imprisoned there is dwindling. After beating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump is set to return to the White House in January, shortly after what would be the 23rd anniversary of Guantánamo's opening.
The U.S. prison was launched in January 2002 under then-President George W. Bush, who responded to the 9/11 attacks with a so-called global War on Terror. Biden has so far failed to close Guantánamo, following in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama. Trump, during his first term, took action to keep it open.
As Lawdrawgonreported:
The plea agreements for Mohammad and al-Hawsawi contained provisions that removed the death penalty from the case in the event the government withdrew from the agreements. Sources said that the penalty provision should render the case noncapital, even if Austin was found to have acted lawfully.
The penalty clause was negotiated in the event that a future Trump administration tried to kill the deals, individuals familiar with the negotiations said.
In anticipation of Trump's return to power early next year, Amnesty International is urging Biden to take "six actions before his legacy is sealed for the history books." The final item calls on the outgoing president to "transfer all detainees cleared for release or not charged with crimes to countries where their human rights will be respected, halting the unfair military commissions and fairly resolving the pending cases, and close the Guantánamo prison once and for all."
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