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Bernie SandersSanders urges progressives to stand firm in Democratic battle over Biden agendaParty locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency Ed Pilkington@ More
This week a rush of new stories and allegations came out about Donald Trump with the publication of two new books. Jonathan Freedland talks to Richard Wolffe about why it’s important to keep talking about the former president
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Donald TrumpTrump plans to sue to keep White House records on Capitol attack secretLegal strategy could delay and possibly stymie efforts by House select committee into Capitol attacks to see key documents Hugo LowellWed 29 Sep 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Wed 29 Sep 2021 02.02 EDTDonald Trump is preparing to sue to block the release of White House records from his administration to the House select committee scrutinizing the 6 January attack on the Capitol by claiming executive privilege, potentially touching off an extended legal battle over disclosure.The former president also expects top aides – former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – to defy select committee subpoenas for records and testimony.Trump’s moves to try to resist the select committee, informed by a source familiar with his planning, are likely to lead to constitutional clashes in court that would test the power of Congress’s oversight authority over the executive branch.The former president said in recent days that he would cite executive privilege to thwart House select committee investigators seeking to compel his top aides to testify about 6 January and what he knew of plans to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.But the sharpening contours of Trump’s intention to stonewall the select committee mark a new turning point as he seeks to keep a grip on the rapidly escalating investigation into the events of 6 January that left five dead and about 140 others injured.The plan to prevent House select committee investigators from receiving Trump White House records revolves around exploiting the procedure by which the National Archives allows both the Biden administration and Trump to review materials for executive privilege claims.After the National Archives identifies and transmits to Biden and Trump the records requested by the select committee, Trump has 30 days to review the materials and ask the administration to assert executive privilege over any to stop their release.The records are being delivered to Biden and Trump hundreds or thousands of pages at a time on a rolling basis, and the first tranche of documents was sent by the National Archives on 31 August, according to a source familiar with the matter.As president, Biden retains the final authority over whether to assert the protection for specific documents, meaning that he can instruct the White House counsel, Dana Remus, to allow their release even over Trump’s objections after an additional 60 days has passed.The former president, however, can then file lawsuits to block their release – a legal strategy that Trump and his advisers are preparing to pursue insofar as it could tie up the records in court for months and stymie evidence-gathering by the select committee.It was not immediately clear how Trump would approach such legal challenges, and whether it would, for instance, involve individual suits against the release of specific records. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.Trump is not guaranteed to win such cases over executive privilege given he is no longer president and the White House office of legal counsel previously declined to assert the protection for previous 6 January-related testimony by Trump justice department officials.But the plan could delay, and therefore hamper, House select committee investigators as they aim to produce a final report before the 2022 midterm elections in order to shield their work from accusations of partisanship as the nation returns to the polls.The select committee at the very latest is probably facing a hard deadline of January 2023 by which to complete its report, since Republicans will not vote to reauthorize a panel investigating Trump and his allies should they, as expected, retake control of the House.As for the subpoenas issued to his top aides, Trump has said in recent days that he would invoke executive privilege to prevent Meadows, Scavino, Bannon and Patel from testifying to the select committee, repeating a tactic successfully used during his first impeachment.In a freewheeling statement after the select committee announced the subpoenas – deliberations first reported by the Guardian – the former president lashed out at the select committee’s inquiry as a partisan exercise and criticized their zeal to target his closest advisers.“We will fight the subpoenas on executive privilege and other grounds for the good of our country, while we wait to find out whether or not subpoenas will be sent out to Antifa and BLM for the death and destruction they have caused,” Trump said.The former president signaled his intentions to threaten a prolonged legal fight over White House records from his administration after the select committee first made its documents requests to the National Archives at the end of August.“Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my administration and the patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the office of the president of the United States and the future of our nation,” Trump said in a statement.The justice department has typically fought to keep private, executive-branch discussions between presidents and top advisers secret, to avoid setting a precedent that could prevent officials from having candid conversations for fear that they might later become public.But with the former acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, the White House office of legal counsel cleared them to provide “unrestricted testimony” to Congress about Trump’s efforts to reinstall himself in office because of the gravity of the matter.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More
Barack ObamaBarack Obama: tax the rich, including me, to fund Biden spending planFormer president says billionaires should ‘pay a little bit more in taxes’ to fund healthcare, childcare and the climate crisis fight
In deep red West Virginia, Biden spending plan is popular
Martin Pengelly in New York@ More
US-Mexico borderHaiti deportations justified because of Covid, Biden homeland secretary says
Alejandro Mayorkas vows investigation of horseback roundups
‘They treated us like animals’: deported Haitians despair
Amanda Holpuch@ More
OpinionBiden administrationWhy corporate social responsibility is BSRobert ReichWhile big corporations tell Americans how virtuous they are, they lobby up a storm against Biden’s social policy bill Sun 26 Sep 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 27 Sep 2021 09.46 EDTIn recent years, “corporate social responsibility” has been viewed by some as the answer to the multiple failings of capitalism. Chief executives have responded to all sorts of problems – worsening climate change, widening inequality, soaring healthcare costs and so on – by promising their corporations will lead the way to solutions because they’re committed to being “socially responsible”.House Democrats are scared to tax billionaires – that’s a costly mistake | Robert ReichRead moreNinety-eight percent of this is rubbish. CEOs won’t do anything that hurts their bottom lines. They’re in the business of making as much money as possible, not solving social problems.In fact, real social change would prevent them from doing many of the hugely profitable things they now do. Which means they won’t change their ways unless they’re required by law to change (and even then, only when the penalty times the probability of getting caught is higher than the profits from continuing anyway). Their soothing promises of social responsibility are intended to forestall such laws.I’ve seen this repeatedly. When I was secretary of labor, big corporations would violate laws on worker safety, wages and hours and pensions, whenever doing so was cheaper than obeying the laws. And they’d fight like hell against such laws to begin with – all the while telling the public what wonderful citizens they were.You may recall that in August 2019, the Business Roundtable – one of Washington’s most prestigious corporate groups, on whose board sit the CEOs of Apple, Walmart and JPMorgan – issued a widely publicized statement expressing “a fundamental commitment” to the wellbeing of “all of our stakeholders” (emphasis in the original), including their employees, communities and the environment.The statement was widely hailed as marking a new era of corporate social responsibility.Since then, the Roundtable and its members have issued a continuous stream of jejune statements about their dedication to such things as providing childcare, pre-K and affordable healthcare, promoting community college and workforce training, alleviating poverty and reversing climate change.It turns out these are exactly the priorities in Joe Biden’s $3.5tn reconciliation bill. But guess what? The Business Roundtable isn’t lobbying for the bill. It’s lobbying intensely against it.Jessica Boulanger, a spokeswoman, told the Washington Post the Roundtable is engaged in “a significant, multifaceted campaign” to stop tax increases that would finance the bill, and will “continue to ramp up our efforts in the coming weeks”. The group is launching a seven-figure digital advertising campaign to oppose the bill.Hypocrisy? Only if you believed the Roundtable BS about corporate social responsibility. If you know the truth – that corporations will do whatever they can to maximize their profits and share values, social responsibility be damned – there’s nothing surprising here.Why didn’t business groups fight the president’s infrastructure bill? Because government spending on infrastructure helps their bottom lines by lowering their costs of procuring supplies and getting goods to market. Social responsibility had nothing to do with it.It’s tempting to chalk all this up to “corporate greed”. But that makes sense only if you think corporations are capable of emotions, such as greed. They’re not. Corporations aren’t people, no matter what the supreme court says. They’re bundles of contracts.The specific people who enter those contracts (on behalf of big corporations as well as thousands of people who run vast investment funds on behalf of millions of shareholders) are neither greedy nor socially responsible. They’re merely doing what they understand to be their jobs. Greed and social responsibility have been laundered out of these transactions.If we want these transactions to change – to align better with public needs rather than private profits – laws must change. For example, taxes on big corporations must rise in order to fund public investments and safety nets.But such laws won’t change if corporations continue to spend vast sums on politics. Corporate spokespeople like Boulanger of the Business Roundtable – along with platoons of corporate lobbyists and influence peddlers, corporate lawyers and hired-gun economists, corporate political operatives and PR flaks – together form in effect a fourth branch of government, wielding huge and increasing power. About one out of every four people now working in downtown Washington fills one of these roles.US’s wealthiest 1% are failing to pay $160bn a year in taxes, report findsRead moreThe result is clear. The most telling trends over the last three decades have been the growing share of the economy going into corporate profits – generating ever-greater compensation packages for top executives and ever-higher payouts for big investors (all of whom live off shares of stock) – and the declining share going to most Americans as wages and salaries.The meaningless blather over “corporate social responsibility” is intended to mask these trends. Biden’s $3.5tn plan is aimed at reversing them.But big business is doing everything in its power to sabotage Biden’s plan. The only way to stop this sabotage is to ignore all mention of corporate social responsibility and make one hell of a ruckus in support of Biden’s plan, as well as laws to reduce the power of big money in politics.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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OpinionUS politicsMen on horses chasing Black asylum seekers? Sadly, America has seen it beforeMoustafa BayoumiThe Biden administration has condemned abuses at the border – while maintaining the policies underlying these abuses. That’s beyond cynical Thu 23 Sep 2021 06.22 EDTLast modified on Thu 23 Sep 2021 06.23 EDTYou’ve probably seen a photograph haunting the internet this week: a white-presenting man on horseback – uniformed, armed and sneering – is grabbing a shoeless Black man by the neck of his T-shirt. The Black man’s face bears an unmistakable look of horror. He struggles to remain upright while clinging dearly to some bags of food in his hands. Between the men, a long rein from the horse’s bridle arches menacingly in the air like a whip. The photograph was taken just a few days ago in Texas, but the tableau looks like something out of antebellum America.The image is profoundly upsetting, not just for what it portrays but for the history it evokes. What’s happening at the border right now puts two of our founding national myths – that we’re a land of liberty and a nation of immigrants – under scrutiny. To put it plainly, we don’t fare well under inspection.First, the current situation. This now iconic photo by photojournalist Paul Ratje was taken at a makeshift camp that has sprung up at the US-Mexico border at Del Rio, Texas. Over the past week or two, thousands of people, mostly Haitian, have crossed from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande to the US seeking asylum. It’s important to note that they didn’t come illegally; it is perfectly legal to arrive at a border point of entry and request asylum. But conditions in the camp, according to reports, have become fetid and nearly unlivable, forcing asylum seekers to trek back and forth across the river to buy food and supplies from the Mexican side.Then the men on horses showed up.In video broadcast by Al Jazeera, mounted border patrol agents can clearly be seen threatening, insulting and even lashing at the asylum seekers with their horses’ reins, growling at them to stay in Mexico. The images, which sparked justifiable outrage, quickly spread – as did rightwing defenses of the agents. Fox News, for example, was quick to point out that border patrol agents are not issued whips with their gear. But you don’t have to believe in alchemy to see that when a horse’s rein is used as whip, it becomes a whip.The Biden administration has ended use of the phrase ‘illegal alien’. It’s about time | Moustafa BayoumiRead moreChains, whips, horses, bloodhounds, branding irons: these were some of the tools used during New World slavery to preserve white hegemony. Most Americans know this, and I hold on to the hope that no one wants to return to such brutality. Every part of that miserable system was degrading. It was degrading to the enslaved, most obviously, and even, I would argue, to slaveholders, who surely lost more of their humanity each day that that monstrous system survived.In fact, New World slavery wasn’t just degrading. It was collective lunacy, often involving animals. Slaveholders and slave catchers – yes, that was a real profession – trained dogs to attack Black people, and then deliberately interpreted the attacks as proof that even dogs recognized Black inferiority.And those slave catchers? After Mexico formally abolished slavery in 1829, American slave catchers would routinely cross into Mexico – without authorization, it must be said – in search of runaway slaves from the US. In 1858, the Texas legislature even passed a law offering anyone returning an enslaved person “who may have escaped beyond the limits of the slave territory of the United States” a third of “the value of such slave”, with the government treasury paying the money. A noticeable uptick of kidnappings of people of African descent in Mexico followed. Needless to say, Mexico was not pleased.So history easily illustrates the US’s border hypocrisy. Yet the larger point is that every national border has always been a place that offers those who pass through one of two options: sanctuary or terror. The images emerging from Del Rio, explicitly recalling the collective shame of our past, are clearly pointing in the wrong direction. This might explain why the White House, which has executive authority over the border patrol, rushed to condemn the pictures.Asked about the footage, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, responded, “I don’t think anyone seeing that footage would think it was acceptable or appropriate.” Vice-President Kamala Harris said, “Human beings should never be treated that way.” The Department of Homeland Security has promised an investigation with “appropriate disciplinary actions”.But is this just image control? At the same time that it condemns the actions of its own law enforcement agency, the Biden administration has refused media access to the camp at Del Rio, invoked a Trump-era order (the rarely used public health law known as Title 42) to expel asylum seekers without review, and forcibly deported hundreds of Haitians in Texas – many of whom left the country more than a decade ago, after its 2010 earthquake – back to a country that is not only reeling from a massive earthquake last August but also from a political earthquake, the assassination of its president, last July.Without review, it’s impossible to know who is facing real threats of persecution when returned to Haiti. The United Nations human rights spokesperson, Marta Hurtado, said that the UN “is seriously concerned by the fact that it appears there have not been any individual assessments of the cases”. Why does the Biden administration not share her concern?One has to wonder if the same policies expelling Haitians from the US today would be in effect if those arriving at the border were Europeans or even Cubans. If history is any guide – for decades, the US privileged Cubans over Haitians and other Caribbean peoples in immigration matters – the answer is no.It’s one thing for the Biden administration to condemn abuses conducted by its own government that recall the worst parts of our national history. But it’s quite another to do so while maintaining the policies that enable those abuses. That’s not just cynical. It’s despicable.
Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America
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