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      Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack | Robert Reich

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      Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attackRobert ReichKyrsten Sinema receives millions from business and opposes progressive priorities. Republicans who voted to overturn an election still bag big bucks. Whose side are CEOs on? Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.The US supreme court to Americans: tough luck if you get Covid at work | Robert ReichRead moreThat’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees (Pacs).But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a much larger problem.The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more.The Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans.Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide. Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 minimum wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and stalled on drug price reform – policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans.Over the last four decades, corporate Pac spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation.Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union Pacs contributed about as much as corporate Pacs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than three to one.According to a landmark study published in 2014 by the Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens. Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Lawmakers mainly listen to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.It’s probably far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002: before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super Pacs, before “dark money” and before the Wall Street bailout.The corporate return on this mountain of money has been significant. Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations (most recently, Build Back Better). They’ve attacked labor laws, reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a third 40 years ago to just over 6% now.They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for big pharma, big oil, big tech, big ag, the largest military contractors and biggest banks now dwarfs the amount of welfare for people.The profits of big corporations just reached a 70-year high, even during a pandemic. The ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.Meanwhile, most Americans are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.But the biggest casualty is public trust in democracy.In 1964, just 29% of voters believed government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”. By 2013, 79% of Americans believed it.Corporate donations to seditious lawmakers are nothing compared with this 40-year record of corporate sedition.A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy they are willing to believe blatant lies of a self-described strongman, and willing to support a political party that no longer believes in democracy.As I said at the outset, capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.The true meaning of 6 January: we must answer Trump’s neofascism with hope | Robert ReichRead moreDespotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.My message to every CEO in America: you need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it.It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy – and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.
      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
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS political financingRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatecommentReuse this content More

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      Kyrsten Sinema blocks filibuster reform as Biden continues ‘fight’ for voting rights – video

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      US president Joe Biden said he was not sure if his administration could push voting rights legislation through Congress, but he would continue fighting to change the law. ‘I don’t know if we can get it done,’ he said to reporters. ‘But I know one thing, as long as I have a breath in me … I am going to be fighting to change the way these legislatures are moving.’ Earlier, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema reaffirmed she would not support any change to the filibuster rules, effectively killing her party’s hope of passing the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.

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      Sinema says no to filibuster reform and scuttles Democrats’ voting rights hopes

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      Sinema says no to filibuster reform and scuttles Democrats’ voting rights hopesArizona senator says she will not support filibuster changesSinema’s floor speech condemned by voting rights activists Kyrsten Sinema publicly and bluntly reaffirmed she would not support any change to the filibuster rules on Thursday, effectively killing her party’s hope of passing the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.Sinema speaks out against filibuster reform after House sends voting rights bill to Senate – liveRead moreSinema took to the Senate floor around noon on Thursday and said she would not support any changes to the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation.“While I continue to support these [voting rights] bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,” said Sinema, a first-term Democrat from Arizona.“We must address the disease itself, the disease of division, to protect our democracy, and it cannot be achieved by one party alone. It cannot be achieved solely by the federal government. The response requires something greater and, yes, more difficult than what the Senate is discussing today.”Sinema’s speech comes at an extremely perilous moment for US democracy. Republican lawmakers in 19 states have enacted 34 new laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, that impose new voting restrictions. They have also passed a slew of bills that seek to inject more partisan control into election administration and the counting of votes, an unprecedented trend experts are deeply concerned about and call election subversion. Many of those measures have been passed in state legislatures on simple majority, party-line votes.For months, Sinema and fellow Democrat Joe Manchin have staunchly defended the filibuster, which stands as the major hurdle to voting rights reform. No Republicans support either the voting rights bills or changing the rules of the filibuster, so Democrats cannot do anything unless both senators are on board.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, has pledged a vote on the measure and rule changes by Monday, a public holiday to celebrate the civil rights leader Martin Luther King.The opposition is also a major blow to Joe Biden, who gave a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday calling on Democrats to support the bill. Sinema gave the speech about an hour before Biden traveled to the Capitol to meet Democrats to urge them to support rule changes.“I hope we can get this done but I’m not sure,” Biden said after his meeting with Democrats on Thursday.“Like every other major civil rights bill that came along, if we miss the first time, we can come back and try it a second time. We missed this time. We missed this time,” he added.Manchin released his own statement on Thursday afternoon confirming he would not vote to change the filibuster.“For those who believe that bipartisanship is impossible, we have proven them wrong. Ending the filibuster would be the easy way out. I cannot support such a perilous course for this nation when elected leaders are sent to Washington to unite our country by putting politics and party aside,” he said.The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said the White House would continue to fight for voting rights legislation, but declined to offer any specifics. “We’re gonna keep fighting until the votes are had,” she said.Civil rights leaders quickly denounced Sinema after her speech on Thursday.“History will remember Senator Sinema unkindly. While she remains stubborn in her ‘optimism’, black and brown Americans are losing their right to vote,” said Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil rights leader. “She’s siding with the legacy of Bull Connor and George Wallace instead of the legacy of my father and all those who fought to make real our democracy.”“Arizonans value leaders who can compromise and work across the aisle, but let me be clear: the filibuster is non-negotiable. Indivisibles, like myself, worked tooth-and-nail to get Sinema elected in 2018 – we made calls, registered voters and knocked on doors in the 120F weather,” said Signa Oliver, an activist with the Arizona chapter of Indivisible, a grassroots group.“We know the weight of this trifecta, and we will not sit idly by as Sinema lets our hard work and the prospect of a better country for all wither so she can be branded a bipartisan leader.”Jared Huffman, a Democratic congressman from California, tweeted: “Shame on you.”Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, praised Sinema’s speech as an act of “political courage” that could “save the Senate as an institution”, according to the Associated Press.For months, Democrats have championed two bills, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The former measure would overhaul federal election rules to set baseline requirements for voter access. It would require 15 days of early voting, as well as same-day and automatic registration. It also includes provisions that make it harder to remove election officials without justification, and would make it easier for voters to go to court to ensure their votes aren’t thrown out.The latter bill would require states where there is repeated evidence of recent voting discrimination to get changes approved by the federal government before they go into effect. It updates and restores a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, that was struck down by the supreme court in 2013.The US House passed a mega-bill on Thursday morning that combined both of those measures into a single bill. It was a procedural move to allow the Senate to quickly hear and debate the measure.TopicsUS SenateThe fight to voteUS voting rightsDemocratsUS politicsUS CongressJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      US Capitol attack panel asks Kevin McCarthy to cooperate with inquiry

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      US Capitol attack panel asks Kevin McCarthy to cooperate with inquiryThe House committee chairman has written to the Republican minority leader, escalating pressure on Trump’s allies in Congress The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack formally asked the Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, on Wednesday to cooperate with its inquiry into the January 6 insurrection, escalating the pressure on Donald Trump’s top allies in Congress.The committee said in a letter to McCarthy that the panel is seeking details about his conversations with the Trump White House and the former president in the days leading up to and during the Capitol attack, as well as discussions in its aftermath.“We also must learn about how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, and all the other ways he attempted to alter the results of the election,” Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, said in the letter.Capitol attack panel closes in on Trump inner circle with three new subpoenasRead moreThompson said that McCarthy was of particular interest to investigators as he spoke to Trump directly as the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.The select committee’s request to McCarthy marks a significant political moment for the investigation and demonstrates their resolve to pursue testimony from the highest-ranking Republican in Congress as they examine potential criminal conduct by the former president.It also set the stage for a bitter political showdown after McCarthy said late on Wednesday he would not cooperate with the investigation, accusing the panel of “an abuse of power” and of “not serving any legislative purpose” – an argument rejected by multiple federal courts.Thompson said in the letter that the committee is, in the first instance, interested in McCarthy’s phone call to Trump on 6 January during which he unsuccessfully begged the former president to call off the pro-Trump mob as it stormed the Capitol in his name.According to an account of that call presented at Trump’s second impeachment last year, the former president sided with the rioters and in refusing to take action, told McCarthy that they were evidently more upset about the election than the House Republican leader.“You have acknowledged speaking directly with the former President while the violence was underway on January 6,” Thompson wrote. “This information bears directly on President Trump’s state of mind during the January 6 attack as the violence was underway.”The chairman said that House investigators wanted to ask McCarthy about why he still objected to Biden’s election certification even after the Capitol attack took place, and even though he appeared to recognize that Trump was responsible for the insurrection.“The select committee wishes to question you regarding communications you may have had with President Trump, President Trump’s legal team, Representative [Jim] Jordan, and others at the time on that topic,” Thompson wrote.The select committee’s request to McCarthy about his contacts with Jordan comes days after Jordan, another of Trump’s top allies on Capitol Hill, suggested that he would ignore a request for an interview he received from the panel in December.Thompson said that the committee was also seeking details about McCarthy’s conversations with Trump and Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before 6 January, suggesting an inquiry into what McCarthy knew of plans to stop Biden’s certification.“We also must learn about how the president’s plans for January 6 came together,” Thompson said in the letter. “You reportedly explained to Mark Meadows and the former president that objections to the certification of the electoral votes on January 6 ‘was doomed to fail.’”Having already established that McCarthy had informed Trump and Meadows before 6 January that the plan to stop Biden’s certification would not work, investigators want to learn why they were still “so confident the election result would be overturned”, Thompson said.The Guardian first reported last week that the committee has in its possession messages turned over by Meadows and others suggesting the Trump White House coordinated with Republican lawmakers to stop Biden’s certification, according to sources familiar with the matter.Thompson said that the committee was also interested in McCarthy’s communications with Trump in the week after the Capitol attack, including the possibility that Trump could have faced a censure resolution, impeachment and removal under the 25th amendment.Thompson added that the panel was not interested in McCarthy’s political conversations with Trump when he visited the former president at Mar-a-Lago on 28 January, but was taking an interest in why his characterization of Trump’s culpability changed so dramatically.“Did President Trump or his representatives discuss or suggest what you should say publicly, during the impeachment trial (if called as a witness), or in any later investigation about your conversations with him on January 6?” Thompson said in the letter.The chairman also revealed for the first time that the select committee has contemporaneous messages showing McCarthy talked to Trump about his immediate resignation, among a number of other potential consequences he may have faced for inciting the Capitol attack.“A full and accurate accounting of what happened on January 6th is critical to the select committee’s legislative recommendations. And the American people deserve to understand all the relevant details,” Thompson said, suggesting an interview in the first week of February.…TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announces positive Covid test

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announces positive Covid testProgressive congresswoman ‘experiencing symptoms’Office says political star had booster vaccine shot last year The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has tested positive for Covid-19.Biden health chief endures Fox News grilling over mixed Covid messagingRead moreIn a statement on Sunday evening, the office of the New York progressive said she was “experiencing symptoms and recovering at home.“The congresswoman received her booster shot this fall and encourages everyone to get their booster and follow all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance”.New York is experiencing a huge surge of Covid cases linked to the Omicron variant, placing strain on hospitals and public health resources.The city has posted high rates of vaccination.Earlier, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, the director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, was asked about the severity of the Omicron variant compared to the Delta variant.Walensky said: “We are starting to see data from other countries that indicate on a person-by-person basis it may not be. However, given the volume of cases that we’re seeing with Omicron we very well may see death rates rise dramatically.”According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 837,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US. Around two-thirds of the eligible population is considered fully vaccinated but resistance to public health measures stoked by conservative politicians and media has dogged the federal response.Walensky also emphasised the importance of vaccination and booster shots, saying: “We have seen with the Omicron variant that prior infection protects you less well than it had … with prior variants.“Right now, I think the most important thing to do is to protect Americans. We do that by getting them vaccinated and getting them boosted.”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezCoronavirusNew YorkUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More