|
|
|
| Visit Website |
25 Questions Kamala Harris Should Be Asked in the Debate
Wednesday’s vice presidential debate provides an opportunity for the American public to get answers from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).
The Democratic vice presidential nominee should be asked the following 25 questions. This list is by no means exhaustive.
Many of these questions were suggested by this author last month, but because they remain unanswered, I offer them again in the hope that the debate moderator will see fit to get answers from the California senator who, if elected, will be one heart beat away from the presidency.
1. After President Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, many Democrats endorsed the idea of “packing” the Supreme Court by expanding the number of seats and filling them with liberal justices. You and Vice President Biden have refused to give your position on court-packing. Are you in favor of packing the court?
2. Do you believe Judge Barrett’s resume as a federal judge, former Supreme Court law clerk, and Notre Dame law professor qualifies her for the job? If not, why not? If so, how do you—as a feminist—justify your apparent ambivalence about even meeting with a qualified woman judicial nominee?
3. Judge Barrett has been attacked by members of your party because of her Catholic faith. This is of great concern to many millions of American Catholics because this appears to be a pattern with your party. In fact, you yourself once attacked a judicial nominee on the basis of his membership in the Catholic organization the Knights of Columbus, which is the largest fraternal organization in the world and includes among its past and present members many prominent Americans like President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA), and Vince Lombardi. Do you believe that being a member of the Knights of Columbus disqualifies a person from holding public office? Would you refuse to hire someone on the basis of their membership in the Knights of Columbus or any other Catholic organization? In your questioning of this Catholic judicial nominee, you singled out the issue of the Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life. Would you disqualify a job applicant on the basis of their Catholic beliefs, including their beliefs about abortion? Do you believe that being pro-life disqualifies someone from employment?
4. Your history of attacking a judicial nominee solely on the basis of his membership in a Catholic organization led former Speaker Newt Gingrich to describe you as an “openly anti-Catholic bigot.” Do you disavow this characterization?
5. Should American Catholics or Catholic organizations be forced to pay for other people’s abortions? If elected, would you seek to force Catholics to fund abortions and other practices that are fundamentally in violation of their faith?
6. You recently claimed that you chose to become a prosecutor because you wanted to protect victims of sexual abuse. However, during your 13-year tenure as San Francisco’s district attorney and then California’s attorney general, you refused to prosecute any of the sexual abuse claims brought against Catholic priests, despite the pleas from victim groups. Why?
7. Also, why did your attorney general’s office refuse to release the documents obtained from the San Francisco archdiocese with all the information about priests accused of sexual abuse? Victims’ rights groups have criticized your office for deliberately burying these documents and thereby covering up the crimes and leaving the public unprotected. Why did you do this? The San Francisco district attorney’s office claimed in 2019 that they no longer have these documents in their possession. What happened to them? How can you claim to be a defender of children when you declined to prosecute the abusers of children?
8. Last June, you encouraged your Twitter followers to donate to a bail fund to assist protesters arrested in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, riots. Are you aware that in July this bail fund sprang from jail a man who was accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl? In August, the fund posted bail for a man accused of assaulting a 71-year-old woman whose home he had burglarized. In June, the fund helped bail out a man accused of stomping and robbing a victim in Minneapolis on the same day George Floyd died. Between June and August, the fund helped bail out six men who were accused of domestic violence, including two who were accused of strangling women in their homes. Do you have any words for the victims of these crimes?
9. Why did your office decline to investigate the health supplement fraud cases involving companies your husband’s law firm represented? Did you, as California’s attorney general, ever purposefully decline investigating or prosecuting clients of your husband’s law firm?
10. You said you believed the women accusing Joe Biden of inappropriate touching. Do you believe Tara Reade? If not, why not? If so, how do you justify supporting him now?
11. Why did you single out journalist David Daleiden for prosecution for undercover journalism that others do without penalty?
12. Your chief-of-staff, Karine Jean-Pierre, wrote an op-ed last year attacking the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Americans who associate with it, stating “You cannot call yourself a progressive while continuing to associate yourself with an organization like AIPAC that has often been the antithesis of what it means to be progressive.” Do you believe that pro-Israel activism is incompatible with progressive values?
13. The Biden campaign has adopted a version of the Green New Deal that calls for 100 percent renewable electricity generation by 2035. California has adopted similar “green” goals, but now it can’t keep the lights on due to the state’s reliance on wind and solar energy. California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newson recently admitted that the Golden State needs a “backup” plan for energy because the current blackouts caused by lack of wind and overcast skies have shown the danger of relying solely on “green” energy. Why would the nation fare any better than sunny breezy California in keeping the lights on if we adopt 100 percent renewable energy?
14. You said in the past that we “need to hold China accountable” for trade violations, but you are against the use of tariffs. How do you intend to hold China accountable? You also said that “we need to export American products, not American jobs.” How do you intend to make sure we don’t export more American jobs to China? How would your policy differ significantly from the same policies that led to the loss of 4 million jobs to China?
15. You have supported the often violent Black Lives Matter uprisings and encouraged them to continue. Have you spoken to any victims of the riots — people who lost loved ones or businesses?
16. Do you believe that the looting of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago was a “form of reparations,” as one Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer claimed? Is looting an appropriate form of protest as a means of reparations?
17. Seattle Black Lives Matter protesters stormed a neighborhood, demanding that residents “get the f*** out” and “give black people back their homes” as reparations. Do you support that style of protest? If not, have you condemned it?
18. You recently claimed that it is both “outdated” and “wrongheaded” to think that adding police officers to the streets is the only way to make communities safer. What do you propose we do to stop the current wave of violent crime engulfing our cities?
19. What is the maximum number of illegal immigrants you would allow into the country before securing the border to stop more from entering?
20. The Obama administration deported an estimated 3 million illegal aliens. Was that a bad thing?
21. With 30 million Americans unemployed due to the coronavirus, would you support a halt on work visas for foreign workers competing with Americans for jobs? If not, explain to us why CEOs will not use this huge increase in the supply of labor to freeze and reduce salaries for American workers?
22. A number of prominent tech industry leaders have endorsed your campaign citing your support for increasing the number of H-1B foreign workers. Why is importing more foreign workers to compete with Americans a good idea right now?
23. Wall Street has praised Vice President Biden’s decision to choose you as his running mate. Why do you think financial special interests support you so much?
24. Will you be following the advice of your Wall Street and Silicon Valley donors in negotiating with China? If not, whose advice would you seek out in negotiating with China?
25. You have called on Congress to act on a coronavirus stimulus package, but you skipped a vote on a Republican proposal that would have provided relief to Americans. Are you putting any pressure on members of your party to stop blocking relief legislation for Americans?
Rebecca Mansour is a Senior Editor-at-Large for Breitbart News. Follow her on Twitter at @RAMansour.
Ranks of long-term jobless soar as US unemployment aid dries up
The number of long-term jobless workers in the United States continues to rise with millions of workers being forced to fend for themselves as the US Congress refuses to provide any aid to protect them against hunger, poverty and homelessness.
Last week’s job report from the US Department of Labor showed that a staggering 695,000 workers dropped out of the workforce.
The number of long-term unemployed out of work for 27 weeks or more increased by 781,000 to 2.4 million. These workers have exhausted their 26-week limit on state unemployment benefits, and another five million laid-off workers will reach this limit over the next two months.
At the end of July, Congress allowed the $600-a-week federal supplement to state benefits to expire, reducing weekly income in many cases by two-thirds or more over the last two months.
While Trump promised a $300-a-week Lost Wages Assistance benefit for six weeks, the funds allocated for this totally inadequate program have quickly dried up, with at least nine states announcing they have ended paying the additional benefit.
Congress has shown no interest in restoring any jobless benefits and the issue has hardly rated a mention in the corporate media, let alone by Democratic candidate Joe Biden. The issue of extending jobless benefits was not raised a single time during the debate last week.
Under these conditions, hunger is rising. In August, the Feeding America network food banks distributed an estimated 593 million meals, an increase of 64 percent from a typical pre-pandemic month. Meals on Wheels America, another charity, reported that their food programs were serving an average of 77 percent more meals and 47 percent more high-risk seniors in August than they were on March 1.
An analysis released last week by Feeding America projects a 6 billion to 8 billion meal shortfall over the next 12 months. The total need for charitable food over the next year, Feeding America estimates, will reach 17 billion pounds, more than three times last year’s distribution.
A recent survey taken by the US Census Bureau in August found that 10.5 percent or 22.3 million adults say they cannot afford to adequately feed their families, up from 18 million in March.
This situation is being worsened by a new round of mass layoffs, including from airlines, entertainment companies and aircraft manufacturers, which received billions in CARES Act money and tax cuts. Over the last few days alone, corporations have announced almost 100,000 new layoffs.
Last Thursday, United, American and other major US airlines began laying off 32,000 flight attendants, pilots and other airline workers after the expiration of the temporary prohibition on permanent job cuts which was contained in the CARES Act’s $24 billion bailout of the airlines. On Monday, Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said all employees would have to take a 10 percent pay cut by Jan. 1, 2021, to avoid permanent job cuts.
This week Cineworld, the world’s second-biggest cinema chain, is closing its US and United Kingdom theaters, laying off 45,000 workers, including nearly 40,000 at 536 Regal theaters in the US. This follows the announcement by Disney last week that it is laying off 28,000 of its 100,000 employees at its US parks and resorts.
Department store chain JCPenney will close 149 stores and cut 15,000 jobs ahead of the holiday shopping season as part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
Another 280,000 workers lost jobs last month in local and state education, as new austerity measures were imposed even as teachers and students were forced back into unsafe schools.
The American ruling class is seeking to use mass unemployment and the threat of poverty as bludgeons in its drive to herd workers back into unsafe factories and workplaces in order to further enrich the financial oligarchy. This is the policy not only of Trump and the Republicans but the Democrats on the federal, state and local levels. That is why the cutoff of jobless benefits has received bipartisan support.
THE REAL COST OF OPEN BORDERS: POVERTY
Study finds 90 percent of Americans would make 67 percent more without last four decades of increasing income inequality
A new study from the RAND Corporation, “Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018,” written by Carter Price and Kathryn Edwards, provides new documentation of the profound restructuring of class relations in America over the last 40 years.
The study, which looks at changes in pre-tax family income from 1947 to 2018, divided into quintiles of the American population, concludes that the bottom 90 percent of the population would, on average, make 67 percent more in income—every year (!)—had shifts in income inequality not occurred the last four decades.
In other words, any family that made less than $184,292 (the 90th percentile income bracket) in 2018 would be, on average, making 67 percent more. This amounts to a total sum of $2.5 trillion of collective lost income for the bottom 90 percent, just in 2018.
Furthermore, the study concludes, that had more equitable growth continued after 1975 (a date they use as a shifting point), the bottom 90 percent of American households would have earned a total of $47 trillion more in income.
Given that there were about 115 million households in the bottom 90 percent of the US in 2018 population (out of a total of 127.59 million in 2018), that would mean that each of these households would, on average, be $408,696 richer today with this lost income.
To reach these conclusions, the authors break down historical real, pre-tax, income into different quintiles of the population (bottom fifth, second fifth, third fifth, fourth fifth, highest fifth). Looking at the period between 1947 and 2018, they divide the years based on business cycles (booms and busts of the economy).
Their data quantitatively expresses the restructuring of class relations that began at the end of the post-WWII boom. Facing intensified economic crisis, automation, and global competition, the US ruling class undertook an aggressive campaign of deindustrialization, slashing wages and clawing back benefits won in the previous period by explosive struggles of the working class, while simultaneously funneling money to financial markets, expanding the wealth and income of both the upper and upper-middle class.
As the data shows, while the bottom 40 percent of American households made significant percentile increases to their income, relative to the top 5 percent, for the 20 years between 1947 and 1968, in the 40 years from 1980 to the present, this trend was reversed. In 1980-2000, the bottom 40 percent of the population experienced a net income gain significantly below that of the top 5 percent. It must be noted that because these are percentile increases, the absolute differences between the gains of the rich versus the poor is far larger.
Furthermore, not included in this data is wealth. In the last 40 years, and especially the last 10 to 20 years, the stock market has become the principal means through which the top 10 percent of the population has piled up historic levels of wealth.
Significantly, the data from 2001 to 2018 shows a sharp slowdown in income gains for all sections of American society as per capita GDP growth slowed and US capitalism experienced a historic decline. However, while the income of the top 5 percent of the population may have only grown by about 2 percent between 2008 and 2018, the wealth of the top percentiles of the population exploded. For example, according to data from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, the wealth of the top 1 percent of the population increased from almost $20 trillion in the first quarter of 2008, just before the worst of the financial crisis, to almost $33 trillion at the beginning of 2018.
By using the data, the authors come up with a set of counterfactual incomes based on what would be the different income brackets in 2018 without a shift in income distribution. The top 1 percent, instead of making on average $1,384,000 would make $630,000. The 25th percentile, instead of making $33,000 would make $61,000.
The authors of the study also make several other important observations by breaking down their data on the basis of location, education, and race.
No comments:
Post a Comment