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‘Cheat Working Americans, You’ll Go to Jail’: Warren Unveils Bill to Punish Criminal CEOs

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation Wednesday that would make it easier to imprison corporate executives whose companies commit crimes or “harm large numbers of Americans through civil violations.”

“Corporations don’t make decisions, people do, but for far too long, CEOs of giant corporations that break the law have been able to walk away, while consumers who are harmed are left picking up the pieces,” the 2020 Democratic presidential contender said in a statement.

According to a summary (pdf) released by Warren’s office, the Corporate Executive Accountability Act would expand criminal liability to executives of companies that:

*Are found guilty, plead guilty, or enter into a deferred or non-prosecution agreement for any crime;
*Are found liable or enter a settlement with any state or federal regulator for the violation of any civil law if that violation affects the health, safety, finances, or personal data of 1% of the American population or 1% of the population of any state;
*Are found liable or guilty of a second civil or criminal violation for a different activity while operating under a civil or criminal judgment of any court, a deferred prosecution or non-prosecution agreement, or settlement with any state or Federal agency;

Under Warren’s bill, punishment for a first offense would be “up to one year” of jail-time. A second offense would carry up to three years in prison.

As We Gape at Trump’s Sideshow, Corporations Are Picking Our Pockets byJim Hightower

As America rapidly urbanized in the 1920s and ’30s, nearly every burgeoning city gave rise to a jumbled, boisterous side of town that lay somewhere between exciting and dangerous. One such place in my state, known as “Deep Ellum,” was a stretch of Elm Street in East Dallas. A predominantly African American community, it also hosted a freewheeling mix of immigrant laborers, rural migrants, musicians, saloonkeepers, preachers, fortune-tellers and assorted hustlers. It was both bedazzling and dicey — the sort of place where the blues lay in wait for innocents. As a popular song of the day warned:

“If you go down in Deep Ellum,

“Keep your money in your shoes

“Or you’ll go home

“With the Deep Ellum blues.

“Oh, sweet mama,

“Your daddy’s got them Deep Ellum blues.”

A 1937 article in a black weekly described it as a rollicking scene “where business, religion, hoodooism, gambling, and stealing goes on at the same time without friction.” The writer told about seeing a Bible-thumping street preacher mesmerize a crowd by prophesizing that “Jesus Christ would come to Dallas in person in 1939.” As the evangelizer grew louder, “a pickpocket was lifting a week’s wages from another guy’s pocket, who stood with open mouth to hear the prophecy.”

Some 80 years later, our whole country is living through a reign of pure flimflam — one without any of Deep Ellum’s sketchy charms. Our media, politics, government, public discourse and civic focus have been captured by the mesmerizing sideshow of AllThingsTrump — from the Putin bromance to the Saudi bone-saw horror, from constant Cabinet chaos to the caravan bugaboo, from his vanishing middle-class tax cut to his illusory wall, from peep-show vulgarity to full-monty corruption … and to the nonstop spectacles emanating from this White House. As we gape 24/7 at the amazing ridiculousness of The Donald, however, our pockets are being picked, not by scammers who are barely getting by themselves but by wildly rich, greedy and powerful corporations.

Bernie Sanders’ fundraising is just the latest sign of his top-tier status

Make no mistake: There is a clear path to the Democratic presidential nomination for Sen. Bernie Sanders. His strong fundraising numbers are just the latest sign that Sanders 2.0 has a better shot of succeeding than his first bid in 2016.

Sanders has reported raising $18.2 million in the first six weeks of his 2020 presidential campaign. He’ll likely come in first or a close second place for money raised this quarter.
In 2016, Sanders took in $15 million during the first two months of his 2016 campaign and was a distant second to former Secretary of State and eventual Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in money raised.

Sanders’ strong fundraising compared to 2016 is important because raising money is correlated with primary success. But money raised is not the only good sign that he’s in a better position now.

A look at three other factors (endorsements, polling and media mentions) that I’ve identified as key indicators all point to Sanders being in a stronger position for 2020 than he was in 2016.

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Sanders looks solid in polling

The key to winning presidential nominations is to do well in the early contests. Clinton won three of the first four contests in 2016, and Sanders was well behind in all polling this early in his last bid.

In Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada (the first three contests), Sanders is now neck-and-neck with former Vice President Joe Biden for first place in the mid-20s. The mid-20s may not seem very high, but it is significant with a large field. Jimmy Carter, Bob Dole, Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum all were the top vote getters in the Iowa caucuses with less than 30% of the vote.
Sanders isn’t just ahead because of name recognition. He has plenty of voters who really like him. His very favorable rating in Iowa, for example, stood at 37% among likely Democratic caucuses voters in CNN’s latest poll. For comparison, Cruz was able to win the 2016 Iowa Republican caucuses with a very favorable rating of 29%.

If Sanders were to win in both Iowa and New Hampshire, he would join a limited group who won both in competitive primaries. Dating back to 1972, five of the six who did so went on to win their party’s nomination.

‘Tax the Rich. It’s Just That Simple’: US Campaign Aims to Make Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share

A coalition of over a dozen progressive advocacy groups launched a nationwide “Tax the Rich” campaign Wednesday with the goal of building a grassroots movement to unrig the tax code and make wealthy Americans pay their fair share.

The new project, led by progressive advocacy group Tax March, will consist of on-the-ground organizing in crucial battleground states like Wisconsin and Iowa.

Tax March also plans to spend seven figures on digital, print, television, and radio ads “to educate the public about taxing the rich.”

“Taxing the rich isn’t just good policy, it’s good politics—and this campaign will prove that,” Maura Quint, executive director of progressive advocacy group Tax March, said in a statement. “Raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy is wildly popular with a majority of both Democratic and Republican voters.”

To underscore this point, Tax March released new polling data (pdf) Wednesday showing that 75 percent of likely 2020 voters—including 60 percent of Republicans—support raising taxes on the wealthy.

“This important poll provides a detailed look at how voters feel about taxes and the overwhelming message is that they want the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share,” Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement.

“If we are ever going to address our important national priorities, including healthcare, infrastructure, education, and climate change, we must raise trillions of new tax dollars from the well off and implement a tax system that works for everyone,” Clemente added. “That starts by repealing the Trump-GOP tax cuts for the rich and corporations.”

As GOP Deploys ‘Nuclear Option’, New Reports Detail Damage Done By Trump’s Far-Right Takeover of Judiciary

As Senate Republicans rammed through a rules change enabling faster approval of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, two advocacy groups released reports on Wednesday showing the far-reaching and long-lasting damage his confirmed federal judges have already inflicted on the nation.

People for the American Way (PFAW) and Alliance for Justice (AFJ) both published studies Wednesday about Trump’s success in appointing 92 judges to district courts, federal appeals courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court—with PFAW writing that the president’s effort to remake the judicial branch in his own image could be disastrous for a number of marginalized groups.

“In just under two years on the bench, these narrow-minded elitist judges have already harmed workers, consumers, voters, immigrants, reproductive rights, and many more,” wrote the group in its report, “Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears.”

The report was published shortly before the GOP-controlled Senate triggered the so-called “nuclear option” by voting 51-48 to allow the approval of most executive nominations with a simple majority vote. Trump’s future judicial nominees will be subject to just two hours of debate instead of an additional 30 hours.

Trump’s two most high-profile appointments so far are those of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, whose most recent pro-death penalty ruling was called “bloodthirsty” and “atrocious” by critics.

But the groups also highlighted the 37 judges who now have seats on the District Court of Appeals, which often has final say in federal cases that do not make it to the Supreme Court.

Why Thousands of Colombians Are Blocking the Pan-American Highway

The air is almost opaque from tear gas, lingering like heavy, burning perfume. Every few minutes, a warning shout echoes from up the highway—“Corre!” (“Run!”)—sending a cascade of people fleeing from the distant sound of explosions. “It’s the most beautiful thing, these protests,” a man comments from the protective shade of a tall grave. “You can see everyone fighting for their rights together.” He rearranges the T-shirt covering most of his face. “But it’s also sad. There will be bloodshed and deaths; It’s always a sacrifice.”

The man, who preferred to remain anonymous, belongs to a powerful indigenous movement in Southwestern Colombia that organizes through the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, also known as the CRIC. They believe the Colombian government is ignoring systemic violence to indigenous communities—failing to enact peace programs that were designed to end five decades of armed conflict, and violating over a thousand legal agreements that protect minority groups’ land and sovereignty rights. In February, leaders from the Council demanded that President Ivan Duque meet with them to discuss these concerns, But at the president’s refusal, they orchestrated a “minga”— which indigenous leaders consider a spiritual principle of resistance tracing back to colonization.

The “Action for the Defense of Life, Territory, Democracy, and Peace,” as they call the protest, has now lasted over three weeks, with 20,000 people blocking the Pan-American Highway, mostly in the state of Cauca, where the initiative began. Demonstrators are vowing to uphold the blockades until President Duque arrives in Cauca and engages in talks, prepared to sustain the minga for months. The longer he waits, the more people are joining in, closing down new highway passages in other parts of Colombia. The protest now blocks a third of inter-state transportation, costing Colombia millions of dollars. State forces are increasingly using military tactics to disband the protest, but the violence is only encouraging more people to participate. Indigenous groups in 11 states are now involved, as are peasant farmers and Afro-descendants, who share bitterness about resurging violence and state neglect.

The National Organization of Colombia issued a call for action in late March that they say 326 popular organizations and 30 congressmen have endorsed. A week before, over 1,200 social coalitions, human rights representatives, and political delegates expressed their support for the protest in a letter to the president, and four state governors urged Duque to meet with the demonstrators. The government has sent several delegates, including the Ministry of the Interior and Peace Commissioner, to negotiate with leadership about terms to lift the blockade. But the organizers want the president, and want talks at the established assembly site in Cauca rather than a private meeting space so that the community can participate.

DNC: We’re Fine With Bernie Sanders Going on Fox News

One month after the Democratic Party announced that Fox News would be prohibited from hosting a 2020 primary debate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has agreed to do a town hall with the network.

The event, which will take place on April 15, will be hosted by two of the network’s news-side anchors—Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum—making the interview more palatable for Sanders’ campaign. Moreover, the senator will not be the first Democrat running for president to appear on Fox News. A week-and-a-half ago, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg did a sit-down interview for Fox News Sunday.

But the decision by Sanders, who is one of the leading Democratic candidates in the race, sparked swift backlash among progressive media operatives, who suggested that the senator would legitimize a network whose programming has been so clearly geared towards boosting Donald Trump.

Sanders has long touted himself as a politician eager to engage unorthodox audiences, in addition to one who can bring back disaffected Democrats who decided to support Trump. He appeared at a Fox News town hall in 2016 (though, to be fair, Hillary Clinton did too!).

And while progressive institutions like Media Matters were upset with his decision to go back on the network, one notable group gave him a pass.

The DNC, which had refused to do a Fox News debate precisely on the grounds that they believed it would legitimize a biased news network, said it was comfortable with Sanders’ decision.

“While the DNC does not believe that FOX is equipped to be a partner for a 2020 debate because of concerns of fairness at the highest levels within their organization, the DNC believes that we must reach all voters, including their audience,” said spokesperson Xochitl Hinojosa.

2020 DEMOCRATS’ FUNDRAISING: WHERE BETO O’ROURKE, BERNIE SANDERS AND OTHER CANDIDATES STAND AFTER Q1 TOTALS

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke brought in $9.4 million during the first 18 days of his campaign, averaging $520,000 a day and beating out the daily first-quarter hauls of Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.

According to O’Rourke’s team, the former El Paso, Texas, congressman received 218,000 contributions with an average donation of $43. Nearly all, 98 percent, of the contributions received by the campaign were below $200. A majority of the donations, the O’Rourke camp said, came from Americans who did not contribute to his failed senatorial campaign against Ted Cruz.

Democratic candidates have until April 15 to declare their first-quarter earnings, so it’s unclear if O’Rourke will end up topping the entire field, but it appears likely that he will. Senator Bernie Sanders, the second highest earner, averaged $444,000 a day, or $18.2 million in the first six weeks of his campaign.

Rounding out the pack of Democratic candidates are Senator Kamala Harris, who earned $12 million, or $171,000 a day, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who brought in $7 million or $103,000 each day.

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“In just 18 days, people in every state and from every walk of life have organized in homes, contributed a few bucks online and united together to show that the power of people is far greater than the PACs, corporations and special interests that have captured, corrupted and corroded our democracy for far too long,” said O’Rourke in a statement.

“Not only is this a sign of our grassroots strength during the first two weeks of our campaign, but it is a sign of what’s possible when you put your full trust in the people of this country,” he added.

But a deeper breakdown of donations brings into question whether O’Rourke can keep up his fundraising momentum. When you take away each candidate’s initial 24-hour fundraising haul, the numbers are significantly altered. Sanders ended up raising around $300,000 each day, while O’Rourke raised about $200,000 each day.