Thanks for starting the thread

Let’s see if enough Republicans follow Trump’s directive.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/28/politics/house-vote-direct-payments-2000/index.html

The House of Representatives will vote on Monday on a measure to increase stimulus checks for Americans under a certain income level to $2,000 after President Trump signed a sweeping coronavirus relief bill into law Sunday evening.

That legislation, which was negotiated on a bipartisan basis, provides for $600 in direct payments, but after a deal was brokered and passed out of Congress, Trump railed against the amount as too low and called for $2,000 checks instead, prompting House Democrats to push for an increase.

Democrats have seized on Trump’s 11th-hour complaint over the direct payments in a bid to push congressional Republicans to accept a higher amount, forcing GOP lawmakers to decide whether or not to defy the President after many have argued that the overall cost for a stimulus package should not rise too high.

House Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to advance $2,000 checks last week, but the House will try again on Monday with a floor vote. That vote will require a two-thirds majority to pass since it is taking place under a suspension of the rules, a threshold that means it would need a wide margin of bipartisan support to be approved.

A Republican leadership aide told CNN that while the Republican side is not whipping the bill, “there’s a good chance it can pass.” It’s far from certain, but aides are warning it’s possible.

“The President must immediately call on congressional Republicans to end their obstruction and to join him and Democrats in support of our stand-alone legislation to increase direct payment checks to $2,000, which will be brought to the Floor tomorrow,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Sunday evening after Trump signed the stimulus legislation.

“Every Republican vote against this bill is a vote to deny the financial hardship that families face and to deny the American people the relief they need,” Pelosi said.

The President’s last-minute objections to the stimulus legislation initially threw into question whether he would sign it at all. When Trump finally did sign the legislation Sunday evening, he signaled in a statement that he signed the coronavirus relief bill only after securing a commitment for the Senate to consider legislation to increase stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, did not reference that commitment in his own statement Sunday night praising the President for signing the relief bill.

If the bill actually passes the House of Representatives with a strong Republican vote, it will put McConnell in a tough position of having to decide whether to bring the provision to the floor in the Senate as a standalone bill. While the President has been urging Republicans to up the payments, many Republicans in McConnell’s ranks have made it clear they don’t think an increase is warranted given how much it would increase the price tag of the stimulus bill. A vote on the checks would likely divide the GOP conference and force some members to endure Trump’s ire in his final days in office.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/12/28/neera-tanden-and-antony-blinken-personify-moderate-rot-top-democratic-party

Sometimes a couple of nominations convey an incoming president’s basic mindset and worldview. That’s how it seems with Joe Biden’s choices to run the Office of Management and Budget and the State Department.

For OMB director, Biden selected corporate centrist Neera Tanden, whose Center for American Progress thrives on the largesse of wealthy donors representing powerful corporate interests. Tanden has been a notably scornful foe of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing; former Sanders speechwriter David Sirota calls her “the single biggest, most aggressive Bernie Sanders critic in the United States.” Who better to oversee the budget of the U.S. government?

For Secretary of State, Biden chose his longtime top foreign-policy adviser, whose frequent support for U.S. warfare included pushing for the disastrous 2011 military intervention in Libya. Antony Blinken is a revolving-door pro who has combined his record of war boosterism with entrepreneurial zeal to personally profit from influence-peddling for weapons sales to the Pentagon. Who better to oversee diplomacy for the U.S. government?

“With few exceptions, Biden’s current policy positions are destructively corporate, deferential to obscene concentrations of wealth, woefully inadequate for meeting human needs, and zealously militaristic.” Standard news coverage tells us that Tanden and Blinken are “moderates.” But what’s so moderate about being on the take from rich beneficiaries of corporate America while opposing proposals that would curb their profits in order to reduce income inequality and advance social justice? What’s so moderate about serving the military-industrial complex while advocating for massive “defense” spending and what amounts to endless war?

By many accounts, progressive organizing was a key factor in preventing the widely expected nomination of hawkish Michèle Flournoy to be Secretary of Defense. (RootsAction.org, where I’m national director, was part of that organizing effort.) Last week, the withdrawal of torture defender Mike Morell from consideration for CIA director was a victory for activism led by CodePink, Progressive Democrats of America, Witness Against Torture and other groups.

During the first weeks of 2021, such organizing could be effective in helping to derail other nominations. High on the deserving list are Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom “Mr. Monsanto” Vilsack, a loyal ally of corporate Big Ag, and Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines — whose record as former deputy director of the CIA included working to prevent accountability for agency personnel who engaged in torture, as well as crafting legal rationales for drone strikes that often killed civilians.

Such deplorable nominees don’t tell the whole story of Biden’s incoming team, which includes some decent economic and environmental appointees. “There’s no question that progressive focus on personnel has led to far better outcomes than when Obama put a corporate- and bank-friendly Cabinet together with little resistance,” The American Prospect’s executive editor, David Dayen, correctly pointed out last week. At the same time, none of Biden’s high-level nominees were supporters of the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign or are fully in sync with the progressive wing of the party.

The brighter spots among Joe Biden’s nominations reflect the political wattage that progressives have generated in recent years on a wide array of intertwined matters, from climate to healthcare to economic justice to structural racism. Yet, with few exceptions, Biden’s current policy positions are destructively corporate, deferential to obscene concentrations of wealth, woefully inadequate for meeting human needs, and zealously militaristic. It’s hardly incidental that the list of key White House staff is overwhelmingly dominated by corporate-aligned operatives and PR specialists.

Wishful thinking aside, on vital issue after vital issue, it’s foreseeable that Biden — and the people in line for the most powerful roles in his administration — will not do the right thing unless movements can organize effectively enough to make them do it.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/republicans-fossil-fuel-industry-crony-capitalism.html

Republicans have been remarkably successful in labeling Democrats as socialists. But Democratic proposals that get tagged as “socialism” amount to little more than expanding the safety net, bringing the United States closer to Sweden, Canada, or Germany, all prosperous, democratic, capitalist countries. By contrast, Republicans are the ones that are gumming up the gears of American capitalism, promoting policies to prop up aging, anachronistic industries and, worst of all, enabling the imposition of environmental harms far in excess of what it would cost to avoid them. Republicans say they are in favor of capitalism, but they are actually in favor of crony capitalism, which tips the scales in favor of their favorite industries. Capitalism can be a tough master: The point of capitalism is that competition causes some industries to fail. But protecting industries from failure in exchange for political benefit is far worse: It is a dangerously short step to socialism. And traditional socialism necessarily implies authoritarianism—how else is a country to undertake central economic planning except by an authoritarian government? That is actually where the Republican Party is taking us.

Luntz thinks the GA Republicans might be in trouble.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps-post-election-actions-could-lose-republicans-senate-says-gop-pollster-1557578

Donald Trump’s unrelenting efforts to challenge results of the presidential race could reduce the likelihood of a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate next term, GOP pollster Frank Luntz argued Sunday. The communications consultant and political commentator criticized Trump’s actions since Election Day during an interview with Fox News’ Howard Kurtz, as the sitting president continued to advance his campaign’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and misconduct skewing the outcome of November’s contest.

Luntz suggested that Trump’s focus on baseless fraud allegations works to the American public’s detriment, and disadvantages Republican congressional candidates still campaigning ahead of Georgia’s runoff elections next week. Incumbent GOP senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are pushing to defend their seats against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, after no contenders secured more than half the votes during the general election.

“It’s having an impact on Republicans in the House and the Senate. It feels like this president is trying to do as much damage as he can,” Luntz said Sunday, referencing Trump’s actions since the general election before specifically addressing their potential effects on Perdue and Loeffler.

“I’m afraid, and I believe that those two Republicans may well lose on the 5th of January because of what the president is doing right now…and this should not be happening,” he added. “That election should be waged separately from the ugliness that’s happening here in Washington.”

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Exactly. Monopoly is tyranny. And tech monopolies, through surveillance, concentration, direct ability to govern, and purchase of political power, are a direct, to the head, attack on democracy. https://t.co/QdGxTfhdgv

— Zephyr Teachout (@ZephyrTeachout) December 28, 2020

A reminder that this is partly a deliberate result of pharmaceutical companies making sure that developing countries are not allowed to violate corporations’ intellectual property rights. Mass murder to preserve profits, aka business as usual. https://t.co/QjmIsMx4WO

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) December 28, 2020

For anyone who missed it over the holiday, @Jeremy_Borden and I released our investigation into members of Congress getting COVID bailout money for their own companies at @Sludge: https://t.co/exPHX9SrQK

— justin glawe (@JustinGlawe) December 28, 2020

🙄🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️😥

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/531838-epa-finalizes-greenhouse-gas-regs-for-airlines-not-expected-to

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday finalized a first-ever regulation to limit airline emissions, though it said it did not expect it to actually reduce emissions.

The rule adopts the 2017 emissions standards from the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations’s top aviation authority, which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new aircraft by 4 percent over 12 years.

But both critics and the EPA found the standards would do little to improve emissions as they mirror advancements the industry is already making.

“EPA is not projecting emission reductions associated with today’s proposed GHG regulations,” the agency wrote in the rule.

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and pollution from air travel is currently responsible for 9 percent of transportation emissions. However, it is also one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, rising by 44 percent in the U.S. over the past 10 years.

“This rule is especially infuriating because there are effective ways for the aviation industry to modernize and decarbonize,” Liz Jones, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a release. “What we desperately need are technology-forcing standards to get the industry on track.”