Steve Bannon faces criminal charges over Jan. 6 panel snub, setting up a showdown over executive privilege
by ilene - October 14th, 2021 5:58 pm
Steve Bannon faces criminal charges over Jan. 6 panel snub, setting up a showdown over executive privilege
Defiant or following Trump’s direction? John Lamparski/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Courtesy of Kirsten Carlson, Wayne State University
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is tasked with providing as full an account as possible of the attempted insurrection. But there is a problem: Not everyone is cooperating.
As of Oct. 14, 2021, Steve Bannon, a one-time aide to former President Donald Trump, has stated that he will not comply with a committee subpoena compelling him to give testimony. Bannon’s lawyers have said their client is not acting out of defiance; rather, he is following the direction of Trump, who, citing executive privilege, has told Bannon not to produce testimony or documents.
Either way, Bannon now faces the prospect of criminal contempt charges.
Bannon isn’t alone in being subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee. Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, former chief of staff to the acting United States Secretary of Defense Kash Patel and former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark have also been served. Meadows, Scavino, Patel and Clark – unlike Bannon – have not said whether they will comply, although their actions suggest a degree of foot-dragging.
The responses to the subpoenas serve to delay and frustrate the committee, which now finds itself caught up in a legal fight that may deny the committee information it seeks.
It also serves to highlight that the committee has an array of tools at its disposal to gather evidence from reluctant witnesses. But there remains lingering uncertainty over how these powers of the committee rub up against claims of presidential executive privilege.
Investigating the ‘darkest days’
Congress handed the committee a fairly wide charge to gather evidence. On June 30, 2021, lawmakers passed House Resolution 503, charging the committee with investigating the activities of law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the armed forces relating to that day as well as uncovering the factors contributing to the attack, including technology, social media and malign foreign influences.
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Why Boris Johnson’s plans for a ‘high-wage economy’ require a major shift in the way British business works
by ilene - October 10th, 2021 1:46 pm
Why Boris Johnson’s plans for a ‘high-wage economy’ require a major shift in the way British business works
Courtesy of Nigel Driffield, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Boris Johnson has declared that his government plans to build a “high-skill, high-wage” economy across the UK. But it will not be an easy thing to deliver.
Indeed, the initial response from some business leaders has been robust and critical. And while some sectors (such as logistics) are currently seeing an increase in wages, this is down to what economists refer to as a “money illusion” – that certain groups are experiencing a short term spike in earnings due to a shortage of their skills.
But any gains in earnings will be eroded by higher prices for consumers, rather than feeding through to higher standards of living. Businesses are right to be concerned that this will simply fuel inflation and make the UK less competitive.
Post-Brexit, some sectors which have previously relied on EU labour are now facing serious shortages. But whether or not that reliance forced down earnings in the UK, will only become really clear when the effects of the pandemic (hopefully) subside.
And while previous research suggested that the effect of EU immigration on UK wages was very small, it also acknowledges that this may differ across sectors.
Certainly an important feature of why small hauliers in particular have seen their incomes stagnate over the past 20 years is simply to do with supply and demand. The sector is very competitive in terms of supply, with many firms chasing each contract, but relatively uncompetitive in terms of demand, with a relatively small number of large buyers (supermarkets, petrol companies) of these services. That situation has not changed, and outweighs any effect caused by foreign competition.
So where wages are now rising, this is in response to potentially short term skills shortages. But these are only sustainable with higher productivity – or higher prices. And because it is difficult to imagine petrol delivery becoming more productive, if the cost of delivery increases, so will the cost at the pump.
In the long-term then, real wage growth can only be sustained through growth in productivity. It is only by enabling workers to become…
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‘What Betrayal Looks Like’: UN Report Says World on Track for 2.7°C of Warming by 2100
by ilene - September 18th, 2021 3:09 am
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
'What Betrayal Looks Like': UN Report Says World on Track for 2.7°C of Warming by 2100
"Whatever our so-called 'leaders' are doing," said Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, "they are doing it wrong."
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
The United Nations warned Friday that the planet is barreling toward 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, a nightmare scenario that can be averted only if policymakers take immediate and sweeping action to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Even if the 191 parties to the Paris climate accord meet their current commitments, global greenhouse gas emissions will still rise 16% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, according to a new report published by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
"Failure to meet this goal will be measured in the massive loss of lives and livelihoods."
The goal of the 2015 Paris agreement is to limit global warming to below 2°C—and preferably to 1.5°C—above pre-industrial levels. An analysis released earlier this week found that the climate targets and actions of just one country—The Gambia—are in line with the critical 1.5° goal.
"This is what betrayal looks like," Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted in response to the latest U.N. findings. "Whatever our so-called 'leaders' are doing, they are doing it wrong."
Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change, said in a statement that the international community must "peak emissions as soon as possible before 2030 and support developing countries in building up climate resilience."
"The 16% increase is a huge cause of concern," said Espinosa. "It is in sharp contrast with the calls by science for rapid, sustained, and large-scale emission reductions to prevent the most severe climate consequences and suffering, especially of the most vulnerable, throughout the world."
The U.N. analysis came as U.S. President Joe Biden met with world leaders and announced that the United States is partnering with the European Union in an effort to cut methane emissions—a powerful driver of global warming—by nearly 30% by the end of the decade.
In its landmark report last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasized that a "strong, rapid, and sustained" reduction in methane emissions is…
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‘Tax the rich’? Democrats’ plans to make the wealthy pay a little more will barely dent America’s long slide from progressive taxation
by ilene - September 18th, 2021 2:28 am
‘Tax the rich’? Democrats’ plans to make the wealthy pay a little more will barely dent America’s long slide from progressive taxation
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez making a fashion statement. Ray Tamarra/GC Images via Getty Images
Courtesy of Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley and Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley
Demanding tax increases on the rich is back in fashion – both in the corridors of the House of Representatives and on the red carpet of the Met Gala.
The House Ways and Means Committee outlined plans on Sept. 13, 2021, to move the top marginal income rate up a couple of notches to 39.6% and to introduce a 3% surtax on incomes above $5 million. That proposal would fall short of calls to really “tax the rich,” as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s dress demanded at a glitzy New York bash just hours later.
Tax policy is deemed progressive if the chunk of income taken increases with the income of the individual – so wealthy Americans would pay a larger proportion of their income than poorer ones. With a regressive tax policy, lower earners pay a larger percentage of their earnings in tax than wealthier ones. The committee’s plan would roughly put tax progressivity back to where it was just before President Donald Trump signed off on Republican tax cuts in 2017.
That would still be far below the level of progressivity the United States embraced in the middle of the 20th century – when wealthier individuals paid a much higher share of their income in taxes than the poor.
In 1950, when looking at all federal, state and local taxes, the top 0.01% of earners paid almost 70% of their income in taxes. In the postwar decades, corporate profits – the main source of income for the rich – were subject to an effective corporate tax rate of 50%. Meanwhile, the rich were subject to high tax rates on wages, dividends, interest and income from partnerships.
The progressivity of the U.S. tax system has dramatically declined over the past seven decades. The upshot is that…
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Political orientation predicts science denial – here’s what that means for getting Americans vaccinated against COVID-19
by ilene - September 16th, 2021 2:46 pm
Political orientation predicts science denial – here’s what that means for getting Americans vaccinated against COVID-19
Protesters at an anti-vaccine rally in Pennsylvania in August 2021. Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Courtesy of Adrian Bardon, Wake Forest University
Vaccine refusal is a major reason COVID-19 infections continue to surge in the U.S. Safe and effective vaccines have been available for months, but as of mid-September 2021, only 65% of eligible American adults are fully vaccinated. In many areas, a majority of eligible adults haven’t taken advantage of the opportunity to get vaccinated.
In the U.S., polling on intent to get vaccinated shows a massive political divide. Counties that went for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election show higher vaccination rates than counties that went for Donald Trump. Attendees at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s summer meeting cheered the fact that the U.S. didn’t meet Biden’s July 4 vaccination goals for the country.
Politically motivated denial of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness tracks with a dramatic politicization of trust in science itself. In a survey conducted in June and July, Gallup found that the percentage of Republicans expressing a “great deal” or “quite a lot of” trust in science is down, shockingly, from 72% in 1975 to only 45% today. Over the same period, confidence in science among Democrats is up from 67% to 79%.
Scientific institutions have never been perfect, but overall they have a tremendous track record of success – both in basic research and in applied sciences like epidemiology and immunology. The vast majority of expert opinion on, say, antibiotics, radio waves, orbital mechanics or electrical conductivity is accepted without complaint by the general public. Evidently people are satisfied with applied science in almost all walks of life.
So why is confidence in science so malleable, and what does a person’s political orientation have to do with it?
The rejection of scientific expertise with regard to COVID-19 vaccines appears to be standing in for something else. As a philosopher who has studied…
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Jim Crow tactics reborn in Texas abortion law, deputizing citizens to enforce legally suspect provisions
by ilene - September 13th, 2021 6:42 pm
Jim Crow tactics reborn in Texas abortion law, deputizing citizens to enforce legally suspect provisions
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill that effectively bans abortion in the state. AP Photo/Eric Gay
Courtesy of Stefanie Lindquist, Arizona State University
The new Texas law that bans most abortions uses a method employed by Texas and other states to enforce racist Jim Crow laws in the 19th and 20th centuries that aimed to disenfranchise African Americans.
Rather than giving state officials, such as the police, the power to enforce the law, the Texas law instead allows enforcement by “any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state.” This enforcement mechanism relies solely on citizens, rather than on government officials, to enforce the law.
This approach to enforcement is a legal end-run that privatizes a state’s enforcement of the law. By using this method of enforcement, state officials are shielded from being sued for violating the Constitution, and the law is made, at least for a time, more durable.
The U.S. Justice Department filed suit against the state on the grounds the law violated a woman’s constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability. In its suit, the Justice Department specifically cites one of the cases that was brought over a Texas Jim Crow law that excluded Blacks from participating in primaries, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1944.
Privatizing discrimination
Following Reconstruction in the South, Texas banned African Americans from voting in party primaries in a law adopted in 1923. This was an example of Jim Crow, a system of laws and customs that institutionalized anti-Black discrimination in the U.S.
When this state law was challenged before the Supreme Court and struck down in Nixon v. Herndon in 1927, the Texas Legislature responded in 1928 with a tricky maneuver much like the current Texas abortion law. Texas repealed the offending statute and enacted legislation that specifically delegated to political parties the power to determine “qualifications of voters in primary elections,” thus seeking to take the state out of the equation.
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The Taliban reportedly have control of US biometric devices – a lesson in life-and-death consequences of data privacy
by ilene - August 30th, 2021 10:50 am
The Taliban reportedly have control of US biometric devices – a lesson in life-and-death consequences of data privacy
A U.S. Army soldier scans the irises of an Afghan civilian in 2012 as part of an effort by the military to collect biometric information from much of the Afghan population. Jose Cabezas/AFP via GettyImages
Courtesy of Margaret Hu, Penn State
In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and the ouster of the Afghan national government, alarming reports indicate that the insurgents could potentially access biometric data collected by the U.S. to track Afghans, including people who worked for U.S. and coalition forces.
Afghans who once supported the U.S. have been attempting to hide or destroy physical and digital evidence of their identities. Many Afghans fear that the identity documents and databases storing personally identifiable data could be transformed into death warrants in the hands of the Taliban.
This potential data breach underscores that data protection in zones of conflict, especially biometric data and databases that connect online activity to physical locations, can be a matter of life and death. My research and the work of journalists and privacy advocates who study biometric cybersurveillance anticipated these data privacy and security risks.
Biometric-driven warfare
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobson documented the birth of biometric-driven warfare in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, in her book “First Platoon.” The Department of Defense quickly viewed biometric data and what it called “identity dominance” as the cornerstone of multiple counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies. Identity dominance means being able to keep track of people the military considers a potential threat regardless of aliases, and ultimately denying organizations the ability to use anonymity to hide their activities.
By 2004, thousands of U.S. military personnel had been trained to collect biometric data to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. By 2007, U.S. forces were collecting biometric data primarily through mobile devices such as the Biometric Automated Toolset (BAT) and Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE). BAT includes a laptop, fingerprint reader, iris scanner and camera. HIIDE is a single small device that incorporates a fingerprint reader,…
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The history of the Taliban is crucial in understanding their success now – and also what might happen next
by ilene - August 27th, 2021 5:49 pm
The history of the Taliban is crucial in understanding their success now – and also what might happen next
The Taliban came to the fore during Afghanistan’s civil war that followed the Soviet pullout of 1989. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
Courtesy of Ali A. Olomi, Penn State
The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. To Ali Olomi, a historian of the Middle East and Islam at Penn State University, a key to understanding what is happening now – and what might take place next – is looking at the past and how the Taliban came to prominence. Below is an edited version of a conversation he had with editor Gemma Ware for our podcast, The Conversation Weekly.
How far back do you trace the Taliban’s origins?
While the Taliban emerged as a force in the 1990s Afghan civil war, you have to go back to the Saur Revolution of 1978 to truly understand the group, and what they’re trying to achieve.
Afghan revolutionaries raise their guns during the Saur Revolution. TASS via Getty Images
The Saur Revolution was a turning point in the history of Afghanistan. By the mid-1970s, Afghanistan had been modernizing for decades. The two countries that were most eager to get involved in building up Afghan infrastructure were the United States and the Soviet Union – both of which hoped to have a foothold in Afghanistan to exert power over central and south Asia. As a result of the influx of foreign aid, the Afghan government became the primary employer of the country – and that led to endemic corruption, setting the stage for the revolution.
By that time, differing ideologies were fighting for ascendancy in the nation. On one end you had a group of mainly young activists, journalists, professors and military commanders influenced by Marxism. On the other end, you had Islamists beginning to emerge, who wanted to put in place a type of a…
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What is ISIS-K? Two terrorism experts on the group behind the deadly Kabul airport attack and its rivalry with the Taliban
by ilene - August 26th, 2021 2:14 pm
What is ISIS-K? Two terrorism experts on the group behind the deadly Kabul airport attack and its rivalry with the Taliban
ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, has claimed responsibility for the Kabul terrorist attack. Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images
Courtesy of Amira Jadoon, United States Military Academy West Point and Andrew Mines, George Washington University
An attack on a crowd gathered outside Kabul’s airport on Aug. 26, 2021, has left at least 60 people dead, including at least a dozen U.S. Marines. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the coordinated suicide bomb and gun assault, which came just days after President Joe Biden warned that the group – an affiliate of the Islamic State group operating in Afghanistan – was “seeking to target the airport and attack U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians.”
Amira Jadoon, a terrorism expert at the U.S. Military Academy West Point, and Andrew Mines, a research fellow at the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, have been tracking ISIS-K for years and answered our questions about who the terrorist group is, and the threat it poses in a destabilized Afghanistan.
Who is ISIS-K?
The Islamic State Khorasan Province, which is also known by the acronyms ISIS-K, ISKP and ISK, is the official affiliate of the Islamic State movement operating in Afghanistan, as recognized by Islamic State core leadership in Iraq and Syria.
ISIS-K was officially founded in January 2015. Within a short period of time, it managed to consolidate territorial control in several rural districts in north and northeast Afghanistan, and launched a lethal campaign across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Within its first three years, ISIS-K launched attacks against minority groups, public areas and institutions, and government targets in major cities across Afghanistan and Pakistan.
By 2018, it had become one of the top four deadliest terrorist organizations in the world, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index.
An Afghan soldier surveys a former ISIS-K jail in Nangarhar province, eastern Afghanistan. Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images
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Afghan troops sought safety in numbers – igniting a cascade of surrender
by ilene - August 22nd, 2021 1:28 pm
Afghan troops sought safety in numbers – igniting a cascade of surrender
In May, Afghan troops raised their national flag as the U.S. pulled out. Now, their flag is down too. Afghan Ministry of Defense Press Office via AP
Courtesy of Todd Lehmann, University of Michigan
The swift collapse of the Afghan military in recent days caught many in the U.S. by surprise, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the months after President Joe Biden’s April 2021 announcement of the troop withdrawal, intelligence reports warned that the Afghan military might not fight on its own, opening the way for a Taliban takeover after U.S. forces withdrew.
Yet few expected that the Taliban would succeed so quickly.
On Aug. 10, a U.S. intelligence assessment had predicted a Taliban takeover within 90 days. It took just five.
My research into what game theorists and academics call “commitment problems” identifies the problem, and it’s not one that most experts are talking about, like poor planning or corruption. The patterns of the Afghan military’s collapse indicate it was the collective result of individual soldiers making rational decisions about their own situations and deciding not to fight.
Looking for the right cause
Throughout the conflict, the perennial emphasis on a U.S. “exit strategy” meant U.S. politicians always focused on whether it was time to leave yet. For 20 years, U.S. efforts focused on short-term thinking and problem-solving that shifted both military and political goals over time, rather than investing the time and effort to develop a comprehensive long-term strategy for the war. An arguably lukewarm U.S. commitment steadily created many of the underlying conditions for the Afghan military’s collapse. However, it did not entirely determine the outcome.
Biden claimed that the Afghan military lacked the will to fight. Others have blamed possible training problems, incompetent or corrupt Afghan soldiers, and too much reliance on private contractors to prop up Afghan forces.
Based on my research and analysis, the primary cause of what happened in the Afghan military is not any of…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.
