#the Democrats are earmarking most of the funds for other things again

[reasoningdaily]

When Bill and Hillary Clinton travelled to the Caribbean nation of Haiti as newlyweds in 1975, they were enchanted. Bill had recently lost a race for Congress back home in Arkansas, but by the time they returned to the US, he had set his mind to running for Arkansas state attorney general, a decision which would put him on the path to the White House. “We have had a deep connection to and with Haiti ever since,” Hillary later said.

Over the next four decades, the Clintons became increasingly involved in Haiti, working to reshape the country in profound ways. As US president in the 1990s, Bill lobbied for sweeping changes to Haiti’s agricultural sector that significantly increased the country’s dependence on American food crops. In 1994, three years after a military coup in Haiti, Bill ordered a US invasion that overthrew the junta and restored the country’s democratically elected president to power. Fifteen years later, Bill was appointed United Nations’ special envoy to Haiti, tasked with helping the country to develop its private sector and invigorate its economy. By 2010, the Clintons were two of Haiti’s largest benefactors. Their personal philanthropic fund, The Clinton Foundation, had 34 projects in the country, focused on things such as creating jobs.

Over their many decades of involvement there, the Clintons became two of the leading proponents of a particular approach to improving Haiti’s fortunes, one that relies on making the country an attractive place for multinational companies to do business. They have done this by combining foreign aid with diplomacy, attracting foreign financing to build factories, roads and other infrastructure that, in many cases, Haitian taxpayers must repay. Hillary has called this “economic statecraft”; others have called it a “neoliberal” approach to aid.

The most significant test of this approach in Haiti began on 12 January 2010, when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck just west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. In a nation of 10 million people, 1.6 million were displaced by the disaster, and as many as 316,000 are estimated to have died. The earthquake also dealt a huge blow to Haiti’s economic development, levelling homes and businesses in the most populous area of the country and destroying crucial infrastructure, including the nation’s biggest port.

Within days of the earthquake, the Clintons stepped up to lead the global response. Bill was selected to co-chair the commission tasked with directing relief spending. As US secretary of state, Hillary helped to oversee $4.4bn that Congress had earmarked for recovery efforts by the US Agency for International Development, or USAid. “At every stage of Haiti’s reconstruction – fundraising, oversight and allocation – a Clinton was now involved,” Jonathan Katz, a journalist who has covered Haiti for more than a decade, wrote in 2015.

There was no greater embodiment of the neoliberal approach to aid in Haiti than the US’s largest post-earthquake project – a $300m, 600-acre industrial park called Caracol, on the country’s northern coast. To make the park more attractive, the US also agreed to finance a power plant, and a new port through which firms operating at Caracol could ship in materials such as cotton, and ship out finished products including T-shirts and jeans.

The Clintons and their allies believed the Caracol project would attract international manufacturers, which they saw as the primary fix to Haiti’s faltering economy. “Haiti has failed, failed and failed again,” wrote the British economist Paul Collier and his colleague Jean-Louis Warnholz, who have both advised the Clintons, in the Financial Times two weeks after the earthquake. By building “critical assets such as ports”, they argued, the US and its allies could help Haiti attract private, foreign investment and create the stable jobs it needed to prosper.

Ten years later, the industrial park is widely considered to have failed to deliver the economic transformation the Clintons promised. But less attention has been paid to the fate of the port. Last year, after sinking tens of millions of dollars into the port project, the US quietly abandoned it. The port is now one of the final failures in an American post-earthquake plan for Haiti that has been characterised by disappointment throughout. It is also the latest in a long line of supposed solutions to Haiti’s woes that have done little – or worse – to serve the country’s interests. “The neoliberal, exploitative economic model currently being imposed” on Haiti “has failed many times before,” Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe, has written. The result, he adds, is that many Haitians are living “in a state of despair and daily desperation”.

Haiti makes up the western third of the island of Hispaniola – the other two-thirds are the Dominican Republic – situated between the Atlantic and the Caribbean along several major international shipping lanes. “It’s a strategic location,” says Claude Lamothe, the former director of a small port in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien. “All the big boats from the US pass right by here.”

For decades, the vast majority of goods coming to or leaving Haiti travelled through the ageing port at Port-au-Prince in the south. In the 70s, that port handled 90% of Haiti’s imports and 60% of its exports (including thousands of baseballs destined for the US, some for the Major League). But by the late 2000s, the fees it charged companies to dock, load and offload their goods were higher than any other port in the region. So companies turned to ports in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, the Bahamas or Trinidad and Tobago instead. When the earthquake hit, a large section of the port at Port-au-Prince collapsed into the sea. “The damage was unbelievable,” said Russell Green, a civil engineer at Virginia Tech University, who arrived to survey the port a few weeks after the disaster.

The new port was a key part of this vision. There were several obvious locations for it in and around the earthquake-devastated capital, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people would have provided a ready workforce. Ultimately, however, USAid decided to build the park and port near Cap-Haïtien, on the country’s northern coast, 650 miles south-east of Miami, Florida.

A 2011 US government report declared: “With its proximity to Miami, a new container port in this region could become a hub for the north,” which had “untapped potential” in light manufacturing, such as garments, and in certain kinds of high-value agriculture. Companies such as the major Korean textile manufacturer Sae-A, which became one of Caracol’s first tenants, would be able to ship in cotton and ship out apparel. “A port – that was the carrot for these companies,” Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a liberal thinktank, told me.

But the location was attractive for other reasons, too. “Land was readily available in the north,” and the “hundreds of small farmers who had to be moved” to make way for the park and port “were far less resistant than the wealthy landowners in the capital,” Johnston wrote in 2014. Members of Haiti’s northern elite were also lobbying Bill Clinton to invest in the region, says Leslie Voltaire, who served alongside Bill as Haiti’s special envoy to the UN from 2009 to 2010.

Haitians themselves had remarkably little control over these plans. Between April 2010 and October 2011, decisions about how to rebuild Haiti were made not by Haiti’s parliament, but by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which Bill co-chaired. This was supposed to be a Haitian-led body, but in December 2010, the 12 Haitian members of the committee wrote a letter declaring: “In reality, Haitian members of the board have one role: to endorse the decisions made by the director and executive committee,” which included donors and other Clinton allies.

Haiti’s then-president, a musician-turned politician named Michel Martelly, seemed reluctant to push back against the US’s redevelopment ideas, according to Voltaire. “At that time, Clinton was very close to Martelly,” he told me. “Martelly is an amateur and he respects Clinton’s ideas. They would follow whatever USAid and Clinton would say.” (Martelly did not respond to a request for an interview.)

“You have to put it in context,” Voltaire continued. “Almost all the countries in the world would want someone like Bill Clinton to be a lobbyist for his country.” A former US president with ties to major investors across the globe was expending political capital to help Haiti rebuild. For Haiti, “it was a double asset,” Voltaire went on, “because his wife was secretary of state,” and had influence over USAid, which controlled most of the US’s post-earthquake spending.

In the months after the earthquake, Bill worked tirelessly to attract manufacturing companies to the Caracol industrial park. When construction on the park broke ground in 2011, Bill laid the first foundation stone. A year later, at the park’s opening ceremony, Bill looked on as Hillary delivered a speech promising that the park would lead Haiti toward economic independence.

International trade has dictated Haiti’s economy almost since Christopher Columbus landed on Hispaniola by mistake, in 1492. After Spain and later France colonised the island, they imported African slaves to produce one of the most lucrative commodities in history – sugar – and exported it around the globe. By the eve of Haiti’s independence, which Haitians won in 1804, global trade had made the country one of the most profitable pieces of land in the world.

But all this international commerce has rarely benefited the vast majority of Haitians. Little of the wealth generated in the country has ever stayed there. For almost its entire history, Haiti has owed a trade debt to other nations – most notably, a $21bn (in today’s money) burden levied by France after independence. During the two centuries that followed, the effect of these debts has been to severely impoverish the country, and to make it beholden to the rich nations who have acted as its creditors. In the past 100 years, the US and the international financial institutions it partners with have been the most important of these creditors, indebting Haiti by extending foreign development loans and creating a trade imbalance – an early form of the neoliberal model.

But what worked for the US’s interests worked less well for Haiti. By the 1950s, neither Haiti’s agricultural economy, nor the dollars spent by thousands of American tourists every year, was enough to pay back those debts. By 1961, the US was sending $13m in aid to Haiti – half Haiti’s national budget – in part to help the nation bolster industry. Much of this early US aid to Haiti was looted or wasted by Haiti’s autocratic leaders, especially François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and his son, Jean-Claude, who spent it on personal militias that terrorised Haiti’s citizenry. “Since 1946, the United States has poured about $100m in economic aid … into Haiti without much to show for the money,” the New York Times reported in 1963.

Aid from the US and loans from international financial institutions failed to lift Haiti out of poverty. And yet, American aid kept pouring in. When the Clintons and their allies sought to mould Haiti’s economic future around manufacturing and trade, it was essentially the same neoliberal programme that the US had been pushing for decades.

The most pernicious part of this programme was the agricultural policies that the US imposed on Haiti beginning in the 70s. The US pressured Haiti to reduce its tariffs on imported crops, then shipped surplus American crops into Haiti’s ports under the guise of “food aid”. Haitian farmers could not compete with all the artificially cheap rice and other food crops from abroad, which was part of the point. The strategy was to create another market for American farmers while pushing Haiti’s labour force away from the fields and into factories. As president, Bill Clinton furthered this programme, creating massive surpluses of crops such as rice by extending hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to US farmers. In Haiti, the result was that thousands upon thousands of farmers lost their land, but industrialisation never moved fast enough to replace their livelihoods.

Only years later would Bill Clinton acknowledge how this policy had failed Haitians.“The United States has followed a policy … that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so, thank goodness, they can leap directly into the industrial era,” he told Congress in 2010. “It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked … I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people.” By the time the earthquake struck, in 2010, a nation that in the 70s grew enough rice to feed itself was now importing 80% of it from abroad.

“Artibonite used to be rich, but now it’s poor,” Denis Jesu-car, a rice farmer in one of Haiti’s most agriculturally rich regions, once explained to me. “We produce rice, but it doesn’t sell.”

Despite his acknowledgement that the US’s prior attempt to liberalise Haiti’s economy had decimated its agricultural sector, in 2010, after the earthquake struck, Bill Clinton and his allies prescribed the same, familiar medicine – this time in the form of construction projects and clothing, instead of rice.

One year later, Bill presided over a conference at which building firms from across the globe presented their designs for permanent housing for the displaced, most of which never came to fruition, in part because many were financially or practically infeasible, and in part for lack of land on which to build them. The largest piece of real estate of Haiti’s post-earthquake reconstruction was not built for poor Haitians at all, but for wealthy ones and foreigners: a new Marriott hotel in Port-au-Prince, financed by a multinational telecoms corporation whose chairman was a friend of Clinton’s. The Clinton Foundation brokered the deal, and Bill inaugurated the hotel in 2015.

The audit offered a damning account of USAid’s efforts to build the port. Construction was delayed from the start. The time needed to build the port was revised from an initial estimate of two-and-a-half years to 10 years – and then indefinitely. USAid had “no current projection for when construction of the port may begin or how long it will take”. This was “due in part to a lack of USAid expertise in port planning in Haiti”.

To make matters worse, in June 2015, a USAid feasibility study found that “a new port was not viable for a variety of technical, environmental and economic reasons”. What’s more, the US did not have enough money to finish the job: “USAid funding will be insufficient to cover a majority of projected costs,” with an “estimated gap” of $117m to $189m. Not only was the port not viable, it was not even wanted: the private companies USAid had hoped to attract to Haiti’s north “had no interest in supporting the construction of a new port in northern Haiti”, the feasibility study determined.

While the port stalled, the industrial park underdelivered. When Bill and Hillary Clinton flew to northern Haiti to inaugurate the $300m Caracol park in 2012, the overall project had created just 1,500 of the 65,000 jobs that were promised. In fact, many Haitians may have lost their livelihoods because of Caracol: in the end, 366 families were evicted from their land to make way for the project, according to a report by the NGO ActionAid. By June 2017, Caracol still employed only 13,000 people. (In an email, the Clinton Foundation wrote that “The Clinton Foundation did not have a role in building the Caracol Industrial Park and has never invested any funds into the park,” but acknowledged that as part of its wider goal of facilitating investment in Haiti, “the Foundation helped identify potential tenants, including Haitian companies, for the park”.)

As the US’s failure to deliver on its promises for the industrial park made international headlines, the faltering plans for the new port went overlooked. In 2013, USAid reallocated almost all of the $72m that was supposed to be used to build a new port to instead expand and modernise the small, dilapidated port in nearby Cap-Haïtien. US officials knew they were throwing good money after bad: two years prior, a study by the State Department concluded it would be a bad idea to attempt to expand that port because there simply was not enough land on which to do so.

The Cap-Haïtien port “is locked into the city”, Voltaire said. “There is no way you can expand the hangers, the customs, the container areas. There’s not enough space.” But USAid officials went ahead with it anyway. “To scrap it or to stop allocating money is to admit failure,” Johnston, the Haiti researcher said. “And that’s not something that USAid is good at.”

Finally, more than seven years after the port was conceived, USAid confronted reality. In May 2018, almost three years after a new port was originally supposed to be completed, USAid entirely abandoned its plans to build a new port or expand the old one. In August, a spokesperson explained the decision to me: “Based on proposals received and the current marketplace, it appeared that the cost of the project would significantly exceed the business forecast, cost estimate and available funding.” In short, a port was simply not economically viable. Which was precisely the conclusion that US audits and reports had come to dating back to 2011 – reports that USAid had ignored.

After the project was abandoned, US officials did not even bother to tell Haiti the news. When I visited Cap-Haïtien in December, Haitian port authorities were unaware that USAid had scrapped the project. “Last conversation we had, they told us the money is there,” Anaclé Gervè, the director of the Cap-Haïtien port, said. I told him what a USAid official told me: it had decided to cancel the port project six months earlier. Gervè leaned back in his chair. “Wow,” he said. “They didn’t tell us that.”

When I asked Gervè what the US’s $70m had achieved, he pointed to two concrete electricity poles, erected as part of a plan to connect the port to the public grid. USAid had paid for the poles, but had not strung the cables needed to electrify them.

By January 2019, nine years after the earthquake, USAid had spent $2.3bn in Haiti. Most of it was given to American companies and hardly any passed through Haitian hands. Less than 3% of that spending went directly to Haitian organisations or firms, according to research by CEPR. In contrast, 55% of the money went to American companies located in and around Washington DC. Most likely, according to the research, the majority of what USAid allegedly spent on Haiti’s recovery ended right back in the US.

It is not clear what happened to the money allocated for a port in Haiti, because USAid would not tell me. In August, it released a factsheet claiming that it still planned to invest in “infrastructure upgrades” at the port, such as “improving the electricity system”. Some of these were things the agency had committed to doing previously, but that had yet to be achieved by the time I visited last December. The factsheet gave no indication of how much money was being directed to these projects, or when they would be completed. In other words, even after abandoning the idea of building a new port in favour of expanding the old one, then abandoning plans to expand the old one, too, USAid is still making new promises, still claiming it will at least do something, despite its failure to make good on earlier promises dating back almost a decade. The only physical improvements the agency claims to have made at the port are “electrical lines, security wall upgrades, a pilot boat and a security card machine”. It also claims to have trained 575 Haitian customs officers, but did not say how many of them are employed at the Cap-Haïtien port.

Over the past 12 months, I have repeatedly asked USAid spokespeople for a breakdown as to how the $70m allocated to the Cap-Haïtien port was ultimately spent. In July 2018, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to the port expenditures, and last October I resubmitted the request in further detail after discussing it on the phone with a USAid official. The agency acknowledged my request, but has yet to send me a single document in response to it.

“Seventy million dollars? It’s a lot of money” for a project that never materialised, said Voltaire. For that amount, “we could have a nice port in Saint-Marc”, just a few miles north-west of Haiti’s capital. In Canaan, a new city on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince that was formed after the earthquake, he added, “they could do 72km of nice road, or 72 primary schools,” with all that money. At the end of last year, Canaan – which is now Haiti’s third-largest city – had fewer than 5km of paved roads and just one public school, for a population of 300,000.

“Here you have an industrial park an eight-hour drive north from where the quake was,” said Johnston, referring to Caracol. “And then you have this city that’s just 8km north, that was created from the earthquake – and it’s gotten nothing.”

In post-earthquake Haiti, there were all manner of things the US could have spent its money on. It could have spent that money to revitalise Haiti’s agricultural sector. In a country where only one in four people have access to basic sanitation facilities, the US could have invested in building things such as flush toilets, sewers and sewage treatment plants. In a country where 59% of the population lives on less than $2.41 per day, the US could have simply given Haitians the money. Studies have shown that such “unconditional cash transfers” can be a more effective way to increase income and access to education and housing than many types of traditional “project-based” aid. But policies like cash transfers would have undermined the approach to aid in which rich countries simply prescribe “solutions” for poor ones, rather than allowing people to take their futures into their own hands.

Little about the US’s foreign policy toward Haiti has changed since the 2010 earthquake. The US continues to send the country surplus crops through the Food for Peace programme to this day. Hillary Clinton stepped down as US secretary of state in 2013, but her successors have championed the same sort of private-sector-focused development. USAid continues to spend money to boost Haiti’s textile industry, and the US government continues to advertise Haiti as a business opportunity for US investors.

In spite of its failures to ring in a new era of prosperity for Haiti by building an industrial park and a port, the US is undeterred in its belief that industry and manufacturing are the key to Haiti’s future. “Despite the challenges, there are opportunities in the Haitian market for small-to-medium-sized US businesses,” wrote the US Department of Commerce in August. “The apparel sector is the most promising opportunity in the manufacturing sector in Haiti.”

[geekns]

Biden agrees to lowered eligibility for 3rd round of stimulus checks...

So not only has the next stimulus check been cut down to $1400 from $2000, but the income brackets have been been set even lower: $75,000 for individuals, $150,000 for couples. 

My parents have four kids living at home (one in college, one college-aged but not enrolled, one in high school and college, and one that’s turning 17 this week) and will only get credit for the youngest. The other three are exempt from being counted under parents because they’re over 18 and all working but two of them won’t even get the stimulus because they don’t file taxes as students. My brother might get his first stimulus payment since he’ll be filing for taxes finally.

(YT suggested the vid because i search for info on this like once a week.)

[dream-realm]

When you claim that socialist policies will make people dependent on the government or that the demand for them is proof that people want to be lemmings I don’t understand. What is the role of a government to you? Not trying to pick at you I am curious. What are your ideas for how I’m supposed to make sure I can get medical attention or a home? do I build my own and treat myself with herbs? Okay I’m teasing but I’m genuinely curious because I could learn maybe

(no worries, not taking you in bad faith) sorry to be long. id be curious for any thoughts, despite the vagueness..

not totally sure what you mean here. what would the role of the govt be with respect to those policies, how theyre implemented, function, etc. ? or what, in my opinion, should the role of govt be in a more general sense? i think i was more so venting about and criticizing the former than providing or developing any concrete thoughts on or about the latter, mostly because the role of govt per se is a large and obviously complicated issue. and i dont think we need an exhaustive normative theory of the role of govt to critique how it functions now and would function should policies of that nature be adopted.

the policies (i know we are being incredibly vague) will make people dependent on the govt, and are proof of their being lemmings lol, in the sense that they encourage us to organize ourselves and live our lives in a way that doesnt allow for or promote real self reliance and healthy reliance upon others. nothing most anyone does nowadays is done independently or with a small community: youre educated by the state, you are not involved in growing any of your food or producing any of your medication, youre under serious surveillance, even if you own a house or land you must always pay tax on it, etc etc. im quite aware that we cant all synthesize insulin at home, so hopefully you get what im suggesting. also, where its possible, i do think it would be good to build our own homes and treat ourselves and those we know medically, again, where its possible. 

consider the universal healthcare example. im not *morally* opposed to this idea. nevertheless i seriously doubt that if e.g. sanders became president and got this legislation through congress the program would work as people hope. sorry, though the logic works in the sense that, if everyone was forced into the program, there would be more money payed into it, etc etc, this doesnt “prove” that it would function effectively at all. nor does comparing the united states to other countries with far different population, demographics, history, govt. “prove” that it would work. people must realize that they are trying to shoehorn this idea into our govt system, the one that exists as we speak. there will be no grand overhaul of our govt and administrative state in one fell swoop. 

think about how this applies to something like coronavirus specifically. people have pushed the idea that if we had a universal healthcare system, we could have better adapted to the virus. for starters, as weve seen, the healthcare system itself is far from the only factor at play in terms of effective, unified response. we have a strong executive, and state govt, and thats not changing. theres also this idea surrounding how funds are moved around. govt says e.g. “we dont have the money” etc. we know they have it. but overhauling the healthcare system does not necessarily change how the govt budget works. in our system, the funds are earmarked for different places. there may be emergency clauses, but thats how it works. what makes you think that executive and state govt wont complicate the process of moving funds from one place to another, even during emergency? thats a dynamic literally playing out right now. and nothing about universal healthcare *necessarily* changes that. 

sorry to be so long, but i do enjoy this, though i dont have the attention to make really detailed arguments on here so i apologize for being abstract. suppose everything went perfectly, control was centralized to the healthcare and relevant govt bureaucracy, they have the discretion to use funds how they see fit, and especially suppose somehow everyone involved in this process at every single level is benevolent. do you know the type of data theyd have on you? everything health related. and everything could be justified: tracking, forcing you to stay inside, etc. and people would accept it because they wanted this system and this is the only way it can function effectively and efficiently. it only works better with increased coercion, and you know the means for this are already in place, and it obviously already happens in other ways. think especially now about what it means for the police to function “effectively” and whats justified to that end.

 i dont want faceless uncountable bureaucratic control over every aspect of my life.  i dont care if it functions perfectly out of sight. in my mind this continues a way of living our lives thats very much disconnected from humanity and community. the uncritical demand for these things is, to me, reflective of--sorry to be melodramatic--something like a new epoch in human history. im not interested in living in a world in which we dont attempt to directly take care of each other to the extent that we can. people often rightly criticize the myth of the nuclear family, and im quite aware theres many ways in which its state sanctioned, but god, at least many people can live through that in such a way that they love and care for their families, neighborhood, etc. where your care for other people is real and tangible and not facilitated through tax contributions from faceless nobodies. im not a critic of electoral liberal govt because i dont think we should help people, or that everyone has to pull themselves up, look out for only themselves etc. im a critic of it, and these socialist policies as existing within it, because they function with a conception of humanity and human life that i find completely alien and perverse. the willingness to think of myself and others in highly abstract terms that are neatly serviced by a benevolent govt is not natural to me. nor do i believe a system like this would foster already existing and dying forms of community. we are upholding a system that is allowing people to be born into the world in such a way that thinking of human life in these terms is natural for them, it becomes hardwired to some extent. im not that human, and im not interested in existing in that world. and i think in a very deep sense, if you accept the predominant liberal ideology etc., you actually dont have obligations to other people, at least not of the right sort, and thats dangerous and wrong. its not natural  to think of ourselves in terms and parts of these massive systems. i worry this is so predominate that theres no possibility for a popular appeal to anything else. and the predominance of it pervades everything, democrat, republican, socialist, etc

[dailynewswebsite]

The ‘gateway drug to corruption and overspending’ is returning to Congress – but are earmarks really that bad?

A controversial method that Congress spends cash is returning, after being banned virtually a decade in the past. Liu Jie/Xinhua by way of Getty Photographs

Congressional earmarks – in any other case often known as “pork barrel spending” – could also be coming again.

For many years, earmarks paid for pet initiatives again in lawmakers’ districts, with the tacit goal to earn these lawmakers votes. In flip, the awards inspired legislators to vote for big spending payments. They’ve lengthy been seen by many members of the general public in addition to some lawmakers as wasteful and distasteful, and so they had been banned in 2011.

Now, following the 2020 election, Home Democrats have apparently determined to return to the observe. Majority Chief Steny Hoyer of Maryland introduced on Nov. 20 that the Appropriations Committee would quickly start soliciting member requests for earmarks, with a give attention to initiatives that may profit nonprofit organizations and state and native governments.

Though the Senate has appeared extra dedicated to its ban, Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, and different Senate Republicans and Democrats are additionally receptive to reviving earmarking.

Federal spending payments usually allocate an amount of cash for common functions and sometimes defer to federal company officers or state leaders to find out which specific initiatives finest meet the general targets. Earmarks are particular congressional directions that carve out a few of these funds, declaring instantly that X amount of cash have to be spent on Y mission.

Earlier than 2011, earmarks had been often and – till 2007 – in more and more massive numbers inserted into appropriations and freeway funding payments.

Whereas earmarks have been condemned as frivolous at finest and corrupt at worst, analysis on their makes use of and results paints a extra complicated image of their dynamics. My very own analysis, in addition to that of Frances Lee, reveals that such initiatives helped transportation committee leaders move three huge freeway payments, overcoming important coverage controversies.

Pork-barrel spending can assist transfer issues alongside. Shutterstock

‘Reeking of corruption’

Nonetheless, earmarks have robust opponents. Then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., in 2018 known as earmarks “the Washington swamp creature that simply by no means appears to die.” To supporters, however, earmarks are higher seen as a respectable use of Congress’ constitutionally conferred energy of the purse. And never by the way, members might profit within the subsequent election by bringing house the bacon.

Since 2018, many have argued for a return to earmarking to grease the wheels for appropriations payments. Professional-earmark arguments have come from members of Congress of each events and President Donald Trump.

The present impetus amongst Home Democrats additionally could also be pushed by their losses within the 2020 election. The Democrats’ new majority is presently at 222, in contrast with 211 for the Republicans, with two seats nonetheless undecided.

On condition that the social gathering of the president virtually at all times loses seats in midterm elections, Democrats might lose their majority altogether within the 2022 congressional elections. Earmarks might assist endangered Democrats shore up their assist amongst voters again house.

The right way to move payments

Efforts to revive earmarking over the previous few years have been pushed by a further issue: Congress’ close to whole incapacity to move particular person spending payments in a well timed method for the reason that ban was adopted.

Within the regular appropriations course of, Congress would move 12 particular person spending payments every year, a course of designed to provide legislators an opportunity to look at the spending in every invoice earlier than voting.

The fact is way totally different.

Information compiled by the Pew Analysis Middle present that between the 2011 earmark ban and financial 2018, just one particular person appropriations invoice was enacted, somewhat than the 84 appropriations payments Congress ought to have handed. Particular person appropriations payments have fared simply as poorly in newer years.

As a substitute, Congress has funded authorities businesses in huge omnibus appropriations payments, and partial- and full-year persevering with resolutions, making it nearly inconceivable for members to know what they had been voting for.

This breakdown within the common appropriations course of coincides neatly with the earmark moratorium, though earlier than the 2011 moratorium, the method didn’t at all times go easily.

My very own analysis reveals that between 1994 and 2000, as Congress went from Democratic to Republican management, earmarks, as soon as extremely efficient in inducing members to vote for appropriations payments, grew to become regularly much less so.

Partisanship might undermine earmarks’ effectiveness

My interviews with committee employees members instructed varied causes for this diminished effectiveness. Outstanding amongst them, in accordance with one staffer, was the truth that votes had been “more and more … on extremely charged substantive coverage issues.” Senators wanted to vote on these points in a partisan method, no matter earmarks.

One other staffer blamed the failure of leaders to punish disloyal members by eradicating their earmarks.

That staffer stated, “Folks haven’t any disgrace. They vote no and take the dough.”

It’s troublesome to foretell how returning to pork-barrel spending would work in the present day.

For earmarks to be efficient instruments, members may need to vote opposite to their very own or their social gathering’s preferences. Their willingness to take action would undoubtedly rely partly on the electoral penalties.

As political scientist David Mayhew has argued, members imagine that bringing house district advantages offers them one thing for which to assert credit score, enhancing their probabilities for reelection and offering congressional leaders with leverage over their votes.

The proof for this impact is nuanced, nevertheless.

Earmarks can assist members win reelection, particularly when members declare credit score for them.

However there’s proof that constituents usually tend to reward Democrats than Republicans. This isn’t completely stunning, on condition that earmarks are in line with Democrats’ dedication to activist authorities, whereas for Republicans dedicated to minimizing the price of authorities, bringing house earmarks could possibly be painted as hypocritical.

These variations might assist clarify why, in my analysis, earmarks supplied leaders with much less leverage over members’ votes in Republican-controlled congresses.

‘Gateway drug’

The detrimental results of earmarking for Republicans might have grown extra highly effective. Over the previous twenty years, critics of earmarks have framed them as egregious authorities waste.

The late Sen. John McCain, for instance, known as earmarks “the gateway drug to corruption and overspending.”

However overspending is within the eye of the beholder. At their peak, earmarks amounted to roughly 3% of the discretionary funds, which itself is about one-third of whole federal spending. (Discretionary spending is cash over which Congress has direct management, in contrast to Social Safety or Medicare, for instance.) On account of earmark reform in 2007, reforms that Democrats intend to retain, spending on earmarks dropped to 1.3% of the funds.

The late Sen. John McCain stated earmarks led to ‘corruption and overspending.’ Benjamin Lowy/Reportage by way of Getty Photographs

Earmarks are weak to different criticisms as nicely, not least of which is the disproportionate share awarded to the states and districts of essentially the most highly effective members.

As well as, the bulk social gathering will get disproportionately extra earmarks than the minority, though the minority will get sufficient to make it more durable for them to make use of earmarks as a marketing campaign situation.

As Congress wrestles with the method of passing particular person appropriations payments, congressional leaders are poised to as soon as once more permit earmarks in appropriations payments to ease the payments’ passage and shield weak Democrats on the polls.

That is an up to date model of an article initially revealed on March 26, 2018.

Diana Evans doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/the-gateway-drug-to-corruption-and-overspending-is-returning-to-congress-but-are-earmarks-really-that-bad/ via https://growthnews.in

[kylerpgcl684-blog]

Modification 20 - The Cornerstone of MMJ Legal Rights in Colorado

"It struck be just recently while enjoying tv that the U.S. Federal federal government is truly absolutely nothing more than the political manifestation cbd oil niagara falls ny of Jabba The Hutt from the Star Wars movies. As you may recall, Jabba was a formless, slow moving, overweight entity that ruled with an iron fist while feeding on resources brought to him. He did not pay for anything, he just took them, as well as he was not there to aid any person but himself. Those he ruled over had no say in exactly how their sources and also wide range were made use of as well as had no chance in removing Jabba from his position of power. Type of sounds like our political course currently being in DC.

Jabba came to mind today as I thought about some current occurrences in which the Federal federal government has actually obtained so big that it is doubling back on itself and placing itself in some extremely odd circumstances as well as conflicts with the reality of the world around us:

- According to an article in the July 23, 2010 issue of The Week publication, a Boston Federal court has ruled parts of the Federal Protection of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional. This act restricts the Federal government from acknowledging gay marriages and also approving Federal advantages. The court ruled that the Federal legislation forces Massachusetts to discriminate against it very own people. Now for the unusual component. the Obama administration is now forced to appeal the ruling, despite the fact that his administration and the Democrats in charge of Congress oppose the Protection of Marriage Act and want it repealed. The Federal government has gotten so big that it is expending legal resources for something that it does not want to exist to begin with.

- This weird circumstance resembles the existing illegal alien situation. A current Associated press short article reported that the most recent statistics relative to illegal border crossers reveals that the Federal federal government recently had the highest degree of prosecutions for illegal aliens as well as the highest deportation levels of illegals because they started monitoring such stats yet at the same time this same Federal federal government was in court battling the brand-new Arizona state law that was attempting to stem the circulation of illegal aliens into that state.

- Getting back to gay marital relationships, according to a July 15, 2010 Associated Press post, the nation of Argentina just recently ended up being the initial Latin American country to legalize gay marriage. The write-up reported that Chile and also a number of various other South American nations are most likely to attempt and also do the same. Do we assume that our Jabba, parading as the American political course, has any kind of chance of making that happen in this nation when it locates itself in court defending against gay civil liberties?

- According to a short article in the August issue of Reason magazine, since 1996 fourteen states as well as the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis usage for medical purposes and several other states are taking into consideration doing the very same. This remains in direct conflict with Federal regulation which has sometimes resulted in Federal raids of medical marijuana companies which are prohibited under Federal legislation yet lawful under state regulation. This is additionally in conflict with Obama the campaigner that wanted to legalize the medication when he ran for President and now protects the banning of it at the Federal level. Again, government has actually gotten so large that we have actually entered the weird area regarding clinical marijuana where it is legal at the same time as being illegal.

- Speaking of medicine problems, a current Associated Press write-up reported that the Federal Veterans Matters organization would enable its people to utilize medical cannabis if those clients lived in the fourteen states where clinical marijuana is legal. Hence, one arm of the Federal government (Veterans Matters) is flawlessly fine with medical marijuana usage while other arms of the Federal government (FBI, DEA, Federal statuary) intends to wipe it out.

- If you think the Federal government has a medication problem now, wait up until the Oakland City Council elects on whether to enable commercial farming of marijuana to be developed in city restrictions, commercial ranches which would certainly produce cannabis for medical usage in addition to for usage in products ranging from baked products to body oil. Winning applicants that would operate these farms would certainly have to pay yearly license charges and eight percent of their sales to taxes as well as lug $2 million in liability insurance policy. Similar efforts are being pushed in various other cities throughout the state in addition to a November tally problem to legalize non-medical use marijuana, according to the post. Currently consider the contents of a brief blurb in the July 23, 2010 issue of The Week magazine that reported on a Rand Research that ended from their evaluation that the legalisation of cannabis would lower the street price by up to 90%. Therefore, the efforts in The golden state might help in reducing the street rate of the drug which in turn would substantially decrease the power, wide range and impact of the Mexican medicine cartels which would be a good thing. However, despite this good set of results (even more profits for the local governments, less of a stigma of marijuana users, much less law enforcement sources spent on breaking cannabis users, the weakening of the Mexican drug cartels) do we assume that the Jabba the Hutt beast in DC is nimble enough to comprehend what the advantages are or will it continue down its course of conflict at the Federal medicine enforcement level?

- Take Into Consideration a Washington Message post from May, 2007, qualified ""Federal Loans Gas Promote Coal Power Plant Kingdoms."" The write-up reviews a remaining Anxiety period Federal program that supplies low cost fundings to construct coal terminated, high pollution power plants making use of taxpayer cash. According to the article, ""the [lending] support is a major force behind the thrill to coal plants, which gush carbon dioxide that scientists condemn for global warming."" Hence, while the Obama administration is pressing an environment control costs in order to fight versus global warming, the same government is funding power plants that do simply the contrary. Makes no sense.

- A recent Associate Press post reported how the Feds had busted 94 people for defrauding the Medicare program. This was a great advancement but why was our Jabba so sluggish in obtaining these apprehensions done? Medicare fraud has been taking place considering that the day Medicare began several years ago, why did it take such a painfully sluggish time to start apprehending the cheats? Among those apprehended had submitted over 3,700 deceitful cases under her name prior to she was apprehended, exactly how sluggish can you get?

We could continue. The U.S. federal government has actually gotten so big and so sluggish, much like Jabba the Hutt, that its lots of folds of skin hide waste, stupidness and also the doubling back on itself, i.e. public law as well as activities in conflict with itself or the needs of those running the government. We could continue regarding just how sluggish, ineffective, and also inefficient our Jabba is, regarding exactly how our Jabba never ever addresses a trouble whether it is unconfident boundaries, falling short public colleges, escalating health care expenses, etc., how our Jabba wastes untold billions of dollars on trademarks, worthless initiatives, and also fraud-infested programs, or just how our Jabba does not know how to control the economic situation, causing sky high national debt degrees and a very creaky financial scenario with reduced development and high joblessness.

Jabba is really bad for everybody but he is hard to displace. With the earmark process, the gerrymandering of Legislative districts, do-nothing project finance laws, and other methods, Jabba has several defenses versus defeat in a political election, defenses that even a Jedi light saber might not easily pierce. Long term, it is important we begin to enforce term restrictions on political leaders to ensure that they never once more obtain as fat, slow-moving, wasteful, and inefficient as Jabba The Hutt. Short-term, this November is critical since it starts the process of voting out the Jabba incumbents and finally getting in some sleek, reliable, as well as bold Jedi warriors that will make the difficult choices to obtain the dimension of government in control and make that downsized government much more reliable and much less odd and less conflicted."

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/united-states-of-america/strong-support-here-helped-trump-win-pennsylvania-in-2016-2020-could-be-different/

Strong Support Here Helped Trump Win Pennsylvania in 2016. 2020 Could Be Different.

ALTOONA, Pa. — President Trump’s road to re-election runs through places like Altoona, with its deep working-class roots, conservative social values and nearly all-white population. But it is not a straight line.

He won about 70 percent of the vote in Blair County, where Altoona is the largest city, in 2016, and that support was an integral part of why Mr. Trump defied forecasts and carried Pennsylvania, a state that will again be critical to his chances in 2020, by about 44,000 votes.

Altoona’s voters have now had more than two years to assess whether Mr. Trump has honored his campaign commitments and whether they will support him again so enthusiastically. Their answer, judging from interviews with more than two dozen voters, is complicated, not the black and white narrative that either Mr. Trump’s supporters or his critics might assume.

Most of his supporters say they will stick with him, citing his blunt style, which some of them see as a form of entertainment, as well as a strong economy. But not all of them.

That same economy has yielded uneven results in Altoona, a city of about 45,000 where the low unemployment rate of 4.2 percent masks some uglier economic facts: Most of the new jobs are in lower-paying service industries, with scaled-down benefits. The poverty rate is 23.2 percent. And there are few signs of the renaissance in manufacturing that the president said he would create.

“There is not a lot of disposable income at $11 an hour,” said Jim Foreman, the county Republican chairman, who operates several physical therapy clinics.

Robert K. Kutz, the president of a local labor council, put it more bluntly. He said some union members who voted for Mr. Trump were starting “to realize that the promises came up empty” and will vote against him in 2020.

“As far as the manufacturing goes,” he added, “none of that has come back.”

Mr. Foreman also acknowledged that it would be difficult for Mr. Trump to replicate his overwhelming numbers from 2016. And if the numbers fall off in rural counties like his, Mr. Trump’s path to winning a state where Democrats picked up three House seats in the midterm elections becomes more challenging.

Val DiGiorgio, the Republican state chairman, said the challenge would be to maintain Mr. Trump’s margins in rural areas while trying to blunt an expected surge of Democratic voters in suburban areas of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. “That’s the question,” he said.

But there are few signs that Republicans have lost their hold in Altoona. The area is represented by Representative John Joyce, a dermatologist elected for the first time in November with more than 70 percent of the vote. The district is largely Catholic and fervently anti-abortion, helping Mr. Trump.

And there are Trump supporters like Sarah Vogel, who said she wanted to live in her hometown to help its revitalization efforts and opened a coffee shop downtown. “He’s doing what he can to help small businesses and rural areas,” she said. “I don’t know if I can give any specifics.”

But, she said, she is “personally a little bit torn” over Mr. Trump’s hard-line immigration policies. While she voted for him in 2016, she is waiting to see who the Democrats nominate before making up her mind this time. Her strong opposition to abortion will weigh heavily in her decision, she added.

Cultural issues could outweigh economic interests for many voters.

Over lunch with his mother at the Black Dog restaurant near Altoona, Dr. Levi Delozier, a Democrat who returned home to practice medicine, said those issues motivated many voters here in 2016.

“I think cultural beliefs and social mores pervade every decision they make,” Dr. Delozier said. “The haze and the fog and the ether of the campaign made people feel like they were better off. I think the current president is very astute at programming his quote-unquote wins, and he is very good at off-loading losses.”

Altoona includes ancestral Democrats, voters whose family members worked for the railroad or a coal mine, but increasingly have supported Republicans. Older voters in particular, and especially those who had manufacturing jobs, believe that Washington has become out of touch, and are more likely to be Trump supporters.

Gib Beckwith worked in manufacturing much of his life. He lost his job as a tool and die maker, but sought retraining and now has an information technology job at North American Communications, which produces envelopes for direct mail.

Mr. Beckwith gets his news from Fox. “I know it is biased, but I get more truth out of their news than anyone else,” he said. “And it’s on my radio. On the weekends, it’s on. I won’t watch NBC or CBS anymore.” He said no one in his family, “not a one,” will vote for anyone other than Mr. Trump.

“Did he do better for the working man? Most certainly,” Mr. Beckwith said. “He has brought what jobs he could bring back, and yes, he gave the rich a tax break, but I got a tax break as well.”

Views like his present a studied contrast to a generation ago, when the federal government delivered big for people here. A former congressman, Bud Shuster, who was chairman of the House Transportation Committee, was famous for securing projects for the area, most notably the extension of Interstate 99, which some have mocked as “the road to nowhere.”

Mr. Shuster was so successful securing federal largess that when reporters asked Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York which state received the most funding one year, he replied, “The state of Altoona.”

But congressional earmarks are now banned and Mr. Shuster’s political career is long over, his politics of accommodation and compromise replaced by stark polarization.

North American has been churning out envelopes for direct mail solicitations for 40 years, and a sign outside its sandy brick headquarters says “Now Hiring,” proclaiming what should be good news for both the city and Mr. Trump.

Not so long ago, the company transferred most of its production jobs to Mexico, taking advantage of lower-cost labor. Then came Mr. Trump’s hard-line immigration policies and with them increased chaos that led many customers to say they no longer felt comfortable with their time-sensitive mailings subject to disruption.

So the company is trying to “reshore” several hundred light manufacturing jobs back to Altoona, just the kind of thing the president promised to do as the champion of the “forgotten American.” But company officials said Mr. Trump’s approach includes almost nothing that would assist them in bringing back jobs.

“There is no federal program to help businesses like ours to reshore our jobs,” said Tera Herman, the company vice president.

Her husband, Robert Herman, the company president, lived in El Paso for a time when the company had operations in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. He said he did not like the way the Trump administration’s immigration policies had played out.

“I am a registered Republican,” Mr. Herman added. “I like Republican ideals on the economy. But I don’t like the way that it’s translated. It seems very at times bigoted and the language that’s used, the derogatory references. I am not that way.”

Workers at Mr. Herman’s company reflected similarly conflicting sentiments about the president. Cory Reed is the third generation in his family to work at the facility in Altoona. He voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, but doubts he will again.

“He hasn’t really fulfilled that promise,” Mr. Reed said of the president’s ode to the forgotten American. “The follow-through wasn’t there.” He is also fed up with the president’s tone. “I feel like there should be more important issues than someone completely bashing someone on Twitter. I don’t really agree with that at all.”

But like Mr. Beckwith, Rick Zupon remains solidly behind Mr. Trump.

In Mr. Zupon, a lifelong Altoona resident who twice voted for President Barack Obama, Mr. Trump has an unwavering convert. “The guy has all the money in the world but is still looking out for the guy who made the country what it is,” he said.

Mr. Trump was the plain-spoken truth teller Mr. Zupon wanted to see shake up Washington. “Another thing I like about President Trump: He doesn’t use language that you have to get a dictionary to understand,” he said. “That’s kind of enjoyable coming from a president of the United States.”

John Stultz, a local real estate agent, also finds Mr. Trump entertaining. Some nights he says to his wife, “I’m going home to watch the national news tonight to see what he said.”

But, he added, he would consider a candidate like former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “I like Joe,” he said, “even the touchy-feely.”

For the president, voters like Mr. Stultz make Pennsylvania particularly challenging, especially if Mr. Biden, who was born in the state and plans to make the first speech of the presidential campaign he is expected to launch on Thursday in Pittsburgh, becomes the Democratic nominee.

Some in the Democratic Party say its nominee should focus on the so-called Obama coalition of younger voters, minorities and suburbanites. But Democrats like Mr. Biden have said the party should not abandon rural voters and should lay its own claim to the “forgotten American.”

In 2016, in Blair County, Hillary Clinton ran seven percentage points behind Mr. Obama’s performance in 2012. If a Democrat can simply cut into Mr. Trump’s numbers here, much less match Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Trump’s Pennsylvania victory could seem more aberration than trend.

[lastsonlost]

AND HERE WE GO AGAIN! 

Organizers of the Women's March on Portland are embroiled in a dispute about donations raised in support of the event.

The January march, which drew estimates of between 70,000 and 100,000 people to downtown, was, by most measures, a success. But in the weeks since, activists who hastily joined forces to organize the event have begun to fight publicly over what happened to donations that could total thousands of dollars.

It's unclear precisely how much money the event took in through T-shirt sales and other donations. But at least one organizer says the money hasn't been accounted for. The Oregon Department of Justice confirmed this week that it is looking into a complaint but stopped short of saying it has launched an investigation.

This isn't the first rift among organizers. Weeks before the march, the original leaders were replaced after accusations of racism and transphobia led the NAACP to pull its support for the event.

Lead organizer Margaret Jacobsen and PDX Trans Pride's Rebekah Katherine Brewis, as well as a group including Kat Lattimer, Nora Colie and Erica Fuller, took the reins.

According to a Facebook post from Jacobsen, Brewis agreed to have PDX Trans Pride act as "fiscal sponsor" of the event so the Women's March could collect donations and raise money to pay for costs associated with the march. But there was no written contract laying out how the fiscal sponsorship would work, according to Jacobsen.

Now, Jacobsen wrote in the Facebook post, PDX Trans Pride is refusing to account for the funds. Jacobsen said the group is keeping money the Women's March had hoped to use for future Women's March-related activities. Jacobsen also contends that PDX Trans Pride is only one person: Brewis.

And, due to complicated tax designations for nonprofits, it appears many of the Women's March donations may not have been tax-deductible after all.

In a phone message left with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Brewis said, "The allegations are absolutely unfounded."

The fight went public last week when the post from Jacobsen began circulating among Portland activists on Facebook. In it, Jacobsen alleged that PDX Trans Pride was holding at least $22,000 raised via T-shirt sales.

"I was one of the lead organizers for the Women's March on Washington: Portland," Jacobsen wrote in the post. "We sought a fiscal sponsor for the event. Rebekah Brewis, the Executive Director of Portland Trans Pride ('PTP'), agreed to have PTP serve as the fiscal sponsor."

Jim White, executive director of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, said Friday that fiscal sponsorship is a relationship between two organizations, where one nonprofit with the ability to collect tax deductible donations extends that fundraising ability to a nonprofit that does not have the same designated status. The organization that can raise money is then legally responsible for accounting for the donations on behalf of the other organization. The group acting as a fiscal sponsor generally charges a fee for doing its work.

"There usually is some kind of agreement around a little bit of cost recovery," White said. "You absolutely should have a written agreement."

But no such agreement existed for the march, Jacobsen acknowledges.

"We did not have a written agreement with PTP, but we expected it would receive some portion of the funds raised for acting as our sponsor," Jacobsen wrote. "People who advanced funds for expenses for the event were to be reimbursed. If there were additional funds left over we hoped to apply those to other events down the road."  

Jacobsen said via the Facebook post that the organizers don't know exactly how much money in the PDX Trans Pride PayPal account was earmarked for the Women's March.

Jacobsen declined to comment further when contacted by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

T-shirts for the march were sold through a separate website, Bonfire. According to the site, $5 from every shirtwas supposed to go to the march organizers. Bonfire has sold 3,559 shirts. At $5 per shirt that would equal $17,795.

Facebook posts, and an FAQ from the Women's March asking for direct donations had linked to a now-closed PDX Trans Pride PayPal account. An additional $1,630 was raised on a GoFundMe page to pay for ambulances and a defibrillator.

"We do not know how much was raised from direct donations because we do not have access to those records," Jacobsen wrote in the Facebook post.

There were some expenses associated with the march. PDX Trans Pride paid $4,901 for a one-day permit for the event, according to Cary Coker of Portland Parks and Recreation. Planned Parenthood covered the cost of 65 portable toilets at $2,337.

There's another wrinkle. PDX Trans Pride is not itself a 501c3 and is fiscally sponsored by Media Alliance, according to that group's executive director Tracy Rosenberg.

Rosenberg said Tuesday that Brewis approached her California-based organization in late December about a fiscal sponsorship arrangement.

"We said OK," Rosenberg said over the phone Tuesday. "They were sort of in a rush."

Rosenberg said Media Alliance offered what it frequently offers in terms of fiscal sponsorship: the ability to collect tax-deductible donations through a PayPal account. Media Alliance also covered the liability insurance for the march, according to Portland Parks and Recreation.

Here's where it gets complicated. The link for Women's March donations went to a PDX Trans Pride PayPal account that was not associated with Media Alliance. The donation link had been shared on Facebook by both the Women's March and PDX Trans Pride. It was also included in a Women's March FAQ.

The link from the PDX Trans Pride website to the PayPal account used for the Women's March now leads to a notice that says it is currently unable to receive money.

After Jacobsen's post last week, PDX Trans Pride fired back on Facebook with its own post, accusing Women's March organizers of "transphobia ... through their recently published false narrative about our organization and it's [sic] leaders."

PDX Trans Pride wrote on Facebook that it "fully permitted, insured, and fiscally sponsored" the January march.

In a phone message Saturday, Brewis said that other Portland leaders are "jealous of the success of the event," adding that the march "was controlled and led by our organization."

"We have an active legal investigation into certain matters" around the Women's March, she added, referencing "transphobic events" and "interpersonal violence."

Portland police say they are not involved. The state Justice Department said it is looking into one complaint related to funding the march.

Another Portland trans organization, Greater Portland Trans Unity, meanwhile, distanced itself from Brewis.

"Ms. Brewis has a long history of incarcerations 

including a six-year+ sentence for breaking into a woman’s home and threatening her with a knife.

turned a crowd ugly, injuries to trans woman; rescue by store clerk  

Scuffle breaks out at Multnomah County Democratic Party HQ, prompting police response 

 wrote Greater Portland Trans Unity on Facebook. "As connected individuals and organizational leaders, we have for several years held a quiet consensus that PDX Trans Pride, represented by Ms. Brewis, is not a safe advocate or representative of our communities."

 2000, Brewis, then known as Jorey Brewis, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for robbery in Ashland. 

A Statesman Journal article from 2011 detailed complaints that led Brewis to unsuccessfully sue the state. Brewis, who was transferred to the Oregon State Hospital after getting caught with a razor,unsuccessfully sued the state twice, according to Willamette Week.

Brewis posted on Facebook last week that she was at the Canada-U.S. border and was claiming "refugee status." In the post, which included pictures of her at the border patrol gate, Brewis wrote, "I have surrendered my citizenship." In a follow-up post, Brewis wrote, "Okay, just spoke with the Border agent at length, actually I am returning back tonight then leaving back to Canada."

"I need to get my cat and a few things," she added.

Those posts have since been deleted.

Brewis and Jacobsen have not responded to follow-up calls, emails or messages from The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Rosenberg, of the Media Alliance, said that it will refund any donations made through its PayPal account if requested.

PayPal said it can't help people concerned about what happened to donations through the PDX Trans Pride account. Ashley Lowes, a spokesperson for PayPal, said via email that the company has looked into the issue, and anyone with questions about their donations "will need to contest these transactions with their credit card company or financial institution." Due to company policy, PayPal will not disclose how much money PDX Trans Pride raised.

-- Lizzy Acker

WOW, they really know how to pick them.

 Donna Hylton was convicted of second-degree murder and two counts of first-degree kidnapping on March 12, 1986. She had been an accessory in the gruesome murder of Long Island real-estate broker Thomas Vigliarole, whose body was found locked inside a trunk in a Manhattan apartment in 1985. Vigliarole had died of asphyxiation. He was starved, beaten, raped, burned and tortured. Hylton served 27 years at New York’s Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for the crime.

Rasmea Yousef Odeh was convicted in 1970 of planting four bombs in Israel; two detonated and killed two men, 21 and 22, in a shop; another damaged the British Consulate. 

NOW there's Rebekah Brewis Who did a six-year+ sentence for breaking into a woman’s home and threatening her with a knife.

turned a crowd ugly, injuries to trans woman; rescue by store clerk 

was in a scuffle at Multnomah County Democratic Party event for prompting police response

was sentenced to 70 months in prison for robbery in Ashland.

Where do they find these people?

[bespectacledbellman]

Goodbye Greens: Why I Have Left The Green Party

I haven’t always believed in progressive politics. When I was in my early teens I was a little Communist short and stout, here’s my hammer here’s my sickle, comrade. I believed everyone should be paid the same for their work and everyone can have a decent quality of life. That was great until I realised that no matter how hard I did at school I’d end up with the same fate as those who put no effort in. That wasn’t going to work.

So, I deviated further and further right until I was embracing something close to Fascism. Yes, some people are superior, I thought. After all, someone who spends their time learning and bettering themselves deserves to earn more, deserves to have more rights, deserves to have a greater say in how the country works. Again, this logic was fine until I realised that modern society can only exist if people aren’t superior to one another. We need non-academic people happy to work in our shops, farm our land, fix our cars to keep the doctors and teachers and writers and philosophers and artists going. Academia doesn’t equate with capability.

I therefore managed to find my political worldview crushed between these two illogical tenets. What this resulted in was a pragmatic left-liberalism with a few traces of quasi-Fascism. Wondering how to square this circle I endeavoured to approach each political party at my own pace. I found that Labour and the Liberal Democrats could cater to the heart, but their sometimes pie-in-the-sky thinking coupled with the anti-Blairite counterrevolution concludd with senseless policy – if, indeed, policy was ever forthcoming. On the other hand, the Conservatives seemed to be fighting for the centre ground I called home: an economic policy that was, sometimes, unfair and unflinching, but otherwise their policies fostered progressive social reforms. Cameron’s mob would neither give to the poor nor steal from the rich, but what Robin Hood’s merry men did in their own time was no concern of theirs.

I’m not saying that their approach was successful, but four years on I wonder what the UK would look like if Cameron’s planned decade-long ministry would have culminated in.

Politically homeless, therefore, I started to judge the fringes. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party was always a laugh, but unelectable. Independents were fine too, but only at constituency level. But when I read the Green Party manifesto a couple of years ago I was enraptured. The manifesto spoke to me. Save the planet. Tick. Social reforms for equality. Tick. Universal basic income. Tick.

Nuclear disarmament? Once upon a time I was opposed to this. Who throws away their shield, I mused, when someone was pointing an arrow at your head? Of course, this metaphor is completely wrong. It should be why am I standing here holding a Molotov cocktail on the off-chance that someone throws their Molotov cocktail at me? I will still be on fire no matter whether I have one of my own or not. It’s basically revenge, wrapped in the camouflaged garb of national security. Pointless. The Greens want to abolish nuclear weapons. Tick.

Sticking to my personal policy that whenever I found a party that suited me down to the core I would support them, I became a member of the Green Party. Through financial and moral support, I argued their case to friends and family and did what I could do highlight key social and economic issues that the Greens could work to resolve. I even wore t-shirts and buttons to advocate their cause in public.

And it was sunshine and roses, pretty much, until this year they started to be, well, silly, with a few minor incidents and one big one: capitalising on the chaos in America, the Greens came out for slavery reparations.

I just think this is the wrong answer. I also believe it’s insulting to simply pay people off for the suffering caused to slaves. I also felt that the logic behind compensation for past immorality was a slippery slope: where is the line drawn? What about Ireland during the Potato Famine? India? Africa? Look at the chaos caused in China by imperialism. Drawn to its inevitable conclusion, historical compensation would bankrupt the Earth.

It was also not going to do anything to solve modern racism. Say a Green government gives a stipend to people who can prove their ancestors were slaves. I can’t say for certain, but I’d guess that large category would include at least one white millionaire. Eight generations of breeding will diversify the ultimate, current generation – as it should. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel it’s right for a government to pay someone compensation for hardships that they may never have suffered. And for those many people who have suffered hardships, a payout isn’t justice.

As I bleat on about like a noisy sheep from dawn til dusk, education is the way we move forward. Educate our children on race and the importance of loving and respecting one another. Obviously, this is a dream, because we all know people whom we neither love nor respect – but at least teach that there are so many genuine reasons for hating people that race needn’t be a contender. Hate someone for being a bully, a snob, cruel, violent, criminal. Each of those adjectives has been attached to people of every different creed and colour through history. Why compound these valid reasons?

Take all of the money earmarked for reparations and pump it into schools. Give the UK a world-class (or world-beating, which appears to be the term in vogue nowadays) education system that teaches moral and social values, and not just the order of Henry VIII’s unfortunate spouses.

It is, in my view, a cheap ploy to capitalise on what was going on around the world in support of Black communities, to make the Green Party look like the progressive party, when in fact it looks more like throwing money at the problem and hoping it goes away. This isn’t the medieval Church, we can’t buy indulgences from our national sins. Only through repentance – education – can we be absolved.

Add to that the other cringe-worthy events that I saw manifest over the Green Party’s own social media page: notably, heralding a local councillor as a champion of his community for standing up for residents, even though he actually hadn’t any idea what he was doing and jeopardised their appeals by ignoring due process. The recent election, where as a member you vote on important roles, including roles for each individual group, but you can only vote for representatives of groups you belong to. Sounds a lot like segregation to me. As a member I should be allowed to vote for the person responsible for LGBTQ+ rights, BAME rights, migrant rights. You do not segregate policy based on membership. A white straight cis man should have the same rights as a Black lesbian trans woman. (If you disagree, read the sentence the other way around and then you will.) As a taxpayer, any decision made on, for instance, women’s rights, will affect me. If the Green Party advocated sanitary products on the NHS, I am fine with that, but as I pay money for the NHS, I should be allowed to choose who comes up with that policy. It’s short-sighted to segregate policy in this way – not that I was surprised, I’d learned that short-sighted policy was our forte.

Instead of focusing on key policies that would help the country: economic policy, ecological policy, foreign policy – all grounded in a realistic view of the world – I instead was swept up in a vortex of one-dimensional thought. Yes, if you’re unhappy with the UK selling weapons to Saudi Arabia that’s fine, but don’t start a discussion about it without mentioning the consequences of the UK not doing that. Do you think China or Russia will wield the same moral pressure on the Saudi government when they inevitably fill the gap left by the UK? A more sensible, multi-faceted policy would be to use all profits from arms sales to fund refugees and migrants from conflicts. Russia would spend its profits on ivory backscratchers.

With all this, I felt forced to leave these daydreamers and return to my pursuit of a party of pragmatic progressivism. The Green Party will never become a government or have influence with policies like these. The best policies come from heart and mind. No party really provides this, and perhaps that’s what’s wrong with modern politics. There is no haven for those in the middle who want equal rights for all but a partial repeal of human rights agreements. There is no base for those who want an enlightened justice system based on forgiveness and rehabilitation, but also desire the return of the death penalty. It may seem that these things are contradictory, but they’re not: they are practical when delivered appropriately. And if you were to sit down with someone and delve into one topic for long enough, you’d find this cognitive dissonance lies within probably all of us at some level. We all sit in the middle of the political spectrum and although we’d always like to do the right thing for the right reasons, most of us acknowledge that we sometimes have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. We must be pragmatic in our daily lives and we must be pragmatic in our politics.

The Green Party has the progressivism, but not the pragmatism; the ideals, but not the logic; it has my heart, but not my mind. It has my sympathy, but not my vote.

[bigyack-com]

Elite Prep Schools, Set Back by Virus, Face a Quandary on Federal Aid

The Latin School of Chicago, which has counted the Illinois governor’s children among its students, returned the money. Sidwell Friends in Washington, the alma mater of President Obama’s daughters, decided to keep it. So did others, like St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Md., where President Trump’s youngest son is a student.Across the country, dozens of elite private preparatory schools are facing a vexing decision: They qualified for federal funds for small businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic, but administrators are considering whether the scrutiny of taking government assistance outweighs the benefits.Several prominent companies, like the Shake Shack restaurant chain, secured some of the same federal aid meant to keep employees on the payroll but returned it after facing a public backlash.The schools are now making similar calculations, particularly because some smaller private schools with little or no endowments missed out on the first round of funding amid bureaucratic hurdles.Outside Boston, the Middlesex boarding school withdrew its application to the program, and Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., pulled out of the process as well.“We thought it was not appropriate to move forward,” said Charles M. Stillwell, the head of Episcopal High School, which includes John McCain among its alumni and has an estimated endowment of $200 million. The school decided that it “should not seek this kind of support when others need it more,” he said.But other elite schools said they needed the money to keep people employed, citing concerns about dwindling donations, shrinking endowments and a potential drop-off in enrollment.The money comes in the form of loans, backed by the Small Business Administration, that can be forgiven if recipients put most of it toward payroll needs.On Wednesday, the board of trustees at Sidwell Friends, Chelsea Clinton’s alma mater, said in a memo to the school community that it would accept a $5.2 million loan “in light of actual and anticipated shortfalls, mounting uncertainty” and “the importance of maintaining employment levels.”“We recognize that our decision to accept this loan may draw criticism from some quarters of the community,” said the school, which has a $53.4 million endowment, “but are fully united in our decision.”The Pingry School, with campuses in Short Hills and Basking Ridge, N.J., and a roughly $80 million endowment, said it would keep the money it had received to pay faculty and staff members, as intended by the federal program.St. Andrew’s, in Potomac, which reported a roughly $9 million endowment in a 2017 tax filing, said it would put the money toward salaries “to ensure retention of our full faculty and staff, including hourly employees and coaches, during this very challenging and uncertain time.”Neither school disclosed how much it had received in loan money.Run by the S.B.A., the $660 billion assistance effort — formally known as the Paycheck Protection Program — has been troubled by technical glitches, partisan squabbling and widespread confusion over who is worthy.Large public companies have leaned on their relationships with banks, which are issuing the loans, while many Main Street businesses like ice cream stores, salons and neighborhood restaurants have often found themselves left out.That tension is playing out in miniature in the private school world. While there is no suggestion that any school used political ties to bolster its application, some bigger institutions are able to tap board members and donors with connections to banks.“It’s kind of a wild thing that’s happening — you can see the pitfalls with the program,” said Jennifer S. Danish, head of school at Grace Episcopal Day School in Kensington, Md., which she said served mostly middle-class students. “If you have a board member or a connection with a big bank, you’re more likely going to get it.”Ms. Danish said the school had not received assistance in the first round of applications this month, but she recently applied again and was hopeful the application would be approved. “We do not have an endowment,” she said. “We do not have reserves. We have debt. Our faculty is our greatest asset, and we want to make sure they get paid.”The S.B.A. program, a centerpiece of the federal government’s economic stimulus package adopted last month, mostly offers loans of up to $10 million to companies with no more than 500 workers.The S.B.A. issued new guidance alongside the Treasury Department recently, highlighting that borrowers “must certify in good faith” that their loan request is “necessary.” Of the more than 100 companies that have disclosed loans of $2 million, about 20 have vowed to return their funds, in response to both the new guidelines and public pushback.On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin threatened to hold big companies criminally liable if they did not meet the program’s revised criteria, and warned that the S.B.A. would audit companies that received more than $2 million.Many private schools are receiving less than $2 million and insist they meet the program’s requirements.A spokesman for St. Andrew’s, which Barron Trump attends, said in a statement that the money “will allow us to maintain our promise to support our employees and to help school families facing hardship remain” at the school next year. “We hope every other nonprofit and small business is able to access” the program, he said.At Pingry, the head of school, Matt Levinson, concluded that the “economic conditions brought on by Covid-19 have presented significant challenges to our ability to serve our community.” He added that “we are grateful to have qualified for the PPP program, and appreciate that it will allow us to retain all our faculty and staff in a time of declining revenues, rising costs, and great financial uncertainty.”John Burroughs School near St. Louis, which has a more than $50 million endowment and was attended by Shake Shack’s founder, Danny Meyer, qualified for a $2.55 million loan, according to its head of school, Andy Abbott.Before the pandemic, it relied on a roughly $54.7 million endowment to support 10 percent of its budget. But the recent market downturn has caused it to lose more than $9 million dollars in value. Summer camps and events that bring in revenue have been canceled.Mr. Abbott said the school planned to keep the money. The school needed the loan to support its operations, he said, and to avoid furloughs for its more than 200 employees and continue paying them benefits.“The school has never applied for federal funding before, and we are extremely grateful to qualify for this loan at this unprecedented time to ensure we can support our employees, and our ongoing operations in a manner that is not detrimental to the long-term financial health of the school,” Mr. Abbott said in an email.But in recent days, some schools that had initially made the same calculation to take the money have begun reconsidering.The Latin School’s application sparked controversy among students and others from the community, according to its online student newspaper, The Forum. The site’s coverage was picked up by local media outlets like Crain’s Chicago Business, further putting the decision in the spotlight.This week, the school, which disclosed a $58.5 million endowment in a recent tax filing, said it would return the loan, citing new guidance.“With this decision, we stand in support of all the smaller businesses and nonprofits that need this support to keep their people employed,” Randall Dunn, its head of school, said in a statement.Middlesex also reversed course, said its head of school, David J. Beare, in an email. The school — which has a $301.5 million endowment and such prominent alumni as Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland — decided that “other organizations had more significant need for the limited funds.”“We continue to offer a robust online learning experience for our students, and look forward to resuming normal operations as soon as possible,” Mr. Beare said.Myra McGovern, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Independent Schools, a trade group, said that even the biggest institutions had lost donations and income from programs like after-school care and camps in recent weeks. Some are also concerned about losing students for next year.“A school’s size or reputation does not necessarily translate into liquidity,” she said. “For schools whose budgets have been severely impacted by the virus, the ability to sustain payroll and pay interest on mortgage payments may be in jeopardy.”Many schools also have restricted endowments, meaning the funds cannot be earmarked for teacher salaries, she said, explaining that “it’s not like having a big savings account that you can draw from at any time.”Other schools, particularly some smaller and less endowed ones, are still struggling to get their applications reviewed. When the program launched in early April, the banks processing the applications struggled to keep up with the demand and navigate technical problems, causing some applicants to miss out on a first wave of money. Additional funds became available on Monday, but uncertainty and anxiety persist.“There are plenty of schools that work on tight budgets, and there’s going to be a lot of heartache and a lot of closures across the country,” said Ms. Danish, of Grace Episcopal Day School. “Education is not going to be the same.”Stacy Cowley contributed reporting. Read the full article

[thisdaynews]

Mark Kelly raises astronomical sum in bid to snag Senate seat from GOP

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Mark Kelly raises astronomical sum in bid to snag Senate seat from GOP

“I think those numbers speak for themselves. Good grief,” said Jim Pederson, a former state Democratic Party chair who ran for Senate in 2006.

“The guy is a very personable, sharp guy. And he’s made a lot of friends nationwide, and I think he’s tapped into that network,” Pederson said, adding that Arizonans were “wrapped up into his enthusiasm.”

Republicans have taken notice as well.

“It’s not necessarily that Sen. McSally is doing poorly. It is that Mark Kelly is doing spectacularly,” said Paul Bentz, a Republican strategist in Arizona. “He’s doing above and beyond, I think, what anybody would have anticipated when it comes to fundraising.

“She has the power of incumbency, but he has definitely caught up on many, if not all, other campaign metrics,” Bentz added.

Arizona is a critical state in next year’s elections, with the presidency and Senate majority up for grabs. Democrats won their first Senate race in three decades in the emerging swing state last year, when Democrat Kyrsten Sinema beat McSally to capture the seat held by GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, a conservative Trump opponent who retired as he drew the president’s ire.

After her defeat, Doug Ducey, the state’s Republican governor, appointed McSally to fill a vacancy for the state’s other Senate seat, which was held by Republican John McCain until his death last year. McSally is running again to complete the remaining two years on McCain’s unexpired term for 2021 and 2022.

Several advantages have helped Kelly stockpile cash. Kellywas the first major Senate candidate to announce a bid, joining the race in Februarywith built-in name ID and connections to donors through his work with a gun control organization he founded with Giffords, the former congresswoman who was shot in 2011. The national party has rallied behind Kelly, and he’s avoided even a whiff of a primary challenge.

Kelly has also invested in building a campaign to last. He has spent more than $700,000 on Facebook ads this year, which helps build a list of small-dollar donors that will benefit him down the road, according to data compiled by ACRONYM, a progressive digital organization. Last quarter, Kelly spent $1.9 million, with $420,000 of that earmarked fordigital advertising and more than $640,000 for direct mail services, both designed to help raise new money.

In the third quarter, more than half of his money raised — $2.9 million — came in unitemized donations that are less than $200. He also raised nearly $1.3 million from donors who gave more than $1,000, including more than $667,000 from max-out donors.

“This campaign is powered by grassroots supporters who are chipping in what they can, when they can because they support Mark’s mission to be an independent voice for Arizona,” said Jacob Peters, a spokesperson for Kelly’s campaign.

The online money, in particular, is what has set Kelly apart early in the cycle.

“I think they’ve smartly rejected the dumb conventional wisdom out there that only super progressives can raise small dollars online,” said Andy Barr, a Democratic strategist who worked on the 2012 Arizona Senate race.

Republicans acknowledge Kelly’s fundraising prowess but say theyare not caught off guard by it. The party expected him to raise significant sums after being recruited to join the race and praise McSally’s efforts to keep pace — especially for someone in the unique position of preparing for reelection while also adjusting to her first nine months in the Senate.

“She’s doing great, doing the things a candidate and incumbent need to do,” said Barrett Marson, a veteran Republican strategist who heads a super PAC that backs McSally. “Obviously, Mark Kelly is raising a lot of money. She can’t control that. She can only control what she does, and Sen. McSally is doing the right things.”

McSally has also proven to be a strong online fundraiser, despite the party’s broader struggles keeping pace in small dollars. She raised $1.2 million in unitemized donations under $200, and her campaign said nearly 100,000 donors have given $100 or less. McSally spent nearly $350,000 on online fundraising, plus another $60,000 in fundraising list rentals, in the third quarter of the year, a larger investment than most other Republicans. Her campaign has lagged on Facebook, however, and has spent only $35,000 on the platform, according to the data from ACRONYM.

“Martha’s consistently strong fundraising numbers prove that Arizonans are unified in their support for her to keep fighting for them in the U.S. Senate,” said her general consultant, Terry Nelson, in a statement.

Dan Eberhart, a major GOP donor, warned that McSally would likely be outspent without “major support” from outside groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with GOP leadership. But Republican groups recognize McSally is critical to a GOP majority and are planning to play big in Arizona.

“We think Martha McSally is one of the most compelling leaders in America today, which is why Arizona was one of our largest investments in 2018 — and we expect it will be the same in 2020,” said Jack Pandol, spokesperson for the Senate Leadership Fund.

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