Majorityrights News > Category: Economics & Finance

The Intercept, “U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel”, 19 July, 2017:

The criminalization of political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing T-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The U.K. has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. In the U.S., governors compete with one another over who can implement the most extreme regulations to bar businesses from participating in any boycotts aimed even at Israeli settlements, which the world regards as illegal. On U.S. campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so commonplace that the Center for Constitutional Rights refers to it as “the Palestine Exception” to free speech.

But now, a group of 43 senators — 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats — wants to implement a law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country’s decades-old occupation of Palestine. The two primary sponsors of the bill are Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio. Perhaps the most shocking aspect is the punishment: Anyone guilty of violating the prohibitions will face a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison.

The proposed measure, called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S. 720), was introduced by Cardin on March 23. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the bill “was drafted with the assistance of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.” Indeed, AIPAC, in its 2017 lobbying agenda, identified passage of this bill as one of its top lobbying priorities for the year:

The bill’s co-sponsors include the senior Democrat in Washington, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, his New York colleague Kirsten Gillibrand, and several of the Senate’s more liberal members, such as Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Maria Cantwell of Washington. Illustrating the bipartisanship that AIPAC typically summons, it also includes several of the most right-wing senators such as Ted Cruz of Texas, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Marco Rubio of Florida.

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Independent, “Climate change denier Scott Pruitt’s appointment to run EPA would be ‘unprecedented assault’ on its work,” 7 Feb 2017.

One issue that state discretion would Not handle better is the overseeing and coordination of environmental matters, which are, by definition, of interrelated systems that do not heed political bounds, especially not smaller ones.

Trump’s crass assault on our earthly home was launched with his appointment of business plant and climate change denier, Scott Pruitt, as head of the EPA: fox in charge of the hen house. The assault is now going into overdrive.

Daily Caller, “House Republicans Lay Out Their Plan To Rein In The EPA”, 18, 2017:

House Republicans released their proposal to balance the federal budget in 10 years, which included their plans to rein in the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Republicans plan three broad reforms for the EPA: reduce its funding, cut global warming and programs and eliminate the agency’s policy office.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has long overreached in its duties,” the House budget resolution reads, released Tuesday.

“While everyone supports protecting the environment and promoting clean air and clean water, the states are better positioned to address their individual environmental concerns and balance those responsibilities with the concerns of workers, small-businesses, and manufacturers,” the resolution adds.

However, the House’s plan for the EPA would cut the agency’s budget 80 percent less than what the White house recommended in its May budget proposal.

A House appropriations bill introduced days ago gives the EPA a $7.5 billion budget in 2017, or $528 million less than the agency’s 2017 budget. The bill also ignored many Trump administration requests to cut dozens of EPA programs. That bill is still making its way through committee.

The House appropriations bill would give $31.4 billion to federal environmental programs at the EPA, Department of the Interior and other agencies. That’s $824 million below 2017 levels, but $4.3 billion less than the White House’s request.

The White House recommended cutting the EPA’s budget $2.6 billion, or more than 30 percent, along with eliminating dozens of programs, particularly those enforcing Obama-era regulations and climate programs.

The budget proposal also included plans to eliminate duplicative energy programs and wasteful spending to help get “federal government out of the way and allow the private sector to do its job and flourish.”

That effort largely focuses on reducing Energy Department spending energy subsidies and stopping the agency from issuing any more loan guarantees — the same program that funded Solyndra.

“Eliminating these Obama-era pet programs will help us reduce federal spending in the energy sector and promote private-sector energy production and innovation,” the House budget document reads.

Republicans claim that their plan would balance the federal budget within 10 years.

Democrats and environmentalists are already pushing back on the Republican resolution.

House lawmakers will mark up the budget resolution Wednesday, and it’s expected to pass the chamber. Senate Democrats could pose problems for the budget resolution’s path to President Donald Trump’s desk.

Former Goldman-Sachs President (((Henry Paulson))), presided as Chairman of SEC and key decision maker in 2008 meltdown

NPR, “Is The Justice Department Shying Away From Prosecuting Corporations?” 11 July 2017:

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. In an era of mass incarceration, why was only one top banker convicted after the financial collapse of 2008? My guest Jesse Eisinger tries to answer that question in his new book. Eisinger is an investigative business reporter with ProPublica. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories on questionable Wall Street practices that led to the financial crisis. Lately he’s been writing about the Trump administration’s business and finance practices and policies. We’ll talk about that a little later.

Let’s start with his new book, which is subtitled “Why The Justice Department Fails To Prosecute Executives.” I can’t say the full title of the book because the FCC defines one of the words as indecent. It’s a word that begins with an S. So here’s the best I can do. It’s called “The Chicken S-Word Club.” The chicken word is a barnyard epithet for coward.

Jesse Eisinger, welcome to FRESH AIR. So question number one is, what were you thinking when you wrote a book with a title I can’t say on the radio?

JESSE EISINGER: (Laughter) Thanks so much for having me back. Yes, I should have thought about the interview before I came up with the title. But this comes from a line from Jim Comey. It’s a controversial title in my family. My daughters love it, which means my wife does not. But it actually comes from a speech. Now, you may know and your listeners may know Jim Comey from being recently fired by Donald Trump as FBI director. Before that, back in 2002, he became the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a role later held by Preet Bharara…

GROSS: Also fired by President Trump.

EISINGER: Also fired - the twofer there. And Comey comes in, and he’s replacing a legend in the office, Mary Jo White, who served as Obama’s SEC head. And he gathered all the hotshots from the Southern District. And the Southern District is the premier office of the Department of Justice. They are 94 offices around the country, U.S. attorneys from all over in every state. And the Department of Justice and - main justice is one of the prestigious units and then the prestige unit for corporate investigations and Wall Street and financial investigations is the Southern District.

Goldman-Sachs and 2008 swamp alumni, Gary Cohn and Steve Mnuchin, drained into the Trump Administration.

And these guys really are the hottest shots, the best of the best of the best. And you know, if you have any doubts about them, you just have to ask them, and they will tell you how good they are. And they think of themselves as the best trial lawyers. And Comey gathers them all together and asks them, how many of you have never lost a case, never had an acquittal or a hung jury? And a bunch of hands shoot up. They’re very proud of their undefeated records. And he says, well, me and my buddies have a name for you guys. You guys are the chicken-blank club. And the hands go back down very fast.

And what was he trying to say there? Well, he was trying to say - and he goes on to explain that the prosecutor’s job - federal prosecutor’s job is not to win - like, win at all costs and preserve an undefeated record. What they’re doing is something more important. They are seeking justice. And to seek justice and ensure justice in this country, you have to take on ambitious cases. You have to raise your sights and look at the most significant wrongdoers in society and focus on them. And you can’t be afraid of losing and avoid those difficult cases if justice calls for taking on the powerful interests.

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Trump would try to stop election hacking by working with the man who has turned election hacking into an art form

Vox, 9 July 2017:  No, really.

“Trump wants to work with Putin to fight election hacking.”

President Donald Trump began his high-profile Europe trip by publicly questioning the US intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He used a one-one-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to make clear Moscow wouldn’t be punished for the hack.

Then, on Sunday, Trump capped his time at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, with an announcement that he and Putin had agreed to create “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things” will be prevented.

Trump, if he sticks with the plan, will be trying to stop election hacking by working with the man who has turned election hacking into an art form.

The announcement stunned lawmakers from both parties, with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham describing it as “pretty close” to the “dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” Graham also blasted Trump for his continued refusal to acknowledge the Russian hacking campaign.

“He is literally the only person I know of who doesn’t believe Russia attacked our election in 2016,” Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press.

With criticism pouring in, Trump tried to slightly distance himself from the idea late Sunday night, with a tweet that said the “fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t-but a ceasefire can, and did!”

Trump’s quasi-denial aside, there was something genuinely startling about his first announcement. Trump left for the G20 summit with his presidency engulfed in an array of Russia-related scandals, including a criminal investigation into whether his campaign knowingly colluded with Kremlin hackers.

That meant there was one major question hanging over Trump as he prepared for his face-to-face meeting with Putin: whether he would hold the Russian leader accountable for directing what US spies describe as a systematic hacking campaign designed to hurt Hillary Clinton and help him win the White House.

On Sunday, Trump appeared to answer that question with a resounding “no.”

The summit was a win for Putin and a loss for everyone else.

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Euractiv, 30 June 2017:

“Malmström in Tokyo to clinch trade deal in time for G20.”

The European Union and Japan said on Tuesday (21 March) they intend to complete talks for a free trade agreement with Japan by the end of the year.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker dispatched the EU’s top trade officials to Tokyo Thursday (29 June) for crucial talks to seal a long-awaited deal with Japan.

After four years of talks, the two sides are working toward signing a deal at a G20 meeting in Hamburg next week, but Juncker said further work was needed.

“There are still a few sticking points. I have therefore sent the European agriculture commissioner and the trade commissioner to Japan,” Juncker said.

Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan will arrive on Friday (30 June) for talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

Clinching a deal would be a victory for free-trade advocates after US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership this year, dealing a possibly fatal blow to the mooted 12-nation deal.

Juncker said he wanted the negotiations to be finished before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe holds talks with Juncker and EU President Donald Tusk in Brussels on July 6.

“The trade agreement with Japan, if it materialises, is important. And I am assuming that it will materialise,” Juncker said at a pre-G20 press conference with EU leaders in Berlin.

Backed by “Indian givers”, playing both sides and shifting the focus..

One take on the British election results -

UKIP / the banker class…

“Gave you Brexit” then dissolved themselves into Labour to take away Theresa May’s power to do anything about it..

..the objectivists told you that their invisible hand would work with you, naturally, to take care of Merkel’s migration assault on native Europeans… then their invisible hand played the other side of populism to leverage withdrawal of motions to exit from the common EU economic market - and with it, to withdraw an effective Brexit - by having voters distracted with a focus on Labour as the “savior of social services”...as if Theresa May was going to take that away.

..it seems that similar as with Trump and the Republicans in the US, that elite cadres are infusing whichever moribund party with angles of populist narratives that they can play in order to manipulate the electorate.

Even more than through Alex Navalny’s protests against the Putin/Medvedev government of the Russian Federation, a nation-wide trucker’s strike, and what its proponents have to say throw light upon the facts of people, unlike Putin and Medvedev, whom we ethno-nationalists might identify with as having a similar end in mind, in hope for a ethnonationalist basis that might be allied against its propositional imperialism.

A far cry from Putin apologetics of the Atl-Right, through these folk the corruption and imperial disconnect of the Russian Federation’s leadership is highlighted as analogous to The US Government’s propositional disconnect from peoplehood - the ethnostate.

Though the segment in this Vice News episode about Milo is sufficiently unflattering and won’t hurt anybody to watch, nor the other segments, it is the two corresponding segments - from 2:17 - 9:05 - that I would like to bring to your attention. Starting at 2:17, there is a brief segment discussing the mass “bourgeois” government protest and problems of its national organizer, Alex Navalny, who, after having recently gotten out of jail for organizing the protests, suffered a chemical attack on two occasions with no one being arrested for the attacks.

But this protest - whether it could be Soros backed or what - is not the most interesting one from an ethno-nationalist standpoint.

What is more interesting for ethno-nationalists is the subsequent story which more clearly indicates that the government of the Russian Federation is cutting into the meat of would-be ethno-national constituents. It is further indication that the Russian Federation is not functioning at an ethnostate, but is functioning to serve its political class as divorced from ethno-nationalism - particularly as its implications bear upon European and Asian peoples - while it might serve the group interests of others - Jews, blacks, even Muslims. Indeed it is a comparable beast to The United States: It’s leadership is corrupt and functioning with a different agenda from the rank and file. (((Medvedev))) is highly disapproved-of for having implemented such a schism, but Putin is looked upon critically as well, as an intimate part of the same system as Medvedev, a manifestation of a corrupt system that will simply grow another head like him when he goes away.

That outlook - which you will see a trucker’s unionist discuss in the clip - that outlook upon a systemically corrupt leadership of the Russian Federation is where to look for a way for ethno-nationalism to organize and overthrow the Russian Federation’s propositional imperialism - its growing connection with propositionalism and prescription against would-be ethno-states. A propositional imperialism emanating from its right-wing leadership in coalition with YKW, a corruption quite similar to that of the U.S. leadership (Trump et al.) which it supports and which is “coincidentally” acting quite like the YKW in this prescription to advance by contrast to ethnonationalism their own elite imperialism.

What that means for ethnonationalists is that there is a level headed perspective among the working Russian populace which sees things from an incipient ethnonationalist perspective, which might ultimately cooperate with us against the kind of supremacist imperialism of which Medvedev, Putin and the vastly aggrandized Russian Federation are a part.

The truckers talk about their travails in Irkutsk - a good ride east; and a little beyond Lake Baikal might form the border of one of the biggest ethno states in the world, where they might see fit that enough is enough; better that there be less conflict and more natural support by peacefully coordinating with native ethnonationalists to the east of that.

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Visigrad Post, “The Three Seas Initiative: Strengthening Cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe”, 13 May 2017:

By Olivier Bault.

Poland, Helenów – Pressed between Moscow’s energy and military pressure in the east, and the economic and ideological pressure of Brussels, Berlin and Paris to the west, twelve Central and Eastern European countries are taking part in the Three Seas Initiative (The Adriatic, Baltic and the Black Sea) aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and infrastructure in the fields of transport, telecommunications, energy and the environment. On 4 May, Polish President Andrzej Duda’s Head of Cabinet met the foreign advisors of the Presidents of the Three Seas countries near Warsaw: the Visegrád Group countries (V4: Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary), the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), as well as Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia. The aim was to prepare for the summit which is to be held by these countries in Wrocław, in southwestern Poland, next July, after last year’s Dubrovnik summit in Croatia.

The message that the participating countries want to spread, according to Andrzej Duda’s Chief of Cabinet, however, goes in the direction of integration and solidarity with the European Union as a whole. With regard to infrastructure, this includes strengthening the previously neglected North-South links rather than the West-East links.

The Three Seas Initiative has been at the center of Polish foreign policy since the Conservatives (PiS) came to power in Warsaw. Already between the two World Wars, Poland had dreamed of a great “Międzymorze” Federation of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to resist together the supremacy of Soviet Russia and Germany. If this project derived its inspiration from the history of the Republic of the Two Nations, the union of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which extended to its peak (around 1600) from the Baltic to the Black Sea, geopolitics of the 1920s and 1930s did not make it possible to realize it. Polish President Andrzej Duda, elected in 2015, re-launched the idea, this time in the framework of enhanced cooperation within the European Union, with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

It is unclear whether US President Donald Trump will attend the Wrocław summit but he has been invited.

Translated from French by the Visegrád Post.