Saturday, February 09, 2019

Tell Congress to Save This Treaty and Put Human Survival Ahead of Nuclear Missile Profits! GRAPHIC: Sign here button Share this action on Facebook Share this action on Twitter Please donate 3 dollars President Trump has declared his intention to withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a key nuclear disarmament pact with Russia signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and approved by the U.S. Senate.

RootsAction Team<info@rootsaction.org>
To  alfredjohnson34@comcast.net  



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President Trump has declared his intention to withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a key nuclear disarmament pact with Russia signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and approved by the U.S. Senate. 

Now is the time for Congress to take action to keep the United States in the treaty. And either house of Congress alone has the power to refuse to fund any weapons prohibited by the treaty.

Click here to email your Representative and your two Senators.

Nine Senators have just introduced the Prevention of Arms Race Act of 2019 to block any funding for weapons that violate the INF Treaty. Now members of Congress need to hear from us again and again until this bill is made law.

Make no mistake, there are those who see more nuclear weapons in the world as wonderful news. Militarists are already talking up the supposed need for more weapons aimed at China as well as Russia.

Click here to get all of Congress listening.

Congressman Ro Khanna has tweeted: "I am alarmed that President Trump is withdrawing from the INF treaty with Russia. This action plunges us back into a nuclear arms race and endangers our troops, allies, & the world, while wasting taxpayer dollars to prepare for a nuclear war that must never be fought."

The INF prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying both nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges between 310 and 3,420 miles. These are among the weapons most likely to lead to miscalculation or misadventure in a crisis.

Following ratification of the INF, the United States destroyed almost 1,000 missiles, and the Soviet Union almost 2,000. "But," writes Jon Schwarz at The Intercept, "arms control treaties are never about weapons and numbers alone. They can help enemy nations create virtuous circles, both between them and within themselves. Verification requires constant communication and the establishment of trust; it creates constituencies for peace inside governments and in the general public; this reduces on both sides the power of the paranoid, reactionary wing that exists in every country; this creates space for further progress; and so on."

Conversely, withdrawal from arms control treaties can feed vicious cycles of distrust, animosity, and militarization.

Click here to stop this disaster in its tracks.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which now shows the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, points out: "The INF withdrawal is part of a pattern. It is not the first nuclear treaty the U.S. has terminated; at the end of 2001 the United States walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty it had signed with the Soviet Union in 1972."

Both the United States and Russia currently accuse each other of violating the INF Treaty. Wherever the truth lies, the solution is not to pull out of the treaty, but to redouble diplomatic efforts to resolve the allegations.

The United States and Russia control more than 90 percent of the world’s nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons. It is unlikely that any of the other nuclear-armed powers will be willing to engage in negotiations to control or eliminate these extraordinarily dangerous armaments if the United States abandons arms control.

A ratified treaty is a part of the “supreme law of the land,” former Senator Russell Feingold has noted — “which should logically mean that it could only be undone by Congress and the President, or at least by a vote of the Senate.”

Tell the first branch of government in the U.S. Constitution to step up and do its job.

After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends.

This work is only possible with your financial support. Please chip in $3 now. 



-- The RootsAction.org Team

P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.

Background:
>> Statement from the President Regarding the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty
>> Prevention of Arms Race Act of 2019
>> David Cortright, The Nation: “The Peace Movement Won the INF Treaty. We Must Fight to Preserve It.”
>> Russell Feingold, NBCnews.com: “Donald Trump can unilaterally withdraw from treaties because Congress abdicated responsibility”
>> Zia Mian, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “The INF Treaty and the crises of arms control”
>> Jon Schwarz, The Intercept: “What Trump and John Bolton Don’t Understand About Nuclear War”
>> Ira Helfand, CNN.com: “Sheer Luck Has Helped Us Avoid Nuclear War So Far – Now We Need to Take Action”
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TEDMED video featuring CIW’s Gerardo Reyes Chavez and Greg Asbed goes live! Coalition of Immokalee Workers

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Dear MoveOn member, It hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw this week that Susan Collins received $1.8 million in donations after voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court—by far the most she's ever raised in a quarter.1 The fact that there's a financial incentive for a senator to confirm a justice to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is an insult to democracy.

Robert Reich<moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
To  Dear MoveOn member,
It hit me like a ton of bricks when I saw this week that Susan Collins received $1.8 million in donations after voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court—by far the most she's ever raised in a quarter.1 The fact that there's a financial incentive for a senator to confirm a justice to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is an insult to democracy.
But there's reason to keep our heads up! H.R.1, the Democrats' sweeping anti-corruption and pro-democracy bill to rein in the influence of money in politics and expand voting rights, is wildly popular with voters—across the political spectrum.2
And Republicans are terrified.
Republicans in the House rightly said this week that the impacts of the bill would be "chilling," and Mitch McConnell believes it's a "power grab."3,4
You betcha! A power grab for the people.
But here's the thing: Just as the bill is starting to gain momentum, the GOP is launching a smear campaign, calling it a threat to free speech.5
We have to fight back, Alfred, and no group is more savvy and capable than MoveOn at countering this right-wing narrative and building grassroots support for this critical piece of legislation.
So what exactly does H.R.1 do that Republicans find so horrifying?
  • It creates a national system for automatic voter registration and expands early voting and same-day registration.
  • It makes Election Day a holiday for federal employees and encourages private businesses to also take the day off to encourage voting.
  • It requires "dark money" groups to make their donor lists public and mandates that Facebook and Twitter disclose the source of funding for political ads that appear on their platforms.
  • It institutes public financing for political campaigns.
  • And it beefs up ethics rules to fight corruption in government.6
Well sure, that would certainly terrify me if I were a Republican in the pocket of monied interests and terrified of actually facing a fair election.
And now, Republicans have developed a new line of attack against H.R.1: They are calling the proposal "Russian government policy."7 Excuse me? I can think of nothing more American than protecting the right to vote, getting Big Money out of politics, and reforming our broken system.
We must meet these vicious attacks blow for blow and make sure that the American people know the truth about H.R.1—namely, that it will give everyday people power in our political system again.
It disgusts me that any political party in the United States would so abandon the principles of our democracy to keep their coffers filled and their ultra-rich backers happy. The Republicans rallying against this legislation have turned their backs on democracy, showing their true colors as shills for special interests and billionaires.
H.R.1 is not a controversial proposal, and if Republicans actually believed that their policies were best for the American people, they would support it wholeheartedly. But they know that the only people that Republican policies help are the ultra-rich, the corrupt, and corporate powers dedicated to keeping their workers down.
We have lived under this system for too long, and it is about time something was done to end it.
Together, we need to build a groundswell of grassroots support for H.R.1, relentlessly shine a spotlight on the problems of Big Money and corruption—as well as the promise of real solutions that would improve our democracy—and bring millions of people together to demand action.
Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich
Sources:
1. "Collins brings in most money of her career after Kavanaugh vote," Bangor Daily News, February 1, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63048?t=5&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
2. "New polling shows voters—including independents—want Congress to pass an anti-corruption bill," Vox, January 3, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63049?t=7&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
3. "House Republicans Warn That Bill Combating Big Money in Politics 'Resembles Russian Government Policy,'" The Intercept, February 7, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63050?t=9&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
4. "Mitch McConnell calls House Democrats’ anti-corruption bill a 'power grab,'" Vox, January 18, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63051?t=11&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
5. "Lobbyists are already mounting an opposition strategy to Democrats’ anti-corruption bill," Vox, January, 29, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63052?t=13&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
6. "House Democrats officially unveil their first bill in the majority: a sweeping anti-corruption proposal," Vox, January 4, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63053?t=15&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
7. "House Republicans Warn That Bill Combating Big Money in Politics 'Resembles Russian Government Policy,'" The Intercept, February 7, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/63050?t=17&akid=226688%2E38417624%2EOpXAN5
Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back towards sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME The Green New Deal Takes Its First Congressional Step The first hand of the Green New Deal has been dealt. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday unveiled a five-page, nonbinding resolution that frames a 10-year “national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization” to confront the climate crisis

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

The Green New Deal Takes Its First Congressional Step
The first hand of the Green New Deal has been dealt. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday unveiled a five-page, nonbinding resolution that frames a 10-year “national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization” to confront the climate crisis.The plan envisions the creation of millions of “good, high-wage jobs” and will serve to “counteract systemic injustices.”  The resolution sets a framework for legislation to be hashed out over the next two years, and gives Ocasio-Cortez, Markey, and climate groups something to organize around. Their goal is to meet 100 percent of the demand for power in the U.S. with “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” in line with the scientific consensus on climate change, as well as to provide “all people of the United States” with clean air and water, “healthy and affordable food,” high-quality health care, “affordable, safe, and adequate housing,” and economic security.   More

ABOLISH BILLIONAIRES!
At some level of extreme wealth, money inevitably corrupts. On the left and the right, it buys political power, it silences dissent, it serves primarily to perpetuate ever-greater wealth, often unrelated to any reciprocal social good…  Billionaire abolishment could take many forms. It could mean preventing people from keeping more than a billion in booty, but more likely it would mean higher marginal taxes on income, wealth and estates for billionaires and people on the way to becoming billionaires. These policy ideas turn out to poll very well, even if they’re probably not actually redistributive enough to turn most billionaires into sub-billionaires…  But if we tolerate the supposedly “good” billionaires in politics, we inevitably leave open the door for the bad ones. And the bad ones will overrun us. When American capitalism sends us its billionaires, it’s not sending its best. It’s sending us people who have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing inequality. They’re bringing injustice. They’re buying politicians.    More

Voters Aren’t Moving Left on Taxes. Democrats Are Moving Toward Voters.
Last week, Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultzargued that the Democratic Party’s radical tax ideas had opened up space for a centrist presidential candidate to unite Republicans and Democrats around common-sense, bipartisan solutions; days later, polls revealed that Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to annually expropriate 2 percent of Schultz’s wealth was a common-sense, bipartisan solution.
But the fact that pundits deemed these findings surprising tells us less about American opinion than it does about American pundits. The U.S. public has (just about) always been eager to soak the rich. In April 2018, Gallup found 62 percent of Americans saying that upper-income people pay too little in taxes…  Similarly, the Democratic Party didn’t triangulate on economic policy in the 1990s in response to mass popular support for financial deregulation or capital gains tax cuts. Rather, they did so because organized labor was in decline, while the financial industry was ascendant — and thus, so too was the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party.   More

A CRUEL WAR ON IMMIGRANTS
"Make America Cruel Again." That's how journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Shipler has reformulated Donald Trump's trademark slogan. Shipler's version is particularly apt when you think about the president's record over the last two years on refugee resettlement and other humanitarian-related immigration issues.  President Trump's border-wall obsession and the political uproar over it have dominated the news, while the alleged dangers of illegal immigrants -- whose numbers he wildly exaggerates -- have dominated his rhetoric. But the way he’s altered immigration policy affects many more people than just the migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border who are at the center of the wall debate. Many of those currently or potentially harmed by his actions are not outside the law, but are in the United States legally, some with permanent residence status and others on a temporary or provisional basis.  More

Trump Admin Says It’s Too Hard To Reunite Thousands Of Separated Families
Last month, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services released a report stating that “thousands” more immigrant families had been separated than the government had previously disclosed. In the declaration submitted Friday, HHS officials said they don’t know the exact number of children who were taken from their parents before “zero tolerance” and that finding them would be too much of a “burden” since there was no formal tracking system in place. “The Trump administration’s response is a shocking concession that it can’t easily find thousands of children it ripped from parents and doesn’t even think it’s worth the time to locate each of them,” said Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer in the ACLU’s ongoing lawsuit against ICE, in a statement. “The administration also doesn’t dispute that separations are ongoing in significant numbers.”   More

Whatever You Paid to Watch Netflix Last Month Was More Than It Paid in Income Taxes
Whether you paid $8.99 for basic, $12.99 for standard, or splurged for the $15.99 premium package so you would have the privilege of watching endless streaming shows and movies on Netflix last month, a new analysis shows you still paid much, much more than the company paid in federal and local income taxes for the entire year. "When hugely profitable corporations avoid tax, that means smaller businesses and working families must make up the difference." —Matthew Gardner, ITEP senior fellowAccording to Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), "The popular video streaming service Netflix posted its largest-ever U.S. profit in 2018­­—$845 million—on which it didn't pay a dime in federal or state income taxes." Not a dime. Not one penny.   More


*   *   *   *
NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong


“Friends of the Pentagon” push for even higher Military Spending. . .
Intel Chiefs Use "Global Threat" Report to Uphold US War Machine
The corporate media’s reporting on the testimonies of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and the directors of CIA, NSA and FBI on their annual assessment of “worldwide threats” emphasized the fact that theycontradicted President Donald Trump’s views on Iran, North Korea and Russia…  The 2019 “Worldwide Threats Assessment,” like its annual predecessors, approaches central policy issues in ways that protect the interests of the powerful institutions served by intelligence agencies. The result is that the line between intelligence assessment and propaganda is often impossible to discern…  The elevation of Russia and China to the leading position among global threats reflects the primordial interests of the Pentagon, which announced a major shift in January 2018 from fighting terrorism to competing with Russia and China as the primary basis for planning — and justifying more spending.   More 

(Russia has exactly two overseas bases: one on the coast of Syria and one on the coast of Vietnam)

DON’T LET DEMOCRATS BECOME THE PARTY OF WAR
This month, the president of the United States will meet for a second time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Either the path toward peace for 75 million Koreans will advance, or it will reverse into recriminations and nuclear threats. In the coming months, too, the president may act on his desire to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from ill-conceived, open-ended missions in Syria and Afghanistan—or he will continue to keep them in harm’s way, with no strategy for victory in sight.  If the president taking these actions were not Trump, many of his domestic detractors would likely welcome progress toward diplomacy and peace. Yet over the past six months, politicians and experts have repeatedly done the opposite.  They have urged this most impulsive and unprincipled of presidents to undertake more international conflict, not less…  The gambit to out-hawk Trump is a dangerous one. More

On Venezuela and NATO, the Democratic Party is the “Assistance” Not the “Resistance” The so-called Democratic Party “resistance” to Trump has largely been silent on the issue of Venezuela…  Just days before Washington set the attempted coup into motion, the Democratic-controlled House voted for the NATO Support Act. The Act declares that the U.S. President cannot use federal funds to withdraw from NATO. It also ensures that the U.S. will remain a “member in good standing” until further notice. Only twenty-two members of the House voted “no” and all of them were Republicans . Presidential hopeful and anti-regime change representative Tulsi Gabbard abstained from the vote while Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the “progressive” Democrats voted “yes” to NATO.  As of this writing, only Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, and Ilhan Omar have voiced any kind of opposition to the Trump Administration’s coup against Venezuela from the Democratic wing of the ruling class. None of them have mounted a challenge to the power of NATO over U.S. imperial policy.   More

VENEZUELA:
The U.S.’s 68th Regime Change Disaster
While Venezuelans face poverty, preventable diseases, malnutrition and open threats of war by U.S. officials, those same U.S. officials and their corporate sponsors are looking at an almost irresistible gold mine if they can bring Venezuela to its knees: a fire sale of its oil industry to foreign oil companies and the privatization of many other sectors of its economy, from hydroelectric power plants to iron, aluminum and, yes, actual gold mines.  This is not speculation. It is what the U.S.’s new puppet, Juan Guaido, has reportedly promised his American backers if they can overthrow Venezuela’s elected government and install him in the presidential palace…  The U.S. government claims to be acting in the best interests of the Venezuelan people, but over 80 percent of Venezuelans, including many who don’t support Maduro, are opposed to the crippling economic sanctions, while 86% oppose U.S. or international military intervention.   More

US Media Ignore—and Applaud—Economic War on Venezuela
The US media chorus supporting a US overthrow of the Venezuelan government has for years pointed to the country’s economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while whitewashing the ways in which the US has strangled the Venezuelan economy…  Sanctions have kept the Venezuelan government from accessing financing and dealing with its debt while hamstringing its most important industry. Given that US media are writing for a principally US audience, the damage done by Washington and its partners’ sanctions should be front and center in their coverage. Exactly the opposite is the case…  Weaponizing hunger in Venezuela in this manner is dishonest and misleading…  Thus, the US government acknowledges that it is knowingly, consciously driving the Venezuelan economy into the ground, but US media make no such acknowledgment, which sends the message that the problems in Venezuela are entirely the fault of the government, and that the US is a neutral arbiter that wants to help Venezuelans.  Call this elision what it is: war propaganda.   More

For Trump’s Regime Changers, Venezuela Is Just the First Step
The crisis in Venezuela has provided the “low-hanging fruit,” in the words of journalist Jon Lee Anderson, for the resurrection of a bygone era of gunboat diplomacy, when Washington could dictate the fate of regional governments…  But from the start of his presidency, Trump has had regime change in Venezuela on his policy agenda—as a step toward fulfilling his campaign promise to “end the deal” that President Obama made with Raúl Castro for a historic peaceful coexistence with Cuba. On only his second day in the White House, Trump “asked for a Venezuela briefing,” one former administration official recently told The Wall Street Journal, “to explore how to reverse Obama-era policies toward Cuba.” Options for getting rid of Maduro and ending Venezuela’s alliance with Cuba included cutting off the billions of dollars that the United States pays for Venezuelan oil imports—a major sanction that the administration has now imposed.  More

IRAN: THE DRIFT TOWARD WAR
Late last year, National Security Advisor John Bolton pressed the Pentagon to produce options for attacking Iran, and he has long advocated for military strikes and regime change in Teheran. And now, because of a recent internal policy review on the effect of US sanctions, Washington may be is drifting closer to war.  According to “On Thin Ice,” a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), the Trump administration has concluded that its “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions has largely failed to meet any of the White House’s “goals” of forcing Iran to re-negotiate the 2015 nuclear agreement or alter its policies in the Middle East.  While the sanctions have damaged Iran’s economy, the Iranians have proved to be far more nimble in dodging them than Washington allowed for. And because the sanctions were unilaterally imposed, there are countries willing to look for ways to avoid them…  But the failure of the White House’s sanctions creates its own dangers because this is not an American administration that easily accepts defeat. On top of that, there is a window of opportunity for striking Iran that will close in a year, making an attack more complicated.  More

US arms sold to Saudi Arabia and UAE end up in wrong hands
Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen, in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found…  Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used the US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape, according to local commanders on the ground and analysts who spoke to CNN…  The revelations raise fresh questions about whether the US has lost control over a key ally presiding over one of the most horrific wars of the past decade, and whether Saudi Arabia is responsible enough to be allowed to continue buying the sophisticated arms and fighting hardware.   More

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