Category: reason

Here’s Every Single Time Someone Scapegoated Profit During the Dem Debates

The opening round of Democratic presidential debates is over. A variety of ideas were presented. But one thing in particular kept coming up. Namely, a number of the Democratic presidential wannabes kept badmouthing profit.

In fact, several of the Democratic candidates seemed to view the existence of profit-making enterprises as one of the biggest threats facing America.

Here is a list of every time someone demonized profit during the Democratic debates.

  1. Elizabeth Warren

So we’ve had an industrial policy in the United States for decades now, and it’s basically been let giant corporations do whatever they want to do. Giant corporations have exactly one loyalty, and that is to profits. And if they can save a nickel by moving a job to Mexico or to Asia or to Canada, they’re going to do it.

  1. Cory Booker

Health care—it’s not just a human right, it should be an American right. And I believe the best way to get there is Medicare for All. But I have an urgency about this. When I am president of the United States, I’m not going to wait. We have to do the things immediately that are going to provide better care. And on this debate, I’m sorry. There are too many people profiteering off of the pain of people in America, from pharmaceutical companies to insurers.

  1. Elizabeth Warren

The insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system, $23 billion. And that doesn’t count the money that was paid to executives, the money that was spent lobbying Washington. We have a giant industry that wants our health care system to stay the way it is, because it’s not working for families, but it’s sure as heck working for them.

  1. Cory Booker

I have been to some of the largest private prisons, which are repugnant to me that people are profiting off incarceration, and their immigration lockups.

  1. Kirsten Gillibrand

The debate we’re having in our party right now is confusing, because the truth is there’s a big difference between capitalism on the one hand and greed on the other. And so all the things that we’re trying to change is when companies care more about profits when they do about people.

  1. Kirsten Gillibrand

I believe we need to get to universal health care as a right and not a privilege to single payer. The quickest way you get there is you create competition with the insurers. God bless the insurers, if they want to compete, they can certainly try, but they’ve never put people over their profits, and I doubt they ever will.

  1. Bernie Sanders

Let’s be clear. Let us be very clear. The function of health care today from the insurance and drug company perspective is not to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way. The function of the health care system today is to make billions in profits for the insurance companies.

  1. Bernie Sanders

We will have Medicare for all when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that health care is a human right, not something to make huge profits off of.

  1. Kirsten Gillibrand

But the worst thing President Trump has done is he’s diverted the funds away from cross-border terrorism, cross-border human trafficking, drug trafficking, and gun trafficking, and he’s given that money to the for-profit prisons. I would not be spending money in for-profit prisons to lock up children and asylum-seekers.

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Every Time Someone Scapegoated Profit During the Dem Debates

The opening round of Democratic presidential debates is over. A variety of ideas were presented. But one thing in particular kept coming up. Namely, a number of the Democratic presidential wannabes kept badmouthing profit.

In fact, several of the Democratic candidates seemed to view the existence of profit-making enterprises as one of the biggest threats facing America.

Here is a list of every time someone demonized profit during the Democratic debates.

  1. Elizabeth Warren

So we’ve had an industrial policy in the United States for decades now, and it’s basically been let giant corporations do whatever they want to do. Giant corporations have exactly one loyalty, and that is to profits. And if they can save a nickel by moving a job to Mexico or to Asia or to Canada, they’re going to do it.

  1. Cory Booker

Health care—it’s not just a human right, it should be an American right. And I believe the best way to get there is Medicare for All. But I have an urgency about this. When I am president of the United States, I’m not going to wait. We have to do the things immediately that are going to provide better care. And on this debate, I’m sorry. There are too many people profiteering off of the pain of people in America, from pharmaceutical companies to insurers.

  1. Elizabeth Warren

The insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system, $23 billion. And that doesn’t count the money that was paid to executives, the money that was spent lobbying Washington. We have a giant industry that wants our health care system to stay the way it is, because it’s not working for families, but it’s sure as heck working for them.

  1. Cory Booker

I have been to some of the largest private prisons, which are repugnant to me that people are profiting off incarceration, and their immigration lockups.

  1. Kirsten Gillibrand

The debate we’re having in our party right now is confusing, because the truth is there’s a big difference between capitalism on the one hand and greed on the other. And so all the things that we’re trying to change is when companies care more about profits when they do about people.

  1. Kirsten Gillibrand

I believe we need to get to universal health care as a right and not a privilege to single payer. The quickest way you get there is you create competition with the insurers. God bless the insurers, if they want to compete, they can certainly try, but they’ve never put people over their profits, and I doubt they ever will.

  1. Bernie Sanders

Let’s be clear. Let us be very clear. The function of health care today from the insurance and drug company perspective is not to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way. The function of the health care system today is to make billions in profits for the insurance companies.

  1. Bernie Sanders

We will have Medicare for all when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that health care is a human right, not something to make huge profits off of.

  1. Kirsten Gillibrand

But the worst thing President Trump has done is he’s diverted the funds away from cross-border terrorism, cross-border human trafficking, drug trafficking, and gun trafficking, and he’s given that money to the for-profit prisons. I would not be spending money in for-profit prisons to lock up children and asylum-seekers.

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Actually, Joe Biden and the Obama Administration Deported More People Than Trump

Here’s a fact that will annoy pretty much everyone involved in the debate over illegal immigration and the border: President Obama oversaw more deportations than President Donald Trump has overseen.

It’s true. In 2012, the Obama administration kicked 419,384 people out of the United States, a single-year record that still stands, despite two years (and counting) of Trump framing himself as America’s boarder-guard-in-chief. Earlier this week, Trump tweeted that he would remove “millions” of illegal immigrants if given a second term in the White House—but last year Trump managed to deport merely 256,000 people.

Those facts are problematic for the current debate over immigration policy, in which Democrats try to frame Trump as being unreasonably cruel towards immigrants—a title that Trump (and many of his supporters) seem pretty happy to embrace.

Joe Biden invoked that false narrative in response to a question about immigration policy during Thursday’s Democratic primary debate. Biden was, of course, part of the Obama administration, and when debate moderators asked him to justify the Obama administration’s record deportation numbers, he refused to do so.

Biden should have been ready for exactly this type of question. Earlier this week, a Biden-penned op-ed in the Miami Herald (the same city where this week’s debates are being held) condemned the “morally bankrupt re-election strategy” that relies on “vilifying immigrants to score political points.”

Sure, Trump vilifies immigrants more than Obama ever did. But actions speak louder than words—or tweets.

Here’s Reason‘s Shikha Dalmia on Biden’s hypocrisy:

But Biden forgot to mention that Trump, despite his best efforts, might not be able to match the lofty deportation record of the previous administration, in which Biden himself was second in command. Nor did Biden say a word about the 2012 Criminal Alien Removal Initiative, a nasty little Obama-era pilot program that I wrote about here. Under it, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in plainclothes and unmarked vans would park themselves outside Latino grocery stores, apartment buildings, parks, neighborhoods, and—on one occasion at least—a Bible Study group, and confront whomever they wished, demanding to know their immigration status. The ICE agents would handcuff and detain those they suspected—without a warrant or formal charges, much less allowing them a phone call and legal representation—and forcibly fingerprint them with a high-tech mobile unit. They’d then run the fingerprints through federal databases, a process that would sometimes take hours, during which time the detainees couldn’t leave to pick up their children or get to their jobs. All those flagged as undocumented, even if they were not criminals and therefore not the program’s primary targets, would be dispatched immediately to detention facilities to await deportation.

Here’s the Cato Institute’s immigration policy guru Alex Nowrasteh, weighing in last week:

Indeed, Biden has a long and, for Democratic primary voters, probably problematic, record on immigration. He voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 during the George W. Bush administration—an earlier, less grandiose, version of Trump’s border wall, but one that still managed to cost taxpayers $2.5 billion. As a member of the Senate in 1996, he supported the Bill Clinton-signed Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which created new criminal penalties for illegal immigration and required “expedited removal.”

Biden’s got a long record of holding high political offices. That’s usually a boon for him, but immigration is one area (criminal justice is the other big one) where that long record is an obvious liability.

The best way to deal with that liability? Biden should stop trying to pretend that the facts aren’t the facts.

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Reluctant Anarchist Marianne Williamson: ‘If Your Government Does It, That Doesn’t Make It Less of a Crime’

You’re not likely to hear a lot of libertarian zingers at tonight’s second Democratic primary debate. Fortunately, California self-help author and chemical policy skeptic Marianne Williamson offered a slight respite from the statist rhetoric with a positively barn-burning condemnation of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

“If your government does it, that doesn’t make it less of a crime,” said Williamson during a heated round of questioning about immigration policy.

In doing so, Williamson picked up on a theme raised by former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who said the Trump administration’s family separation policy would be considered kidnapping in Colorado.

Neither Hickenlooper nor any other candidates on stage tonight, however, managed to so effectively skewer the artificial distinction between the morality of actions taken by the government and those of private citizens as Williamson did.

Other candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), promised that they would not deport immigrants solely for being undocumented. Yet none dared try to question the moral authority of the state to incarcerate people for victimless crimes.

Libertarians have long recognized that force is force, regardless of who is wielding the coercive power, and it’s refreshing to hear that point being made in tonight’s debate. To be sure, Williamson is no libertarian. But if she ever followed her argument to its logical conclusion, libertarianism is where she’d end up.

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Actually, Joe Biden and the Obama Administration Deported More People Than Trump

Here’s a fact that will annoy pretty much everyone involved in the debate over illegal immigration and the border: President Obama oversaw more deportations than President Donald Trump has overseen.

It’s true. In 2012, the Obama administration kicked 419,384 people out of the United States, a single-year record that still stands, despite two years (and counting) of Trump framing himself as America’s boarder-guard-in-chief. Earlier this week, Trump tweeted that he would remove “millions” of illegal immigrants if given a second term in the White House—but last year Trump managed to deport merely 256,000 people.

Those facts are problematic for the current debate over immigration policy, in which Democrats try to frame Trump as being unreasonably cruel towards immigrants—a title that Trump (and many of his supporters) seem pretty happy to embrace.

Joe Biden invoked that false narrative in response to a question about immigration policy during Thursday’s Democratic primary debate. Biden was, of course, part of the Obama administration, and when debate moderators asked him to justify the Obama administration’s record deportation numbers, he refused to do so.

Biden should have been ready for exactly this type of question. Earlier this week, a Biden-penned op-ed in the Miami Herald (the same city where this week’s debates are being held) condemned the “morally bankrupt re-election strategy” that relies on “vilifying immigrants to score political points.”

Sure, Trump vilifies immigrants more than Obama ever did. But actions speak louder than words—or tweets.

Here’s Reason‘s Shikha Dalmia on Biden’s hypocrisy:

But Biden forgot to mention that Trump, despite his best efforts, might not be able to match the lofty deportation record of the previous administration, in which Biden himself was second in command. Nor did Biden say a word about the 2012 Criminal Alien Removal Initiative, a nasty little Obama-era pilot program that I wrote about here. Under it, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in plainclothes and unmarked vans would park themselves outside Latino grocery stores, apartment buildings, parks, neighborhoods, and—on one occasion at least—a Bible Study group, and confront whomever they wished, demanding to know their immigration status. The ICE agents would handcuff and detain those they suspected—without a warrant or formal charges, much less allowing them a phone call and legal representation—and forcibly fingerprint them with a high-tech mobile unit. They’d then run the fingerprints through federal databases, a process that would sometimes take hours, during which time the detainees couldn’t leave to pick up their children or get to their jobs. All those flagged as undocumented, even if they were not criminals and therefore not the program’s primary targets, would be dispatched immediately to detention facilities to await deportation.

Here’s the Cato Institute’s immigration policy guru Alex Nowrasteh, weighing in last week:

Indeed, Biden has a long and, for Democratic primary voters, probably problematic, record on immigration. He voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 during the George W. Bush administration—an earlier, less grandiose, version of Trump’s border wall, but one that still managed to cost taxpayers $2.5 billion. As a member of the Senate in 1996, he supported the Bill Clinton-signed Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which created new criminal penalties for illegal immigration and required “expedited removal.”

Biden’s got a long record of holding high political offices. That’s usually a boon for him, but immigration is one area (criminal justice is the other big one) where that long record is an obvious liability.

The best way to deal with that liability? Biden should stop trying to pretend that the facts aren’t the facts.

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Reluctant Anarchist Marianne Williamson: ‘If Your Government Does It, That Doesn’t Make It Less of a Crime’

You’re not likely to hear a lot of libertarian zingers at tonight’s second Democratic primary debate. Fortunately, California self-help author and chemical policy skeptic Marianne Williamson offered a slight respite from the statist rhetoric with a positively barn-burning condemnation of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

“If your government does it, that doesn’t make it less of a crime,” said Williamson during a heated round of questioning about immigration policy.

In doing so, Williamson picked up on a theme raised by former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who said the Trump administration’s family separation policy would be considered kidnapping in Colorado.

Neither Hickenlooper nor any other candidates on stage tonight, however, managed to so effectively skewer the artificial distinction between the morality of actions taken by the government and those of private citizens as Williamson did.

Other candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), promised that they would not deport immigrants solely for being undocumented. Yet none dared try to question the moral authority of the state to incarcerate people for victimless crimes.

Libertarians have long recognized that force is force, regardless of who is wielding the coercive power, and it’s refreshing to hear that point being made in tonight’s debate. To be sure, Williamson is no libertarian. But if she ever followed her argument to its logical conclusion, libertarianism is where she’d end up.

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U.S. Asylum Officers Are Asking a Federal Court To Overturn Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Asylum Policy

A group of U.S. asylum officers is challenging President Donald Trump’s policy of making migrants wait in Mexico prior to their immigration court dates, saying it is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924—the labor union for federal asylum officers—asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday to stop the program. They filed an amicus brief in support of the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which in February filed a federal lawsuit to put an end to the practice.

Called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, the policy is colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico.” Prior to its implementation, the U.S. “ensured that people fleeing persecution would not be—pending adjudication of their asylum application or anytime thereafter—returned to a territory where they may face persecution or threat of torture,” the union wrote.

The suit filed by the asylum officers says that under the new policy, many immigrants now “face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” The union argues that the practice of forcing them to apply for asylum from outside the U.S. “abandons our tradition of providing a safe haven to the persecuted and violates our international and domestic legal obligations.”

MPP was instituted amid the increase of migrants from Central America. The amicus brief says that asylum seekers making their requests from Mexico face violence from drug gangs and that officers have heard “reports of kidnapping migrants for ransom or conscription into criminal activity.” Ethnic minorities from indigenous communities throughout Central America have the hardest time, officers say. These migrants allegedly face the same kind of persecution in Mexico that drove them from their home countries, and that many indigenous women are sexually assaulted.

The union name argues in its filing that MPP is not only unethical, but it also “does nothing to streamline the process, but instead increases the burdens on our immigration courts and makes the system more inefficient.”

The program has added more immigration cases to a massive pileup, as asylum officers now cannot discriminate between applicants based on whether someone presents a “credible fear” of deportation. Previously, migrants who failed to meet that standard were not allowed to formally plead their case in front of a judge. Somewhat ironically, they are now given that opportunity under the Trump administration’s new directive. “In other words,” the union writes, “individuals who would never see an immigration judge under the expedited removal procedure are now added to the backlog of cases in line for a full hearing.” MPP has also increased the administrative workload of asylum officers, who say in their filing that they are spread thin.

The amicus brief comes as the Trump administration struggles to quell growing public outrage over reports that a father and his daughter from El Salvador were found dead after fleeing a migrant camp in Mexico—which reportedly didn’t have enough food—and attempting to cross the border into the U.S. to request asylum.

“We have a crisis at our southern border,” Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, tweeted in response to the filing. “While the union plays games in court, @POTUS and this Administration is taking action to secure the system and prevent the further loss of lives.” He added that “MPP protects both the vulnerable, while they wait for their hearing, and our asylum system from choking on meritless claims. THAT is what protection officers signed up for.”

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U.S. Asylum Officers Are Asking a Federal Court To Overturn Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Asylum Policy

A group of U.S. asylum officers is challenging President Donald Trump’s policy of making migrants wait in Mexico prior to their immigration court dates, saying it is “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation.”

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924—the labor union for federal asylum officers—asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday to stop the program. They filed an amicus brief in support of the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which in February filed a federal lawsuit to put an end to the practice.

Called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, the policy is colloquially known as “Remain in Mexico.” Prior to its implementation, the U.S. “ensured that people fleeing persecution would not be—pending adjudication of their asylum application or anytime thereafter—returned to a territory where they may face persecution or threat of torture,” the union wrote.

The suit filed by the asylum officers says that under the new policy, many immigrants now “face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” The union argues that the practice of forcing them to apply for asylum from outside the U.S. “abandons our tradition of providing a safe haven to the persecuted and violates our international and domestic legal obligations.”

MPP was instituted amid the increase of migrants from Central America. The amicus brief says that asylum seekers making their requests from Mexico face violence from drug gangs and that officers have heard “reports of kidnapping migrants for ransom or conscription into criminal activity.” Ethnic minorities from indigenous communities throughout Central America have the hardest time, officers say. These migrants allegedly face the same kind of persecution in Mexico that drove them from their home countries, and that many indigenous women are sexually assaulted.

The union name argues in its filing that MPP is not only unethical, but it also “does nothing to streamline the process, but instead increases the burdens on our immigration courts and makes the system more inefficient.”

The program has added more immigration cases to a massive pileup, as asylum officers now cannot discriminate between applicants based on whether someone presents a “credible fear” of deportation. Previously, migrants who failed to meet that standard were not allowed to formally plead their case in front of a judge. Somewhat ironically, they are now given that opportunity under the Trump administration’s new directive. “In other words,” the union writes, “individuals who would never see an immigration judge under the expedited removal procedure are now added to the backlog of cases in line for a full hearing.” MPP has also increased the administrative workload of asylum officers, who say in their filing that they are spread thin.

The amicus brief comes as the Trump administration struggles to quell growing public outrage over reports that a father and his daughter from El Salvador were found dead after fleeing a migrant camp in Mexico—which reportedly didn’t have enough food—and attempting to cross the border into the U.S. to request asylum.

“We have a crisis at our southern border,” Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, tweeted in response to the filing. “While the union plays games in court, @POTUS and this Administration is taking action to secure the system and prevent the further loss of lives.” He added that “MPP protects both the vulnerable, while they wait for their hearing, and our asylum system from choking on meritless claims. THAT is what protection officers signed up for.”

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Facing Legal Challenge, Washington Weed Regulators Lift Ban on Cannabusiness Signs at Seattle Hempfest

Washington regulators yesterday lifted a ban on signs referring to state-licensed marijuana businesses at Hempfest, the massive summer “protestival” that has been held in Seattle every summer for the last 27 years. The decision by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) came three weeks after Hempfest and two cannabis retailers filed a lawsuit arguing that the ban violated their rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of grievances under both the First Amendment and the state constitution.

The Seattle Times reports that the WSLCB consulted with the state Attorney General’s Office before announcing that Hempfest sponsors may, as usual, display their names and distribute information at the event, provided they limit themselves to “noncommercial” activity. Instead of acknowledging the reversal, the board is framing it as a clarification of the policy described in an April 17 bulletin that said “a marijuana licensee in the state of Washington cannot have any sign or advertisement at any event, if the event is located at or within 1,000 feet of one of the listed restricted areas,” which include public parks.

Hempfest, which is scheduled for August 16 through 18 and in recent years has attracted about 100,000 people annually, is held in Seattle’s Myrtle Edwards Park and Centennial Park. In their June 4 lawsuit challenging the WSLCB’s decree, the event’s organizers complained that the new sign rule had made cannabusinesses reluctant to participate in Hempfest.

“After hearing from and working with stakeholders in the licensee community, WSLCB understood that Bulletin 19-01 did not fully answer all of the licensees’ questions and raised some additional concerns,” the board says in a bulletin published yesterday. “Accordingly, this Bulletin clarifies and supersedes Bulletin 19-01.” The WSLCB now wants licensees to know that “educational, informational or advocacy literature and/or signs which incorporate a licensee’s business trade name at events held within 1000′ of restricted entities will not be considered advertising, so long as that signage, sponsorship, and literature is non-commercial in nature, e.g., does not involve the solicitation of business, descriptions of products sold at stores, [or] lists of products sold, or refer to prices of products.”

Seattle Hempfest director Vivian McPeak welcomed the board’s shift. “We applaud the Attorney General’s Office for observing the free speech of licensed cannabis businesses to engage in noncommercial messaging at public events,” he told the Times. “We look forward to hosting those businesses as sponsors or vendors at Hempfest this year, and we invite their participation at the festival.”

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Facing Legal Challenge, Washington Weed Regulators Lift Ban on Cannabusiness Signs at Seattle Hempfest

Washington regulators yesterday lifted a ban on signs referring to state-licensed marijuana businesses at Hempfest, the massive summer “protestival” that has been held in Seattle every summer for the last 27 years. The decision by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) came three weeks after Hempfest and two cannabis retailers filed a lawsuit arguing that the ban violated their rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of grievances under both the First Amendment and the state constitution.

The Seattle Times reports that the WSLCB consulted with the state Attorney General’s Office before announcing that Hempfest sponsors may, as usual, display their names and distribute information at the event, provided they limit themselves to “noncommercial” activity. Instead of acknowledging the reversal, the board is framing it as a clarification of the policy described in an April 17 bulletin that said “a marijuana licensee in the state of Washington cannot have any sign or advertisement at any event, if the event is located at or within 1,000 feet of one of the listed restricted areas,” which include public parks.

Hempfest, which is scheduled for August 16 through 18 and in recent years has attracted about 100,000 people annually, is held in Seattle’s Myrtle Edwards Park and Centennial Park. In their June 4 lawsuit challenging the WSLCB’s decree, the event’s organizers complained that the new sign rule had made cannabusinesses reluctant to participate in Hempfest.

“After hearing from and working with stakeholders in the licensee community, WSLCB understood that Bulletin 19-01 did not fully answer all of the licensees’ questions and raised some additional concerns,” the board says in a bulletin published yesterday. “Accordingly, this Bulletin clarifies and supersedes Bulletin 19-01.” The WSLCB now wants licensees to know that “educational, informational or advocacy literature and/or signs which incorporate a licensee’s business trade name at events held within 1000′ of restricted entities will not be considered advertising, so long as that signage, sponsorship, and literature is non-commercial in nature, e.g., does not involve the solicitation of business, descriptions of products sold at stores, [or] lists of products sold, or refer to prices of products.”

Seattle Hempfest director Vivian McPeak welcomed the board’s shift. “We applaud the Attorney General’s Office for observing the free speech of licensed cannabis businesses to engage in noncommercial messaging at public events,” he told the Times. “We look forward to hosting those businesses as sponsors or vendors at Hempfest this year, and we invite their participation at the festival.”

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