Liberal International Stands in Solidarity with the People of Israel

07/10/2023

The bureau of Liberal International stands in solidarity with the people of Israel and condemns today’s attacks against civilians in the south of the country and recognises Israel’s right to defend itself.

News of indiscriminate rocket bombardments, gunmen from the militant group, Hamas, entering Israel from Gaza, and reports of the taking of hostages in their homes shock us and liberals worldwide. Our thoughts are with the victims of these attacks which do not serve the interest of the Palestinian people.

Source:https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/liberal-international-stands-in-solidarity-with-the-people-of-israel/

Nikki Haley Burned Trump and Her Fellow Republicans for Blowing Up the Debt

by Eric Boehm (from Reason.com)

“Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt!” Haley said during Wednesday’s first Republican primary debate.

When it comes to runaway federal spending, unsustainable levels of borrowing, and the inflation that those first two things have helped unleash, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Wednesday that Republicans better look in the mirror.

“The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us, our Republicans did this to us too,” Haley said during the early moments of Wednesday’s Republican primary debate. She pointed specifically to Republican support in Congress for COVID stimulus bills and other recent spending packages. “They need to stop the spending, they need to stop the borrowing, they need to eliminate the earmarks that Republicans brought back in,” she said.

Then she delivered the hammer blow: “And Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us for this,” Haley said.

She nailed it.

Trump promised to pay off the national debt within eight years when he was running for office in 2016. When he got to the White House, the national debt was a little less than $20 trillion. He, uh, didn’t pay it off. Instead, federal spending climbed each of the first three years that Trump was in office—from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019—then exploded in 2020 due to emergency COVID-19 spending. (For the first two years of Trump’s term, Republicans also had full control of Congress, so there is a lot of blame to go around.)

When he left, the national debt was nearing $28 trillion. Today, it stands at $32.7 trillion.

Republicans have predictably swung back to a message of fiscal restraint during President Joe Biden’s time in office, seemingly forgetting that the fiscal years of 2017 and 2018 ever existed.

Haley shining a spotlight on the bipartisan role of borrowing and spending in recent years was a welcome moment—and a powerful one for Haley, who stood out during Wednesday’s sometimes chaotic debate. And it’s critical for whoever wins next year’s presidential election to be clear-eyed about the seriousness of the debt problem facing the federal government.

Commentary by Eric Boehm reposted from Reason.com https://reason.com/2023/08/23/nikki-haley-burned-trump-and-her-fellow-republicans-for-blowing-up-the-debt-shes-right/?itm_source=parsely-api

Freedom Conservatism: A Statement of Principles

To ensure that America’s best days are ahead, we must apply the timeless principle of liberty to the challenges of the 21st century.

On September 11, 1960, a group of young conservatives gathered in the home of William F. Buckley, Jr., in Sharon, Connecticut. For decades, the timeless ideals embodied in the document they produced animated the American conservative movement.

Today’s public policy challenges are different than the ones faced by the Sharon Statement signatories in 1960. Authoritarianism is on the rise both at home and abroad. More and more people on the left and right reject the distinctive creed that made America great: that individual liberty is essential to the moral and physical strength of the nation.

In order to ensure that America’s best days are ahead, we affirm the following principles:

  1. Liberty. Among Americans’ most fundamental rights is the right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force: a right that, in turn, derives from the inseparability of free will from what it means to be human. Liberty is indivisible, and political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom.
  2. The pursuit of happiness. Most individuals are happiest in loving families, and within stable and prosperous communities in which parents are free to engage in meaningful work, and to raise and educate their children according to their values.
  3. The foundation of prosperity. The free enterprise system is the foundation of prosperity. Americans can only prosper in an economy in which they can afford the basics of everyday life: food, shelter, health care, and energy. A corrosive combination of government intervention and private cronyism is making these basics unaffordable to many Americans. We commit to reducing the cost of living through competitive markets, greater individual choice, and free trade with free people, while upholding the rule of law, freedom of contract, and freedom of association.
  4. Full faith and credit. The skyrocketing federal debt—which now exceeds the annual economic output of the United States—is an existential threat to the future prosperity, liberty, and happiness of Americans. We commit to building a constructive reform agenda that can restore America’s fiscal sustainability, ensuring that future generations inherit a more prosperous and secure nation than the one we now inhabit.
  5. A nation of laws, not men. Equality under the law is a foundational principle of American liberty. Unfortunately, today this principle is under attack from those who believe that the rule of law does not apply to them. One manifestation of this problem is the explosion of unaccountable and unelected regulators who routinely exceed their statutory authority and abridge Americans’ constitutional rights. The President should only nominate policymakers and judges who are committed to upholding these rights.
  6. Americans by choice. Immigration is a principal driver of American prosperity and achievement. America is exceptional because anyone—from any corner of the earth—can seek to live in America and become an American. Nearly all American citizens descend from someone who came here from somewhere else, and we must treat all citizens equally under the law. To this end, the United States, as a sovereign nation, has the right to secure its borders and design a rational immigration policy—built on the rule of law—that advances the interests and values of American citizens. 
  7. Out of many, one. The best way to unify a large and diverse nation like the United States is to transfer as many public policy choices as possible to families and communities. Much of the discord in America today comes from the fact that too many decisions are made for us by centralized authorities. The Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for granting government the just authority to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power. 
  8. America’s promissory note. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as containing “magnificent words…a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” Prior to 1964, however, slavery and segregation were enforced by state governments and, in many cases, by the federal government. Many who descend from victims of this system now face economic and personal hurdles that are the direct result of this legacy. We commit to expanding opportunity for those who face challenges due to past government restrictions on individual and economic freedom. We adamantly oppose racial discrimination in all its forms, either against or for any person or group of people.
  9. The shining city on a hill. American foreign policy must be judged by one criterion above all: its service to the just interests of the United States. Americans are safest and freest in a peaceful world, led by the United States, in which other nations uphold individual liberty and the sovereignty of their neighbors.
  10. Freedom of conscience. Essential to a free society is the freedom to say and think what one believes to be true. Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, federal and state governments have a legal obligation to uphold and protect these freedoms. Private institutions have a moral obligation to do the same.

Statement reposted from https://www.freedomconservatism.org/p/freedom-conservatism-a-statement

See list of signatories at end of statement @ freedomconservatism.org

Donald Trump indicted for keeping classified documents after leaving office

The federal grand jury in Florida indicted former President Trump on 38 counts of keeping government documents after his defeat in the 2020 election, and related actions concerning these documents.

31 counts rely on 18 USC 793 which includes references to espionage, but no claims of espionage are made in the indictment. No claims are made that Mr Trump shared this information with Russian or North Korean agents. One can only speculate on that, given Mr Trump’s well known respect for Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Additional counts rely on 18 USC 1512 and 18 USC 1519, which concern withholding a document from the proper government agency, in this case the National Archives.

Reckless disregard for American national security, manifested by insecure storage of documents, including in places accessible to the public, constitutes the factual basis for the indictments.

Read the full indictment here https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000188-a12f-db74-ab98-b3ff4de50000

HJTA announces initiative to “Repeal the Death Tax”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California’s leading taxpayer advocacy group, will go forward with an initiative to restore the right of parents to transfer their home and limited other property to their children without reassessment to market value.

The announcement follows the 3-4 vote in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee Wednesday to defeat Senate Constitutional Amendment 4, authored by Sen. Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, which aimed to reverse the provisions in Proposition 19 regarding intergenerational transfers of family property. Under Prop. 19, which passed narrowly in November 2020, property is now reassessed to market value upon transfer between parents and children, with limited exceptions.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Los Angeles County Assessor Jeffrey Prang testified in strong support of SCA 4, emphasizing that voters were not informed of the complex and costly effects that Proposition 19 would have on property tax reassessment of long-held family homes as well as businesses built over generations. “These neighborhood markets, auto shops and family-owned restaurants are community staples,” he said, but they are “in jeopardy of closing their doors when they are hit with high tax bills.”

Veronica Nelson, 1st VP of the Sacramento Realtists Association, testified that it’s essential to address the damage that Proposition 19 is doing to families in communities of color as they try to build economic security for the next generation. She raised the concern that Prop. 19 has put tenants at risk of eviction by requiring the reassessment to market value of family-owned apartment buildings when parents pass away. The Realtists organization, the California Association of Real Estate Brokers, was founded in 1947 to serve the needs of the Black community at a time when racism and redlining blocked that community’s access to homebuying and real estate services.

“It’s unfortunate that this Senate committee was not willing to protect California families from being taxed out of their property when a parent dies,” said HJTA President Jon Coupal. “In 1986, the Legislature voted unanimously to place the parent-child transfer exclusion from reassessment on the ballot as Proposition 58, which was approved by nearly 76% of voters. Proposition 19 took that away and replaced it with the largest property tax increase in California history.”

Sen. Kelly Seyarto said many voters were unaware that Proposition 19 would have this effect, because the measure’s title and summary on the ballot emphasized separate provisions that provided benefits for senior or disabled homeowners and wildfire victims.

“The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is a grassroots organization with hundreds of thousands of members,” Coupal said. “We are the group that put Proposition 13 on the ballot to protect the lifelong investment of hardworking California families.  We will be filing an initiative with the attorney general’s office very soon to restore the protections that Proposition 19 took away.”

Source:Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association https://reinstate58.hjta.org/

Contact the HJTA to support this initiative:

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
621 South Westmoreland Avenue, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90005
Phone: 213-384-9656

Trump congratulates Kim Jong Un on North Korea’s entry into World Health Organization

Jon Levine reports @ The New York Post:

Trump greeting Kim Jong Il

Former President Trump offered a hearty congratulations to Kim Jong Un after North Korea’s admission to the World Health Organization’s Executive Board.

“Congratulations to Kim Jon Un,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social account on Friday, while sharing an article about the news.

The move immediately drew waves of criticism from Republicans.

“Kim Jong Un starves his own people. It’s a total farce that North Korea has a leading role at the World Health Organization,” said presidential candidate and Trump’s former U.N ambassador Nikki Haley.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also derided Trump. “Taking our country back from Joe Biden does not start with congratulating North Korea’s murderous dictator,” he tweeted.

Full Story by Jon Levine @ The New York Post https://nypost.com/2023/06/03/trump-congratulates-kim-jong-un-on-north-korea-entry-into-who-board/

OpenTheBooks and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst Tracked Over $1.3 Billion of U.S. Tax Dollars Sent to China and Russia

WASHINGTON – More than $1.3 billion U.S. tax dollars were sent to Russia and China over the past five years (since 2017), according to a new analysis released today by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and OpenTheBooks.com auditors. This amount likely doesn’t reflect the total amount because federal agencies do not follow the trail of tax dollars to their final destination.

Senator Ernst and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) are leading the charge to create transparency and accountability for the taxpayer dollars that are being handed out in China and Russia. Today, they are introducing the Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act that would require every penny from a government grant paid to any organization in China and Russia to be tracked and publicly disclosed.

Senator Ernst and Open the Books determined more than $490 million from U.S. grants and contracts were paid to organizations in China over the past five years and another $870 million were paid to entities in Russia.

“Holding firms responsible to publicly report where and how they use their grants and contract awards can deputize private citizens and make them part of the solution. Radical transparency is revolutionizing U.S. public policy and is the information machine for democracy. Everyone has a stake in a more transparent, effective government.”

Adam Andrzejewski, CEO & founder, OpenTheBooks.com

Some of these projects in Russia and China funded by taxpayer dollars already tracked down include:

  • $58.7 million from Department of State, including $96,875 for gender equality through exhibition of New Yorker magazine cartoons
  • $51.6 million from Department of Defense, including $6 million for tech support of the military “deployment and distribution command” software – delivering equipment and supplies anywhere our military is deployed, even though the DOD Inspector General warned the Pentagon about using Chinese IT companies on DOD projects
  • $4.7 million to a Russian company for health insurance that was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022
  • $4.2 million from Health and Human Services, including $770,466 to a state-run lab in Russia to put cats on treadmills
  • $2.4 million on Russian alcohol and addiction research
  • $2 million funneled to China’s state-run Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct dangerous experiments on bat coronaviruses and transgenic mice
  • $1.6 million to Chinese companies from National School Lunch Program, which means taxpayer dollars from the CARES Act meant for American farmers went to Chinese ag exporters
  • $1.45 million for pandemic virus tracking in Russia
  • Subsidies for the Russian space program by funding the Russia Space Agency and vendors

Reposted from @ Open the Books https://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks-and-us-sen-joni-ernst-tracked-over-13-billion-of-us-tax-dollars-sent-to-china-and-russia-promises-accountability-for-every-penny/

WaPO:”FBI misused surveillance tool”

“The FBI has misused a powerful digital surveillance tool more than 278,000 times, including against crime victims, Jan. 6 riot suspects, people arrested at protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 and — in one case — 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate, according to a newly unsealed court document.”

“The FBI says it has already fixed the problems, which it blamed on a misunderstanding between its employees and Justice Department lawyers about how to properly use a vast database named for the legal statute that created it, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).”

“But the failures to use the Section 702 database correctly when collecting information about U.S. citizens and others may make it harder for the agency to marshal support in Congress to renew the law, which is due to expire at the end of this year. “

Full article@ Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/19/fbi-digital-surveillance-misuse-jan6-blm/

Florida Law Makes It Easier to Execute People

Reason.com reports passage of new Florida law allowing juries to decided on death penalties with a vote of 8 to 4:

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation into law today lowering the threshold for a jury to recommend a death penalty sentence from unanimity to an 8–4 majority, the lowest standard in the country.

Alabama is the only other state that allows split juries to recommend death sentences, and it requires a 10–2 majority.

DeSantis began pushing for the legislation this year after three jurors refused to vote for the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. Cruz was instead sentenced to life in prison.

“If just one juror vetoes it, then you end up not getting the sentence,” DeSantis said earlier this year. “Maybe eight out of 12 have to agree, or something, but we can’t be in a situation where one person can just derail this.”

The legislation, S.B. 450, did not pass along a straight party-line vote. Some Democrats, most of them from South Florida where the Stoneman Douglas shooting took place, voted in favor, and some Republicans broke ranks to oppose it.

Full Post by C.J. Ciaramella @ https://reason.com/2023/04/20/ron-desantis-signs-florida-law-setting-lowest-threshold-for-death-penalty-sentences-in-the-country/

“Ron DeSantis Wants To Rewrite Defamation Law”

“The bill is an aggressive and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to rewrite defamation law in a manner that protects the powerful from criticism by journalists and the public,” said one attorney.

by Emma Camp, from Reason.com

A legislative ally of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a bill in the Florida House on Tuesday that would remove many of the legal protections against defamation lawsuits established in the 1964 Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan. The new bill is yet another attempt by DeSantis, an aggressive critic of defamation law, to curb First Amendment protections in Florida.

Introduced by Rep. Alex Andrade (R—Pensacola), the bill would make sweeping changes to the standards for pursuing a defamation claim against a public figure. The law would narrow the definition of a public figure by excluding persons whose notoriety arises solely from “defending himself or herself publicly against an accusation,” giving an interview on a subject, public employment (other than elected or appointed office), or “a video, an image, or a statement uploaded on the Internet that has reached a broad audience.”

“At the end of the day, it’s our view in Florida that we want to be standing up for the little guy against some of these massive media conglomerates,” DeSantis said in a February 7 roundtable event on the subject, adding that journalism “really chills, I think, people’s willingness to want to participate” in public discussion.

DeSantis has strongly criticized New York Times v. Sullivan, a 1964 Supreme Court case establishing the actual malice standard for defamation claims against public figures. Following Sullivan, public officials could not successfully sue for libel or defamation without proving that the false statements made against them were made with “actual malice”—meaning “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

Andrade’s bill explicitly defies Sullivan by establishing that the “actual malice” standard will not be required to prove defamation “when the allegation does not relate to the reason for his or her public status.” Further, the bill also significantly expands the circumstances under which a fact finder can infer actual malice, such as when an allegation is “inherently implausible” or “There are obvious reasons to doubt the veracity” of the allegation.

Full Post by Emma Camp @ https://reason.com/2023/02/22/ron-desantis-wants-to-rewrite-defamation-law/