Bits n’ pieces from east, west and beyond
East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:
After announcing a shut-down of the Israeli-Hamas war, President Joe Biden’s farewell speech warned of “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people… an oligarchy is taking shape in America. Of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
He focused on the tech-industrial complex. Google searches for the meaning of “oligarch” spiked after Biden’s warning.
A century ago the nation faced a similar dynamic initiated by powerful interests, Biden continued, but we stood up to the robber barons infiltrating government. Political action required the robber barons to “play by the same rules everybody else had to…And it put us onto a path to building the largest middle class in the world…the most prosperous century any nation in the world has ever seen.”
The current threat from the rise of the tech-industrial complex has resulted in dishing out “misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power”…the free press is disappearing, “social media is giving up on fact-checking and the truth is smothered by lies told for power and profit.”
While Biden’s administration worked on that and other issues, the job was not finished, and he expressed hope that the Donald Trump administration would take actions to disable this era’s robber barons.
The deal reached between Israel and Hamas after 15 months of war, endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, from various media: a six-week ceasefire; both sides will release hostages; and humanitarian assistance is to “surge” into Gaza.
Phase Two is a permanent end to the war, with a continuation of the ceasefire, even if it takes more than six weeks. Phase Three intends to see the return of remains of hostages to their families and the beginning of the major reconstruction of Gaza.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee, Scott Bessent, stated at his confirmation hearing he does not support raising the federal $7.25 minimum wage. Thirty states have raised it, as have some cities.
Prior to his exit, Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders. He also pre-emptively pardoned Jan. 6 committee members and witnesses, such as police officers, that Trump had threatened vengeance against. Biden said the latter pardon was not to be “misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.” Clemency was also granted to native activist Leonard Peltier.
ABC: The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Elon Musk over allegations of misleading shareholders when he bought Twitter stock in 2022, prior to acquiring the company.
Friday before his inauguration Trump launched his own cryptocurrency; by Sunday he’d made “$50 billion” on paper. Axios said that now accounts for 89% of Trump’s net worth; it also dodges the Constitution’s emoluments clause since purchasers cannot be traced, but they can deposit unlimited amounts into Trump coffers.
Trump’s wife Melania launched her own cryptocurrency and gained over $5 billion within two hours. A former head of Government Ethics in Trump’s first term told CNN: Americans voted for corruption, and that’s what Trump is delivering.”
Inauguration day, various media: When taking the oath of office Trump appeared to “forget” to put his hand on the Bible; the far-right paramilitary Proud Boys marched the streets of D.C. chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!”; prime inauguration seating went to billionaires (one, Elon Musk, gave what neo-Nazis interpreted as Nazi salutes); Trump promised a series of “crisis” executive orders (lawyers said the orders were poorly crafted and “not really intended for judicial interpretation”); and he claimed he was saved by God from the Pennsylvania shooter “to make America great again.”
In his inaugural address Trump delivered numerous “false and misleading claims,” Guardian fact-checkers noted.
Some of Trump’s first actions as president: he ordered the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization; ordered a freeze on federal hiring and new regulations from federal agencies; ordered an end to U.S birthright citizenship (contrary to the 14th Amendment); ordered immediate security clearances for an undisclosed list of his appointees, sans background checks; cancelled an app for admitting legal migrants; pardoned nearly 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters (including a man whose tasing of a police officer caused cardiac arrest and a traumatic brain injury); and, plans to lift Biden sanctions against violent Israeli settlers, which the U.N. said were at the highest level ever.
Blast from the past: Between 1981 and 2021 government policies, including deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, off-shoring of manufacturing and weakening unions shifted $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. During Biden’s term, his policies resulted in the the gap between the 90th income percentile and the 10th income percentile falling by 25%. Three of the world’s richest men joined Trump at his Jan. 20 inauguration, likely signaling a return to the “trickle-down” economic policies of the 1981-2021 era.
And another blast: 15 years ago the right-leaning Supreme Court said election spending is free speech. Now a billionaire family has 90,000 times more election spending power than an average family.