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"We're on the Verge of Picking Someone Who Can't Do the Job": Fraying GOP Holds 3rd Primary Debate
With the campaign at roughly the halfway point between its opening summer debate and the Iowa caucus next year, Wednesday’s Republican debate was the first with business mogul Donald Trump no longer leading the polls. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has surpassed Trump in recent days, though the two are still way ahead in the crowded Republican field. The surge of these two relative outsiders has thrown the Republican Party into turmoil. The more established political candidates are scrambling to gain ground as party leaders grapple with Trump and Carson’s outlandish views—and the potential that one of them might end up the nominee. We assess the debate and the state of the GOP field with four guests: John Nichols of The Nation, New Republic editor Jamil Smith, Imani Gandy of RH Reality Check and This Week in Blackness, and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The third Republican presidential debate was held Wednesday night in Boulder, Colorado. With the campaign at roughly the halfway point between its opening summer debate and the Iowa caucus next year, it was the first debate with business mogul Donald Trump no longer leading the polls. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has surpassed Trump in recent days, though the two are still way ahead in the crowded Republican field. The surge of these two relative outsiders has thrown the Republican Party into turmoil. The more established political candidates are scrambling to gain ground as party leaders grapple with Trump and Carson’s outlandish views—and the potential that one of them might end up the nominee. In his early remarks, former Ohio Governor John Kasich voiced exasperation at the current state of the Republican primary.
JOHN KASICH: This stuff is fantasy, just like getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid.
JOHN HARWOOD: You said yesterday—
JOHN KASICH: Come on, that’s just not—you don’t scare senior citizens with that. It’s not responsible.
JOHN HARWOOD: Well, let’s just get more pointed about it. You said yesterday that you were hearing proposals that were just crazy from your colleagues.
JOHN KASICH: Yeah.
JOHN HARWOOD: Who were you talking about?
JOHN KASICH: Well, I mean right here, to talk about we’re just going to have a 10 percent tithe, and that’s how we’re going to fund the government? And we’re not—we’re going to just fix everything with waste, fraud and abuse? Or that we’re just going to be great? Or we’re going to ship 10 million Americans or 10 million people out of this country, leaving their children here in this country and dividing families? Folks, we’ve got to wake up. We cannot elect somebody that doesn’t know how to do the job.
AMY GOODMAN: Ohio Governor John Kasich. He was speaking right after Trump and Carson were questioned about their campaigns and some of their proposals.
JOHN HARWOOD: Mr. Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: Yes.
JOHN HARWOOD: You’ve done very well in this campaign so far by promising to build a wall and make another country pay for it—
DONALD TRUMP: Right.
JOHN HARWOOD: —send 11 million people out of the country, cut taxes $10 trillion without increasing the deficit—
DONALD TRUMP: Right.
JOHN HARWOOD: —and make Americans better off because your greatness would replace the stupidity and incompetence of others.
DONALD TRUMP: That’s right.
JOHN HARWOOD: Let’s be honest. Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?
DONALD TRUMP: No, it’s not a comic book, and it’s not a very nicely asked question the way you say that. Larry Kudlow is an example, who I have a lot of respect for, who loves my tax plan. We’re reducing taxes to 15 percent. We’re bringing corporate taxes down, bringing money back in, corporate inversions. We have two-and-a-half trillion dollars outside of the United States which we want to bring back in.
As far as the wall is concerned, we’re going to build a wall. We’re going to create a border. We’re going to let people in, but they’re going to come in legally. They’re going to come in legally. And it’s something that can be done. And I get questioned about that. They built the Great Wall of China. That’s 13,000 miles. Here, we actually need a thousand, because we have natural barriers. So we need a thousand. We can do a wall. We’re going to have a big, fat beautiful door right in the middle of the wall. We’re going to have people come in, but they’re coming in legally. And Mexico is going to pay for the wall, because Mexico—I love the Mexican people; I respect the Mexican leaders, but the leaders are much sharper, smarter and more cunning than our leaders.
BECKY QUICK: Dr. Carson, let’s talk about taxes. You have a flat tax plan of 10 percent flat taxes, and I’ve looked at it, and this is something that is very appealing to a lot of voters, but I’ve had a really tough time trying to make the math work on this. If you were to take a 10 percent tax with the numbers right now in total personal income, you’re going to come in with bringing in one-and-a-half trillion dollars. That is less than half of what we bring in right now. And by the way, it’s going to leave us in a $2 trillion hole. So what analysis got you to the point where you think this will work?
DR. BEN CARSON: Well, first of all, I didn’t say that the rate would be 10 percent. I used the tithing analogy.
BECKY QUICK: I understand that, but if you—
DR. BEN CARSON: OK, but the rate—the rate—
BECKY QUICK: If you look at the numbers, you probably have to get to 28 percent.
DR. BEN CARSON: The rate is going to be much closer to 15 percent.
BECKY QUICK: Fifteen percent still leaves you with a $1.1 trillion hole.
DR. BEN CARSON: Well, let me finish. You also have to get rid of all the deductions and all the loopholes. You also have to do some strategic cutting in several places. Remember, we have 645 federal agencies and sub-agencies. Anybody who tells me that we need every penny and every one of those is in a fantasy world. So, also, we can stimulate the economy. That’s going to be the real growth engine, stimulating the economy, because it’s tethered down right now with so many regulations—
BECKY QUICK: You’d have to cut—you’d have to cut government by about 40 percent to make it work with a $1.1 trillion hole.
DR. BEN CARSON: It’s not true. And when—
BECKY QUICK: It is true. I looked at the numbers.
DR. BEN CARSON: When we put all the facts down, you’ll be able to see that it’s not true, it works out very well.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ben Carson and Donald Trump being questioned by CNBC’s Becky Quick and John Harwood. The Republican debate also saw new fissures between rival candidates struggling to catch up with Carson and Trump, including third- and fourth-place contenders Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. Several candidates also took shots at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and the news media. Days after her testimony on Benghazi, Marco Rubio called Clinton a "liar" and said the media acts as her super PAC.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: You know, the Democrats have the ultimate super PAC. It’s called the mainstream media, who every single day—and I’ll tell you why. Last week, Hillary Clinton went before a committee. She admitted she had sent emails to her family saying, "Hey, this attack in Benghazi was caused by al-Qaeda-like elements." She spent over a week telling the families of those victims and the American people that it was because of a video. And yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It was the week she got exposed as a liar.
AMY GOODMAN: In her closing remarks, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina called herself "Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare."
CARLY FIORINA: I may not be your dream candidate just yet, but I can assure you I am Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare. And in your heart of hearts, you cannot wait to see a debate between Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina. I will tell you this: I will beat Hillary Clinton. And with your votes and your support and your prayers, I will lead, with the citizens of this great nation, the resurgence of this great nation.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on the Republican debate, we host a roundtable with four guests. In Washington, Imani Gandy is with us, senior legal analyst at RH Reality Check and co-host of the podcast, This Week in Blackness Prime. Her most recent piece at RH Reality Check is headlined "Ben Carson Is Saying Stupid Things About Abortion—Again."
John Nichols is a political writer for The Nation. His latest piece is "A GOP Debate Without a Winner—Or Much of a Point."
Jamil Smith is with us in New York, senior editor at The New Republic. He’s also the host of Intersection, a podcast about race, gender and identity. His most recent piece at The New Republic is headlined "Ben Carson Is Saying All the Right Things."
And David Cay Johnston also joins us in New York in our studio, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Previously with The New York Times, he’s currently a columnist for Al Jazeera America as well as contributing writer at Newsweek. He has covered Donald Trump at various publications for decades.
Well, Jamil Smith, let’s begin with you. Your assessment of the third Republican presidential debate held in Boulder, Colorado, the first time the debate was held when Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, is ahead in national polls of the Republican contenders?
JAMIL SMITH: Indeed. And I thought that it was interesting that he wasn’t actually the focus of the debate, given that he surged to the lead in a national poll just this week and is certainly far out ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa. That said, I think it speaks to the fragility of success in the Iowa caucuses for Republicans. I mean, the last two winners were Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, neither of whom sniffed the nomination. So I feel like, you know, what we saw last night is a candidate who, frankly, almost admitted that he’s not really up to running for president, doesn’t really—didn’t really see himself as president. And frankly, he just gave a bunch of answers that weren’t very substantive, that dodged the issue, and specifically on the tax point actually were untruthful. And I think, you know, when people call the Republicans, including Carson, on those policies, they’re not unfair questions, they’re simply substantive questions.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, David Cay Johnston, you’ve covered Trump for decades. How would you evaluate his performance last night?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, Donald was very subdued. Donald has a real problem: What’s he going to do as he slowly fades? Presumably, he’s going to end up with a TV contract at the end of this, but he has to find a way to exit. But he did say something astonishing. He talked about the wall in China being 13,000 miles—that’s halfway around the planet. And he continues this assertion that Mexico is going to happily pay for this wall he wants to build, which, of course, will do nothing to stop the immigration, which is currently flowing in the other direction.
AMY GOODMAN: He said the wall on the Mexico border would be, what, a thousand.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Thousand miles.
AMY GOODMAN: As compared to 13,000—
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Thousand.
AMY GOODMAN: —of the wall of China, which is actually 1,300.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Hundred.
AMY GOODMAN: Imani Gandy, your overall reaction to last night’s debate?
IMANI GANDY: I was disturbed that there were no questions about either reproductive rights and women’s health, about fair pay, and particularly about Black Lives Matter. It seems to me that in this current environment with the attacks on Planned Parenthood and the ongoing uprising, I think you could say, of black people in this country demanding that their lives matter, I think it’s pretty shocking that those questions were not addressed at the debate last night.
AMY GOODMAN: Although Planned Parenthood was mentioned, though far less than it was in the previous debates, and we will get to that. John Nichols, your overall assessment?
JOHN NICHOLS: Yeah, I think it was a pretty bizarre debate. I’ve covered hundreds of debates. I’ve even moderated a few at lower levels on the political food chain. And I was struck by the fact that—I thought the moderators confused interview questions and debate questions. And some of the candidates were getting very precise questions about their political experience or their personal experience about companies that they are pitchmen for, as Carson got one. Other candidates were getting broad-sweep questions. And I think it made the debate a little incoherent.
What that resulted in was a situation where people took away kind of sound bites or applause lines. And by that standard, Marco Rubio did very well, because every time he was hit with a legitimate question, he went for a—usually, an attack-the-media applause line. Now, that was very effective in the room. But as you know, most people don’t watch the entire debate. Most people see the sound bites and the clips the next day. And I would suggest that that clip you played from John Kasich criticizing the rest of the field may be the takeaway clip, not just for the broad mass of Americans, but actually for a good number of Republicans.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, then come back to this discussion and get into the details of what these candidates are pushing or not. We’re joined by John Nichols of The Nation, Imani Gandy of RH Reality Check, David Cay Johnston of Al Jazeera America and Newsweek and, as well, Jamil Smith of The New Republic. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute. ... Read More →
Do Black Lives Matter to GOP? Christie Slams Obama for Backing Movement Against Police Bias
At Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seized on comments by FBI Director James Comey that added scrutiny and criticism of police officers has fueled an increase in crime. Christie also criticized President Obama for his comments last week in support of Black Lives Matter. "We need to make it so that this country — Americans, police, the government — values black lives but also realizes that black people aren’t saying that only our lives matter, but that our lives matter, as well," says Imani Gandy, senior legal analyst at RH Reality Check and co-host of the podcast This Week in Blackness.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Getting back to the debate, Chris Christie, who we haven’t talked very much about, the New Jersey governor, seized on comments by FBI Director James Comey over this past weekend that added scrutiny and criticism of police officers have fueled an increase in crime.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: You want to talk about moral authority, let’s talk about something that’s happened this week in the news. You know, the FBI director, the president’s appointed FBI director, has said this week that because of a lack of support from politicians like the president of the United States, that police officers are afraid to get out of their cars, that they’re afraid to enforce the law. And he says, the president’s appointee, that crime is going up because of this.
And when the president of the United States gets out to speak about it, does he support police officers? Does he stand up for law enforcement? No, he doesn’t. I’ll tell you this: The number one job of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and security of the American people. This president has failed. And when I’m in the Oval Office, police officers will know that they will have the support of the president of the Untied States. That’s real moral authority that we need in the Oval Office.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Republican contender Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor. Imani Gandy, respond, please.
IMANI GANDY: Well, first of all, I think that the crime has been going down remarkably over the last several years. And secondly, I think that there’s this fundamental fallacy about Black Lives Matter, about police brutality and about agitating for police to be held accountable when they are—when they actually kill a black person, or when they kill anyone, really. But this notion that saying that black lives matter automatically means that cop lives don’t matter, or that white lives or Asian lives or any other lives don’t matter, I think is a fallacy that we really need to—we need to smash that, because what the point is, is that black people are being killed by police at an alarming rate. And whether or not it is more of a rate than in it has been in the past, certainly the attention to it, due to things like citizen journalism, cellphones and that sort of thing—certainly the conversation has been changed so that we are focusing on this police brutality.
And the notion that the president speaking out for Black Lives Matter automatically means he’s against the police—or the same thing happen with Bill de Blasio, with you had—you had New York City police officers turning their backs on the mayor because he has a black son and dared to speak about things that he knows are going to affect his son and affect his family. I think that we need to do—I don’t know what can be done about that, but we need to stop that thinking. We need to make it so that this country—Americans, the police, the government—values black lives but also realizes that black people aren’t saying that only our lives matter, but that our lives matter, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, and I want to thank you very much for all being with us. Again, in our headline today, we said an African-American U.S. citizen has applied for asylum in Canada, saying he fears he’ll be killed by police in the United States because, simply, he is black. You can go back to our headlines to check that news story. Thank you so much to David Cay Johnston, Imani Gandy, as well, Jamil Smith and John Nichols.Read More →
John Nichols on Paul Ryan: The GOP's Best Actor Since Ronald Reagan
Republican Congressmember Paul Ryan is set to become House speaker after winning his party’s backing. Ryan replaces John Boehner, who announced his resignation last month after a lengthy dispute with far-right members of his own party. The tea party "Freedom Caucus" had threatened to hold a no-confidence vote amid disagreements with Boehner over negotiating with Democrats and how to use the Republicans’ House majority. Boehner was pressured to take a more confrontational approach with the White House and congressional Democrats over issues including government spending, immigration reform, Obamacare and abortion. Ryan is known for crafting sweeping budget proposals that target public spending, cut taxes for the wealthy and impose deep budget cuts. We speak to journalists David Cay Johnston and John Nichols.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to something else that’s developing, and then we’ll come back to this discussion, but it’s all within the Republican Party, and that is Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is about to be named the House speaker, and this is after a tremendous amount of controversy. He’s set to become the House speaker after winning his party’s backing. The Republican caucus voted to nominate Ryan Wednesday with a vote of 200 to 43. Ryan replaces John Boehner, who announced his resignation last month after a lengthy dispute with far-right members of his own party. The tea party "Freedom Caucus" had threatened to hold a no-confidence vote amidst disagreements with Boehner over negotiating with Democrats and how to use the Republicans’ House majority. Boehner was pressured to take a more confrontational approach with the White House and congressional Democrats over issues including government spending, immigration reform, Obamacare and abortion. Speaking after Wednesday’s vote, Wisconsin Congressmember Ryan vowed to turn a new page.
REP. PAUL RYAN: This begins a new day in the House of Representatives. John Boehner served with humility and distinction, and we owe him a debt of gratitude. But tomorrow, we are turning the page. We are not going to have a House that looked like it looked the last few years. We are going to move forward. We are going to unify. Our party has lost its vision, and we’re going to replace it with a vision. We believe that the country is on the wrong track. We think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and we have an obligation, here in the people’s House, to do the people’s business, to give this country a better way forward, to give this country an alternative. We are going to respect the people by representing the people.
AMY GOODMAN: Despite promising a new chapter, Ryan stands to benefit from Boehner’s final bipartisan compromise. On Wednesday, the House approved a bipartisan budget deal that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling. If given final approval, the measure would avoid a federal default and reduce the threat of a government shutdown by the end of the year. A majority of Republicans opposed it, but Boehner gathered the votes of 79 Republicans to help Democrats push it through. After initially opposing the budget agreement, Ryan was among the minority in his party to vote in favor. By avoiding a default, its passage likely spares Ryan a major crisis in his first weeks on the job.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ryan’s ascent to the speakership caps a process that began with him saying he didn’t want the post. But he came under intense pressure from within the party after the initial front-runner, Kevin McCarthy, appeared to confirm Republicans pushed a Benghazi investigation to harm the political chances of Hillary Clinton. Ryan agreed to run this month after outlining a series of demands, including the support of all Republican factions and assurances he won’t lose time with his family. Critics have noted Ryan’s record of opposing policies that help low-income parents spend more time with their children, including paid parental leave.
In his stints as chair of the Ways and Means Committee and the Budget Committee, Ryan has been known for crafting sweeping budget proposals that target public spending, cut taxes for the wealthy and impose deep budget cuts. He has been on the forefront of efforts to dismantle Social Security by putting seniors’ savings into risky Wall Street investments. Over the years, Ryan has not only pushed for privatizing Social Security, but also dismantling Medicare and slashing funding for Medicaid. He was the vice-presidential nominee on Mitt Romney’s failed presidential ticket in 2012.
So, David Cay Johnston, could you comment on this, Paul Ryan being nominated and becoming the House speaker?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, if he can bring together the House, which I find beyond belief it could happen, given the roughly 40 members on the Republican side who are—they’re a form of anarchists, basically. They don’t want to have a running government. But if he can bring them together, his political stock in the future is going to rise tremendously. He had the best job in Congress, frankly: He was head of the Ways and Means Committee and was setting out to put in place his budget—his tax ideas, which are essentially based on what I call one-sided accounting. You know, we count the reduction of money, we magically make all the problems that causes to disappear. So I think this will be a great test to see if he can actually pull together the internal contradictions going on in the Republican Party between the ideologues and the practical people who are the party of business.
AMY GOODMAN: You had a lot of bashing of the deal last night in the debate. John Nichols, you’re from Wisconsin, so is Paul Ryan. Talk more about him.
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, Paul Ryan is the best actor to rise within the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan. And he is a performer. People should understand that. The start of the week, he criticized the budget deal—in fact, said it stinks. And then the next day, he was voting for it. Paul Ryan is a masterful performer. He can tell conservatives he is a conservative—and he is a very passionate social conservative. That’s important to understand. He can tell moderates that he’s able to work with people. He can charm the media with very congenial appearances.
But the thing to understand about Paul Ryan that is above all of these other discussions is that there really are differences in the Republican Party on questions of crony capitalism, on questions of how Congress ought to relate to multinational corporations, how it ought to act on trade deals, how it ought to respond to Wall Street. The bottom line with Paul Ryan, who is a career politician—he’s been on Capitol Hill as an aid and then a member of Congress for a quarter-century; looks like a young guy, but he’s been there since George H.W. Bush’s presidency. The bottom line on Paul Ryan is, no matter what the issue, he will ultimately end up carrying the water for Wall Street and for multinational corporations. That is his great passion. It rises above all other issues. ... Read More →
Flat Taxes, Ending Medicare-Medicaid, Banning All Abortions: Meet New GOP Front-Runner Ben Carson
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has surpassed Donald Trump in most polls to become the new Republican front-runner. Carson’s proposals include a 10 percent flat tax, replacing Medicare and Medicaid with private health savings accounts, and banning abortion in all cases, including rape and incest. We assess Carson’s background and policy platform with New Republic editor Jamil Smith, Imani Gandy of RH Reality Check and This Week in Blackness, and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Our roundtable today to analyze the third Republican presidential debate—it took place in Boulder, Colorado—is John Nichols of The Nation; Jamil Smith of The New Republic; David Cay Johnston of Al Jazeera and Newsweek, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; and Imani Gandy of RH Reality Check, is joining us from Washington, D.C.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: During Wednesday’s Republican debate hosted by CNBC, Ben Carson defended his flat tax proposal, saying it wouldn’t shortchange government coffers.
DR. BEN CARSON: Let me just say, if you’re talking about an $18 trillion economy, you’re talking about a 15 percent tax on your gross domestic product, you’re talking about $2.7 trillion. We have a budget closer to $3.5 trillion. But if you also apply that same 15 percent to several other things, including corporate taxes and including the capital gains taxes, you make that amount up pretty quickly. So that’s not by any stretch pie-in-the-sky.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Ben Carson speaking last night at the third Republican presidential debate. So, Jamil Smith, could you respond to what he said about his tax plan and also about his rather confusing healthcare plan?
JAMIL SMITH: Well, as far as his tax plan goes, I feel like, you know, he doesn’t account for the fluctuations of the market, and certainly he’s depending upon the success of the overall populace to make up for any deficiencies that his numbers create in the budget. And when he was called upon it, he simply refused to acknowledge that that’s actually true, that it’s going to—40 percent, you know, of the funding for the government is going to have to be made up, if in fact his tax plan was implemented. Now, what you have there is a tax plan that’s based upon, as he has said, the model of tithing in churches. And I just don’t understand how that is necessarily applicable to government.
Underlying his entire plan, though, is a philosophy of "I’m going to be the, you know, head of a system that is based upon making sure that people are able to succeed, and whoever succeeds, they deserve it." And when you’re Ben Carson and you’re a world-famous neurosurgeon, life has worked out for you. And so, you can have that point of view. It’s not quite so easy when you’re talking about people on the ground, though.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what about his healthcare plan, this thing of slashing funding for Medicare and everybody having their own individual health savings plan?
JAMIL SMITH: Yes, he’s proposed to slash—he’s proposed not to slash, but to end Medicare, end Medicaid, in favor of creating health savings accounts that are funded by the government to the tune of $2,000 per year. Now, that is, of course, a politically suicidal idea, to say nothing of financially ludicrous. So, I just think that, you know, he’s, first of all, not accounting for growth in population. He’s not accounting for a growth in healthcare costs, certainly, and when he was asked about the growth in healthcare costs last night, in a substantive question from Jim Cramer, he deflected and actually said that government should be less involved with regulating the extraordinarily high spikes in drugs, in specialty drugs. So, everything I heard from him with regards to health plans and in his—with regards to pricing was very discouraging last night.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve written about him. You’ve profiled Ben Carson. Tell us who he is.
JAMIL SMITH: Ben Carson is a man who has been a hero, specifically to black Americans. I remember, certainly in my church growing up, we had copies of Gifted Hands handed out to most of us. And it’s something that everybody read. And, you know, he’s been a man who’s lionized for his Horatio Alger-like narrative. That said, it’s tailor-made for the Republican view of race in this country, is a man who’s perceived to have grown out of poverty and made a success of himself, and all the while espoused Christian values.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain the Gifted Hands idea, as a neurosurgeon, his accomplishments.
JAMIL SMITH: Yes, yes. Gifted Hands was the title of his 1990 book, that was—you know, it’s a classic. It’s widely read. It’s his life story. It tells how he came up from the ghettos of Detroit to be the—you know, one of the foremost neurosurgeons in the world. That said, I think what he’s doing is completely damaging his legacy right now. Right now, I mean, especially the younger folks that have not read Gifted Hands and don’t know that man, they know him now as an incompetent presidential candidate.
AMY GOODMAN: And on his tax plan, David Cay Johnston? You have analyzed many tax plans.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: His tax plan won’t work at all. It’s in the same league as Donald Trump’s plan. These are just fantasies for voters. And significantly for Carson, tithing is not a simple 10 percent concept. I actually teach this in the law school and the graduate business school at Syracuse. It is a very complex issue with all sorts of rules. And the poor were beneficiaries of the tithing system in the ancient world, not payers into that system.
AMY GOODMAN: One issue not raised at last night’s debate was abortion, but it has been a major issue for the Republicans and Democrats. On Sunday, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Dr. Carson said abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape and incest. He responded to a question from Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD: What if somebody has an unwanted pregnancy? Should they have the right to terminate?
DR. BEN CARSON: No. Think about this. During slavery—and I know that’s one of those words you’re not supposed to say, but I’m saying it. During slavery, a lot of the slaveowners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave—anything that they chose to do. And, you know, what if the abolitionists had said, "You know, I don’t believe in slavery. I think it’s wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do"? Where would we be?
AMY GOODMAN: So that is Ben Carson on Sunday. Imani Gandy, RH Reality Check, can you respond?
IMANI GANDY: I think it’s—setting aside the fact that it is, I think, fundamentally creepy and weird to compare human sentient people—slaves, black Americans—to fetuses, setting that aside, I think when he talks about abolitionists saying, "Well, I’m against slavery, but you can do whatever you want," that’s sort of the position that he held, himself, in the '90s, when he was a practicing neurosurgeon. He would routinely refer women to abortion providers, should they need one, whether it be because the pregnancy was unwanted, or specifically he spoke about referring women whose fetuses had genetic anomalies to abortions. And I've reported on a lot of abortion providers, a lot of anti-choice abortion providers, and it’s hard to reconcile his current staunch, quote-unquote, "pro-life" stance with his prior comments and behavior with respect to acknowledging that women deserve to have a choice and should make that choice with their doctors, and actually advocating for abortion, not by performing them himself necessarily, but by referring women to other providers. So I think there’s a fundamental hypocrisy there and a disconnect between his current position and his prior positions.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to 1992, Ben Carson, then a renowned neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, appearing in an ad urging Marylanders to vote against Question 6, a ballot initiative to preserve the right to choose in the state should Roe v. Wade get struck down. Here’s a clip from that ad.
DR. BEN CARSON: Life is hectic, and it’s sometimes easy to let important decisions be made for us. Ballot Question 6 could be like that.
AMY GOODMAN: After the commercial ran, Dr. Carson found himself in the center of a political firestorm and reversed course. He asked the pro-life Vote kNOw Coalition, which sponsored the ad, to pull the commercial, and he then held a news conference organized by Maryland for Choice.
DR. BEN CARSON: My message is not to vote for or against Question 6, but to educate yourself. I did not understand that the tagline "Vote against Question 6" would be included in the ad. I don’t believe it is appropriate for a public figure of my nature to try to tell people how they should vote. ... Subsequent to doing that ad, I have had an opportunity to do quite a bit of background research, and it became quite apparent that there were things that could easily be misconstrued.
AMY GOODMAN: Ellen Curro of the Vote kNOw Coalition said Dr. Carson appeared to have bowed to political pressure.
ELLEN CURRO: He may have said that today, but when he agreed to do the spot, he had signed off with approval to encourage people to vote against Question 6. And I think he’s just gotten tremendous pressure from the other side because of the political nature of this argument.
STACIE SPECTOR: I see it as a victory for Dr. Carson to be able to thoughtfully and legitimately explain how he feels about the issue.
AMY GOODMAN: The second speaker was Stacie Spector of Maryland for Choice. Imani Gandy, that controversy was 23 years ago. What does that tell you about today’s Dr. Ben Carson?
IMANI GANDY: I think it tells you that he doesn’t really have a solid position on abortion. I think that he has been driven to say more extreme things about abortion, to devolve into extremist rhetoric about abortion, because he’s a Republican presidential nominee. I also think that given that—there’s a lot of question in the anti-choice community about Donald Trump’s commitment to life, quote-unquote, "life," and I think that sort of opens up a hole or a—there’s an opening there for Ben Carson to tack to the right of Donald Trump on abortion and to appear to be far more extreme than I actually believe that he is. I mean, even as recently as August, his communications director, Douglas Watts, as reported in Politico, said that Ben Carson believes that you shouldn’t—you shouldn’t legislate morality. He believes that abortion is going to have to be won in the hearts and minds of Americans, and he believes that women should be able to make a choice based on the medical evidence, and he believes that patients should have medical evidence. That doesn’t jibe with this current "I think Roe v. Wade should be overturned; I believe in banning abortion in all instances, including incest and rape." So I think it’s just there’s going to—he’s going to have a problem, I believe, with the anti-choice community, should it come down to him and Trump or him and Rubio, for example, who has been very staunchly anti-choice, including in instances of rape and incest. So I think it shows that he hasn’t quite solidified his position, and he’s going to be attacked, I think, based on that.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Jamil Smith, I want to ask you about other recent statements that Ben Carson has made. He said the Affordable Care Act, for example, is the worst thing since slavery, which is a rather odd claim for a doctor to make. And after the mass shooting in an Oregon community college recently, he said the Holocaust would have been less—wouldn’t have been as likely if Jewish people had had firearms to fight back. So what do you think—I mean, given these statements, which seem at least bizarre a little bit, what accounts for his rising popularity?
JAMIL SMITH: Well, as I wrote, I feel like Ben Carson is saying all the right things—for the right. I think, you know, to Imani’s point, I feel like whatever he’s—whatever is coming out of his mouth is really tailored for the Republican electorate that, you know, we’re encountering in 2015. So, I think this is more—speaks more to who is voting for Republicans rather than the Republicans themselves. I feel like what Carson is saying is—you know, it’s kind of extremist stuff that gets headlines. I mean, there should be a Carson’s law similar to Godwin’s law, "Don’t invoke Hitler": Don’t invoke slavery, either, unless you’re actually talking about slavery. I feel like when you also talk about his position on guns and his reference to the Holocaust, that’s actually historically inaccurate. So, these are the kind of things that he eventually will be caught on and will, I think, matter should he magically, mystically become the nominee. ... Read More →
"Donald Creates His Own Reality": David Cay Johnston on Trump Rewriting History at 3rd GOP Debate
At Wednesday’s Republican debate in Boulder, Donald Trump denied making several statements only to be shown the source of the claims came from his website. "You have to understand Donald creates his own reality," says Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston. "Whatever Donald says at the moment is, to Donald, the truth."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking about last night’s third Republican debate in Boulder, Colorado. Let’s turn to CNBC moderator Becky Quick questioning Donald Trump at last night’s debate.
BECKY QUICK: Mr. Trump, let’s stay on this issue of immigration. You have been very critical of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who has wanted to increase the number of these H-1Bs.
DONALD TRUMP: I was not—I was not at all critical of him. I was not at all. In fact, frankly, he’s complaining about the fact that we’re losing some of the most talented people. They go to Harvard. They go to Yale. They go to Princeton. They come from another country, and they’re immediately sent out. I am all in favor of keeping these talented people here, so they can go to work in Silicon Valley.
BECKY QUICK: So you’re in favor of increasing them?
DONALD TRUMP: So, I have not been at all critical of him.
BECKY QUICK: Where did I read this and come up with this that you were—
DONALD TRUMP: Probably—I don’t know. You people write this stuff. I don’t know where you—
BECKY QUICK: I didn’t write this stuff. ... You had talked a little bit about Marco Rubio. I think you called him Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator because he was in favor of the H-1B visas.
DONALD TRUMP: I never said that. I never said that.
BECKY QUICK: So this was an erroneous article the whole way around?
DONALD TRUMP: He’s got another gentleman in Florida, who happens to be a very nice guy, but not—
BECKY QUICK: My apologies. I’m sorry.
DONALD TRUMP: Somebody’s really doing some bad fact checking. ...
BECKY QUICK: Mr. Trump, I want to go back to an issue that we were talking about before, the H-1B visas. I found where I read that before. It was from the DonaldJTrump.com website. And it says—it says that, again, "Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities."
AMY GOODMAN: So, there you have it, the questioning of Donald Trump. He says, "I never said that Marco Rubio was, what, the personal senator of Mark Zuckerberg." David Cay Johnston—of course, he did say it; it was right on his website, and it was reported widely in every newspaper.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, you have to understand, Donald creates his own reality. Whatever Donald says at the moment is, to Donald, the truth. And he believes his own stuff. And this is partly Carson’s problem. You know, there’s no objective reality out there. You know, Carson doesn’t seem to understand it took an enormous army of multiple countries to to defeat the Nazis. He thinks a group a persecuted people with, you know, small weapons are going to stop the Nazis. But this is very typical of Donald, and his views are highly flexible depending on what he sees as his momentary negotiating advantage. ... Read More →
Is Jeb Bush Finished? Establishment-Backed Dynasty Candidate Might Not Overcome Family Ties
Initially viewed as a GOP front-runner and backed by over $130 million from wealthy donors, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is struggling in fourth place. Highlighting his fading chances, Bush spoke less than any other candidate at Wednesday’s debate and failed to seize opportunities to revive his campaign. "I think Donald Trump has very possibly finished off Jeb Bush by wrapping George W. Bush around him," says John Nichols, political writer for The Nation.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, we haven’t really talked about Jeb Bush. He had less time in this debate than any other candidate. That might go to how much time he was actually given and how much time he took, as well. The reports are his campaign manager, Danny Diaz, was slamming on the CNBC door, demanding that he be given more time, as the debate was going on. The debate did see a heated moment between the third- and fourth-place contenders, Marco Rubio and his mentor, Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. The two sparred over criticism that Senator Rubio is more focused on the presidential race than doing his current job as elected senator from Florida.
CARL QUINTANILLA: So when the Sun Sentinel says Rubio should resign, not rip us off, when they say Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job, when they say you act like you hate your job, do you?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, let me say, I read that editorial today with a great amusement. It’s actually evidence of the bias that exists in the American media today.
CARL QUINTANILLA: Well, but do you hate your job?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Let me—let me answer your question on the Sun Sentinel editorial today. Back in 2004, one of my predecessors to the Senate by the name of Bob Graham, a Democrat, ran for president, missing over 30 percent of his votes. I don’t recall them calling for his resignation.
CARL QUINTANILLA: Is that the standard?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Later that year, in 2004, John Kerry ran for president, missing close to 60 to 70 percent of his votes. I don’t recall the Sun—in fact, the Sun Sentinel endorsed him. In 2008, Barack Obama missed 60 or 70 percent of his votes, and the same newspaper endorsed him again. So this is another example of the double standard that exists in this country between the mainstream media and the conservative movement.
CARL QUINTANILLA: Senator, thank you. John?
JEB BUSH: Could I—could I—could I bring something up here? Because I’m a constituent of the senator, and I helped him, and I expected that he would do constituent service, which means that he shows up to work. He got endorsed by the Sun Sentinel, because he was the most talented guy in the field. He’s a gifted politician. But, Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work. I mean, literally, the Senate—what is it, like a French work week? You get like three days where you have to show up? You can campaign—or just resign and let someone else take the job. There are a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck in Florida, as well, that are looking for a senator that will fight for them each and every day.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: I get to respond, right?
BECKY QUICK: Thirty seconds.
CARL QUINTANILLA: Thirty seconds.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: All right. Well, it’s interesting. Over the last few weeks, I’ve listened to Jeb, as you’ve walked around the country and said that you’re modeling your campaign after John McCain, that you’re going to launch a furious comeback the way he did, by fighting hard in New Hampshire and places like that—
JEB BUSH: I will.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: —carrying your own bag at the airport. You know how many votes John McCain missed when he was carrying out that furious comeback that you’re now modeling under?
JEB BUSH: He wasn’t my senator.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: No, Jeb, I don’t remember—well, let me tell you. I don’t remember you ever complaining about John McCain’s vote record. The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.
JEB BUSH: Well, I’ve been—
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Here’s the bottom line. I’m not—my campaign is going to be about the future of America. It’s not going to be about attacking anyone else on this stage. I will continue to have tremendous admiration and respect for Governor Bush. I’m not running against Governor Bush, I’m not running against anyone on this stage. I’m running for president because there is no way we can elect Hillary Clinton to continue the policies of Barack Obama.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s presidential candidate Marco Rubio, Florida senator, and speaking to his mentor—I mean, he was really the protégé of Jeb Bush. Now questions are being raised: Is Jeb Bush going to drop out? Carl Quintanilla was the one who asked the question, of CNBC. John Nichols, can you talk about what’s going on here?
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, Jeb Bush came into this debate in a very, very stark position. He had cut his staff pay. He had altered his campaign schedule to go to early states. Essentially, those are the steps you take right before you make that difficult announcement that someone like a Scott Walker has already made, saying that you’re going to suspend your campaign. What Bush needed in this debate was to deliver a stellar performance, to be ahead of the curve at every turn, to jump into questions, and certainly to own those exchanges, like the one you just saw. In fact, he did not do it. You know, he had a quote the other day where he said that he has better things to do; if it doesn’t work out as a presidential candidate, he’s got other stuff to do. In many senses, it looked like he had already made that choice.
That exchange with Rubio should not have gone to Rubio. Rubio was spouting, you know, just canned lines, clearly rehearsed. And the fact of the matter is that after Rubio came back at Bush there, Bush should have come back at him and said, "Look, you were asked a tough question about your attendance, about serving the people. You answered by attacking the media and now by attacking me." And, you know, the fact of the matter is, Rubio did that throughout the debate. He faced tough questions on his finances, personal finances. He faced tough questions on absenteeism. Again and again, Rubio avoided the questions with canned applause lines. Bush should have called him out.
The challenge for Bush in this debate, though, is a much deeper one. And that is that a number of candidates came into this debate looking to finish Jeb Bush off. That was clearly true of Governor Kasich. That was clearly true of Marco Rubio. I would suggest it was also true of Ted Cruz. And the fact of the matter is, the combination of hits on Jeb Bush, his inept responses to them, made this an absolutely disastrous debate for him. I think he is going to have a very hard time going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Could this also be, overall, not just the debate last night, a referendum on his brother, George W. Bush?
JOHN NICHOLS: Well, and that’s where Donald Trump comes in. You know, I think we’re all talking about Carson today, and I think that’s very appropriate. I’ve enjoyed and respected the analysis. But I would be cautious about ruling Trump out. Trump has been in a couple situations where it looked like he might be losing his momentum, and he turned his fire on another candidate. He clearly did that on Scott Walker, and it was devastating. In the last few weeks, Trump has not been focused on Ben Carson. He has been very focused on Jeb Bush, on finishing Bush off, because Bush is the—still the relatively well-funded establishment candidate. And a big part of that assault has involved George W. Bush. It has been an assault specifically on George W. Bush’s handling of 9/11, his handling of the Iraq War, a host of issues, which historically the left tended to say, "Hey, why aren’t these issues coming up? Why aren’t we talking about Bush’s mistakes, Bush’s missteps?" Well, in fact, Donald Trump did it. And I agree with, I think, the suggestion of your question, Amy. I think that Donald Trump has very possibly finished off Jeb Bush by, you know, wrapping George W. Bush around him.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. Our guests are John Nichols of The Nation; Jamil Smith of The New Republic; David Cay Johnston, investigative reporter; and Imani Gandy, RH Reality Check. Stay with us. ... Read More →Headlines:
Republican Presidential Candidates Face Off in Third Debate
Republican presidential candidates faced off at their third debate Wednesday night in Boulder, Colorado. This is the first debate since retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson pulled ahead of business mogul Donald Trump in the polls. The pair’s front-runner status prompted Ohio Governor John Kasich to warn that Republicans are on the verge of picking a nominee who "cannot do this job." We’ll have more on the debate after headlines with Nation writer John Nichols, New Republic editor Jamil Smith, RH Reality Check writer Imani Gandy, and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston.
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to Become 62nd Speaker of the House
Wisconsin Republican Congressmember Paul Ryan is set to become the 62nd speaker of the House today. Ryan replaces Ohio Congressmember John Boehner, who announced his departure last month following a lengthy dispute with far-right members of his own party. Ryan spoke Wednesday after the Republican caucus backed his nomination.
Rep. Paul Ryan: "We believe that the country is on the wrong track. We think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and we have an obligation, here in the people’s House, to do the people’s business, to give this country a better way forward, to give this country an alternative. We are going to respect the people by representing the people."
We’ll have more on Ryan later in the broadcast with Nation writer John Nichols.
White Deputy Sheriff Caught Slamming and Dragging Black Student Fired
In Columbia, South Carolina, the white sheriff’s deputy who was caught on camera slamming an African-American high school student to the ground in her classroom has been fired. Ben Fields was a school resource officer at Spring Valley High School. Viral video shows him grabbing the student around her neck, flipping both her and her desk to the ground and then dragging her across the floor. The student was arrested. Another student who filmed the assault was also arrested and held on a $1,000 bail. The incident reportedly began when the student refused to give her teacher her phone, which then prompted the teacher to call for outside help. Soon Deputy Sheriff Fields came into the classroom to remove her. Classmates say Fields had a reputation as being aggressive with students, who had nicknamed him "Officer Slam." Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott announced Fields’ termination Wednesday.
Sheriff Leon Lott: "When I first saw that video—and continues to upset me when I see that video—is the fact that he picked the student up and he threw the student across the room. That is not a proper technique and should not be used in law enforcement. And based on that, that is a violation of our policy, and approximately 20 minutes ago school resource officer Ben Fields was terminated from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department."
Officer Fields still does not face any criminal charges, though he is under federal investigation. The incident is the latest in a series of cases of police officers using excessive force against students in schools. In a recent exposé, Mother Jones documented many cases involving officers punching, tasing and even fatally shooting students. To see our full coverage of the issue nationwide, go to democracynow.org
Israeli Soldiers Kill 5th Palestinian Man in 3 Days
Israeli soldiers have shot dead a Palestinian man who allegedly stabbed a soldier in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. The soldier was lightly wounded. This comes one day after Israeli soldiers shot dead another Palestinian who allegedly attempted to stab them in Hebron. On Tuesday, Israeli forces shot dead another three Palestinians accused of attempted stabbings. At least 63 Palestinians and 11 Israelis have been killed this month. A new report by Amnesty International says Israeli forces have carried out a series of unlawful killings of Palestinians by using lethal force without justification.
Rio de Janeiro Displaces More Than 20,000 Ahead of 2016 Olympics
In Brazil, housing activists are accusing the Rio de Janeiro city government of using the 2016 Olympics as a pretext to forcibly displace tens of thousands of residents and further segregate the city. Government data shows more than 22,000 families have been resettled since 2009 to make way for infrastructure projects related to the Games. The evictions have led to violent crackdowns by local police, particularly in the favelas. Resident Ocimar da Silva Miranda, who said he was hit by a rubber bullet shot during a protest earlier this summer, said: "We have the right to live here, but they want to take it by force. The mayor is using our lives, our homes, as a way to pay back the loans from the big construction companies that financed his campaign."
Japan: Okinawa Residents Protest Construction of U.S. Military Base
In Japan, police have dragged away about a hundred elderly protesters blocking construction of a proposed new U.S. military base on the island of Okinawa. The rally was held as the central government resumed building despite a lack of permits. The governor of Okinawa revoked the construction permit at the site earlier this month, citing "legal flaws." But Tokyo’s Transport Ministry overruled. The majority of Okinawa’s residents oppose the new base. Okinawa houses about 26,000 U.S. troops. Their presence has come under protest for decades.
China Ends Its Decades-Long One-Child Policy
China has ended its one-child policy, permitting all families to have two children for the first time in decades. The one-child policy was implemented in the 1970s amid China’s booming population. The new shift now comes amid an aging citizenry and a shrinking number of those at working age.
Jailed Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi Wins Sakharov Human Rights Prize
Jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov human rights prize. Badawi was arrested in 2012 after setting up a website for political and social debate. He was sentenced in January to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison. European Parliament President Martin Schulz urged Saudi King Salman "to free him, so he can accept the prize."
NYTimes: Lawyers Secretly Prepared Legal Framework for Bin Laden Raid
New details have emerged about the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The New York Times reports four Obama administration lawyers worked in secret for weeks ahead of the raid to devise a legal justification for it. According to the Times, the four lawyers were CIA general counsel Stephen Preston, National Security Council legal adviser Mary DeRosa, Joint Chiefs of Staff legal adviser James Crawford and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who was at the time the Pentagon’s general counsel. The framework they created reportedly allowed the Obama administration to send U.S. ground forces into Pakistan without Pakistani consent, to explicitly authorize a lethal mission, to delay telling Congress until the raid was completed and to bury a wartime enemy at sea. Stephen Preston reportedly said in the days leading up to the raid, "We should memorialize our rationales because we may be called upon to explain our legal conclusions, particularly if the operation goes terribly badly." Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has raised significant questions about the Obama administration’s account of the raid, reporting that top Pakistani military leaders knew about the operation and provided key assistance.
Goldman Sachs Fined After Employee Stole Secret Documents from Fed
Financial giant Goldman Sachs has been fined $50 million after an employee stole secret information from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a case that highlights the revolving door between the government and Wall Street. Rohit Bansal had formerly worked for the New York Federal Reserve for seven years. When he was hired by Goldman in 2014, he was told by the Fed’s ethics board he could not help advise a client that he had been overseeing while at the Fed. Although Goldman knew about this restriction, the company assigned him to this case anyway. He then "schemed to steal confidential regulatory and government documents" to help advise the client, regulators say. The revolving door between regulatory agencies and the banking industry is a particular occurrence at Goldman Sachs. The current head of the New York Fed, William Dudley, is a former Goldman executive.
$1.4 Billion Army Surveillance Blimp Breaks Free & Wreaks Havoc
U.S. military officials scrambled Wednesday to capture a billion-dollar unmanned surveillance blimp that broke free of its moorings in Maryland and drifted across Pennsylvania, downing power lines and knocking out electricity for tens of thousands of residents. The blimp has the capacity to surveil a region the size of Texas. Built by military contractor Raytheon, there are only two of these blimps in the world. Each effectively costs $1.4 billion. The U.S. military has another surveillance blimp, of a different model, that floats over Kabul at all times.
U.S. Citizen Seeks Asylum in Canada, Saying He Fears Police Will Kill Him Because He’s Black
An African-American man has applied for asylum in Canada, saying he fears he will be killed by police in the United States because he is black. Thirty-year-old Kyle Lydell Canty argued at his immigration hearing in Vancouver that black people are "being exterminated at an alarming rate." He cited the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner as evidence. He also said that he’s lived in six U.S. states throughout his life and that in every one he has been harassed by police.
Kyle Lydell Canty: "I came to Canada to claim asylum under Refugee Act, because the United States of America is corrupt. They’re consistently killing black people. It’s documented. The United Nations has condemned America for their racial disparities, for their police brutality. And honestly, I kept on getting harassed by cops for no reason, false charges, a false arrest. I’m not just the only one going through it. All black people in America are going through the same thing."
Shell Loses Billions After Abandoning Tar Sands and Arctic Projects
And in Alberta, Canada, oil giant Shell has abandoned its plans for a massive tar sands mine, citing concerns that there aren’t enough pipelines to transport the crude oil. This comes after Shell also canceled its plans to drill in the Arctic. The construction of major pipelines such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline, that would help move Alberta tar sands, have been delayed by massive resistance, especially by First Nations. In Ontario, Anishinaabe women disrupted one of TransCanada’s town hall meetings over the proposed pipeline in 2014.
Protester 1: "You guys are not welcome on Anishinaabe territory."
Protester 2: "That’s coming from the women."
Protester 3: "You’re not welcome here."
TransCanada representative: "OK, thank you. Listen, if we’re not going to be able to
present information in a—"
Protester 4: "Your information is lies."
TransCanada representative: "OK."
Protester 4: "Your information is lies. You’re raping Mother Earth. You’re poisoning our water. You’re not listening to the women. We’re talking about our grandchildren and future generations. What are you going to tell your grandchildren? And what are your grandchildren going to tell their children when there’s no water?"
Today, Shell reported a loss of $7.4 billion for the third quarter of this year. That’s compared with a profit of $4.5 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. Shell’s losses are caused by declining revenue from low oil prices and the company having wasted billions on the now-canceled tar sands and Arctic projects.
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WEB EXCLUSIVE
"Storming the Bastille at the Paris Climate Summit" by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Place de la Bastille in Paris. (maziarz / Shutterstock)
World leaders will gather in Paris in just one month to hammer out a treaty to confront the global threat of climate change. It’s real, growing and, based on increasing scientific consensus, clearly caused by human activity. Since the dawn of the industrial age, humans have been dumping pollutants into the sky as if the atmosphere is a bottomless pit, able to absorb an infinite amount of our smoke and exhaust. These greenhouse gasses have been forming a blanket around the planet, trapping the heat of the sun.
The signs of the crisis are everywhere: 2015 is on course to be the hottest in recorded history. Hurricane Patricia plowed into Mexico last week as the largest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. It wasn’t only the power of Patricia, but the speed with which the hurricane formed, almost overnight transforming from a tropical storm.
In the Persian Gulf, scientists reported this week that “certain population centers ... are likely to experience temperature levels that are intolerable to humans owing to the consequences of increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.” In other words, in cities like Doha in Qatar and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the daily high temperatures will simply be too hot for people to survive outside for more than a few hours at a time. In the polar regions, ice is melting at unprecedented rates, and the ocean is warming, causing the water to expand. Both phenomena are causing the sea level to rise, already impacting small island nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Hundreds of millions of people will eventually have to flee the world’s coastal cities, scientists predict.
The goal is to limit average global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit, over preindustrial temperatures. This will require global cooperation on an unprecedented scale, and the decarbonization of the economy. In other words, people will have to stop using fossil fuels like coal and oil, and rely on renewable energy sources like solar and wind. If this transition can be accomplished in time, scientists and policymakers say, before the temperature crosses that critical 2 degree Celsius threshold, then the planet’s climate can be saved. If humans pursue “business as usual” and do nothing or adopt half-measures, climate change will be irreversible and catastrophic.
The stakes are high for the Paris climate summit. Convened by the United Nations, the meeting is called by its shorthand name, COP21, for the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC. The process began at the “Rio Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, culminating in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. While that was a binding treaty, some countries refused to ratify it, most notably the world’s historically largest polluter, the United States. This time around, each nation will make voluntary pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, with no obvious way to enforce compliance.
How will the United States radically transform its economy and rid itself of internal-combustion engines, fracked gas and coal plants by 2050? Fossil-fuel industries exert enormous influence on every level of government in the U.S., making even incremental change almost impossible. Thanks to remarkable reporting from Pulitzer Prize-winning InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times, we now know that ExxonMobil, as early as the 1970s, studied and understood climate change. Despite this, Exxon concealed its own findings that fossil fuels cause global warming, alter the climate and melt the Arctic ice.
“This is one of the, if not the most important, investigative coups in decades,” said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, a global activist group fighting climate change. “Exxon is probably the one institution on Earth that could have short-circuited this 25 years of pretend, faux debate that we’ve been having about climate change.” So incensed was McKibben, he marched down to his local Exxon gas station in Vermont and blocked access to a gas pump, holding a sign that read, “This pump temporarily closed because Exxon lied about climate.” McKibben was arrested, but, to date, no Exxon executives are facing charges for covering up their findings and lying to the world.
While world leaders will assemble for COP21 at Le Bourget, a sprawling convention center in Paris, hundreds of thousands are expected in the streets. Protest organizers have called for global actions on Nov. 28 and 29, demanding a fair, ambitious and binding agreement to confront, and ultimately reverse, the potential for catastrophic, human-induced climate change. If the leaders fail, many will be there to storm the Bastille.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,200 stations in North America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times best-seller.
(c) 2015 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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