WATCH NOW: Will Biden Cut Social Security?
The Lever’s new video reveals how the Obama-era midterm disaster could repeat itself if President Biden capitulates to Republican calls to cut Social Security.

Aug 22, 2022
•Andrew Perez

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden nominated a longtime advocate of Social Security privatization and benefit cuts to the bipartisan board that oversees that system. The move came as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) started pushing “entitlement reform” — a handy euphemism for cutting Social Security and Medicare not unlike Biden’s longtime advocacy of slashing the critical senior retirement benefits.

As our new video reveals, more than a decade before Graham was roasted for his recent comments, President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden held a ceremony at the White House to announce a commission to cut Social Security and Medicare. This came despite Obama vowing on the campaign trail in 2008 to not cut cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age for Social Security.

If Biden follows in Obama’s footsteps and capitulates to congressional Republicans who are on track to win control of Congress during November’s midterm elections, older Americans will take the hit.

Watch our new video about the troubling possibility of history repeating itself — and then share it on social media and forward this email to friends and family.

We don’t answer to corporations — which is why we can produce this video and report stories like this and this that corporate interests would rather keep out of public view.

The only way for those in power to do right by all of us is to continue lifting the veil on these kinds of inconvenient truths.

Thanks for supporting our accountability journalism and for encouraging others to subscribe. And remember: If you want to help us do more, you can always use our tip jar or give a gift subscription.

U$A

One Way Pharma Lobbyists Actually Lost
A tiny line of legislative text in Dems’ Inflation Reduction Act could prevent drugmakers from getting their way when nobody’s looking.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signs the Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 12, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Aug 26, 2022
•David Sirota,Julia Rock&Matthew Cunningham-Cook

THE LEVER

More than two decades ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (Ind.-Vt.) legislative obsession provided a lesson about how a bill becomes a law — and then doesn’t. It is a cautionary tale that one Democratic senator seems to have internalized and quietly acted on deep in the legislative text of the drug pricing provisions included in the recent spending bill signed by President Joe Biden.

The maneuver could be a welcome twist on a Washington narrative that has long been all too common: Legislative victories over powerful industries are often undone by the executive branch during the ensuing rulemaking and implementation. That is when industry lobbyists weaponize vague bill text and loopholes that they often helped write to ultimately get exactly what they want.

Back in 2000, for example, after a campaign of high-profile bus trips to Canada and legislative arm-twisting, Sanders somehow passed a measure through a Republican Congress to let Americans buy cheaper medicines from other countries. The measure was popular and included in a must-pass spending bill, forcing pharma-friendly President Bill Clinton to sign it into law.

On the surface, the measure’s passage seemed like a shocking victory over drugmakers — until a few months later, when Clinton had his administration use a provision inserted into the bill at the last minute to block the law’s implementation just before he left office.

This same process has been used by corporate lobbyists to also water down Wall Street reforms after the financial crisis, prevent enforcement of existing laws to lower drug prices, and block the closing of a tax break for private equity moguls.

But here’s a bit of good news: In a little-noticed section of the Democrats’ new drug pricing legislation, lawmakers for once didn’t pull that old bait-and-switch. It appears they actually took their jobs as legislators seriously and tried to prevent drugmakers from using executive branch influence to quietly get their way in the future.
A Preemptive Strike Against The Rogue Secretary

At issue is the section of the Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicare to begin a very small program of negotiating lower drug prices. Pharmaceutical companies spent $142 million on lobbying on the matter, and that spending convinced lawmakers to water down the much-promised initiative in myriad ways. Democrats, for example, limited the provision to only cover a handful of older drugs, and put off implementation until 2026.

But lobbyists couldn’t get Democrats to just drop the program outright. As important, Democrats included a provision that will make it harder for pharma lobbyists to kill the negotiation measure through executive action, like they did with drug importation efforts during the Clinton years.

Whereas the original House version of the legislation could have given a future pharma-friendly Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary discretion to avoid negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare recipients, the Senate version of the bill overseen by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) explicitly shut down this so-called “Rogue Secretary” loophole.

“The proposal would close a loophole in the House-passed bill that would have allowed a bad actor Republican secretary to refuse to negotiate or negotiate fewer than the maximum number of drugs,” Senate Democrats noted in a messaging document last month. “The bill now requires the Secretary to negotiate the maximum number of drugs each year, to the extent that number of drugs qualify for negotiation.”

The so-called Build Back Better reconciliation bill that passed the House in November provided wiggle room for HHS to reduce the number of drugs negotiated by Medicare to as low as zero, saying that “not more than 10” drugs would be subject to price negotiation. In their version of the bill, Senate Democrats fixed this issue by replacing that language and specifying that 10 drugs will be subject to the price renegotiations.

Removing discretion here is important, given the history: Clinton’s HHS Secretary Donna Shalala killed importation right before Clinton began his new career giving paid speeches to corporate groups, including drugmakers.​​ Shalala, for her part, quickly joined the board of directors at the health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group.

That particular rogue secretary incident wasn’t some isolated occurrence: Unbound by stricter legislative mandates, President Barack Obama’s HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and President Joe Biden’s HHS Secretary Xavier Beccerra have refused to use existing laws to reduce the skyrocketing price of lifesaving medicines developed at government expense.

Legislators Must Actually Legislate, Especially Now

Of course, the language doesn’t fix the shortcomings of the legislation’s new Medicare drug negotiation initiative, and in preventing those negotiations from launching until 2026, lobbyists won themselves ample time to try to get the next few Congresses to repeal the program entirely.

However, the preemptive strike on a future rogue secretary represents an important and exceedingly rare thing in Democratic politics: an authentic effort to make a bill do what it purports to do.

The move recognizes that too often there is a chasm between a bill’s stated mission and its implementation, which not only undermines legislative intent, but also makes voters distrust politicians’ promises that help is actually on the way.

The attention to detail embodied by this provision is particularly critical right now, when the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc is trying to hamstring administrative agencies by preventing them from deriving regulatory and enforcement power from vague bill text.

Combating that conservative crusade will require lawmakers to avoid giving industries or courts ways to evade or eviscerate those laws during implementation. Legislators will have to actually legislate — that is, they will need to write their bills to explicitly empower and compel the executive branch to take action.

Herard Abraham, general who helped usher in Haiti’s democratic transition, is dead
2022/08/25
J

EROME DELAY/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Herard Abraham, the respected former army commander-in-chief who played a major role in ushering in Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 1990 only to be forced into retirement in a purge months later, has died, his family and Haiti’s government confirmed. He was 82.

No official cause of death was given, but a relative said the retired general had a brain tumor and passed away Wednesday at his home in Fermathe in the hills above Port-au-Prince.

In a tweet confirming the death, interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry said he was “dismayed to salute the departure” of Abraham. who also briefly served as acting president when anti-government protests in March of 1990 forced his boss, another army commander, to flee.

Henry called Abraham “a moderate and exemplary Haitian soldier and statesman. A worthy son of the nation, the President General has always been loyal to his country, which he has served in difficult times. The government bows with respect to the remains of this great man.”

Abraham, whose career began during the Duvalier family dictatorship and ended with the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had a 30-year military career. He survived not just the brutal dictatorship and chaotic and violent period that followed the 1986 fall of the dictatorship, but the military coups, governments and civilian transitions that followed.

He was one of the few Haitian military leaders who garnered the respect of foreign diplomats as the head of what had been a corrupt and brutal Haitian military that had been a legacy of the first U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915-34.

He was credited with placing the support of the Armed Forces of Haiti behind Haiti’s democratic transition, working with the international community to secure the December 1990 presidential elections that brought Aristide, a widely popular priest from Haiti’s slums, to power.

Seven months later, however, Aristide forced Abraham into retirement and replaced him with Gen. Raoul Cedras, the army commander who went on to lead the bloody September 1991 military coup that ousted Aristide from power and forced him into exile.

Abraham left Haiti for exile in Miami. In 2004, while living in obscurity in Miami Shores, he was plucked from retirement when Aristide was once more forced into exile during his second presidency and Haiti once again faced an uncertain future. He was among several candidates in the running to potentially lead Haiti as prime minister through a transition.

In the end, the job went to Boca Raton resident Gerard Latortue. A friend of Abraham’s, Latortue was chosen by a Council of Sages whose seven members included current interim Prime Minister Henry. Latortue did not forget Abraham, an astute political survivor who had risen to the rank of lieutenant general during a 30-year army career. He made Abraham a member of his 13-member Cabinet, giving him the job of interior minister with responsibility for local authorities and national security.

At the time, Abraham’s selection was seen as a sign of Latortue’s interest in reinstalling the Armed Forces of Haiti, an idea that Abraham openly promoted after the force’s dissolution in 1995 by Aristide with U.S. backing upon his return from exile.

With Haiti’s capital increasingly being overtaken by violent gangs that arose under Aristide’s term, Abraham, as interior minister, proposed re-establishing the Haitian army to help a United Nations multinational peacekeeping force disarm the population. After heading the interior ministry he was given the job of foreign affairs minister from January 2005 to June 2006.

It was a familiar role. Abraham had served as information minister and foreign minister in the first military government, headed by Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, after dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier fled into exile in France on Feb. 6, 1986. During the government’s installation, Abraham announced that democratic elections would be held in November 1987, and that the military government would hand power over to a democratically elected government on Feb. 7, 1988.

That didn’t happen until Feb. 7, 1991, and there were several more governments during that period, including the government of military-president Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, in which Abraham also served as foreign minister. Avril ruled from September 1988 until March 1990 when popular protests on March 10 sent him fleeing into exile.

Abraham, who was also major-general of the 8,300-member Haitian Armed Forces, became acting president of Haiti. He later won praise from foreign diplomats when he voluntarily turned over the presidency — unheard of in a country where the army has led coups and perpetrated human rights violations — to the first civilian government since the end of the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship.

Headed by Supreme Court Justice Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, Haiti’s first female president, the provisional government ushered in the successful December 1990 elections, which were widely considered the country’s first free and fair vote.

“He was a stately and serious man who took responsibility of his mission,” Pascal-Trouillot told The Miami Herald. “He worked for the good of the country.”

Abraham wasn’t without critics, even as many considered him to be a decent man, especially compared to many of his army predecessors. In 1990, he was criticized for not arresting former Duvalier Interior Minister Roger Lafontant, the former head of the regime’s dreaded secret police known as the Tonton Macoutes, when he returned from exile despite a warrant for his arrest. Months later, Lafontant was arrested by the government after a failed Jan. 7 coup attempt.

Later, Abraham came under fire for his suggestion that former soldiers could be integrated in the Haiti National Police, and later for staffing his ministry with former ranking military figures, some of whom had been accused of human rights abuses.

In later years Abraham returned to private life in Haiti, making few public statements. He did speak out to defend his tenure at the ministry of foreign affairs under Latortue when the country’s Chamber of Deputies in 2006 levied charges of embezzlement in the diplomatic missions.

In 2020, Abraham was named by President Jovenel Moise to be part of a five-member advisory committee drafting a new constitution for Haiti.

Moise was assassinated less than a year later, on July 7, 2021, before his dream of a new constitution for Haiti could be realized.

© Miami Herald

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS

Years into a nationwide overdose epidemic, many with opioid addiction still aren’t getting treatment medication, a new study finds
2022/08/26

Photos of Americans who died from a fentanyl overdose are displayed at the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters on July 13, 2022, in Arlington, Virginia. - AGNES BUN/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Despite improvements in treatment access as the overdose crisis has spiraled over the last decade, many people with opioid use disorder aren’t getting medications to treat their addiction, a new study has found.

And the disorganized nature of data collection around addiction means it’s difficult to estimate the true scope of the treatment gap in the United States.

The study, conducted by researchers at New York University, Columbia University, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looked at the estimated number of people with opioid use disorder nationwide between 2010 and 2019, and compared that with the number of people receiving medication treatment — buprenorphine or methadone. Both opioid medications are proven to help maintain a more lasting recovery than quitting cold turkey.

Methadone is heavily federally regulated and typically dispensed through specially designated clinics. People typically must report to their clinic daily for a liquid dose of methadone. Buprenorphine is an oral pill medication that must be prescribed by a specially licensed doctor but can be taken at home.

Data on how many people use medication to treat opioid use disorder are scattered across different databases, and estimating how many people are struggling with an opioid addiction in the United States is even harder, said Noa Krawczyk, an assistant professor in the department of population health at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. “We have to rely on a lot of disjointed data,” she said.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a federal study on addiction rates, is household-based — meaning incarcerated people or people living on the street, both of whom suffer from high rates of addiction, are likely missed.

And because drug use is criminalized and stigma around addiction remains high, even people who are reached by surveyors might not say they have an opioid use disorder, Krawczyk said.

To reach a more accurate estimate of the extent of opioid addiction in the U.S., Krawczyk and other researchers consulted a more comprehensive 2018 study from Massachusetts, which estimated that opioid addiction rates in the state were nearly 4.5 times higher than federal estimates. Applying that multiplier nationwide, Krawczyk said, data show that it’s likely that around 86% of people with opioid use disorder aren’t receiving medications for it.

In Pennsylvania, according to that adjusted estimate, 78% of people with opioid use disorder aren’t getting medications; in New Jersey, the gap is an estimated 89%, Krawczyk said.

And even without multiplying the federal estimates — assuming a much smaller population of Americans is addicted to opioids — there’s still a significant number of Americans with opioid addiction who aren’t accessing medication, around 40%.

“Even in the best-case scenario, we are still missing a high portion of the population with opioid use disorder,” Krawczyk said. “We didn’t need to know exactly what the gap is in order to know that there is one, but it’s important to understand what the extent of the problem is.”

There are a number of barriers that keep people from accessing methadone and buprenorphine to treat their addictions — from strict federal regulations on the medications themselves to local zoning laws that make it difficult to open new methadone clinics. And while the study found that treatment access has almost doubled in the United States since 2010, overdose rates have also steadily risen since then as well — suggesting that too many still aren’t getting the help they need.

The study authors stressed the need to increase insurance coverage for methadone, incentivize more doctors to prescribe buprenorphine, and decrease stigma around addiction in medical settings.

“Part of the motivation for doing this is to scream that we haven’t even gotten much better in how we’ve addressed this issue,” Krawczyk said. “And a sad part of the story is that we do know a lot of ways that we could be addressing this problem.”

© The Philadelphia Inquirer

PRISON NATION U$A

Black man wrongfully convicted of New Orleans rape at age 17 is exonerated decades later: "I'm just ready to live"


AUGUST 26, 2022 

A Black man wrongfully convicted as a teenager for a New Orleans rape more than 36 years ago was ordered freed Thursday after a judge threw out his conviction.

Sullivan Walter, now 53, used a handkerchief to wipe away tears as a state district judge formally vacated his conviction for a home-invasion rape. Judge Darryl Derbigny expressed anger that blood and semen evidence that could have cleared him never made it to to the jury.

"To say this was unconscionable is an understatement," Derbigny told Walter. Sullivan Walter, 53, left, holds a shirt near Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La., with, left to right, his brothers Joseph Walter, and Byron Walter, Sr., and Innocence Project New Orleans legal director Richard Davis, just after his release on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022.TRAVIS SPRADLING/THE ADVOCATE VIA AP

After appearing in court in New Orleans, Walter was driven to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, where he was officially released.

"I'm just ready to live," Walter said Thursday evening, after he was released from prison, according to NOLA.com. "I just want to live an honest, free life."

District Attorney Jason Williams' office joined with defense attorneys working with Innocence Project New Orleans, a criminal justice advocacy group, to have the conviction vacated.

Walter was 17 when he was arrested in connection with the New Orleans rape. The rapist had entered the home of the victim, identified in the record as L.S., in May 1986, held a knife to her throat and threatened to harm her 8-year-old son, who slept through the incident.

Emily Maw, an attorney with Williams' office, outlined the problems in the case in court, noting there were reasons to believe the victim, the only witness, had mistakenly identified Walter.

"There were some red flags that the eyewitness testimony could well have been unreliable," Maw told Derbigny.

Those "red flags" had been spelled out in a joint filing by the defense and prosecutors ahead of Thursday's hearing.

"In this case, L.S. was being asked to make a cross-racial identification of someone who at all the times that she could observe him was either masked, in an unlit room at night, and/or threatening her not to look at him. In addition, L.S. was not shown a photo array containing Mr. Walter until over six weeks after the crime," the motion said.

More significantly, no evidence was presented about Walter's blood characteristics that did not match the semen collected from the victim after the rape.

The filing also recounts years of errors by Walter's previous attorneys, including failing to point out conflicting statements by a police officer who worked on the case and missteps during the appeal process regarding the blood and semen evidence.

When he was cleared Thursday, Walter had been serving a total sentence of 39 years - four for a burglary charge unrelated to the rape case, and 35 years for multiple charges in the rape case.

Attorneys said the victim in the rape is now deceased. Maw said in court that authorities had reached out to the victim's son, who was not present, and that he had expressed regret on behalf of his mother about the wrongful conviction.

Innocence Project New Orleans Legal Director Richard Davis said Walter's race was a factor in the wrongful conviction.

"The lawyers and law enforcement involved acted as if they believed that they could do what they chose to a Black teenager from a poor family and would never be scrutinized or held to account," Davis said in a written statement. "This is not just about individuals and their choices, but the systems that let them happen."

Walter's lockup marks the fifth longest of any juvenile in the U.S., NOLA.com reported, citing the National Registry of Exonerations.

Joe Lugon, the longest-serving juvenile in the U.S., was released from prison last year after serving nearly seven decades for crimes he committed when he was 15.

SELF REGULATION DOES NOT WORK

Editorial: Social media must self-police for violence to preserve its unique value
2022/08/26

Icons for social media apps on a smartphone. - Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Congressional Democrats are demanding that social media companies do a better job of policing threats against the FBI in the wake of the agency’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence for classified documents that he took from the White House. The issue presents a crucial test of those companies’ ability to weed out dangerous speech without trampling on the First Amendment.

If the companies don’t respond transparently to these demands and make a stronger effort than they are currently making to detoxify their sites, they risk losing the unique protections they enjoy under federal law. That, in turn, would put at risk even legitimate online discourse.

Social media has transformed America in many positive ways. But the same internet megaphones that spread useful information and empathy can also spread disinformation and violence. Russian trolls may well have helped swing the 2016 presidential election to Trump. Four years later, Trump himself, and his most virulent supporters, used social media to incite and coordinate the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

The court-sanctioned search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort this month for documents the former president was refusing to return to the government wasn’t the illegitimate “raid” or “siege” that Trump made it out to be on social media. But some of Trump’s less stable fans out there — no doubt encouraged by the many elected Republicans who have obediently echoed Trump’s self-serving grievance — picked up that theme and ran with it.

On Twitter, Facebook, Trump’s Truth Social network and others, they’ve called for violence against FBI agents and even civil war. One Trump supporter who apparently posted such screeds tried to get into an FBI field office in Ohio with weapons and was later killed after a standoff with police. A Pennsylvania man was arrested after his posts declared “open season” on FBI agents.

The First Amendment protects even noxious speech — but not speech that directly foments violence. Social media companies, unlike newspapers and other traditional media, are generally protected from legal action when such speech appears on their sites. That protection, contained in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, is a recognition that a site such as Twitter can’t realistically police every post for threats in the way a traditional newspaper can check every letter to the editor before publication.

Without that protection, it’s unlikely such sites could continue to function. Which makes it all the more crucial that Twitter and the others beef up their screening efforts to remove threats of violence and to report them to law enforcement when appropriate. That’s the trade-off for their legal protection, and if they don’t earn it with responsible behavior, there are critics in Congress ready to take that protection away. With that in mind, it’s not only in the companies’ interest to cooperate in these inquiries but also in the broader interests of the social media-using public.

———

© St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Editorial: Biden is right to fortify DACA, but America needs a legislative solution

2022/08/26

Zoe Lofgren, D- Calif., left, join DACA recipients and other lawmakers at an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of DACA, at the U.S. Capitol on June 15, 2022, in Washington, D.C.. - Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America/TNS

There’s hardly been a more consequential law for immigration policy over the past several years than the Administrative Procedure Act, which has been used against both the Trump and Biden administrations to great effect by those charging that the federal government is making decisions capriciously.

Among the policies in the crosshairs has been Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era executive program that since 2012 has offered hundreds of thousands of young people brought illegally into the country as children the opportunity to secure work authorization and be shielded from deportation.

In its more than 10 years of existence, DACA has been the subject of constant litigation and barely held on until, last July, Trump-appointed Texas federal Judge Andrew Hanen — quickly becoming a go-to hatchet man for conservatives hoping to nix Biden priorities — ruled it unconstitutional, allowing current enrollees to renew applications but blocking additional enrollments, and setting up the eventual termination of the policy.

Hanen decided that, when Obama’s Department of Homeland Security first issued the memo establishing DACA, it did so without observing proper rule-making procedures. Biden has now neutralized this argument by putting a new, formal federal rule reestablishing the DACA program through an extensive notice-and-comment period, crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s. Its structure is the exact same as the existing DACA policy, but it now has the much more solid backing of being part of the nation’s official regulatory framework.

This should help the program clear legal obstacles, but it’s not enough. The administration must be prepared to keep defending it all the way up to the Supreme Court while continuing to put pressure on lawmakers to finally codify a version of the DREAM Act into law, offering not just DACA’s temporary protections but a full path to citizenship for people for whom the United States is and will always be home, including for the many children who have arrived since the original supposed stopgap program went into effect. That’s the answer truest to our common values: treating hardworking, law-abiding immigrants as fellow Americans.

———

© New York Daily News

Commentary: To the people mad about Biden forgiving student loans: You’re wrong, get over yourselves

2022/08/26

President Joe Biden greets guests after disembarking from Marine One, returning to the White House from Rehoboth, Delaware, on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022, in Washington, DC.

 - Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/TNS

I attended an extremely poor, extremely diverse high school in Sacramento where we were constantly told that attending college was the only way to pull ourselves out of poverty and reach the middle class. But the only way to afford the ridiculous cost of even community college or a state school was via loans so predatory that they all but ensured we would never be able to pull ourselves out of debt.

President Joe Biden’s plan, announced Wednesday, is to cancel up to $20,000 of that debt (or at least $10,000 of it for most of us). That’s an incredible gift that will change millions of lives forever.

Now let’s cancel the rest of it.

Tuition long ago outstripped students’ ability to pay, with many schools adding amenities that have nothing to do with education. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of students taking out loans to finance their degrees rose from 49% to 69% between 1993 to 2012. Between 1993 and 2020, the average loan amount grew nearly three times over, surpassing $30,000.

Until very recently, I owed more than $35,000 in federal student loans I took out to attend California State University, Chico, even after 10 years of trying to pay them off. The only way I was able to pay off these loans was through the generational wealth gained through my family’s white privilege.

Before that unexpected windfall, after the untimely death of a relative, I too was stuck in the deepening pit of never-ending student loan payments, with a disastrous credit score and no way out. Paying off my student loans gave me the ability to start putting money in my savings account and ultimately buy a home.

That’s because student loan debt — approximately 90% of which is composed of federal loans, like mine — carries interest rates ranging from 4.99% to 7.54%. That’s regardless of work ethic or good or bad choices; student loans are a failing system that, in effect, makes upward mobility much harder.

I took out five years of federal loans. The first year I borrowed around $4,000, and had enough left over for all of my textbooks besides. By the time I was a 5th-year senior, the loans had ballooned to more than $7,000 and would barely cover CSU’s rising tuition.

I had to ask my parents for help with housing because nothing was left over. I left college with approximately $27,000 in loans, which became nearly $45,000 at one point, thanks to interest rates that insured I would likely never make a payment toward my principal amount.

At one point soon after graduation, I calculated that my interest rate was tacking on an additional $5 per day. That’s an additional $1,800 per year, during a time in my life when I was living paycheck to paycheck. I could hardly afford to pay the rent and buy groceries at the same time, much less pay back hundreds in loan repayments every month. The financial stress I was under was a major factor in ratcheting up the anxiety and depression I still struggle with.

A 2017 study by Prudential Financial Inc. found that 55% of student loan debtors say their debt prevents or forces them to delay saving for emergencies, 42% said they have delayed buying a home because of it and 40% said their debt prevents or forces them to delay retirement savings. At least a fifth of respondents said they have delayed getting married or having children because of their student loan debt.

I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to have had my student loans paid off, but it is the perfect symbol of what it means to be a middle-class (and often white) college student: My family paid them off for me. Without that assistance, I would never have been able to do that, and would still be drowning in debt and tanking both my credit score and my mental health.

And even though I would have benefited from Biden’s plan, I still want my classmates and others — more than 43 million Americans — to have their loans forgiven.

None of us “did it the right way” — we simply won at a rigged game.

At the least, we must release students and their families from interest rates so high that they make it impossible to ever pay off the initial amount.

____

ABOUT THE WRITER
Robin Epley is an opinion writer for The Sacramento Bee

UK

Protesters gather outside Ofgem HQ calling for ‘payment strike’ on energy bills

Pa Reporter
Fri, August 26, 2022 

People protest outside the Ofgem HQ in Canary Wharf (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

Around 100 protesters gathered outside Ofgem headquarters in London on Friday urging consumers to withhold payment for “astronomical” energy price hikes they could not afford.

Members of the crowd shouted “enough is enough” and held banners reading “Freeze profits, not people” on the street in Canary Wharf in London.

On Friday, Ofgem confirmed an 80.06% rise in the energy price cap, sending the average household’s yearly bill from £1,971 to £3,549 from October.

The demonstration was promoted by Don’t Pay UK, a grassroots movement describing its aim as “building a mass non-payment strike of energy bills starting on October 1”.

A woman holds a banner during a protest outside the Ofgem HQ (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

Tracy Baldwin, 52, said deaths caused in part by the price hike were inevitable and would be “nothing short of corporate manslaughter”

Ms Baldwin, a carer from Yorkshire, said: “The price hikes are astronomical. There’s going to be deaths from the vulnerable, the disabled, the elderly.

“Ofgem are not doing anything to tackle the problem. When people start to die it’s going to be nothing short of corporate manslaughter.”

Teacher Jamie Grey called for “hitting them where it hurts, withdrawing our financial support for a barbaric regime of energy companies that have put profit before people”.

The 34-year-old, from Tower Hamlets, said she teaches children who are already living below the poverty line whose families would be unable to stay warm this winter.

The demonstration was promoted by Don’t Pay UK (James Manning/PA) (PA Wire)

She added that Ofgem “don’t care about us at all” and said vulnerable people would die over the coming months as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.

“Ofgem don’t care about us. All we have is each other – historically we know mass non-payment and mass movements do work,” Ms Grey said.

Protester Tony Cisse said: “People are going to be driven into poverty. The people being asked to absorb the price rises are the people at the bottom.”

Ofgem boss Jonathan Brearley said the regulator had to make “difficult trade-offs” setting the new price cap.

He warned costs would come back to customers in the long run if companies were to fail.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, Mr Brearley said: “The price cap was designed to do one thing, and that was to make sure that unfair profits aren’t charged by those companies that buy and sell energy. And, right now, those profits in that market are 0%.

(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

“What it can’t do is it can’t say, given the cost of the energy, that we can force companies to get from customers less than it costs to buy the energy that they need, because otherwise they simply can’t buy the energy for those customers.”

He added: “So, we have had to make some difficult trade-offs and we have had to make some difficult choices.”

A former vice president of BP said the latest cap should be suspended and called for taxes to be increased on oil producers if they are not facing “real costs”.

Nick Butler, who worked for the company for 30 years, said he did not think the Ofgem cap should have been announced with no “modification or mitigation”.

He told BBC Scotland’s The Seven he believed some energy companies were “milking the system” and that those who could not prove they faced real supply costs should see a tax hike.

“(Some) people, I think, are milking the system and that’s why I absolutely believe this has got to be made a transparent market, and the good companies will welcome that transparency because it will restore an element of the trust that has been lost,” Mr Butler said.

UK nearly doubles energy price cap in cost-of-living crisis 

AFP 2022-08-26       

Britain announced on Friday a vast 80 percent hike in electricity and gas bills, in a dramatic worsening of the cost-of-living crisis before winter as the UK awaits a new leader.

Regulator Ofgem said its energy price cap, which sets prices for consumers who are not on a fixed deal with their supplier, will in October increase to an average 3,549 pounds (US$4,197) per year from the current 1,971 pounds, blaming soaring wholesale gas costs after the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

"The increase (in the cap) reflects the continued rise in global wholesale gas prices, which began to surge as the world unlocked from the COVID-19 pandemic and have been driven still higher to record levels by Russia slowly switching off gas supplies to Europe," Ofgem said in a statement.

The news sparked an outcry from charities who said families faced one of the "bleakest Christmases" for years, with UK inflation already in double-digits and forecast to strike 13 percent in the coming months due to runaway energy bills.

The near-doubling in the cap will likely tip millions into fuel poverty, forced to choose between heating or eating, according to anti-poverty experts.

Britain is already suffering from its highest inflation rate since 1982 and is predicted to enter recession later this year.

"We know the massive impact this price cap increase will have on households across Britain and the difficult decisions consumers will now have to make," added Ofgem boss Jonathan Brearley on Friday.

"I talk to customers regularly and I know that today's news will be very worrying for many."

'Zombie' government

Britain's rampant cost-of-living has dominated the race to succeed Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, with political opponents accusing him of leading a zombie government as inflation escalates.

Both front-runner Liz Truss and rival leadership contender Rishi Sunak are grappling with how to address the crisis.

Gas comprises a major part of Britain's energy mix, with tens of millions of homes relying on gas-powered boilers for their heating.

Household and business consumers, energy suppliers and opposition politicians are clamoring for urgent government action to do more to avoid putting the most vulnerable in desperate situations.

The University of York has estimated 58 percent of UK households are at risk of fuel poverty by next year.

The crisis is forecast to worsen from next January, when average bills could top 5,000 pounds according to some projections as Ofgem updates the cap every three months, rather than the previous norm of twice a year.

The leader of the main opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer, has called for a freeze in energy bills at the current cap level.

Outgoing premier Johnson has vowed to leave major fiscal decisions to his successor, who will be announced on September 5 following a summer-long leadership contest.

Good Law Project to sue Ofgem over price

 cap failure

“The announcement today will devastate families. Just who and what is Ofgem for? Do not be fooled. This is a choice. And the choice they’ve made is to let low-income consumers and small businesses bear the brunt of this crisis."

by Joe Mellor
2022-08-26




Legal campaign group Good Law Project, Fuel Poverty Action, and the Highlands and Islands Affordable Homes Warmth Group have announced they are planning to sue the energy regulator Ofgem, over its failure to mitigate the impact of rising energy bills on consumers.

This is likely to be the first legal action of its kind over the energy bills crisis, and others may join the action – including vulnerable individuals disproportionately impacted by Ofgem’s actions.

As you can see Martin Lewis is beyond angry about this decision to hike energy prices.

Watch



In response to Ofgem’s announcement today that it is raising the price cap to an eye-watering £3,549, Jo Maugham, Director of Good Law Project said:

“The announcement today will devastate families. Just who and what is Ofgem for? Do not be fooled. This is a choice. And the choice they’ve made is to let low-income consumers and small businesses bear the brunt of this crisis.

“We believe Ofgem can – and should do more. We intend to put the question before the High Court, and will ask for a fast-tracked timeline to reflect the urgency of this crisis”.

Poverty

The Ofgem announcement will push millions of people into poverty this winter and the average household bill up by £1,578 – an 80 per cent increase from the current cap.

GLP will ask the High Court to ensure the regulator upholds its legal duties to, among other things, carry out an impact assessment before confirming the price cap increase, including assessing the disproportionate impact on elderly people, children and people with disabilities.

Good Law Project argues that Ofgem has the power to do more to protect vulnerable people and believes before raising the cap, Ofgem is legally required to:Provide evidence it has carried out a proper impact assessment
Consider appropriate mitigation measures for the most vulnerable, including a lower social tariff.

In July, the campaign group wrote to Ofgem, expressing concern about its decision-making. We asked it to provide proof of its impact assessments. It failed to produce any such evidence. Last week GLP put the regulator on notice of formal legal action if it failed to uphold its duties. A formal response to the letter is expected today, but today’s announcement provides no indication that an impact assessment has been carried out.

Related: Watch: Energy price cap to rise more than 80% from Oct – Martin Lewis’ emotional response is chilling

Energy price cap increase: ‘Alarmed’ charities urge government to ‘act now’


26 Aug 2022


Charities have called for urgent government action after Ofgem announced today that the typical household energy bill will increase to £3,549 ( $4,193.14 US Dollar ) a year from 1 October.

The cap set by the government energy regulator, which limits how much providers can charge customers in England, Scotland and Wales, is set to rise by 80% from it's current level of £1,971 for the average household.

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, charities said the government must step in to prevent millions of people from being pushed into poverty.

Sector bodies also warned that charities themselves are being hit by increased energy bills, while demand for their services is set to increase.
Turn2us: ‘Not acceptable to consign more than a quarter of us into poverty’

Thomas Lawson, chief executive of national poverty charity Turn2us, said: “Today’s meteoric rise in the energy cap will cripple those of us in the UK already struggling to stay afloat. This is no longer a choice between heating and eating, but not being able to afford either. This is as big an emergency as the impact of Covid and needs a similarly confident government response.

“As one of the wealthiest economies, it’s simply not acceptable to consign more than a quarter of us into poverty.”

The charity is calling on government to introduce a cap on energy costs and increase the value of Universal Credit and legacy benefits by a minimum of £25 a week, saying “the government must act now”

Joseph Rowntree Foundation: This ‘will plunge many into destitution’

Katie Schmuecker, principal policy adviser at the JRF, said: “It is simply unthinkable that the price rises announced today can go ahead without further government intervention on a significant scale. To force the burden of rising wholesale energy prices onto households will plunge many into destitution.”

She added: “People are already being pushed into heart-breaking situations, disconnecting themselves from energy, skipping showers and going without food so their children can eat. And this is before we’ve even hit the big price rise and colder weather. Households are crying out for certainty and security.”

JRF research has found that almost half, 47%, of those on low incomes who are not in receipt of means-tested benefits are already going without one essential item or food, one third are in food insecurity and more than one fifth can’t afford to keep their home warm.

Groundwork: ‘We are alarmed at the volume of requests for help’

Graham Duxbury, Groundwork UK’s chief executive, said: “As a charity that supports people living in fuel poverty, we are alarmed at the volume of requests for help that are coming through.

“Energy companies, charities and independent experts all agree that the measures in place are not enough. As well as more emergency financial support and a long-term commitment to improving the energy efficiency of our homes we also need more – and better coordinated – advice.”

So far this year, Groundwork’s Green Doctors in Yorkshire have given out almost twice as many emergency fuel vouchers as in the whole of 2021-22. They have seen a 25% increase in fuel debt support requests and a 46% increase in people having mental health issues associated with stress from money issues.

The organisation said funding on some programmes has almost all been allocated, with four months left of the year, “before the cold weather begins and people start relying on their heating to stay warm and well”.

Centre for Ageing Better: ‘Already around 10,000 people die a year because their homes are too cold’

Carole Easton, Ageing Better’s chief executive, said: “Millions now face a long, cold and dangerous winter. Already around 10,000 people die a year because their homes are too cold. There is a clear and present danger that this number will rise significantly this winter without drastic measures.”

She said “immediate financial support is necessary” and “we also need government to take proactive and sustainable steps”.

Easton added: “UK homes are among the least energy efficient in Western Europe and the financial support government currently provides to homeowners to do something about this is insufficient. Four in five homes that are the coldest and are occupied by households on below-average incomes don’t even qualify for government support.”

Trussell Trust: ‘We have already seen a 50% increase in need at food banks’

Polly Jones, head of policy and research at the Trussell Trust, said the charity is “deeply concerned” that this “will be disastrous for people on the lowest incomes and will leave many with no option but to use a food bank”.

“In recent months, we have already seen a 50% increase in need at food banks compared to before the pandemic,” she said.

The charity is calling on the government to take immediate action and have joined together with 70 organisations to call for at least doubling the additional support offered to people on the lowest incomes.

“Furthermore, the government should provide better, long-term funding for local crisis support, so local authorities can provide much needed support directly in our communities. Only then will we be able to end the need for food banks in the future,” she added.

Family Fund: ‘The outlook is very grave’

Cheryl Ward, chief executive at Family Fund, said: “We know that current severe inflationary pressures are affecting millions of people across the land, but for families caring for disabled and seriously ill children, who have even greater costs, the outlook is very grave. The choices between putting food on the table, paying for energy or clothing and sensory equipment are stark”.

“We very much welcome this latest £150 payment from government,” said Ward, “but we know from the increasing calls we are now getting from our families, facing spiralling costs on every front, that more support will be needed. We are therefore, along with other charities, asking ministers to consider urgently how future support can be given.”

Pro Bono Economics: ‘Charity incomes are already feeling the squeeze on donations’

Nicole Sykes, policy and communications director at PBE, said: “Without further action, the new energy price cap leaves charities and many of the millions they support facing a dire financial situation heading into winter. Many of those who require support from charities are especially exposed to rising energy costs, particularly disabled people with conditions made worse by cold or needing energy to run lifesaving equipment.

“Charity incomes are already feeling the squeeze on donations as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. This hike in the energy price cap will only step up demand for charity services, while increasing charities’ own costs - particularly in older buildings with less insulation, and facilities offering energy intensive services like hydrotherapy.

“It is vital that the new prime minister acts fast with a package of support to hold back a wave of hardship, debt and destitution. But we also need a longer-term strategy for growth and economic security, to build up our national resilience to future shocks.”

NPC: ‘Destitute people can’t wait, it’s time to get on and give’

Dan Corry, chief executive at NPC, said: “Today's announcement confirms our worst fears. As we have been saying for some time, this cost-of-living crisis is going to be as big a threat to livelihoods and well-being as Covid-19 and a great deal worse for those at lower income levels. Many more people need help, yet charities will find it harder to support them as energy prices and soaring inflation increase their own costs and erode the value of their reserves and pre-pledged donations.

“Charities will undoubtedly strain every sinew not to let down the people they work with. But they need help.

“Of course, the government should do more and show the same courage it did during the pandemic with the furlough scheme and the Universal Credit uplift. But, as we said in our recent report on confronting this crisis, philanthropists and grantmakers also need to do everything in their power to help charities, and they should be doing it now. Destitute people can’t wait, it’s time to get on and give.”

‘Political persecution’: Julian Assange files further appeal against extradition to US

Latika Bourke

Aug 27 2022

Julian Assange has filed his next bid to appeal against his extradition to the United States.

If granted, Assange will seek to raise sensational media reports that the CIA plotted to kidnap and even kill the Australian during his time holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy. Assange spent seven years at the diplomatic residence in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault and rape.

Assange’s Ecuadorian hosts ended up kicking out the Australian in April 2019, handing him over to Scotland Yard.

He has been incarcerated in British jails ever since, for skipping bail to avoid the Swedish extradition and as the US requested his extradition to face charges relating to the WikiLeaks cables that he published more than a decade ago.


FRANK AUGSTEIN/AP
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange greets supporters from a balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London back in 2017.

’s extradition has been ordered by the British courts and in June was signed off on by Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Assange’s perfected grounds of appeal filed to the High Court of Justice Administrative Court name the US government and Patel as respondents.

The appeal will challenge the 2021 decision of District Judge Vanessa Baraitser who said that Assange could be extradited to the US but barred it on mental health grounds, agreeing that he could self-harm if sent to face trial.

The US government successfully appealed the bar by providing assurances about the prison conditions in which Assange would be kept while he awaits any trial.

DOMINIC LIPINSKI/AP
Supporters of Julian Assange protest outside the Home Office in London in July 1, calling for his release from prison and to mark his 51st birthday. The decade-long legal saga was sparked by his website WikiLeaks’ publication of classified US documents.

But this next appeal by Assange will argue that he is being prosecuted for his political opinions, which, if accepted, would be in breach of the Extradition Act, which states that if it appears that an extradition is sought for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing a person on account of their political opinions then their extradition should barred.

Assange will also argue that Patel erred in signing off on his extradition claiming it breached section 4 of the US-UK extradition act which says extradition must not be sought by either side for political offences.

Assange is charged with violating the Espionage Act when he coached Chelsea Manning how to hack into databases to steal hundreds of thousands of cables which WikiLeaks published in full, after initially publishing selected contents of the cables in partnership with mainstream media outlets.

The appeal marks a shift in his legal defence which had relied more heavily on his physical and mental health.

MATT DUNHAM/AP
Buildings are reflected in the window as Julian Assange was taken from court in 2019, where he appeared on charges of jumping British bail seven years ago.

This claim was originally accepted by Baraitser but overturned on appeal.

Since then, YahooNews! has reported allegations that the Trump Administration floated ways to extract Assange from the US embassy, with the view of kidnapping or even killing him.

Assange’s wife Stella said High Court judges would now determine whether Assange will be granted an appeal hearing.

“Since the last ruling, overwhelming evidence has emerged proving that the US prosecution against my husband is a criminal abuse,” she said in a statement.

MATT DUNHAM/AP
In March, Stella Moris posed for the media and for supporters as she arrived to marry her partner Julian Assange in a small service to be held inside the high-security Belmarsh Prison, in south east London. Assange has been held at Belmarsh since 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that, he spent seven years inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden.

“The High Court judges will now decide whether Julian is given the opportunity to put the case against the US before open court, and in full, at the appeal,” Stella Assange said.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously said he believes Assange should be freed but since winning the May election has declined to outline what entreaties he has made to US President Joe Biden, saying he would not do diplomacy via a “loud hailer”.

READ MORE:
* British judge approves extradition of Julian Assange to US, sent to UK government for decision
* WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gets married in small ceremony at London prison
* Mexico to offer Julian Assange asylum after US extradition bid fails
* Nicky Hager gives evidence for Julian Assange at extradition hearing
* Julian Assange all smiles after seven-year rape investigation is dropped