Monthly Newsletter
September 2015
What Happens To The Iran Deal Once Congress Gets Back
From Recess?
Alina Selyukh and Eric Walsh, Reuters, August 30, 2015
General Meeting
Third Thursday of each month, 7-8 PM
Yuba City High School. Room 322,
850 B Street, Yuba City, CA
Inside This Month's Issue
Congress & the Iran Deal – Page 1
No Perfect Nuclear Deals– Page 2
Clinton E-Mails – Page 3
The Anti-Trump Cometh – Page 5
GOP's Denial Won't Defeat Trump – Page 6
Labor Ruling – Page 7
Bernie Sanders's Challenge – Page 8
Jimmy Carter's Legacy – Page 10
ISIS & the Iraq War – Page 11
Andy Borowitz - Page 12
Special Event - Bill Drake Flyer– Page 13
Club Officers
Chair: Lynne Koester
Vice-Chair: Janet Brown
Treasurer: Linda Hicks
Secretary: Joene Tranter
May/June Meetings
E-Board Meeting: September 9
General Meeting: September 17
E-Board Meeting: October 7
General Meeting: October 15
Special Events
Bill Drake Shares Racism Journey – September 8
Garamendi Office Open House: September 22
Newsletter Editor
Joene Tranter
featherriverdemocrats.org
U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said on
Sunday he would support the nuclear deal with Iran, moving
President Barack Obama a step closer to having sufficient backing to
ensure the deal stands. Obama is trying to muster 34 votes in the
Senate to ensure lawmakers cannot kill the deal. Thirty-one senators,
all Democrats and independents who vote with Democrats, have now
said they will support it.
Congress must vote on the deal by Sept. 17. The following
describes how votes are likely to play out:
When Congress returns on Sept. 8 from its August recess, debate
will begin on a Republican-sponsored "resolution of disapproval"
against the deal. In the Senate, Republicans must gather 60 votes to
move the resolution forward under Senate procedural rules. If they
can, they will then need a simple majority of 51 votes in the chamber
to approve the resolution. It would pass, because Republicans control
a majority of Senate seats and most have already come out against
the agreement.
There is no similar procedural barrier in the House. The resolution
is expected to easily win approval there. Republicans hold 246 seats
in the 435-seat House.
If both chambers approve the resolution, it would go to Obama's
desk for review. He has vowed to veto it. If he does so, opponents
would then try to override the veto. This would take a two-thirds
majority vote in each chamber. The Senate has 100 members; the
House, 434, plus one vacant seat.
Democrats could block an override in the Senate with 34 votes. So
far, 31 senators have committed to voting in favor of the deal; 31
have said they will oppose it. In the House, if Republicans voted
unanimously against the deal, they would need to get at least 44
Democrats to vote with them to override a veto.
The Iran deal is not a treaty, so it does not need the two-thirds
vote in the Senate to be ratified. The "resolution of disapproval"
mechanism was included in a law Obama signed in May giving
Congress the right to weigh in on the nuclear deal with Iran.
If Congress were to pass a resolution of disapproval and override a
veto, Obama would be barred from waiving most of the U.S.
sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program. Proponents of
the agreement say this would kill the deal.
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There Are No Perfect Nuclear Deals
Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, Politico, August 30, 2015
At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear
warheads aimed at American cities, and the Soviets were subject to
numerous arms controls agreements. But progress was hard-fought and
incremental at best. In an ideal world, the Soviet Union would have agreed
to more severe constraints than those agreed by Presidents Kennedy, Nixon,
Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush, for example. It would have dismantled all of
its nuclear weapons, stopped its human rights abuses and halted its
meddling around the world.
But, as all of these presidents—Democratic and Republican—understood,
holding out for the impossible is a recipe for no progress at all. Congress
should take the same approach today to the Iran nuclear deal.
We know something about the long history of such agreements. During
our combined 60 years in the U.S. Senate, we participated in countless
meetings, hearings and trips around the globe focused on reducing the
threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. The centerpiece of our
efforts was the Nunn-Lugar Act, passed in 1991, which was the basis for two
decades of hard work that resulted in the safeguarding and deactivation of more than 7,000 nuclear warheads, hundreds
of missiles and bombers, and numerous other elements of the former Soviet Union's WMD programs.
These experiences underscored for us that arms control agreements are rarely finished absolutes. Inevitably, their
success depends on many factors that play out after the agreement is signed, including alliance cohesion, congressional
funding for implementation and the political will of the parties to ensure verification and enforcement.
Over the next several weeks, every member of Congress will have the opportunity to weigh the terms of the nuclear
agreement against all viable alternatives. In our view, the key questions regarding this agreement are: Will it st op Iran
from obtaining a nuclear weapon? What are the risks of going forward with this agreement? And what are the risks if
Congress rejects the agreement?
The plus-sides of this deal are clear. It includes severe restrictions on uranium enrichment and plutonium production,
required transparency into Iranian activities and inspection provisions to assure the international community that Iran 's
nuclear program is, and remains, peaceful. Reports that Iran will simply inspect itself to address unresolved allegations
about its nuclear behavior have been refuted by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who has stated that
the arrangements are technically sound, consistent with the IAEA's long-established practices and do not compromise
IAEA safeguards standards in any way. Importantly, the agreement taken as a whole will help deter Iranian cheating and
provide the means to detect violations in time to take strong action if required.
Could we conceive a stronger deal? Of course—that has been true of every arms control negotiation. We have heard
critics suggest that Iran would have agreed to entirely dismantle its nuclear enrichment facilities and stop all activities
related to its civil nuclear program if only the U.S. had been tougher in negotiations. But had the U.S. taken such an
approach in the early 1990s, we would not have encouraged and helped Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus safely
accelerate the destruction of their weapons and materials of mass destruction, and the risk of accidents or catastrophic
terrorism would have been far higher over the past 20 years.
Although there are no absolute guarantees, nor can there be in diplomatic accords, our bottom line is that this
agreement makes it far less likely that the Iranians will acquire a nuclear weapon over the next 15 years. As to risks in
going forward with the agreement, Congress must listen carefully to both our intelligence community and the IAEA's
views on any possible weaknesses in the verification regime, and then work with these entities to mitigate any
vulnerabilities, both now and in the years ahead.
As with other agreements, Congress must recognize that there is no such thing as "perfect" verification. What is
crucial, however, is whether "effective" verification can be achieved. Can cheating be detected in time to take action
before Iran could achieve a militarily significant advance? We believe the answer to that question is yes. The monitoring
and verification provisions of this agreement are unprecedented in the history of arms control in their comprehensiveness
and intrusiveness, and together with our intelligence capabilities should give us powerful tools to achieve effective
verification.
Opponents of this agreement have offered criticism that sanctions relief would provide Iran with additional resources
that would enable it to intensify its destabilizing behavior in the region. This is a risk, but the argument that this risk can
be avoided or reduced by the defeat of this agreement rests on a patently false assumption.
IRAN, Page 3
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IRAN – From Page 2
Anyone believing that the present effective economic sanctions will be continued by Russia, China, India and other
nations if Congress rejects this agreement is in a dream world. This agreement and the alliance that brought Iran to the
negotiating table through sanctions have focused on Iran's nuclear activities, not its regional behavior, though both are
serious dangers. This alliance could never have been brought or held together to pursue a broad, nuclear and regional
agenda on which alliance partners themselves strongly disagree.
With or without this agreement, the U.S. must continue and intensify our efforts with other partners to challenge and
counter Iran's destabilizing regional activities and strengthen our cooperation with Israel and the Gulf States. If this
agreement is rejected, both of these objectives become more difficult.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, members of Congress must think long and hard about the consequence s if this
agreement is turned down. There is no escaping the conclusion that there will inevitably be grave implications for U.S.
security and for U.S. international leadership in the decades ahead. Sanctions allies will go their own way, reducing the
effectiveness of our financial tools and leaving Iran in a stronger position across the board. Any future effort by this
president or the next to assemble a "sanctions coalition" relating to Iran or other security challenges will be weakened.
U.S. leadership, diplomacy and credibility, including efforts to achieve support for possible military action against Iran, will
all be severely damaged.
If, however, the Iran agreement is upheld by Congress, the hard work of monitoring and enforcement is just beginning.
This Congress and future Congresses, as well as future presidents, have a large and continuing role to play in the
decades ahead if "stopping the Iranian bomb" is to become a reality. Congress must insist that Iran be held to its
commitments while not obstructing the agreement. The U.S. must make clear our commitment to the security of our
allies and friends in the Middle East, through security assistance and a clear policy that Iranian meddling in the region will
be firmly resisted. It must be clear which congressional committees are responsible for oversight and monitoring of
implementation and compliance. There should also be clear requirements for the president to report to Congress on
intelligence associated with Iran. In addition, Congress must provide funding to the IAEA for its activities in monitoring
Iranian compliance with this agreement as well as other nuclear proliferation activities in the Gulf region.
These crucial September votes will require members to search their own consciences. Whether they vote "yea" or
"nay," they must first look in the mirror and ask whether they are putting our nation's interest first. Our own conviction is
that this agreement represents our best chance to stop an Iranian bomb without another war in the Middle East.
THE HILLARY CLINTON E-MAIL 'SCANDAL' THAT ISN'T
By David Ignatius, The Washington Post, August 27, 2015
Does Hillary Clinton have a serious legal problem because she may have transmitted classified information on her
private e-mail server? After talking with a half-dozen knowledgeable lawyers, I think this "scandal" is overstated. Using
the server was a self-inflicted wound by Clinton, but it's not something a prosecutor would take to court.
"It's common" that people end up using unclassified systems to transmit classified information, said Jeffrey Smith, a
former CIA general counsel who's now a partner at Arnold & Porter, where he often represents defendants suspected of
misusing classified information.
"There are always these back channels," Smith explained. "It's inevitable, because the classified systems are often
cumbersome and lots of people have access to the classified e-mails or cables." People who need quick guidance about a
sensitive matter often pick up the phone or send a message on an open system. They shouldn't, but they do.
"It's common knowledge that the classified communications system is impossible and isn't used," said one former highlevel Justice Department official. Several former prosecutors said flatly that such sloppy, unauthorized practices, although
technically violations of law, wouldn't normally lead to criminal cases.
Clinton's use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state has been a nagging campaign issue for months.
Critics have argued that the most serious problem is possible transmission of classified information through that server.
Many of her former top aides have sought legal counsel. But experts in national-security law say there may be less here
than it might appear.
First, experts say, there's no legal difference whether Clinton and her aides passed sensitive information using her
private server or the official "state.gov" account that many now argue should have been used. Neither system is
authorized for transmitting classified information. Second, prosecution of such violations is extremely rare. Lax security
procedures are taken seriously, but they're generally seen as administrative matters.
HILLARY, Page 4
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HILLARY – From Page 3
Potential criminal violations arise when officials knowingly disseminate documents marked as classified to unauthorized
officials or on unclassified systems, or otherwise misuse classified materials. That happened in two cases involving former
CIA directors that are cited as parallels for the Clinton e-mail issue, but are quite different. John Deutch was pardoned in
2001 for using an unsecured CIA computer at his home to improperly access classified material; he reportedly had been
prepared to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. David Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in April for "knowingly"
removing classified documents from authorized locations and retaining them at "unauthorized locations." Neither case fits
the fact pattern with the Clinton e-mails.
Clinton defended herself Aug. 18 with a carefully worded statement: "I did not send classified material, and I did not
receive any material that was marked or designated classified." Those may sound like weasel words, but they actually go
to the heart of what might constitute a criminal case.
What happens in the real world of the State Department? Smith takes the hypothetical example of an assistant
secretary who receives a classified cable from, say, Paris, about a meeting with the French foreign minister and wants
quick guidance from the secretary. So he dashes off an e-mail—rather than sending a classified cable that would be seen
by perhaps a dozen people.
"Technically, he has taken classified information and put it onto an unclassified system," Smith said. "It's the same as
picking up a telephone and talking about it. It's not right. But the challenge of getting the secretary's attention—getting
guidance when you need it—is an inevitable human, bureaucratic imperative. Is it a crime? Technically, perhaps yes. But
it would never be prosecuted."
Informal back channels existed long before e-mail. One former State Department official recalled the days when most
embassies overseas had only a few phones authorized for secret communications. Rather than go to the executive office
to make such a call, officers would use their regular phones, bypassing any truly sensitive details. "Did we cross red lines?
No doubt. Did it put information at risk? Maybe. But, if you weren't in Moscow or Beijing, you didn't worry much," this
former official said.
Back channels are used because the official ones are so encrusted by classification and bureaucracy. State had the
"Roger Channel," named after former official Roger Hilsman, for sending secret messages directly to the secretary. The
Joint Chiefs of Staff had a similar private channel. CIA station chiefs could send communications known as "Aardwolves"
straight to the director.
Are these channels misused sometimes? Most definitely. Is there a crime here? Almost certainly not.
FEINSTEIN STATEMENT ON CLINTON E-MAILS
Washington, DC, August 13, 2015 - Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today released the following statement in
response to allegations regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails:
"There has been a lot of press coverage recently of allegations regarding Secretary Clinton's email. Unfortunately,
much of the coverage has missed key points. First, none of the emails alleged to contain classified information were
written by Secretary Clinton.
The questions are whether she received emails with classified information in them, and if so, whether information in
those emails should have been classified in the first place. Those questions have yet to be answered. However, it is clear
that Secretary Clinton did not write emails containing classified information.
Second, none of the emails alleged to contain classified information include any markings that indicate classified
content.
As someone who regularly reviews classified material, I can say that those documents are always clearly marked as
containing classified information. Every official who writes classified material, whether in email or on paper, must mark
the information as classified. They would also be required to use a separate classified email system to transmit the
information. The emails identified did not contain these markings.
I understand the State Department Inspector General is conducting a broader review of the email practices of the past
five Secretaries of State and their senior staff, and I will review those findings when they are completed."
SEE WHAT OUR CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATORS THINK ABOUT CURRENT ISSUES
Congressman John Garamendi, California 3rd Congressional District: www.garamendi.house.gov
Senator Barbara Boxer: www.boxer.senate.gov
Senator Dianne Feinstein: www.feinstein.senate.gov
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THE ANTI-TRUMP COMETH
Timothy Egan, The New York Times, August. 28, 2015
One man hasn't watched television in 25 years, gets around in a Ford
Focus, and is named for a nature-loving pauper who didn't believe in
owning money, property or shoes. He is considered infallible, but often
doubts his daily utterances.
The other man spent 14 years in the mirrored embrace of a television
show about him, is transported by a fleet with his name on the side, and
looks down on anyone who hasn't amassed a mountain of property. He
thinks he's infallible.
In a few weeks, Pope Francis will visit our fair land, a fitting pivot from
the Summer of Trump, closing out a gluttonous episode of narcissism,
rudeness, frivolity and xenophobia. For all that the orangutan-haired
vulgarian has done to elevate the worst human traits a public figure can
have, Francis is the anti-Trump. He has more power, media magnetism and authenticity in his lone functioning lung than
Donald Trump has in his entire empire of ego.
Trump may dismiss the 78-year-old leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Yeah, so he's got his little 109acre Vatican City, with those silly Swiss Guards. It's the smallest country in the world—one-eighth the size of Central
Park! As Joseph Stalin asked: How many divisions does the pope have? And this guy from Argentina with the goofy grin
—no golf courses, resorts or even women who, sadly, are no longer a 10. He's celibate!
Francis is the son of immigrants, invites the poor into his home, and washes the feet of the sick and marginalized.
Trump wants to round up and deport immigrants, considers the poor to be losers, and is afraid of touching people.
Francis lives in a two-bedroom guesthouse, and says the measure of a person's value has nothing to do with financial
net worth. "When money becomes an idol, it controls man's choices," he said. "It makes him a slave."
Trump sleeps in monogrammed satin, and divides his time among a string of mansions, towers and estates, all crusted
in gold. His exults in materialistic excess with an empty sack of a soul. "Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich,"
he said.
Francis preaches forgiveness. "Never, never let the sun go down without making peace," he said. "Never, never,
never!" Trump loves nothing more than stoking feuds and hurling insults, and will not apologize. His enemy list spans
three time zones.
Francis preaches urgent care of an overheated planet. Trump says climate change is a fabrication. "The concept of
global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make the United States' manufacturers noncompetitive,"
he said.
Francis wants to build bridges. He's reached out to Muslims, Jews and atheists. Trump vows to erect a 2,000-mile wall.
"Nobody builds better walls than me, believe me." Francis has never been on the Internet, and doesn't own a cellphone.
Trump is sustained by nonstop social media, which he feeds with constant idiocies. "I have so many websites," he said. "I
have them all over the place."
When the pope arrives on Sept. 22, he will draw the kind of press coverage that will make Trump sputter with envy.
Trump likes to make fun of the teensy, weensy crowds that the other candidates draw. He's about to go teensy, weensy
by comparison.
Francis plans a White House visit, an outdoor mass in Washington, a speech before Congress. He is likely to join a rally
on the National Mall, highlighting his stance on protecting the planet, that may draw upward of a quarter-million people.
He will visit a prison in Philadelphia, a church in East Harlem, say Mass at Madison Square Garden, address the United
Nations. In a six-day visit, the pope will bring substance and self-deprecation—an appeal to our better angels. It may be
just enough to wash away the grime of Trump's ego effluence.
Trump is the demagogue we can't stop watching, the freak show that cable television can't stop promoting. His core
message is spectacle. It's crazy to take any of his "policy" assertions seriously, because he himself does not.
But for saying things that the darker elements of the Republican Party believe, but rarely voice, Trump is their clear
front-runner—a dangerous moment for a troubled party. He's drawn praise from ex-Klansmen like David Duke. The Daily
Storm, a neo-Nazi website, urged its followers "to vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually
represents us."
But let's put the papal visit in the only terms that matter to Trump—ratings. Trump has a favorable rating of about 37
percent nationwide; with Latinos it's 14 percent. A Pew survey staked the pope's favorability number at 90 percent earlier
this year. A later poll had less support; still, numbers that any politician would kill for.
You will never hear that from the pope, a man trying to live by the humbling aphorisms of his namesake, Francis of
Assisi. "Show me someone without an ego," says Trump, "and I'll show you a loser." At least we know how he'll address
him.
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THE GOP'S DENIAL WON'T DEFEAT TRUMP
By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, August 27, 2015
I know you haven't heard enough about Donald
Trump recently, so here's more: At this point,
anyone who says he can't win the Republican
nomination is in deep denial.
Trump announced his candidacy on June 16 and
immediately vaulted into the top tier of candidates.
On July 14, a USA Today poll put Trump in the lead
by three points—and he has led every survey since.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday said
he had the support of 28 percent of GOP voters—
which is huge in a field this big.
The new poll gave trump a 16-point lead over his
nearest competitor, retired neurosurgeon Ben
Carson. Jeb Bush, whom Trump has begun
describing as a "low-energy person"—and who
campaigns at times as if he were the nominee of
destiny—stood at a measly 7 percent. Yikes.
That jolt you felt Thursday morning wasn't an
earthquake, it was the detonation of the Quinnipiac
bomb.
The Republican establishment seems to be slowly going through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief, with many
politicians and pundits unable to get past the first: denial.
When it became clear that Trump could not be ignored, party leaders and conservative columnists looked hard for
evidence that the combed-over mogul's political ascendancy was bound to fizzle. The establishment didn't search at all for
signs that it might be deeper and more lasting—forgetting an elementary rule of social science, which is that what you
look for sets the parameters of what you'll find.
So the lords of the GOP counted all the ways that Trump was unlike a traditional politician and decided he would soon
be toast. He didn't issue long, turgid position papers that no one would read. His rhetoric was miles over the top. He used
to be a Democrat. He picked fights with a venerated senator and, worse, a Fox News anchor. There was no way this guy
couldn't fail.
But Trump's numbers in the polls have gone steadily up. And if you add his numbers in the Quinnipiac survey to
Carson's, you see that a full 40 percent of Republican voters want their party to nominate for president someone who has
never run for office before, let alone held it.
This ought to be enough to shock most of the party establishment into Kubler-Ross's second stage: anger.
Some of our more perspicacious conservative observers have been in stage two for a while, and it's producing some
terrific prose. My favorite so far is the opening line of my colleague George F. Will's column this week: "Every sulfurous
belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency."
I'm guessing the party establishment doesn't ever want to get to the next stage of grief—bargaining—because the guy
who would be on the other side of the negotiating table wrote The Art of the Deal. And I'm sure they never want to
experience the final two stages: depression and acceptance.
But Trump is leading in the early-state polls. He can avoid one of the biggest expenses of running for president—
buying television ads—since he gets 24/7 media coverage for free. Instead, he can use his cash to build state-level
campaign organizations and keep gassing up his 757.
What if he were to win in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? Who could stop him then? And how?
If the Republican establishment is going to defeat Trump, it first has to understand why he and Carson are doing so
well. It is simply political malpractice not to take this outsider phenomenon seriously.
We get it, Jeb Bush, that you think it's unbelievable these guys are beating you. Now deal with it. I don't think pointing
out the myriad flaws and injustices in Trump's immigration proposals will get you very far. He's doing a better job of
selling his ridiculous, impossible ideas than you are of selling your sensible, practical solutions. And stop trying to
convince voters that you, like Trump, are "tough" on immigration. Say what you believe, not what you think people want
to hear. And work on that "low-energy" thing.
At present, Bush does seem to be emerging as the anti-Trump. But you can't beat somebody with nobody. Much of
what Trump says may be appalling, but he's definitely somebody—and no one else in the field has achieved that
distinction.
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THIS LABOR RULING COULD GIVE A BIG BOOST TO THE FIGHT FOR 15
Michelle Chen, The Nation, August 31, 2015
The government just showed corporate America that they're the boss, when they'd actually prefer not to be. In a
landmark 3-2 decision issued last Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board expanded the definition of "joint
employer" to include not just the boss that directly employs the worker but also the company that controls that workers'
labor conditions indirectly by contracting with the boss. The new definition could boost the nationwide low-wage workers'
movement known as the Fight for 15, by expanding the power of "outsourced" workers, who work for one company while
formally employed through a third-party contractor, to organize and hold corporations accountable.
The case focused on the question of whether a recycling company, California-based Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI),
should be considered a joint employer of 240 workers hired by a subcontractor, Leadpoint. The Board determined that
BFI held significant enough control over Leadpoint workers' employment and labor conditions to be considered a joint
employer under the National Labor Relations Act.
The Teamsters had sought to organize a union election for Leadpoint workers—comprised of "part-time, and on-call
sorters, screen cleaners, and housekeepers" on a short-term contract at a BFI recycling plant. The effort was thwarted by
a regional labor-relations board and then appealed. The Teamsters argued that the narrow definition of joint employer
allowed a company to act like a regular boss without upholding traditional employers' responsibilities on fair pay and labor
protections—which allows them to hold down labor costs and avoid "the basic legal obligation to recognize and bargain
with the employees' representative."
In validating the Teamsters' claims and allowing Leadpoint workers to move forward with unionization procedures, the
NLRB overturned a precedent dating back to the early 1980s. The Board cited BFI's power to determine key labor
conditions for Leadpoint workers, including their daily duties, hiring, firing, training, and safety protections. In one
instance cited in the decision, a BFI operations manager claimed he did not directly exert control over firing decisions
because he "merely requested" that certain employees be dismissed for misconduct but "did not order or direct"
Leadpoint to execute the termination. (Of course, it didn't matter to the worker which company issued the pink slip; he
lost his job because BFI disapproved of his performance.)
The dissenting opinion rebutted that the redefinition of joint employer was arbitrary and "overbroad": Would the
household who commissioned a renovation job, for example, be as liable for the plumber's labor conditions as the service
provider that had dispatched him?
Likewise, International Franchise Association President Steve Caldeira assailed the board's "tortured analysis" in a press
release and demanded that federal lawmakers "intervene to halt these out-of-control, unelected Washington
bureaucrats."
For now, Washington bureaucrats are adding fuel to one of the largest mobilizations ever of low -wage workers. The
ruling doesn't pertain explicitly to fast food-type franchise arrangements, but advocates hope it will galvanize the Fight for
15 movement's demand for full union rights. Last year the NLRB's General Counsel moved in this direction by labeling
McDonald's a joint employer in a pending case on alleged anti-union activities against fast-food worker activists. In
addition, worker activists have filed several civil lawsuits charging McDonald's as a joint employer over alleged labor
violations in several cities. So far, full-fledged unionization has remained out of reach, even as the movement has
promoted minimum wage hikes and stirred low-wage worker organizing worldwide, particularly in non-union service
industries.
The National Employment Law Project argued in an amicus brief that the BFI case represents a dangerous trend of
companies outsourcing "labor intensive" aspects of the production chain, and this atomization of the workforce "too often
diminishes workers' opportunity for organizing and collective bargaining and degrades working conditions." Staffing and
temp agencies now employ millions of workers and fuel mega-retailers like Amazon, whose warehouses are filled with
poverty-wage contract workers who are routinely chewed up by harsh schedules and bone-crushing work routines, and
are typically excluded from unemployment insurance once they cycle off the job.
There has been some unionization at individual franchise outlets—for example, UNITE HERE has unionized concession
workers at Smithsonian Museums who are subcontractors of the federal government hired by the food-service vendor
Compass. But government subcontractors fall outside the NLRB's regulatory scope; among privately run chain
restaurants, Fight for 15 organizing, chiefly supported by SEIU, remains in legal flux. Meanwhile, organizers are seeking
to align workers with individual franchise operators to jointly demand accountability from parent fast food brands.
But according to University of California–Irvine labor law professor Catherine Fisk, although the BFI ruling targeted
general contractors that directly controlled subcontractor working conditions, the question of "Whether a franchisor is the
joint employer of workers employed by a franchisee would depend on how much control the franchisor has over hours,
scheduling, wages, and other conditions of employment."
LABOR, Page 8
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LABOR – From Page 7
It's also unclear how the ruling could affect independent contractors, who are increasingly prevalent in sectors like
trucking, computer programming, and media work—industries that labor activists have criticized for systematically
misclassifying workers as "1099ers" to suppress wages and workplace organizing.
New York Communities for Change, which is helping lead New York City's fast-food workers mobilization, says the
decision could energize workplace-justice movements in the city's exploding precarious and "gig economy" sectors: "We
think this will have a huge impact in New York," spokesperson Renata Pumarol says via e-mail. "The sub-contractor
model is used in various industries, from hotels to construction." The group hopes the redefinition of joint employer might
at least indirectly help organizers challenge Silicon Valley heavyweights like Uber, which does an end-run around labor
and taxi-industry regulations by claiming its legions of drivers are independent software users, not actual employees.
Pumarol adds, "Unfortunately, the ruling does not cover companies who consider their workers independent contractors,
but it does call for the NLRB to adapt to a changing economy. So I think we in the labor movement need to continue
doing that, adapting to a changing economic model that continues to figure out ways on how to be less accountable to
workers."
The NLRB's analysis may be tortured, but it helps unmask the contorted legal nature of the modern American
workplace.
BERNIE SANDERS'S NEXT CHALLENGE
By John Cassidy, The New Yorker, August 15, 2015
In December of last year, I quoted a statement Bernie Sanders made as he
launched his "Economic Agenda for America," a twelve-point plan designed to
tackle wage stagnation and promote high-paying jobs. "We have a corporate
establishment whose greed is destroying the economy, a political
establishment which is beholden to billionaires, and a media establishment
which largely ignores the major issues facing working families," he said. "We
need a political revolution."
At the time, the seventy-three-year-old Vermont senator was mulling a
Presidential bid, but few commentators or Democratic voters were paying
much attention to him. Now, of course, his standing in the political world is
very different, but his language isn't. "We have a message to the billionaire
class, and that message is you can't have it all," he told a crowd, estimated
at more than twenty-five thousand, in Los Angeles earlier this week. "You
can't get huge tax breaks when children in our country are going hungry. . . .
You cannot continue to hide billions in profits in the Cayman Islands and
other tax havens. Corporate America and the billionaire class are going to
start paying their fair share of taxes."
Sanders has long been consistent in his views. For many years, he has been about the only politician on Capitol Hill
who openly described himself as a socialist. What has changed is the American political environment. After Elizabeth
Warren declined to enter the 2016 race, Sanders, by virtue of his leftist views, his energy, and his willingness to challenge
Hillary Clinton, inherited Warren's position as the tribune of a reinvigorated progressive movement.
Anyone who wondered how far this movement could carry Sanders now has an answer of sorts. It's not just that he's
drawing much bigger crowds than any other candidate in either party. This week, a poll carried out by Fra nklin Pierce
University for the Boston Herald showed him leading Clinton in New Hampshire, by forty-four per cent to thirty-seven per
cent among likely Democratic voters. True, this seven-point lead was within the poll's margin of error, but it represented
a huge turnaround from a poll taken in March by the same organization, which gave Sanders just eight per cent of the
potential Democratic vote compared with forty-seven per cent for Clinton.
In Iowa, too, Sanders seems be making up ground. As recently as Memorial Day, he was trailing Clinton by about fifty
points in the Hawkeye State, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. Now, Clinton's lead has been cut in half,
and one poll this week, from CNN, showed Sanders getting within twenty points of her. That's still a comfortable margin,
but the trend is in the underdog's favor.
Based on the current polling, Sanders's summer surge has left him with a realistic chance of winning one of the first
two primary states, and of scaring the favorite in the other. For an insurgent candidate whom some political observers are
still dismissing as a no-hoper, these are considerable achievements.
BERNIE, Page 9
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BERNIE – From Page 8
And, of course, Sanders's contribution can't be measured solely in polling numbers. In lambasting tax-dodging
corporate élites and highlighting the corrosive effect that money is having on U.S. politics, he is telling truths that need to
be told and giving voice to the feelings of many Americans, particularly young Americans, who feel alienated by the
current system. Not only that: with Sanders leading the way, progressives are pushing the rest of the Democratic Party to
the left, which could have a lasting impact on policy should the Democrats go onto retain the White House.
Sanders, however, insists that he's not running merely to cheer up progressive activists or to be a thorn in the side of
the Clinton political machine. He insists he's in it to win, which means he needs to move beyond his base of white,
college-educated liberals and start picking up votes from other elements of the party coalition, such as non-whites,
women, and southern Democrats, all of which still slant heavily toward Clinton.
Indeed, one of the most surprising things about Sanders's rise is how little impact it appears to be having on Clinton's
base. So far, Sanders has done an excellent job of enthusing and mobilizing Democrats and independents who had
serious doubts about a Clinton restoration to begin with, particularly those living on the East Coast and West Coast.
Hillary's large core of Democratic support remains largely in place, however.
You can see this is in the national polls, which show her retaining a huge advantage over Sanders. The last six national
polls showed Clinton leading him by thirty-seven percentage points (Ipsos/Reuters and Morning Consult), thirty-five
points (another Ipsos/Reuters survey), thirty-three points (Zogby), thirty points (YouGov/The Economist), and twentynine points (Fox News). As of Saturday morning, the Huffington Post's poll average, which combines these and other
surveys, showed Clinton at 53.7 per cent, Sanders at 18.2 per cent, and Joe Biden (who isn't officially a candidate) at
11.9 per cent.
While the former Secretary of State's popularity among the electorate at large has fallen recently, the vast majority of
Democrats still think positively of her, surveys suggest. For example, a Monmouth University poll published last week
showed that seventy-six per cent of self-identified Democrats have a favorable opinion of Clinton; the latest CBS News
poll put her favorability rating among Democratic primary voters at eighty-two per cent. In the same polls, among the
same groups, Sanders's favorability ratings were thirty-nine per cent and thirty-seven per cent.
These look like the numbers of a protest candidate rather than one capable of putting together a broad coalition of
supporters, which is what you need to win the Democratic primary. A Gallup poll published this week showed that
just twenty-three per cent of African-Americans have a favorable opinion of Sanders, and just thirty-three per cent of
African-Americans are even familiar with him. (Clinton's numbers on these two questions were eighty per cent and
ninety-two per cent, respectively.) A prior Gallup survey found that Sanders was also on the wrong side of a big gender
gap. Among men who self-identify as Democrats and "Democratic leaners," his favorability rating was forty-seven per
cent; among women who self-identify in the same way, his favorability rating was just thirty-two per cent.
If these numbers don't change, Sanders will struggle mightily once the first two primaries are out of the way and
attention switches to places like South Carolina, Nevada, and the twelve states—eight of them in the South—that will vote
on "Super Tuesday," March 1st. That likelihood explains why many commentators believe the best he can do is to serve
as a stalking horse for an established Democrat with broader appeal, much as Eugene McCarthy did in 1968, when his
strong showing in New Hampshire prompted Robert Kennedy to enter the race.
While the primary calendar invites such historical analogies, they are, at this stage, pure speculation. Sanders, well
aware of his current position, is reaching out to African-Americans and other groups. After protesters from the "Black
Lives Matter" movement disrupted some of his rallies, he hired a black twenty-five-year-old activist, Symone Sanders (no
relation), as his national press secretary. He also announced a "Racial Justice" platform that called for the elimination of
minimum-sentence guidelines, the demilitarization of urban police forces, a ban on private prisons, and a "ban the box"
law designed to prevent employers from discriminating against job candidates with minor criminal records. Next week,
Sanders is heading back to South Carolina, where he will hold rallies in four cities, including Charleston.
In trying to move beyond his white liberal base, Sanders faces a huge challenge, but it would be folly to underes timate
him. Thanks to the groundswell of support among progressive activists, young Democrats, and small donors, he has the
money, the manpower, and the social-media presence to expand his footprint. And with televised Democratic debates
starting next month, he will have the opportunity to introduce himself to a broader audience. Based on what we've seen
so far, it seems likely that more potential Democratic voters will warm to his message.
If you would like to join our club, please call Lynne Koester at 530-671-1327 or attend our September 17 meeting. We meet from
7PM – 8PM at Yuba City High School, Room 322, 850 B Street, Yuba City.
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JIMMY CARTER'S UNHERALDED LEGACY
By Stuart E. Eizenstat, The New York Times, August 25, 2015
As Jimmy Carter moves into the twilight of his life, it is
enormously frustrating for those of us who worked closely with
him in the White House to witness his presidency caricatured as a
failure, and to see how he has been marginalized, even by his
fellow Democrats, since he left office in 1981.
His defining characteristic was confronting intractable problems
regardless of their political cost. His closest aide and confidant,
Hamilton Jordan, ruefully joked that the worst argument to make
to President Carter to dissuade him from action was that it would
hurt him politically.
A former one-term governor of Georgia, Mr. Carter won with a
colorblind campaign, and in office he stayed faithful to his
message of uplifting the poor of all races at the risk of losing his
white Southern base.
Mr. Carter understood that, after Watergate, trust in government needed to be restored. He imposed gift limits and
financial disclosure rules on his appointees; slowed the revolving door of officials departing to lobby their former
departments; and appointed inspectors general to root out fraud and mismanagement.
Mr. Carter established the Department of Education and increased college tuition grants for needy students. He ended
federal price regulation of trucking, interstate buses, railroads and airlines.
America's energy outlook would not be as bright as it is today were it not for his dogged determination to awaken the
American public and Congress to the dangers of our growing dependence on foreign oil. He broke a quarter-century
impasse and began to phase out federal price controls for natural gas, and then crude oil; created the Department of
Energy; and began tax incentives for home insulation and for solar energy.
He created the modern vice presidency, making Walter F. Mondale a full partner, and giving him an office close to his
own, access to classified documents and involvement in every major decision.
Mr. Carter's greatest achievements lay in foreign policy, in the humbling aftermath of Vietnam. In an extraordinary act
of diplomatic negotiation that he personally conducted at Camp David, Md., Mr. Carter produced the first Middle East
peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. It remains a touchstone of United States security policy in the region.
In Asia, he took on the Taiwan lobby to establish full diplomatic relations with China, completing the opening begun by
Richard M. Nixon. In Latin America, he began a new era of mutual respect by turning over the Panama Canal to local
control, and limiting arms sales to military dictatorships. His administration began the unraveling of the Soviet Union by
embracing human rights and introducing intermediate-range missiles in Europe.
Given these lasting achievements, why is the Carter presidency viewed with such disdain by so many? The answers lie
in two areas, one in his style of governing and his unbending character, and the other in external events. Losing a fight
for a second term in a landslide automatically casts a cloud. President Ronald Reagan's positive, hopeful approach also
contrasted with Mr. Carter's penchant to be the bearer of unpleasant truths, to ask for sacrifice in a way that shaded into
the image of a public scold. Trained as an engineer, he sought comprehensive solutions to fundamental challenges
through a political system designed for incremental change; his significant successes never quite seemed to match the
ambition of his proposals.
Early in his presidency, when he was trying to manage the White House on his own, without a chief of staff, Mr. Carter
sent Congress a blizzard of controversial legislative proposals. By his own admission, this overloaded the congressional
circuits with too many competing initiatives. What came back paled in contrast to his excessively broad goals and
confused the public. Some presidents have an indefinable quality of making half a loaf seem like a victory, but Mr. Carter
did not really recognize politics as the art of the possible. When he won, he looked as if accepting compromise was a loss.
Mr. Carter did what he considered "the right thing" for his country, and let the political chips fall where they may.
The fruit of some of Mr. Carter's greatest achievements came only after he left office. The most painful example was
his reining in the ruinous inflation that had bedeviled his predecessors even before the first oil shock of 1973. Over the
objection of almost all his advisers, Mr. Carter appointed Paul A. Volcker chairman of the Federal R eserve, knowing he
would raise interest rates to squeeze inflation out of the system. He told us that he had tried two anti-inflation czars,
jawboning, voluntary wage and price guidelines, and an austere budget policy; that nothing had worked, and that he
would rather lose the 1980 election than leave ingrained inflation to the next generation.
CARTER, Page 11
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CARTER – From Page 10
To this day, there is a myth—which Mr. Carter himself has not tried to dispute—that if only he had dispatched more
helicopters, our attempt to rescue the American hostages held at our embassy in Iran would have succeeded. (Military
commanders, in fact, argued that additional helicopters would have compromised the secrecy of the mission.)
For many it became a metaphor for a failed presidency. The withdrawal of Iranian oil from the world market meanwhile
sent oil prices soaring, produced double-digit inflation, and left millions angrily waiting in lines at the gas pump, just as
Mr. Carter sought re-election. The American public saw the entire country held hostage by a second-rate power in the
agonizing 444 days that our diplomats and employees were held captive.
After almost 40 years, these failures—and all presidents suffer from them—should be weighed against this good man's
major accomplishments. Another Democratic president who left office widely unpopular, but who in the cold light of
history is seen as a paragon of honesty, decisiveness and achievement is Harry S. Truman. He was an idol of Mr. Carter,
who put a plaque with Truman's slogan on his Oval Office desk: "The Buck Stops Here." Their plain-spoken decency,
integrity and courage are too often lacking among political leaders today.
ISIS AND THE CURSE OF THE IRAQ WAR
John Cassidy, The New Yorker, August 28, 2015
I've been reading up recently on the ancient history of Iraq and Syria, a region that is often referred to, not for nothing,
as the cradle of civilization. Here is where rapid population growth, urbanization, the specialization of labor,
manufacturing, written language, money, mathematics, and astronomy all originated.
Today, of course, parts of the region have fallen under
the control of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, which,
as part of its stated aim to create an Islamic caliphate, is
destroying any traces of earlier religions and civilizations.
(Evidently, in keeping with its Wahhabi roots, it regards
them as antithetical to Islam, despite the fact that they
existed thousands of years before the prophet Muhammad
was born.) Earlier this year, after occupying Mosul, in
northern Iraq, ISIS militants ransacked the city's central
museum, taking drills and sledgehammers to statues and
relics from the empires of Akkadia and Assyria, some of
which reportedly dated back to the start of the first
millennium B.C.
More recently, ISIS forces have extended their campaign
against human history to Palmyra, a city built around an
oasis in central Syria. It dates to the start of the second
millennium B.C., and was later ruled by the Seleucids, who
came to power after Alexander the Great's empire was divided. A week and a half ago, ISIS fighters beheaded Khaled
Assad, an eighty-two-year-old scholar who for decades served as Palmyra's director of antiquities, and as head of its
museum. ISIS then suspended his body from a traffic light. So dedicated was Assad to his mission of preserving his city's
history that, according to a report in the Times, he had named a daughter after Queen Zenobia, who ruled Palmyra in the
third century A.D.
Then, last week, ISIS forces blew up the Baalshamin Temple, a United Nations World Heritage Site that was first
constructed in Palmyra in the second century B.C., and rebuilt in the first century A.D. "The systematic destruction of
cultural symbols embodying Syrian cultural diversity reveals the true intent of such attacks, which is to deprive the Syrian
people of its knowledge, its identity and history," Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, the cultural and
educational arm of the U.N., said in a statement responding to the destruction. "Such acts are war crimes and their
perpetrators must be accountable for their actions."
A commendable statement, indeed. But what prospect is there that ISIS's murderous ranks, and their leaders, will be
brought to justice—not just for destroying antiquities, of course, but also for rounding up and massacring people living in
the territories they've occupied, inducing women into sex slavery, killing Western captives and posting the footage online,
calling for terrorist attacks in the United States and other countries, and so on. Right now, the chance that ISIS's leaders
will be brought before the International Criminal Court, say, is slim to none.
ISIS, Page 12
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ISIS – From Page 11
Despite more than a year of air strikes by the United States and its allies, and despite some important battlefield
successes by the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces during that time, ISIS appears to be as strong as ever. Or, at
least, that is what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded, according to a report published a month ago by the
Associated Press. And, this week, the Times revealed that the Pentagon is now investigating whether intelligence officials
"skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a
more optimistic account of progress."
Obama Administration officials continue to claim that the policy of air strikes, combined with the deployment of several
thousand U.S. soldiers to train Iraq's army and the supplying of arms to the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria, will
eventually bear fruit. "I'm confident that we will succeed in defeating ISIL and that we have the right strategy," Ashton
Carter, the Defense Secretary, said last week. But Carter also conceded that "it's going take some time." Assuming so,
that means the task of confronting ISIS, and deciding whether to escalate the level of U.S. involvement, will almost
certainly fall on the next President.
And what will he or she do? Absent a horrific ISIS-inspired attack on U.S. soil, the likely answer is not much more than
Obama is doing. Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, has publicly backed Obama's strategy of seeking to
"degrade" ISIS's military capabilities over time. The Republican candidates for President are forever criticizing Obama for
not doing enough to tackle ISIS, but when you examine the policy statements of the leading contenders you find few
concrete proposals, and a marked reluctance to commit U.S. troops.
Jeb Bush, in a typically bold move, has said that he would defer to the advice of U.S. military commanders. Donald
Trump, seemingly oblivious to the fact that most of Iraq's oil fields are controlled by the government or the Kurds,
has said that he would order U.S. forces to bomb them. Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, in speeches they delivered on
Friday, both called for more aggressive actions against ISIS, but stopped well short of promising to deploy additional U.S.
ground troops in Iran and Syria. Of the seventeen G.O.P. candidates, only two no-hopers—Lindsey Graham and George
Pataki—have grasped that particular nettle. And, as you might have guessed, it didn't help their poll ratings.
What explains the reluctance among politicians to consider confronting, head-on, a movement that has been intent on
eradicating ideals that the United States and its allies hold dear? The Iraq War, of course. By destroying the Iraqi state
and setting off reverberations across the region that, ultimately, led to a civil war in Syria, the 2003 invasion created the
conditions in which a movement like ISIS could thrive. And, by turning public opinion in the United States and other
Western countries against anything that even suggests a prolonged military involvement in the Middle East, the war
effectively precluded the possibility of a large-scale multinational effort to smash the self-styled caliphate.
To be clear: I'm not calling for a full-scale ground war against ISIS: I'm not calling for anything. At this stage, like many
other people, I suspect, I can hardly organize my thoughts about what's happening in ISIS-held territory, beyond an
acute feeling of dread and despondency. Hopefully, the current strategy will work. And, hopefully, the organization's
appeal to disaffected young Muslims around the world will wane. But do I have any real confidence that either of these
things will happen? I do not.
Even at the time, the Iraq War seemed like a very bad idea. Twelve years on, it has developed into a wretched curse
on the civilizations whose foundations were laid in places like Palmyra and Mosul.
TRUMP: I WOULD ATTACK ISIS ON TWITTER
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker, August 11, 2015
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In an effort to boost his foreign-policy credentials, the billionaire Donald Trump on
Tuesday said that, if he were elected President, he would defeat ISIS with "brutal and relentless" attacks on Twitter.
"Under President Obama, ISIS has been able to maraud and rampage with impunity," Trump told Fox News. "When I'm in
the White House, the leaders of ISIS are going to bear the brunt of the most vicious tweets the world has ever known."
The real-estate mogul said that, as President, he would set aside a portion of the time that he currently allots to
excoriating journalists, politicians, and assorted other perceived enemies on Twitter to focus his fury on the leaders of
ISIS. "Of all the people running for President, I have by far the most Twitter-war experience," he boasted. "I will declare
an all-out Twitter war on ISIS, and I will win."
Offering a taste of his proposed Twitter campaign, Trump produced this sample tweet: "ISIS is a total joke. Has zero
chance of winning. Zero!" Another prospective tweet read, "ISIS leaders live in tents. Trump has TEN BILLION DOLLARS.
Kicks their ass!" In yet another example, he offered, "Never see ISIS leaders with models. Why? Cannot get models.
Models love Trump!"
The former reality-show star also blasted President Obama for having a Twitter account with more than three million
followers and never once using it to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a loser.
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North Carolina "Colored" Drinking Fountain, 1938
Source: Library of Congress
A White Southerner Shares His Journey Out of Racism
and
How You Can Change the World Without Going Crazy
Bill Drake
Author of Almost Hereditary: A White Southerner's Journey Out of Racism, A Guide to
Unlearning and Healing Prejudice; Co-founder of Creating Communities Beyond Bias
"An important perspective from someone who grew up in a world poisoned by racism but
learned to see others in a more tolerant light."
Benjamin Todd Jealous, former President and CEO of the NAACP
Tuesday, September 8, 6pm-8pm
Yuba County Library * 303 2nd Street * Marysville
Free Admission
Sponsored by the Yuba County Democratic Central Committee
For Information: (530) 741-3044
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