Dear Commons Community,

As expected, Donald Trump was acquitted at the Senate impeachment trial yesterday with all Democrats voting for conviction and all Republicans except Mitt Romney voting for acquittal.   Romney said yesterday that he voted to convict President Donald Trump on the impeachment article charging abuse of power.  As reported by The New York Times and Reuters.

“I believe that attempting to corrupt an election to maintain power is about as egregious an assault on the Constitution as can be made,” Romney told the New York Times. “And for that reason, it is a high crime and misdemeanor, and I have no choice under the oath that I took but to express that conclusion.”

He added: “I will only be one name among many, no more, no less to future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial,”

“They will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that what the president did was wrong, grievously wrong.  We are all footnotes at best in the annals of history, but in the most powerful nation on Earth, the nation conceived in liberty and justice, that distinction is enough for any citizen.”

Romney, a moderate, had sided with Democrats in calling for more witness testimony in Trump’s impeachment trial, a move Republicans blocked.

Once the party’s standard-bearer as its 2012 presidential nominee, Romney has not been fully behind the president and is not beholding to Trump for anything.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As of late last night, the Iowa Democratic Party had released 71% of the results from Monday’s presidential caucuses.

The numbers released yesterday show Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, holding a slight lead with 26% of the vote over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.   Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar followed.

It was still too early for news sources to declare a winner.

Tony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMNZrpAUvO0

Dear Commons Community,

The “state of the union” was clearly on display last night during President Donald Trump’s address to Congress.  He refused to shake House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand at the beginning of his address (see above) and she ripped up his speech at the end (see below)!

Trump’s speech was full of the greatest this and greatest that and sounded like the beginning of his campaign for a second term.  The Associated Press did a fact check on some his claims. 

Great theater!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The National Center for Homeless Education released a report several days ago that found that more than 1.5 million public school students experienced homelessness in the 2017-18 school year, the highest number in more than a dozen years.  This was a 137 percent increase in the number of students who reported staying in “unsheltered” places, such as abandoned buildings and cars.   Some children lost a stable home when a parent succumbed to opioid addiction. Others were forced to stay in hotels after hurricanes or fires destroyed their homes. Still others fled abuse or neglect.  As reported in The New York Times.

“More than 1.5 million public school students nationwide said they were homeless at some point during the 2017-18 school year, the most recent data available, according to a report from the National Center for Homeless Education released last week.

It was the highest number recorded in more than a dozen years, and experts said it reflected a growing problem that could negatively affect children’s academic performance and health.

“The ripple effect here is real,” said Dr. Megan Sandel, a director of the Grow Clinic at the Boston Medical Center, who said housing instability was associated with developmental delays in children and children in fair or poor health.

The center, which is based at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is funded by the United States Department of Education, issued the report on Jan. 29. Its findings came as a housing affordability crisis sweeps the nation and homelessness continues to rise.

The report compared the 2017-18 school year with the 2015-16 school year and found a 15 percent increase in the number of students nationwide who experienced homelessness.

The 2017-18 number was more than double the nearly 680,000 homeless students reported in 2004-05, the first school year examined by the center, its director, George Hancock, said.

The report also showed a 137 percent increase, to more than 102,000, in the number of students who while homeless reported staying in “unsheltered” places, such as abandoned buildings and cars.

The center compiles figures submitted annually by states to the federal government that include students who said they were homeless for even brief periods during the school year. Homelessness could mean sharing homes with other families during times of economic hardship or spending a night in a homeless shelter.

The numbers influence the distribution of federal and state funds for homeless programs. They capture only what was reported by state or local officials. Numbers from Vermont, for example, were not included for the 2017-18 school year because the state did not provide them in time.

Texas reported the largest increase over the three school years, with the number of homeless students doubling, to more than 231,000 in 2017-18. Fourteen states reported a decrease.

The report did not offer reasons for the changes but experts pointed to diverse factors that may have helped drive the totals in a troubling upward direction.

“It is complex, depending on where you are in the country,” said Barbara Duffield, the executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit based in Washington that supports youths who are homeless.

Severe natural disasters could drive the increases, particularly in Texas and Florida, which had a 32 percent rise, Ms. Duffield said. Both states were hit hard by storms that ravaged thousands of homes.

She said a lack of affordable housing, the opioid and methamphetamine addiction crises, and fluctuations in local economic conditions — a factory shutting down, leaving parents unemployed and unable to pay rent, for example — all influence the rise in homeless students.

In many cases, districts have been getting better at identifying which students are homeless.

“We definitely see that when school districts pay more attention, when they invest in training, when they get out into the community, then the numbers also go up,” Ms. Duffield said.

In Santa Rosa County, Fla., which is on the Gulf Coast, the school district identified more than 1,000 students of a total population of nearly 28,000 as having experienced homelessness in the 2017-18 school year.

The majority live with other families, also known as “doubled up,” said Karen Barber, the district’s director of federal programs. She said most homeless students also have a single parent.

The numbers have declined in recent years as the local economy has improved and the district has expanded programs to help homeless students, she said. But rising housing costs have kept the figures higher than they should be, she said.

“We’re not moving the needle as much as we could because of the lack of affordable housing,” she said. “That really is the biggest issue.”

She said district staff look for “red flags” that might indicate a student is homeless, such as recurring tardiness or an unpaid meal balance.

Ms. Duffield said many students are often “living in fear and shame.” Some families do not report homelessness because they think it would constitute child abuse or neglect.

“People don’t let their school officials know when they’ve been homeless,” said Marybeth Shinn, a professor at Vanderbilt University who researches homelessness.

The annual numbers in the center’s report most likely underestimate the problem. For example, they do not include private school students. An audit by California in November found that public school districts significantly undercounted the number of homeless students.

Professor Shinn said the data also left out children who were not yet in kindergarten and who make up a significant portion of the overall number of homeless children.

The numbers, she said, do not capture the impact homelessness may have on children throughout their lifetimes.

“The question is: What are the long-term effects of homelessness on children, as opposed to the very immediate effects?” she said.”

This is such a sad commentary on our society.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

If you stayed up late Monday night waiting for the final tallies for the Iowa Caucuses, you lost a lot of sleep because as of early Tuesday, the results had not yet been reported.  Cable news media filled airtime with speculation and unofficial entrance polls because of several snafus in the Iowa reporting process due to technology (app) problems, inconsistent results, and communication difficulties.  It is anticipated that a manual, hand-tally system will be conducted today but the damage may have been done. Democratic Party officials both nationally and in Iowa will have a major public confidence problem when the tabulations are completed.  The Associated Press reported:

“The Iowa Democratic Party said Monday night that results from the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus were delayed due to “quality checks” and “inconsistencies” in some reporting, an embarrassing complication that added a new layer of doubt to an already uncertain presidential primary season.

The party said the problem was not a result of a “hack or an intrusion” and promised that final results would be released Tuesday.

The statement came after tens of thousands of voters spent hours Monday night sorting through a field of nearly a dozen candidates who had spent much of the previous year fighting to win the opening contest of the 2020 campaign and, ultimately, the opportunity to take on President Donald Trump this fall.

The confusion threatened to permanently stain the kickoff caucuses and allowed critics to raise questions about the integrity of this year’s results whenever they are released. And with no official evidence to the contrary, virtually every candidate claimed momentum heading into next-up New Hampshire, which votes in just seven days.

“It looks like it’s going to be a long night, but we’re feeling good,” former Vice President Joe Biden said, suggesting the final results would “be close.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he had “a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa” once results were posted. “Today marks the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” he predicted.

“Listen, it’s too close to call,” Warren said. “The road won’t be easy. But we are built for the long haul.”

And Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was most certain.

“So we don’t know all the results, but we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation,” he said. “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

Democrats had hoped Iowa’s caucuses would provide some clarity for what has been a muddled nomination fight for much of the past year. Instead, with no results in sight several hours after caucus-goers cast their votes, they faced the possibility that whatever numbers they ultimately released would be questioned. And beyond 2020, critics began wondering aloud whether Iowa’s decades-long tradition of hosting the first presidential primary election was in jeopardy.

State party spokeswoman Mandy McClure said it had “found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results.”

“This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion,” she said. “The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”

Des Moines County Democratic Chair Tom Courtney blamed technology issues in his county, relaying precinct reports that the app created for caucus organizers to report results was “a mess.” As a result, Courtney said precinct leaders were phoning in results to the state party headquarters, which was too busy to answer their calls in some cases.

Organizers were still looking for missing results several hours after voting concluded.”

Stay tuned!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Democratic presidential candidates traveled across Iowa yesterday making last minute appeals to voters for today’s caucuses.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“Speaking to several hundred supporters in Cedar Rapids Sunday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders declared “we are the campaign of energy and excitement” and said “we are in a position to win tomorrow night.”

Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, talked up his newcomer status, telling a rally in Coralville that when Democrats have won the White House in the past, “we have done it with someone who is new in national politics.”

But former Vice President Joe Biden, emphasizing his decades of Washington experience, told voters there’s no time for “on-the-job training.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren pressed her supporters to “fight back” if they ever lose hope.

Underlying the bold pronouncements, campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin selecting which candidate to send on to a November face-off with President Donald Trump. The Democratic race is unusually large and jumbled heading into Monday’s caucus. Four candidates were locked in a fight for victory in Iowa; others were in position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes.

“This is going to go right down to the last second,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign.

Polls show Biden in a close race in Iowa with Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state.

Democrats’ deep disdain for Trump has put many in the party on edge about the decision. A series of external forces has also heightened the sense of unpredictability in Iowa, including Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which marooned Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar in Washington for much of the past week.

Many campaigns were looking to a final weekend poll to provide some measure of clarity. But late Saturday night, CNN and The Des Moines Register opted not to release the survey because of worries the results may have been compromised.

New caucus rules have also left the campaigns working in overdrive to set expectations before the contest. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night; who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice; and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.

The new rules were mandated by the Democratic National Committee as part of a package of changes sought by Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The revisions were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive. But party officials in Iowa and at the DNC have privately expressed concerns in recent weeks that not just Sanders but multiple campaigns will spin the results in their favor, potentially creating chaos on caucus night.

The Associated Press will declare a winner in Iowa based on the number of state delegates each candidate wins. The AP will also report all three results.”

The media will be in a news frenzy tonight reporting the results.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump is nervous about former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg emergence as a potential presidential candidate.  Yesterday Trump mocked Bloomberg’s height.

“Uh, very little,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity, when asked about Bloomberg. “I just think of little. You know, now he wants a box for the debates to stand on. OK, it’s OK. There’s nothing wrong. You can be short.”

Bloomberg campaign spokesperson Julie Wood didn’t hold back in response to Trump’s attack.

“The president is lying,” she said in a statement. “He is a pathological liar who lies about everything: his fake hair, his obesity, and his spray-on tan.”

Trump went on to criticize the Democratic National Committee for its new rules for the Feb. 19 primary debate, which will no longer require candidates to meet a donor threshold to participate. Past Democratic debates have required participants to have hundreds of thousands of donors, and some candidates have not made the debate stage as a result. Bloomberg, one of the wealthiest people on the planet, is funding his own late-entry campaign and is not seeking donors. 

“The other thing that’s very interesting,” Trump told Hannity, “Cory Booker and all these people couldn’t get any of the things that Bloomberg is getting now. I think it’s very unfair for the Democrats. But I would love to run against Bloomberg. I would love it.”

Both Trump and Bloomberg ran expensive national ads in Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs.

We have not seen the end of this verbal “boxing” match.  It is also good to see the Bloomberg campaign give as well as take.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, 50 members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC) sent a letter to President Trump in response to his disrespectful rhetoric and policies toward women. The letter is sent following Secretary Pompeo disparaging a well-renowned journalist for doing her job, and President Trump validating this behavior by stating, “you did a good job on her.” Here is an excerpt.

“Dear President Trump:

We are writing this letter in response to your continuing derogation of women in your rhetoric and policies.

‘You did a good job on her. Take her out. Get rid of her. Lock her up. Send her back. Nasty woman. Disgusting. Low IQ. Whack job. Grab ‘em by the pussy.’

‘I can do whatever I want.’

It is most shameful that the words young girls and boys hear directed at women from the upper echelons of power are dripping with disdain and disrespect. Beyond your public policy choices – stripping away women’s access to health care, undermining protections for survivors of sexual assault, reversing equal pay efforts and more – your words demonstrate a contempt for women who dare to do their jobs or speak truth to power which reflects poorly on you. It is as if you relish the opportunity to publicly humiliate any woman who fights back, speaks up, or takes up space…”

Go get ’em ladies!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that he would raise taxes on the wealthy, increase the corporate tax rate, and curb tax-free inheritances of large estates, that he says would raise $5 trillion over a decade.

Tax rates on low-income and middle-class Americans set by the 2017 Republican tax law would remain the same.

Bloomberg’s plan serves to show how he’d pay for an array of proposed new spending initiatives, which so far top $3 trillion. But his campaign cautioned that the tax plan could still change as the former New York mayor rolls out even more policy plans in the near future.  As reported in Bloomberg News.

“The tax overhaul would close loopholes that the rich can exploit, according to a summary of the plan, which would allow for more spending on education, job training, infrastructure and in other areas and fight income inequality, Bloomberg said.

“My tax plan will make the tax code more progressive,” Bloomberg said during a campaign event Saturday in Denver. “I’m a wealthy guy, and I didn’t need a tax cut.”

“Right now, I give nearly all of my company’s profits to charity,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “Under my plan, I’ll continue doing that — but I will also pay more in taxes to make sure all Americans have the same opportunities I did. That’s only right.”

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg, LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg’s plan touches many of the same themes that his Democratic competitors have embraced, including raising income taxes on the wealthy, taxing capital gains at the same rate as wages, increasing corporate tax rates, and bolstering the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to audit.

The 2020 presidential hopefuls and Democrats in Congress have seized on popular sentiment for increased taxes, particularly for the wealthy and corporations, after the 2017 Republican tax law failed to gain the public’s backing and partially contributed to Democrats winning the House majority in the 2018 midterms.

The Bloomberg campaign said it hasn’t finalized the details of his plan, including what the threshold would be for taxing estates, because it hasn’t yet designed all of Bloomberg’s policy proposals and tallied their costs.

Bloomberg has released more than 20 proposals covering health care, the economy, climate and other issues since joining the race on Nov. 24, but he hasn’t provided cost estimates in most cases. The estimates he did release exceed $3 trillion over 10 years, including spending $1.2 trillion over 10 years for infrastructure and $1.5 trillion for health care. But there are dozens of other policy elements in the plans released so far, with no price-tags attached.

The plan released on Saturday adopts several of the policy ideas that Bloomberg’s moderate competitors, including Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, have touted. It stops short of some of the more progressive ideas — such as a wealth tax or financial transaction tax — floated by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who’ve proposed tens of trillions of dollars in tax increases to pay for universal health care.

​Instead of a wealth tax, the Bloomberg campaign said it’s looking to increase taxes on the wealthy with a 5% surtax on all income — both wage and capital gain — above $5 million a year. The idea is a pared-back version of an idea getting consideration in Congress that would put a 10% surtax on income greater than $2 million. This type of plan is seen as a way to raise revenue from rich taxpayers without the political and legal problems associated with a wealth tax.

Bloomberg proposes reversing some of the central elements of the $1.5 trillion GOP tax law championed by President Donald Trump. He would raise the top individual tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, increase the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, and repeal a 20% deduction for so-called pass-through income from limited liability companies and partnerships. Bloomberg has said the corporate rate needed to be lowered in the 2017 measure for competitive reasons, but went too far.

The campaign said it’s planning to design a mechanism so that small businesses and low-income people wouldn’t be harmed by the elimination of the 20% write-off. The tax benefit helps companies ranging from small mom-and-pop businesses to large investment funds, so a full repeal of the 20% tax break would face some political opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.

The plan also would also tax capital gains income for those earning more than $1 million at the same rate as wage income — 39.6%, according to the plan. The campaign didn’t specify what happens to those below the threshold, who now pay the current long-term capital gains rate of 23.8% on the proceeds selling stocks, bonds or real estate.

It would end so-called “basis step up” which allows heirs to avoid paying taxes on appreciated assets. The campaign said it would seek to prevent wealthy investors from deferring taxes on their capital-gains income, but the proposal didn’t specify how it would do that.

The plan also looks to restrict corporations’ ability to dodge taxes offshore and would apply diplomatic pressure to tax haven countries that help companies harbor profits. It will also call for lowering the threshold at which the estate tax applies, but hasn’t yet set that amount.

Bloomberg would ideally want a Democratically-controlled Congress to pass a tax bill if elected, but thinks there are elements of the plan that Republicans could support, the campaign said.

Bloomberg has also said that while he knows tax increases are unpopular, the public can be convinced they’re necessary to pay for needed public services. As New York mayor, Bloomberg increased property taxes by 18.5% in 2003, the largest hike in city history, to generate $837 million to plug budget deficits. Bloomberg said that while his poll numbers suffered as a result, he was re-elected in 2005.

“I probably had the worst polls any mayor in America has ever had, and then I came back and won going away because people said, ‘I didn’t like spending more money, but he needed it,”’ Bloomberg said in a Jan. 11 interview.”

I think Bloomberg is emerging as a very viable candidate for the Democratic nomination. 

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday while media eyes were on the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the Democratic National Committee changed the rules for its presidential nomination debates that will now allow Michael Bloomberg to participate.  As reported by Politico and other news media.

The DNC yesterday unveiled its qualification criteria for the ninth Democratic presidential debate on Feb. 19 in Las Vegas, and announced it was doing away with the previous donor threshold that would show candidates had grassroots support.

Michael Bloomberg refused campaign contributions when he announced his presidential bid — a decision that, until now, made him ineligible for any of the DNC debates. He has put more than $200 million of his personal money into his presidential campaign.

“We are thrilled that voters could soon have the chance to see Mike Bloomberg on the debate stage, hear his vision for the country, and see why he is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump and bring our country together,” the Bloomberg campaign said in a statement. “Mike has run for office three times and never taken a dime from special interests, allowing him to act independently, on the merits, without having to do what donors expect. He is proud to be doing the same with this campaign.”

Being in the debate would give Bloomberg significantly more visibility beyond his ads, but it would also subject him to potentially tougher questions and scrutiny. 

However, the DNC’s announcement received immediate blowback from many Democrats, who charged the committee with granting Bloomberg a favor. 

“To now change the rules in the middle of the game to accommodate Mike Bloomberg, who is trying to buy his way into the Democratic nomination, is wrong,” Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser on the Bernie Sanders campaign, said in a statement to HuffPost. “That’s the definition of a rigged system where the rich can buy their way in.”

Bloomberg, a billionaire, has been a generous Democratic Party donor in recent years. He donated $95 million to super PACs benefitting Democrats in the 2018 cycle, and another $325,000 to the DNC in 2019. 

The Bloomberg campaign’s advertising budget also eclipses that of every other Democratic presidential campaign, and he has seen his stock rise in national polls because of it. Bloomberg spent $262.9 million on advertising in the first three weeks of January, according to data from Advertising Analytics. By comparison, Sanders, whose campaign has raised more money from individual donors than any other candidate in the race, spent $27.4 million in that time frame.   

The donor threshold has not been easy for some candidates to meet. Before they dropped out of the race, both former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) struggled with the requirement and did not qualify for some debates. 

Several candidates, including Castro, Booker and businessman Andrew Yang, unsuccessfully lobbied the DNC to change its qualification criteria for previous debates. The DNC said in a December statement to Politico that it would “not change the threshold for any one candidate.”

I think the next debate will be far more interesting with Bloomberg in it.

Tony