How many more billionaires can we sustain before we collapse?

by Brian T. Lynch

The New York Times recently asked each of the Democratic primary candidates for President a series of identical questions. The last question on their list was, “Does anyone deserve to have a billion dollars?”

The trivial framing of that question bypassed the grave urgency for asking it in the first place. In a variant form of the question the Times was essentially asking, “Isn’t it OK to be a billionaire if you played by the rules and worked hard to earn it?”

The wording of the question pre-supposes that the laws and social rules in place, by which a person may accumulate a billion-dollars, are fair and open to anyone. It ignores whether inherited wealth is also deserved.  Most importantly, it treats wealth as if it is only a money count and not a measure of privilege and social power. By doing so, the question as it was posed ignored the essential problem that extreme private wealth is toxic to human society regardless of a person’s character or how they obtained it.

A more salient question would have been, “How many more billionaires can this human society sustain before it collapses?

In the 50,000-year history of human civilization, the concepts of private ownership and private wealth are recent developments. The full ramifications of these constructs on our social cohesion and collective welfare are still being revealed. The written history of civilizations offers no comfort. There are no examples of a happy, stable society where extremes of wealth inequality existed. The lessons of history seem to be that a suitable balance of power is required to sustain a healthy and stable society. Human populations simply cannot tolerate distributions of wealth/power that either force unnatural equality or permit unlimited extremes of private wealth.

There is no question that we crossed the Rubicon into a world where extreme wealth inequality is corrupting world governments and destroying the balance of nature. The questions we should be asking candidates for President and all our elected officials are, “What are your plans to rebalance the distribution of wealth and social power in America?"   And then the follow-up question, “What are you going to do to stabilize and rebalance the Earth’s damaged ecology?”

On September 19th Donald Trump Declared Himself our Dictator

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

On the morning of September 19, 2019, history will note, President Donald J. Trump officially declared himself to be this country’s first authoritarian dictator. On that day he announced to the world, in a court filing, that he was assuming unlimited criminal immunity to act within or outside the law. He also declared that anyone who works for him on his behalf is also above the law and cannot be investigated, charged or convicted of any crimes as long as he is in office. By logical extension, if no violation of the law can apply to him while in office, then no election can remove him from office and no Congress can remove him by impeachment or check his powers in any way.

This isn’t how the first draft of history read that day. Trump’s dramatic claims received relatively little notice. They came in a court filing and were so outrageous and incredible that no one took it seriously. The headlines on that Thursday read like some variation of this one from the New York Law Journal:

“Trump Sues Manhattan DA Vance in Federal Court in Wake of Tax Subpoenas” 

In the wake of the Mueller investigation, with its assortment of indictments, trials, and convictions of Trump associates, there were over a dozen less noticed criminal investigations spun off to be conducted in other states by other prosecutors. It was a court filing in one of these lesser-known investigations that the President announced his sweeping declarations.

On October 7, 2019, District Judge Victor Marrero, of the Southern District of New York, summed up the President’s claim in an introduction to his ruling rejecting Trump’s claim. Judge Marrero’s ruling reads in part:

“The President asserts an extraordinary claim in the dispute now before this Court. He contends that… under the United States Constitution, the person who serves as President, while in office, enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind. Consider the reach of the President's argument. [As] the Court reads it, presidential immunity would stretch to cover every phase of criminal proceedings, including investigations, grand jury proceedings and subpoenas, indictment, prosecution, arrest, trial conviction, and incarceration. That constitutional protection presumably would encompass any conduct, at any time, in any forum whether federal or state, and whether the President acted alone or in concert with other individuals. Hence, according to this categorical doctrine as presented in this proceeding, the constitutional dimensions of the presidential shield from judicial process are virtually limitless: Until the President leaves office… [this includes crimes committed in*] his official capacity, but also to ones arising from his private affairs, financial transactions, and all other conduct undertaken by him as an ordinary citizen both during and before his tenure in office."
 "Moreover, on this theory the President's special dispensation from the criminal law's purview and judicial inquiry would embrace not only the behavior and activities of the President himself, but also extend derivatively so as to potentially immunize the misconduct of any other person, business affiliate associate, or relative who may have collaborated with the President in committing purportedly unlawful acts, and whose offenses ordinarily would warrant criminal investigation and prosecution of all involved.”

The judge concluded his introduction with these words:

“Because this finds aspects of such a [Presidential] doctrine repugnant to the nation' s governmental structure and constitutional values, and for the reasons further stated below it ABSTAINS from adjudicating this dispute and DISMISSES the President' s suit.”

The Trump Administration immediately appealed.

President Trump’s immunity doctrine stemmed from a criminal investigation to see if Trump’s non-profit organization falsified business records.

In summary, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. is a District Attorney in New York. He empaneled a grand jury to probe whether the Trump Organization falsified business records related to money paid to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal prior to the 2016 Presidential Election to keep them quiet about his sexual relationships with them. These were payoffs funneled through Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Some of these payments were by checks made out to Cohen from the Trump Organization, a non-profit entity registered in New York. These payments were categorized as legal fees on the books of this non-profit.

Paying to keep damaging information from the public during an election is a violation of campaign finance laws. Using money donated to a non-profit organization for personal use is also a violation of the law, as is falsifying business records to cover up such misdeeds.

The grand jury investigating the business records of the Trump Organization requires documents, tax records and the cooperation of Mazars USA, the accounting firm hired by the Organization. Trump sent a letter to Mazars USA and forbade the company from releasing his tax records. The jury subpoenaed the company to release the last eight years of Donald Trump’s tax returns. That’s when Trump made his move on unlimited Executive power.

How this constitutional crisis resolves is critical to our republic. By elevating William Barr to Attorney General, Trump, and the Republicans have removed any chance that the Barr-lead Justice Department will ever challenge any illegality committed by the President or his administration. By ramming through two ultra-partisan Supreme Court Justices, and by seating so many highly partisan judges to the federal bench, Trump and the Republicans are betting that all legal challenges to both Congressional oversights, or judicial challenges to Trump’s limitless criminal immunity doctrine, will ultimately fail. The complicity of Congressional Republicans in installing this all-powerful authoritarian government should now be obvious. Articles of impeachment should still be aggressively pursued, but it is no longer a given that an impeachment conviction in the Senate would remove Trump from office. Under his unlimited criminal immunity doctrine, it isn’t even certain that he will honor Presidential election results, or even allow future elections.

Here is where I believe we stand. If the courts don’t uphold the rule of law, all hope for the republic is lost. If the courts do uphold the rule of law after House impeachment and Senate conviction, then it will be up to some combination of the President’s willing capitulation, law enforcement, the U.S. military or massive national citizen protests to assure that Donald Trump leaves office. If the Senate won’t convict Trump of impeachable offenses, it is up to the voters to set the stage for the same options mentioned above. If Donald Trump is reelected, however, it will probably be too late to save our Republic from dictatorial rule.

The Funding Fight to Save Our Democracy

by Brian T. Lynch 

Total Money Raised So Far in the 2020 Presidential Race

WOW! Here is a pie chart showing how much Donald Trump (big blue slice) and all the Democratic Presidential Candidates raised so far this year. It is clear who the majority of corporate owners and billionaires are backing for President. They are backing the guy who is crazy enough to grant their every government policy wish.  CORRECTION: The billionaires and wealthy corporations are nearly divided between the two political parties. The right-leaning industrial billionaires still back the Republicans while the left-leaning tech billionaires are backing the Democrats. The result is a two-party system in which both parties are under the influence of a tiny fraction of the electorate.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his backers are mastering the art of collecting small donations from their base. To date, 61% of Trump's campaign contributions are from individuals giving $200 or less. The NY Times has an article worth reading regarding this shift in funding.

The extent to which corporations control state and federal governments is on the ballot this year, as it has been for 40 years. The difference this year is that there is so much more at stake. Will we finally step up to address climate change in the remaining years over which we can still have a window to effect a positive outcome? Will America continue to be a democratic republic or will we become a fascist-style authoritarian, single-party state? Will we restore our place as a global leader and shining example in the world, or will we become a bully and a pariah among nations? The answers very much depend on the degree to which our next President is not politically compromised or beholding to the ultra-wealthy minority. Our best hope for a bright future requires that citizens collectively out spend billionaires and make politicians financially dependent on us once again. 

On the Democratic side of this candidate funding war, Elizabeth Warren has brought in a whopping $17 million from small donors, 48% of her campaign funds. But Sanders is in a different league altogether among Democrats, collecting 60% — $28 million — from small donors. With his many Mainstreet donations, Sanders is the leading fundraiser among the Democratic field. [All pie chart and Democratic small-donor data are from a table and article in Opensecrets.org.]

Bernie Sanders proved we don't need big donors in 2016 and he is proving it again for 2020. We have been duped by the Democratic Party into believing we can't win elections without big donor money and corporate funding. In reality, this is the easy, lazy way to raise cash and the Democratic Party has been losing more elections than they have been winning ever since the Party fell under the influence of big money. And now Trump Republicans are taking a lesson from the 2016 Sanders campaign and going after small-donor contributions from their radical base.

The upcoming challenge after Democrats pick their candidate, as I see it, is whether he or she will be able to run a successful small-donor campaign. Or will the next candidate, and the Party, slink back into the arms of left-leaning corporate donors.  Will Democrats remain under the influence of the big corporation and continue to neglect the issues and need of the vast majority of its base? The latter course is the formula-for-failure that has mostly dogged the Democratic Party for several decades resulting in devastating losses in Congress and in governors races and statehouses across the country.

What this pie chart suggests is that regardless of who wins the nomination, if Democrats want to win the Presidency and an agenda that benefits the majority of citizens, they need to reject big donor money and aggressively engage voters in a grass-roots giving campaign. Democrats and left-leaning independents have to do their part to save our democracy by opening their wallets much wider than they have up to now. 

Jeffrey Epstein – Murder or Suicide? His Prison Psychiatrist May Hold the Key

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW 

Jeffrey Epstein was holding the bag for some of the most powerful billionaires and politicians in the world. He provided such men with underage girls upon which they could act on their pedophic sexual fantasies. For decades he got away with it, protected as he was by these rich and powerful men.

But his luck ran out when the voices of victimized women finally pricked the conscience of the nation and the world. Epstein was arrested and soon placed in the secure federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York to await trial. Would he name names and expose his clients? Would he take the fall and spend the rest of his life in prison for his despicable crimes? Or would he die and take his secrets to the grave?

Then on July 23, 2019, Epstein was found unconscious in his cell. Prison officials didn’t report it to the public until July 25th when they sent out an email. This is from the New York Times:

     “A week after being denied bail, Jeffrey E. Epstein was found unconscious in his cell on Tuesday at a federal jail in Manhattan with marks on his neck, and prison officials were investigating the incident as a possible suicide attempt, a law enforcement official who had been briefed on the matter said.”
     “Prison officials had not ruled out the possibility, however, that Mr. Epstein had been assaulted by another inmate or had staged the incident, a person with knowledge of the investigation said… Mr. Epstein’s injuries were not serious, the law enforcement official said… The Bureau of Prisons, in an email on Thursday morning, gave no details about the incident, citing “privacy and security reasons.”

Afterwards, Epstein was placed on suicide watch. By protocol, there was supposed to be another inmate in his cell, but he was alone. If he realized he was at risk, or was planning his suicide and wanted to make a jailhouse confession, he was denied that chance.

A subsequent mental health evaluation was conducted that determined Epstein was not a suicide risk. He was taken off of suicide watch, which means he was to be checked by guards every 30 minutes instead of every 10 minutes.

Then just 18 days after the first time he was found unconscious in his cell, Epstein was again found unconscious in his cell, but this time he was dead. It looked like he hanged himself.

Because Epstein was the most high-profile inmate in the United States, and because the Metropolitian Correction Center is directly under the control of the US Justice Department, the FBI were called in to investigate. It violates a prisoner’s privacy rights to have cameras in their cell, but there were two cameras outside of Epstein’s cell. They didn’t work and the guards who were supposed to check on Epstein both fell asleep. This is from Reuters:

“Two cameras that malfunctioned outside the jail cell where financier Jeffrey Epstein died as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges have been sent to an FBI crime lab for examination… The two cameras were within view of the Manhattan jail cell where he was found dead on Aug. 10. A source earlier told Reuters two jail guards failed to follow a procedure overnight to make separate checks on all prisoners every 30 minutes.”

While the FBI is focused on the camera, I’m focused on the psychiatrist whose evaluation said Epstein wasn’t a suicide risk. The shrink either:

1) got it right,
2) blew it big time, or
3) was complicit in some way.

If #1 above is true, Epstein’s first incident couldn’t have been a suicide attempt, but an assault and possibly a failed murder attempt. With all factors at play, the high-stakes involved and the fact that research shows a high rate of suicide for men facing such charges, erring on the side of caution to extend the suicide watch should have been an easy call. A competent psychiatrist determining that he wasn’t suicidal would be a courageous and confident finding that should have sent a message that the prisoner was possibly under external threats.

Which is why #2 is a big deal. If Epstein really did just try to kill himself just 18 days earlier, given all the other factors in this case, extending the suicide watch should have been a no-brained. You would have to be grossly incompetent to have determined he was no longer a suicide risk after such a short period of time since his last attempt, especially since he received no treatment.

That leaves #3, that the psychiatrist was in some way a part of an assassination conspiracy. Calling off the suicide watch protocol would be a necessary step if you were planning a homicide.

Only gross incompetence by the psychiatrist supports the whole suicide theory. It should be easy enough to look at the doctor’s assessment skills, history and conduct in this case. And if it turns out Jeffery Epstein really wasn’t suicidal, then murder is the only motive left to consider.