‘An Ominous Moment’: Human Rights Groups Sound Alarm as Military Coup Unfolds in Myanmar

An Ominous Moment’: Human Rights Groups Sound Alarm as Military Coup Unfolds in Myanmar

“The concurrent arrests of prominent political activists and human rights defenders sends a chilling message that the military authorities will not tolerate any dissent amid today’s unfolding events.”

By Jake Johnson

Long-simmering fears of a military-led subversion of Myanmar’s recent steps toward democracy became reality early Monday as the nation’s armed forces arrested civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and announced a one-year state of emergency that transfers power to Min Aung Hlaing, the Southeast Asian country’s top general.

In an announcement broadcast on state television Monday morning, the military justified its seizure of power with claims of widespread fraud in November parliamentary elections which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won in a landslide. Myanmar’s election commission officially rejected the military’s claims of fraud as baseless last week.

“Previous military coups and crackdowns in Myanmar have seen large scale violence and extrajudicial killings by security forces.”
—Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International

The military takeover and the detention of Suu Kyi—a Nobel Peace Prize recipient who, since becoming head of government, has been accused of complicity in the Burmese military’s genocidal assault on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority—was swiftly condemned by international human rights organizations, United Nations experts, and peace activists as a dangerous attack on democracy.

“This is an ominous moment for people in Myanmar, and threatens a severe worsening of military repression and impunity,” Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s deputy campaigns director for Southeast Asia, said in a statement. “The concurrent arrests of prominent political activists and human rights defenders sends a chilling message that the military authorities will not tolerate any dissent amid today’s unfolding events.”

“Previous military coups and crackdowns in Myanmar have seen large scale violence and extrajudicial killings by security forces,” she continued. “Reports of a telecommunications blackout pose a further threat to the population at such a volatile time—especially as Myanmar battles a pandemic, and as internal conflict against armed groups puts civilians at risk in several parts of the country. It is vital that full phone and internet services be resumed immediately.”

Paul Kawika Martin, senior director for policy and political affairs at U.S.-based advocacy group Peace Action, tweeted that “international nonmilitary action including by the president of the United States needs to occur on the Myanmar army after its coup d’état and detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior ruling party figures.”

“Great care needs to be taken that those actions keep innocents safe,” added Martin.

As the coup unfolded early Monday—the day Myanmar’s new parliamentary session was set to begin—White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki issued a statement declaring that the U.S. is “alarmed by reports that the Burmese military has taken steps to undermine the country’s democratic transition, including the arrest of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian officials.”

Concerns that Myanmar’s military could attempt a power-grab in the wake of the November elections had been on the rise in recent days as top officials with the powerful armed forces refused to rule out the possibility of a coup.

“Fears grew after army chief General Min Aung Hlaing—arguably Myanmar’s most powerful individual—…said the country’s constitution could be ‘revoked’ under certain circumstances,” The Guardian reported last week.

As the Associated Press pointed out, Myanmar’s “2008 constitution, implemented during military rule, has a clause that says in cases of national emergency, the president in coordination with the military-dominated National Defense and Security Council can issue an emergency decree to hand over the government’s executive, legislative, and judicial powers to the military commander-in-chief.”

“The clause had been described by New York-based Human Rights Watch as a ‘coup mechanism in waiting,'” AP noted.

Tom Andrews, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, called Monday’s developments “very disturbing” and said that “what many have feared is indeed unfolding in Myanmar.”

“Communications lines are down so, by design, communication is difficult,” Andrews added. “But apparently the state counselor and many others have been detained by the military. Outrageous.”

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Source: ‘An Ominous Moment’: Human Rights Groups Sound Alarm as Military Coup Unfolds in Myanmar | Common Dreams News

‘Not Just Bad Economics, But Terrible Politics’: Khanna Warns Democrats Against Restricting Eligibility for $1,400 Checks

‘Not Just Bad Economics, But Terrible Politics’: Khanna Warns Democrats Against Restricting Eligibility for $1,400 Checks

“Have we learned nothing?”

By Jake Johnson

Progressive Congressman Ro Khanna on Wednesday cautioned President Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership against further restricting eligibility for any future round of direct coronavirus relief payments, warning that excluding many struggling middle-class Americans from checks would be misguided and politically disastrous.

“This is not just bad economics, but terrible politics,” Khanna (D-Calif.) tweeted in response to a new analysis that argues providing stimulus checks only to households that earn less than $75,000 a year would be better for families and the overall economy, given that higher earners are more likely to save the money or use it to pay off debts.

Khanna contended that such an approach would backfire, fueling the widespread view that the federal government doesn’t care about the middle class.

“Have we learned nothing?” the California Democrat asked.

The two previous rounds of direct payments phased out for higher earners, with the checks gradually shrinking in size for individuals with annual incomes of more than $75,000 and couples with combined incomes of more than $150,000.

Under the eligibility structure proposed by the House-passed CARES Act, married couples with a combined annual income of $300,000 and two or more children would have been eligible for some money, but the vast majority of the benefits would have gone to lower- and middle-income households.

While the White House has not yet suggested specific eligibility details for its proposed $1,400 payments, Biden on Monday said he would be willing to entertain a lower income cutoff after a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and others raised concerns that the new round of checks would not be sufficiently “targeted.”

“I proposed that because it was bipartisan, I thought it would increase the prospects of passage, the additional $1,400 in direct cash payments to folks,” Biden said during a White House event Monday. “Well, there’s legitimate reasons for people to say: ‘Do you have the lines drawn the exact right way? Should it go to anybody making X number of dollars or Y?’ I’m open to negotiate those things.”

Progressives, already frustrated that Biden is calling for $1,400 checks instead of the promised $2,000, were quick to reject any additional means testing.

“The $2,000 checks initiative does not have to go down the same way the public option went down. The president and congressional Democrats do not have to do what weak-kneed, wimpy Democrats of the past have so often done,” argued The Daily Poster‘s David Sirota. “They do not have to negotiate against themselves, word-parse their way out of campaign pledges and delude themselves into thinking that Republicans are good-faith legislative partners.”

“They could instead try to use their election mandate—and the weakened state of the GOP—to demand full survival checks,” Sirota added, “rather than pretending that bad-faith Republican senators have any standing to make policy arguments.”

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Source: ‘Not Just Bad Economics, But Terrible Politics’: Khanna Warns Democrats Against Restricting Eligibility for $1,400 Checks | Common Dreams News

‘You Stole a Supreme Court Seat’: Critics Pan McConnell Threat to Sabotage Senate If Democrats Target Filibuster

‘You Stole a Supreme Court Seat’: Critics Pan McConnell Threat to Sabotage Senate If Democrats Target Filibuster

“Blocking needed relief for Americans has nothing to do with ‘consent and comity’ and everything to do with destroying democracy.”

By Jake Johnson

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened Tuesday to grind the workings of the notoriously sluggish upper chamber to a complete halt if the Democratic majority attempts to scrap the legislative filibuster, a warning that was met with immediate derision given the Kentucky Republican’s elimination of the 60-vote rule for Supreme Court nominees less than four years ago.

In a speech on the Senate floor just hours after he dropped his demand that Democrats commit to leaving the legislative filibuster intact as part of a must-pass organizing resolution, McConnell cautioned that “destroying the filibuster would drain comity and consent from this body to a degree that would be unparalleled in living memory.”

“The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic. It represents everything wrong with Washington. Abolish it.”
—Rep. Ilhan Omar

“Taking that plunge would not be some progressive dream. It would be a nightmare. I guarantee it,” added McConnell, who said Republicans could obstruct Senate business by denying a quorum, the number of senators required to be present for the chamber to operate.

As Daily Kos political director David Nir pointed out, “if Republican senators refuse to show up for a quorum call, Democrats can direct the Senate’s sergeant at arms to arrest them and compel their attendance.”

“That’s how radical a threat withholding quorum is—you can be arrested for doing so,” Nir noted.

The minority leader echoed the message of his floor speech in a tweet Tuesday evening, declaring that nuking the filibuster “would drain the consent and comity out of the institution” and leave the Senate unable to function.

Democratic lawmakers and commentators responded by pointing to McConnell’s refusal to allow a vote on former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee and subsequent elimination of the judicial filibuster to confirm right-wing Justice Neil Gorsuch in April of 2017—and clear the way for later confirmation of two additional Trump high court nominees.

“You lost all credibility when you stole a Supreme Court seat,” tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic. It represents everything wrong with Washington. Abolish it.”

“By the way,” the Minnesota Democrat added, “Senate Democrats represent 41.5 million more Americans than Mitch and his caucus. Blocking needed relief for Americans has nothing to do with ‘consent and comity’ and everything to do with destroying democracy.”

Ari Berman of Mother Jones said it is “truly maddening to hear Mitch McConnell warn of ‘nightmare’ if Dems abolish filibuster when he already killed it to put three Trump justices on the Supreme Court and confirmed Amy Coney Barrett eight days before an election.”

McConnell’s threat to gum up the works of the Senate even more than he already has came as the chamber’s new Democratic majority began taking steps to advance President Joe Biden’s proposed coronavirus relief package through the special budget reconciliation process, a move made necessary by vocal Republican opposition to the new aid measure.

The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that “Democratic leaders in both chambers are tentatively planning to introduce a budget resolution on Monday that could come to a vote later in the week.”

“The resolution would instruct committees to write legislation codifying Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan,” the Post reported. “Under special rules governing the budget resolution, the resolution could pass the Senate with a simple majority vote, and the subsequent Covid-19 relief bill could also pass with a simple majority—even without eliminating the filibuster.”

While a coronavirus relief package could clear the Senate with the filibuster intact, former Senate staffer Adam Jentleson said in an interview with The.Ink Tuesday that Democrats “will never be able to use reconciliation to pass things like civil rights, democracy reforms, statehood, gun control, or many climate change solutions” due to rules restricting the kind of legislation that can be passed through the expedited budget process—meaning the urgency of abolishing the archaic 60-vote rule remains.

“Pulling our punches now will mean that we fail to reform our democracy and get climate change under control, for starters,” Jentleson said. “Then, when McConnell is back in power, he will chuckle and nuke the filibuster himself the first time it serves his interests.”

In a series of tweets Tuesday, Jentleson argued that the minority leader’s threat to defend the filibuster by plunging the Senate into chaos “is the worst he can come up with and it’s vastly preferable to letting McConnell block Biden’s agenda.”

“Unintentionally,” Jentleson added, “McConnell is revealing how his power relies heavily on the filibuster.”

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Source: ‘You Stole a Supreme Court Seat’: Critics Pan McConnell Threat to Sabotage Senate If Democrats Target Filibuster | Common Dreams News