This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 14, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday delivered a blistering dissent to an emergency decision that enables President Donald Trump to plow ahead with laying off nearly 1,400 employees at the Department of Education while a case challenging the plan plays out.

“This case arises out of the president’s unilateral efforts to eliminate a Cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago,” wrote Sotomayor, joined by her liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “As Congress mandated, the department plays a vital role in this nation’s education system, safeguarding equal access to learning and channeling billions of dollars to schools and students across the country each year.”

“Only Congress has the power to abolish the department,” she continued, calling out Trump’s executive order and Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s subsequent move to fire half the agency’s workforce. “When the executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.”

Sotomayor explained that “two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the government to proceed with dismantling the department.”

“That decision is indefensible,” she argued. “It hands the executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave. Unable to join in this misuse of our emergency docket, I respectfully dissent.”

The high court’s right-wing majority—which includes three Trump appointees—did not write an opinion, as is customary for shadow docket decisions. The administration responded by pledging to proceed with its efforts to eviscerate the department.

“It is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution,” McMahon said in a statement. “We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most – to students, parents, and teachers.”

McMahon and Trump’s mass firing effort—part of a broader effort to shutter the department—had been blocked by a U.S. district court in Massachusetts and the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in response to a lawsuit in which Democracy Forward is representing a coalition that includes the American Federation of Teachers and Service Employees International Union.

“We are incredibly disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Trump-Vance administration to proceed with its harmful efforts to dismantle the Department of Education while our case moves forward,” the coalition said in a Monday statement. “This unlawful plan will immediately and irreparably harm students, educators, and communities across our nation.”

“Children will be among those hurt the most by this decision,” the coalition stressed. “We will never stop fighting on behalf of all students and public schools and the protections, services, and resources they need to thrive.”

The Associated Press reported that “separately on Monday, more than 20 states sued the administration over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs, and more.”

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

The decision by the Redstone family, the major owners of Paramount, to settle a bogus lawsuit with President Trump over a 60 Minutes report he did not like is an extremely dangerous precedent in terms of both the First Amendment and government extortion.

Paramount’s decision will only embolden Trump to continue attacking, suing and intimidating the media which he has labeled “the enemy of the people.” It is a dark day for independent journalism and freedom of the press — an essential part of our democracy. It is a victory for a president who is attempting to stifle dissent and undermine American democracy.

It’s pretty obvious why Paramount chose to surrender to Trump. The Redstone family is in line to receive $2.4 billion from the sale of Paramount to Skydance, but they can only receive this money if the Trump administration approves this deal. In other words, the Redstone family diminished the freedom of the press today in exchange for a $2.4 billion payday.

Make no mistake about it. Trump is undermining our democracy and rapidly moving us towards authoritarianism and the billionaires who care more about their stock portfolios than our democracy are helping him do it.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Transgender health care bans legislate Christian Nationalist view of gender

“The Supreme Court’s ultra-conservative justices are allowing Christian Nationalists and their allies to legislate a narrow, religious view of gender that will harm countless children and families. Not only has the court failed to protect America’s children, but this decision will encourage Christian Nationalists to further restrict any and all health care that doesn’t align with their narrow religious beliefs. LGBTQ+ people, women, religious minorities, the nonreligious and other traditionally marginalized communities are particularly at risk.

“Christian Nationalists have achieved yet another milestone in their decades-long effort to drag our country back in time. We need a national recommitment to church-state separation, which ensures freedom without favor and equality without exception. At Americans United, we will continue to fight for the right of all Americans to live as themselves and believe as they choose, as long as they do not harm others. That includes our gender-nonconforming and transgender family members, coworkers, friends, and neighbors.”

AU joined amicus brief opposing transgender health care ban

Americans United joined Kentucky parents of transgender children and civil rights groups in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the case involving the Tennessee ban, explaining that transgender health care bans intentionally discriminate against transgender youth by denying them medications that are prescribed for other youth. These laws do not ban these medications for all minors, but only when they are prescribed for transgender minors. As a result of this discriminatory treatment, transgender youth are unable to obtain the only effective treatment for the severe distress caused by gender dysphoria.

AU’s brief was among more than 30 friend-of-the-court briefs in which bioethicists, medical providers, medical historians, family law professors, and additional families in states where care has been banned had urged the Supreme Court to rule against bans on essential medical care for transgender adolescents so that families can make the health care decisions that are best for their children.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The statement urges the government to publicly disclose the legal basis for the actions against these websites and ensure access to effective legal remedies to challenge blocking decisions before an independent judiciary, in line with constitutional and international standards. The statement also asks for a comprehensive review of the 2023 Cybercrime Law through a transparent and participatory process involving civil society organizations, media actors, and legal experts.

The organizations affirm that protecting press freedom and media pluralism is not incompatible with the rule of law; but is a prerequisite for it.

Read the full letter in English and العربية here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Let us be very clear: the Trump Administration does not want citizenship to be a right. They want it to be a reward for the loyal, the rich, or the compliant.

To this end, President Trump’s bid to unilaterally end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants is a modern-day Trojan horse masquerading as a concern for national security.

This is not about protecting America, but redefining America from the top down.

That redefinition is already underway.

The Trump Administration’s plans to sell $5 million “gold cards” to wealthy investors as a path to citizenship and consideration of a pitch for a reality show that would “pit immigrants against each other for a chance at a fast-tracked path to citizenship” are not just absurd—they’re obscene.

They reveal a government willing to reduce constitutional rights to commodities, auctioned off to the highest bidder or trivialized for ratings.

This governing by performance turns a constitutional guarantee into a privilege for sale or spectacle. It’s part of a calculated effort to recast citizenship as conditional, transactional, and exclusionary. Whether by wealth, loyalty, or ideology, this emerging framework decides who is “deserving” of rights—and who is not.

It is fear-based nationalism that disguises a deeper threat: the normalization of government power to decide who is entitled to rights and who is not.

We see this in action with the Trump Administration’s stance on childbirth and citizenship.

It’s a contradiction: while the Trump Administration decries falling birthrates and offers financial incentives for childbirth, it demonizes birthright citizenship for the very communities that are actually having children and contributing significantly to the economy without any guarantee of anything in return.

Yet this brazenly hypocritical double standard is just a distraction, part of the political theater designed to pit Americans against each other while the power brokers rewrite the rules behind closed doors.

The real power play rests in the Trump Administration’s efforts to gut the Fourteenth Amendment, sidestep the courts, and redefine who qualifies as American—all by executive fiat.

Redefining citizenship by executive order is not governance. It is a bloodless coup—one that overthrows a constitutional republic founded on the rule of law—to reconfigure the face of the nation in the image of the unelected Deep State and its machinery of control.

Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that all persons born on U.S. soil would be recognized as full citizens—a direct rebuke to the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which held that Black Americans could not be citizens. Its language is unambiguous: all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens.

This principle was upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which affirmed that children born in the U.S. to foreign nationals are entitled to citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

That precedent still stands.

Yet that legacy—of constitutional protections prevailing over prejudice—is now at risk.

Some have recently argued—including the Trump Administration in legal filings—that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended solely to grant citizenship to the children of former slaves after the Civil War, and thus no longer applies to children born to undocumented immigrants. But if that logic is taken seriously, it undermines the citizenship of everyone born in America.

After all, if the government—not the Constitution—gets to decide who qualifies as a citizen, then no one’s status is secure.

If your citizenship depends on government approval, your rights aren’t inalienable—they’re transitory privileges.

That’s not just bad law. It’s tyranny in the making.

Despite Trump’s attempts to rule by fiat and executive order, presidents cannot pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they will honor.

Yet perhaps even more concerning than Trump’s war on birthright citizenship itself is the administration’s underlying legal strategy to test the limits of judicial authority—specifically, to restrict the power of federal district courts to issue nationwide injunctions against unconstitutional actions.

You see, this is not just an immigration battle, nor is it only a challenge to the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is a calculated attempt to strip the judiciary of its ability to check executive abuse and a full-frontal assault on the judiciary’s role as a co-equal branch of government entrusted with interpreting the law and defending individual rights against majoritarian overreach.

If successful, it would mark a seismic shift in the balance of powers, subordinating the courts to the whims of the executive branch.

As James Madison wrote, the accumulation of all powers in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

The same unchecked power used to deny citizenship to the children of immigrants today could just as easily be turned against you to strip you of your citizenship, based on your political beliefs, religious views, or failure to toe the party line.

This is the danger the Founders warned against: a government that grants rights only to the loyal, the favored, or the compliant.

And make no mistake: what we’re witnessing is another point along the slippery slope of the effort to recast birthright citizenship—not as a right—but as a privilege, subject to political approval and ideological purity tests.

In this emerging framework, being born in America is no longer enough—you must also prove your worth, allegiance, and compliance.

Worse still, this would set a precedent that constitutional rights can be rewritten by executive whim, paving the way for even greater erosions of liberty.

If we do not hold the line here, this erosion of liberty will only accelerate.

Birthright citizenship is more than a legal technicality. It is a cornerstone of American democracy and equality. The attempt to destroy it through executive power is a direct threat to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the future of liberty in America.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if the government can erase one constitutional right today, it can erase another tomorrow.

This is exactly why the Founders drafted a Constitution that limits power and protects individuals, not just the popular or the powerful.

Once we allow the government to decide who is “deserving” of rights, we’ve already surrendered the rule of law. What remains is not a constitutional republic, but an empire of arbitrary rule.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

Let us be very clear: the Trump Administration does not want citizenship to be a right. They want it to be a reward for the loyal, the rich, or the compliant.

To this end, President Trump’s bid to unilaterally end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants is a modern-day Trojan horse masquerading as a concern for national security.

This is not about protecting America, but redefining America from the top down.

That redefinition is already underway.

The Trump Administration’s plans to sell $5 million “gold cards” to wealthy investors as a path to citizenship and consideration of a pitch for a reality show that would “pit immigrants against each other for a chance at a fast-tracked path to citizenship” are not just absurd—they’re obscene.

They reveal a government willing to reduce constitutional rights to commodities, auctioned off to the highest bidder or trivialized for ratings.

This governing by performance turns a constitutional guarantee into a privilege for sale or spectacle. It’s part of a calculated effort to recast citizenship as conditional, transactional, and exclusionary. Whether by wealth, loyalty, or ideology, this emerging framework decides who is “deserving” of rights—and who is not.

It is fear-based nationalism that disguises a deeper threat: the normalization of government power to decide who is entitled to rights and who is not.

We see this in action with the Trump Administration’s stance on childbirth and citizenship.

It’s a contradiction: while the Trump Administration decries falling birthrates and offers financial incentives for childbirth, it demonizes birthright citizenship for the very communities that are actually having children and contributing significantly to the economy without any guarantee of anything in return.

Yet this brazenly hypocritical double standard is just a distraction, part of the political theater designed to pit Americans against each other while the power brokers rewrite the rules behind closed doors.

The real power play rests in the Trump Administration’s efforts to gut the Fourteenth Amendment, sidestep the courts, and redefine who qualifies as American—all by executive fiat.

Redefining citizenship by executive order is not governance. It is a bloodless coup—one that overthrows a constitutional republic founded on the rule of law—to reconfigure the face of the nation in the image of the unelected Deep State and its machinery of control.

Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that all persons born on U.S. soil would be recognized as full citizens—a direct rebuke to the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which held that Black Americans could not be citizens. Its language is unambiguous: all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens.

This principle was upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which affirmed that children born in the U.S. to foreign nationals are entitled to citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

That precedent still stands.

Yet that legacy—of constitutional protections prevailing over prejudice—is now at risk.

Some have recently argued—including the Trump Administration in legal filings—that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended solely to grant citizenship to the children of former slaves after the Civil War, and thus no longer applies to children born to undocumented immigrants. But if that logic is taken seriously, it undermines the citizenship of everyone born in America.

After all, if the government—not the Constitution—gets to decide who qualifies as a citizen, then no one’s status is secure.

If your citizenship depends on government approval, your rights aren’t inalienable—they’re transitory privileges.

That’s not just bad law. It’s tyranny in the making.

Despite Trump’s attempts to rule by fiat and executive order, presidents cannot pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they will honor.

Yet perhaps even more concerning than Trump’s war on birthright citizenship itself is the administration’s underlying legal strategy to test the limits of judicial authority—specifically, to restrict the power of federal district courts to issue nationwide injunctions against unconstitutional actions.

You see, this is not just an immigration battle, nor is it only a challenge to the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is a calculated attempt to strip the judiciary of its ability to check executive abuse and a full-frontal assault on the judiciary’s role as a co-equal branch of government entrusted with interpreting the law and defending individual rights against majoritarian overreach.

If successful, it would mark a seismic shift in the balance of powers, subordinating the courts to the whims of the executive branch.

As James Madison wrote, the accumulation of all powers in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

The same unchecked power used to deny citizenship to the children of immigrants today could just as easily be turned against you to strip you of your citizenship, based on your political beliefs, religious views, or failure to toe the party line.

This is the danger the Founders warned against: a government that grants rights only to the loyal, the favored, or the compliant.

And make no mistake: what we’re witnessing is another point along the slippery slope of the effort to recast birthright citizenship—not as a right—but as a privilege, subject to political approval and ideological purity tests.

In this emerging framework, being born in America is no longer enough—you must also prove your worth, allegiance, and compliance.

Worse still, this would set a precedent that constitutional rights can be rewritten by executive whim, paving the way for even greater erosions of liberty.

If we do not hold the line here, this erosion of liberty will only accelerate.

Birthright citizenship is more than a legal technicality. It is a cornerstone of American democracy and equality. The attempt to destroy it through executive power is a direct threat to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the future of liberty in America.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if the government can erase one constitutional right today, it can erase another tomorrow.

This is exactly why the Founders drafted a Constitution that limits power and protects individuals, not just the popular or the powerful.

Once we allow the government to decide who is “deserving” of rights, we’ve already surrendered the rule of law. What remains is not a constitutional republic, but an empire of arbitrary rule.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

Let us be very clear: the Trump Administration does not want citizenship to be a right. They want it to be a reward for the loyal, the rich, or the compliant.

To this end, President Trump’s bid to unilaterally end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants is a modern-day Trojan horse masquerading as a concern for national security.

This is not about protecting America, but redefining America from the top down.

That redefinition is already underway.

The Trump Administration’s plans to sell $5 million “gold cards” to wealthy investors as a path to citizenship and consideration of a pitch for a reality show that would “pit immigrants against each other for a chance at a fast-tracked path to citizenship” are not just absurd—they’re obscene.

They reveal a government willing to reduce constitutional rights to commodities, auctioned off to the highest bidder or trivialized for ratings.

This governing by performance turns a constitutional guarantee into a privilege for sale or spectacle. It’s part of a calculated effort to recast citizenship as conditional, transactional, and exclusionary. Whether by wealth, loyalty, or ideology, this emerging framework decides who is “deserving” of rights—and who is not.

It is fear-based nationalism that disguises a deeper threat: the normalization of government power to decide who is entitled to rights and who is not.

We see this in action with the Trump Administration’s stance on childbirth and citizenship.

It’s a contradiction: while the Trump Administration decries falling birthrates and offers financial incentives for childbirth, it demonizes birthright citizenship for the very communities that are actually having children and contributing significantly to the economy without any guarantee of anything in return.

Yet this brazenly hypocritical double standard is just a distraction, part of the political theater designed to pit Americans against each other while the power brokers rewrite the rules behind closed doors.

The real power play rests in the Trump Administration’s efforts to gut the Fourteenth Amendment, sidestep the courts, and redefine who qualifies as American—all by executive fiat.

Redefining citizenship by executive order is not governance. It is a bloodless coup—one that overthrows a constitutional republic founded on the rule of law—to reconfigure the face of the nation in the image of the unelected Deep State and its machinery of control.

Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to ensure that all persons born on U.S. soil would be recognized as full citizens—a direct rebuke to the Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, which held that Black Americans could not be citizens. Its language is unambiguous: all persons born or naturalized in the U.S., and subject to its jurisdiction, are citizens.

This principle was upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which affirmed that children born in the U.S. to foreign nationals are entitled to citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

That precedent still stands.

Yet that legacy—of constitutional protections prevailing over prejudice—is now at risk.

Some have recently argued—including the Trump Administration in legal filings—that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended solely to grant citizenship to the children of former slaves after the Civil War, and thus no longer applies to children born to undocumented immigrants. But if that logic is taken seriously, it undermines the citizenship of everyone born in America.

After all, if the government—not the Constitution—gets to decide who qualifies as a citizen, then no one’s status is secure.

If your citizenship depends on government approval, your rights aren’t inalienable—they’re transitory privileges.

That’s not just bad law. It’s tyranny in the making.

Despite Trump’s attempts to rule by fiat and executive order, presidents cannot pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they will honor.

Yet perhaps even more concerning than Trump’s war on birthright citizenship itself is the administration’s underlying legal strategy to test the limits of judicial authority—specifically, to restrict the power of federal district courts to issue nationwide injunctions against unconstitutional actions.

You see, this is not just an immigration battle, nor is it only a challenge to the Fourteenth Amendment.

It is a calculated attempt to strip the judiciary of its ability to check executive abuse and a full-frontal assault on the judiciary’s role as a co-equal branch of government entrusted with interpreting the law and defending individual rights against majoritarian overreach.

If successful, it would mark a seismic shift in the balance of powers, subordinating the courts to the whims of the executive branch.

As James Madison wrote, the accumulation of all powers in the same hands may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

The same unchecked power used to deny citizenship to the children of immigrants today could just as easily be turned against you to strip you of your citizenship, based on your political beliefs, religious views, or failure to toe the party line.

This is the danger the Founders warned against: a government that grants rights only to the loyal, the favored, or the compliant.

And make no mistake: what we’re witnessing is another point along the slippery slope of the effort to recast birthright citizenship—not as a right—but as a privilege, subject to political approval and ideological purity tests.

In this emerging framework, being born in America is no longer enough—you must also prove your worth, allegiance, and compliance.

Worse still, this would set a precedent that constitutional rights can be rewritten by executive whim, paving the way for even greater erosions of liberty.

If we do not hold the line here, this erosion of liberty will only accelerate.

Birthright citizenship is more than a legal technicality. It is a cornerstone of American democracy and equality. The attempt to destroy it through executive power is a direct threat to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, and the future of liberty in America.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if the government can erase one constitutional right today, it can erase another tomorrow.

This is exactly why the Founders drafted a Constitution that limits power and protects individuals, not just the popular or the powerful.

Once we allow the government to decide who is “deserving” of rights, we’ve already surrendered the rule of law. What remains is not a constitutional republic, but an empire of arbitrary rule.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

The review could in principle lead to a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. CPJ has been calling for a suspension, as well as for the EU to adopt targeted sanctions against IDF officials and others responsible, since August 2024, on the basis of Israel’s violations of international human rights and criminal law.

Ireland and Spain had previously pressed for an EU review; however, divisions remained within the bloc on openly and publicly challenging Israel. The EU’s decision, along with today’s UK move to pause “its free trade agreement negotiations with Israel” could signal a shift in political opinion in Europe. 

“Although today’s decision is welcome, it comes too late,” said Tom Gibson, CPJ’s deputy advocacy director, EU. “A review must now be carried out swiftly and EU member states must be ready to finally hold Israel to account for its unprecedented attack on press freedom and egregious abuses of international law.”

A suspension of the EU agreement would need to be made unanimously by member states and with the agreement of the European Commission.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

We speak with 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed in Ireland after he evacuated Gaza last month suffering from malnutrition and under threat for his reporting on Israel’s genocide. Abed describes himself as an “accidental war correspondent” and hoped to become a sports journalist and commentator before the start of the war, but spent much of the last two years reporting on daily death and destruction. He says leaving Gaza was “a very agonizing decision” for him and that he feels tremendous guilt for now having access to food, water and medicine while so many Palestinians continue to suffer. “I can’t really tell you that I’m safe here. I’m probably a physical survivor, but not an emotional survivor. The images that I took with me from Gaza are still haunting me,” says Abed. “My whole family is still in Gaza, my friends, my colleagues. And all of them, I’m just thinking about them every single second all day.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We speak with 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed in Ireland after he evacuated Gaza last month suffering from malnutrition and under threat for his reporting on Israel’s genocide. Abed describes himself as an “accidental war correspondent” and hoped to become a sports journalist and commentator before the start of the war, but spent much of the last two years reporting on daily death and destruction. He says leaving Gaza was “a very agonizing decision” for him and that he feels tremendous guilt for now having access to food, water and medicine while so many Palestinians continue to suffer. “I can’t really tell you that I’m safe here. I’m probably a physical survivor, but not an emotional survivor. The images that I took with me from Gaza are still haunting me,” says Abed. “My whole family is still in Gaza, my friends, my colleagues. And all of them, I’m just thinking about them every single second all day.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay confirmed Nicaragua formally notified the agency of its exit just days after UNESCO announced that its 2025 World Press Freedom Prize will honor the exiled Nicaraguan daily La Prensa, which has operated online from abroad since police raided its newsroom and jailed staffers in 2021. President Daniel Ortega accused the U.N. body of attacking Nicaragua’s “national identity.”

The withdrawal follows Nicaragua’s earlier exits from other U.N. and Inter-American human-rights mechanisms. CPJ and its partners warn that cutting ties with oversight bodies strips Nicaraguans of vital avenues to defend their rights and deepens the nation’s isolation.

Read the full statement in English and Español.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, concerns a proposed 88-mile railroad that would link an oil-producing region of Utah to tracks that reach refineries in the Gulf Coast. Environmental groups and a Colorado county argued that the federal Surface Transportation Board failed to adequately consider climate, pollution, and other effects as required under the National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA, in approving the project. In 2023, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the challengers. The groups behind the railway project, including several Utah counties, appealed the case to the highest court, which is expected to hand down a decision within the next few months. 

Court observers told Grist the Supreme Court will likely rule in favor of the railway developers, with consequences far beyond Utah. The court could limit the scope of environmental harms federal agencies have to consider under NEPA, including climate impacts. Depending on how the justices rule, the decision could also bolster — or constrain — parallel moves by the Trump administration to roll back decades-old regulations governing how NEPA is implemented.

“All of these rollbacks and attacks on NEPA are going to harm communities, especially those that are dealing with the worst effects of climate change and industrial pollution,” said Wendy Park, senior attorney at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, a party in the Supreme Court case. 

Since 1970, NEPA has required federal agencies to take a “hard look” at the environmental effects of proposed major projects or actions. Oil and gas pipelines, dams, mines, highways, and other infrastructure projects must undergo an environmental study before they can get federal permits, for example. Agencies consider measures to reduce potential impacts during their review and can even reject a proposal if the harms outweigh the benefits. 

NEPA ensures that environmental concerns are “part of the agenda” for all federal agencies — even ones that don’t otherwise focus on the environment, said Dan Farber, a law professor at the University of California Berkeley. It’s also a crucial tool for communities to understand how a project will affect them and provide input during the decision-making process, according to Park. 

In 2021, the Surface Transportation Board, a small federal agency that oversees railways, approved a line that would connect the Uinta Basin to the national rail network. The basin, which contains large deposits of crude oil, spans about 12,000 square miles across northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado and is currently accessible only by truck. The proposed track would allow companies to transport crude oil to existing refineries along the Gulf Coast, quadrupling waxy crude oil production in the basin. According to the agency’s environmental review, under a high oil production scenario, burning those fuels “could represent up to approximately 0.8 percent of nationwide emissions and 0.1 percent of global emissions” — about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Environmental groups and a Colorado county challenged the board’s approval at the D.C. Circuit Court. The groups argued that the agency had failed to consider key impacts in its NEPA review, including the effects of increased oil refining on communities already burdened by pollution along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, and the potential for more oil spills and wildfires along the broader rail network. In August 2023, the D.C. Circuit largely agreed, finding “numerous NEPA violations” in the agency’s environmental review.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the developers of the railway initially argued that an agency shouldn’t have to consider any environmental effects of a project that would fall under the responsibility of a different agency. In this case, for example, the Surface Transportation Board wouldn’t have to consider air pollution impacts of oil refining on Gulf Coast communities because the Environmental Protection Agency, not the Surface Transportation Board, regulates air pollution. 

By oral arguments in December, however, the railway backers had walked away from this drastic interpretation, which contradicts decades of NEPA precedent. It’s standard practice for one agency’s environmental review to study impacts that fall under the responsibility of other agencies, said Deborah Sivas, a law professor at Stanford University. The railway proponents instead proposed that agencies shouldn’t have to consider impacts that fall outside of their authority and are “remote in time and space.” That would include the effects on Gulf Coast communities residing thousands of miles away — as well as climate impacts like greenhouse gas emissions.

Park, from the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that overlooking those impacts would undermine the intent of NEPA, which is to inform the public of likely harms. “The entire purpose of this project is to ramp up oil production in Utah and to deliver that oil to Gulf Coast refineries,” she said. “To effectively allow the agency to turn a blind eye to that purpose and ignore all of the predictable environmental harms that would result from that ramped-up oil production and downstream refining is antithetical to NEPA’s purpose.” 

Lawyers for the railway’s developers didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment. A coalition of Utah counties backing the project has previously underlined the economic potential of the project. “We are optimistic about the Supreme Court’s review and confident in the thorough environmental assessments conducted by the STB,” said Keith Heaton, director of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, said in a statement after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. “This project is vital for the economic growth and connectivity of the Uinta Basin region, and we are committed to seeing it through.”

The Supreme Court has historically always ruled in favor of the government in NEPA cases, and legal experts told Grist the decision will likely support the railway developers in some manner. But during oral arguments, several justices seemed skeptical of positions presented by railway supporters. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that imposing such severe limits on NEPA review could open agencies up to legal risk. 

The court could reach some kind of middle ground in its decision — not going as far as the D.C. Circuit to affirm the legitimacy of considering a wide range of climate and other risks, but also not excluding as many impacts as the railway developers had hoped, said Farber. 

Any decision will ultimately serve as an important guide for agencies as the Trump administration introduces even more uncertainty in the federal permitting process. In February, the administration issued an interim rule to rescind regulations issued by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which oversees NEPA implementation across the federal government. The council’s rules have guided agencies in applying the law for nearly five decades. Now, Trump officials have left it up to each individual agency to develop its own regulations by next February. 

In developing those standards, agencies will likely look to the Supreme Court’s decision, legal experts said. “What the Supreme Court rules here could be a very important guide as to how agencies implement NEPA and how they fashion their regulations interpreting NEPA,” said Park. If the court rules that agencies don’t need to consider climate impacts in NEPA reviews, for example, that could make it easier for Trump appointees to ignore greenhouse gas emissions, said Sivas. The White House has already instructed agencies not to include environmental justice impacts in their assessments.

On the other hand, a more nuanced opinion by the Supreme Court could end up undercutting efforts by the Trump administration to limit the scope of environmental reviews, said Farber. If justices end up affirming the need to consider certain impacts of the Utah railway project, for example, that could limit how much agencies under Trump can legally avoid evaluating particular effects. Agencies need to design regulations that will withstand challenges in lower courts — which will inevitably rely on the Supreme Court’s ruling when deciding on NEPA challenges moving forward.

In the meantime, however, legal experts say that Trump’s decision to have each agency create its own NEPA regulations will create even more chaos and uncertainty, even as the administration seeks to “expedite and simplify the permitting process” through sweeping reforms. 

“I think that’s going to just slow down the process more and cause more confusion, and not really serve their own goals,” said Farber.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A forthcoming Supreme Court decision could limit agencies’ duty to consider environmental harms on Apr 24, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Akielly Hu.

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In the face of the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to reshape the Environmental Protection Agency and drive out its workers, more than 300 career employees have left their jobs since the election, according to a ProPublica analysis of personnel data.

The numbers account for a relatively small share of the overall workforce at the EPA, but those who have departed include specialist civil servants crucial to its mission: toxicologists, lawyers, engineers, biologists, toxic waste specialists, emergency workers, and water and air quality experts.

Gary Jonesi made the decision to leave on election night. An attorney who helped enforce environmental laws for almost 40 years, he had loved working for the agency under both Democratic and Republican presidents. But he feared what the incoming administration might do.

In the past weeks, as the Trump administration has signaled radical changes at the agency and attempted to entice workers into leaving, he feels he made the right choice. “I didn’t know it was going to be this bad,” said Jonesi, who worked on litigation related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico as well as cases that involved both water and air pollution. “I feel for my old colleagues. And I feel for the American public, who are being put in danger.”

Other career employees expressed a mixture of fear, resignation and quiet defiance as they faced a painful decision: quit or work for an administration that has openly proclaimed its intention to radically transform the agency in addition to rolling back environmental protections.

In his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump announced plans to reverse efforts to address climate change, abandon the EPA’s decadeslong focus on protecting the most vulnerable communities from pollution and step away from other key initiatives at the heart of the agency’s work.

At the same time, Trump has embarked on an unprecedented government-wide campaign to drive workers from their jobs. Employees throughout the federal government received offers to resign but get paid through September — a move experts say is legally questionable and unions have challenged in court. Some recently hired workers who are still on probation have been told their agencies have the right to immediately let them go.

EPA workers face additional threats. Trump’s team has discussed relocating the agency’s headquarters outside of Washington, D.C., a move that would likely force many of the roughly 7,000 employees who work there to quit. And he issued an executive order on “radical and wasteful government DEI programs,” which included a directive to terminate, “to the maximum extent allowed by law,” all environmental justice offices and positions. The order could result in the firing of hundreds of staff members who work on pollution in disproportionately burdened areas, which often have lower incomes, higher percentages of residents of color or both.

At a sometimes tearful meeting held at EPA headquarters and online on Wednesday, leaders of the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights told staff members that the EPA was beginning to implement that directive. “We’re all preparing for the worst,” said one environmental protection specialist who attended the meeting, where workers were instructed to prepare for the possibility of being placed on administrative leave and download their human resources files. “We’re preparing to be laid off.”

Employees in other parts of the agency are similarly distraught.

“We feel terrorized,” said one of the more than 20 current EPA employees who communicated with ProPublica about their experience of working at the agency under the second Trump administration. None said they planned to take up the offer to resign, a proposal that the agency said in numerous emails is open to staff until Thursday.

While there is an obvious appeal of quitting a job when your employer is aggressively trying to oust you, the EPA staffer, whose work involves measuring pollution levels in air, water and soil at contaminated sites, said he felt a moral obligation to stay.

“If I leave, my experience would go with me and there would be no replacement,” he said. (Along with the other EPA employees quoted in this story, the scientist spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution by the Trump administration.)

Others found the financial enticements to leave insulting. “I don’t work here for the fucking money,” said one longtime agency employee who works on air pollution. “I work here because I believe in it, and I want to serve the public.”

An emergency worker who responds to chemical fires, oil spills and national disasters echoed that sentiment, saying he has no intention of walking away from the work he’s done for more than 20 years, which he described as “the most challenging and amazing job there is.”

Other EPA employees are already bracing themselves for the possible end of their stints at the agency. One young scientist was winding down a day spent reviewing reports on drinking water last week when she received the email informing her that she had been identified as likely being on a probationary period and laying out the process for terminating her.

Until that point, she had been thinking of her first months in what she described as a “dream job” at the EPA as the beginning of a long career in civil service. “All that came crashing down when I got that email,” said the scientist, who recently finished graduate school and is now steeling herself for the likelihood that she will have to move back in with her parents.

If she goes, the scientist will join the more than 300 career staffers who have left since the election. That group is part of a brain drain of more than 500 EPA workers ProPublica identified as having departed since Nov. 22; the full group includes political appointees and short-term staff. Changes in administrations typically trigger turnovers at federal agencies, but ProPublica found the number leaving the EPA appears to have already eclipsed by more than 60 the number that left after President Joe Biden was elected in 2020. It is unclear exactly what motivated staffers to leave in recent weeks and how many more might be forced out or quit on their own terms in the coming days.

The shakeup is unprecedented, according to some veteran employees. “When you take a job at a federal agency, you know there are elections every four years. You know there are going to be changes in administration priorities,” said a scientist who has weathered many of these transitions during her more than 20 years working in the federal government. “This is something else.”

The EPA did not respond to questions for this story, including how many employees had taken the agency up on its offers to resign.

The EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment requires it to do the often difficult work of regulating powerful companies. Under any administration, the agency faces intense lobbying from these entities as they seek to avoid expense and the burdens of compliance. Corporate pressure on the EPA was considerable under Biden as his administration attempted to tackle climate pollution.

But Trump appears eager to both scale back the agency, which has more than 15,000 employees, and align what remains of it with the companies it regulates. During the campaign, he asked oil executives for $1 billion while promising to cut environmental regulations, according to The Washington Post.

On Friday, two days after the Senate confirmed Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator, the agency put out a press release supporting Zeldin’s ability to “Unleash American Greatness.” Among those quoted were representatives of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Mining Association, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, all of which have recently challenged the agency in court.

In a brief welcome address, Zeldin discussed making the nation “energy dominant” and “turning the U.S. into the AI capital of the world.” (AI is widely recognized as a climate threat because it consumes vast amounts of energy.) Other Trump appointees have worked for fossil fuel and chemical companies and have previously opposed stricter environmental regulation. David Fotouhi, whom Trump nominated to be second-in-command of the agency, recently tried to overturn its ban on asbestos.

The administration is planning to remove civil service protections from certain federal workers, which would allow some positions now held by highly skilled personnel to be reclassified so they could be filled based on loyalty to the administration rather than expertise. The move could have tremendous implications for the EPA, whose workforce includes thousands of highly trained experts.

“If he replaces EPA scientists and lawyers with people who just want to say yes to him, it will be the death knell for the EPA,” said Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

The redirection of the agency and the loss of experienced professionals who respond to emergencies, monitor pollution, clean up highly contaminated areas and enforce environmental laws will have profound effects across the country.

“Nastier stuff than usual will come out of factories. More people will get cancer. More people will get heart disease. People will die sooner and they’ll be sicker,” said one Ph.D. scientist who works at the agency.

Because he spends part of his time focusing on health in particularly polluted areas, the scientist may find himself in the crosshairs of Trump’s order to eliminate all environmental justice work and positions. The order could directly affect as many as 250 EPA employees, according to Matthew Tejada, who served as the EPA deputy assistant administrator for environmental justice during the Biden administration.

The environmental justice office was established in 1992, after research done in the 1980s showed that communities with hazardous waste sites had higher percentages of Black and low-income residents. Two years later, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order requiring all federal agencies to make environmental justice part of their mission. As of publication, a page about the 1994 executive order had been removed from the EPA website. The agency also disabled EJScreen, an online mapping tool that was used to identify pollution levels in communities around the country, along with other information about environmental justice and climate change.

The Ph.D. scientist described the mood within his office as “a combination of exhaustion and exasperation with what’s very clearly a calculated campaign of harassment.” Still, he is hoping he will escape the apparently imminent purge of EPA staff working on environmental justice.

For some staff, the rapid changes are a bridge too far. One chemist who has worked at the agency for more than a decade described himself as seriously thinking about leaving — though on his terms, not in response to the administration’s resignation offer. “My motivation to work at EPA was because I want to protect human health and the environment and the lure of a stable job,” he told ProPublica. “But now all that’s gone.”

Others say the administration’s aggressive efforts to drive them out of the EPA have left them only more determined to stay. “Personally, it makes me want to hang on until I have the chance to do (or not do) something worth getting fired for,” one lawyer said.

Another scientist, who oversees the cleanup of highly contaminated sites, agreed. He saw the departures from EPA norms and repeated offers to resign as designed to scare him and others out of the agency — and vowed that the tactics would not work on him.

“It won’t make me quit,” the scientist said. “Nothing is going to make me quit.”

Instead, the scientist recently bought a new Black history month T-shirt that he plans to wear when he is required to return to the office full time in late February. “I’m going to dare somebody to say something to me,” he said. He acknowledged that the move, which would broadcast his derision for the Trump administration’s retreat from environmental justice, could get him fired. But he said he didn’t care.

“I’m going to stand up to them,” the scientist said. “I may lose the battle, but principally I will have won the war.”

Do you have any information about the EPA that we should know? Sharon Lerner can be reached by Signal at 718-877-5236.

If you have other information you can share about the federal government, you can reach ProPublica’s tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201.

Kirsten Berg, Mollie Simon and Mariam Elba contributed research. Agnel Philip contributed data analysis.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sharon Lerner and Pratheek Rebala.

“Today’s decision is a major win for shoppers and grocery workers. Families have been paying the price of unchecked corporate power in the food and grocery sector, and further consolidation would only worsen this crisis.
“FTC Chair Lina Khan’s approach is the blueprint to deliver lower prices, higher wages, and an economy that works for everyone. The rebirth of antitrust enforcement has protected consumers against the worst of corporate power in our economy and it would be wise to continue this approach.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about the Kroger-Albertsons merger and grocery prices.

BACKGROUND

• In her decision, Judge Nelson wrote that the merger would raise the cost of groceries for millions of consumers. Kroger is the second-largest grocery in the country, while Albertsons is the fourth-largest.
• The merger would have created a massive new grocery retailer that would control 22% of the retail food market, and result in two giant grocers (Kroger/Albertsons and Walmart) controlling more than 70% of the grocery market in over 160 cities.
• During the trial, it was revealed that a top pricing executive at Kroger wrote in an email, “On milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation.” These grocers used inflation to hike prices and supercharge their profits.
• A Groundwork report found that families are now paying 25+ percent more for groceries than they were before the pandemic, outpacing overall inflation. The report recommended antitrust enforcement against further mergers and consolidation in the food industry, like the Kroger-Albertsons merger.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This supplemental analysis was needed to address fundamental flaws and legal errors in an earlier environmental impact statement completed by the Trump administration. The new analysis makes it clear that the Arctic Refuge remains under threat from oil and gas drilling, and that any oil and gas program will have harmful effects on the coastal plain.

A 2021 lease sale, also conducted by the Trump administration, failed to garner significant interest, generating less than 1% of revenue promised by the 2017 Tax Act. The just-released decision includes a Notice of Sale for an oil and gas lease sale for 400,000 acres in the northwest portion of the Coastal Plain on January 9, 2025.

The Gwich’in Steering Committee and citizens across the country have urged the Biden Administration to issue a strong record of decision before leaving office

In response, Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club’s Conservation Campaign, released the following statement:

“Oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge is a direct threat to some of the last untouched landscapes on Alaska’s North Slope and to the caribou herds that the Gwich’in people rely on. The 2017 Tax Act, forced through Congress by Donald Trump and his Big Oil CEO allies, opened up the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing. Letting him oversee a lease sale over these pristine lands would be beyond irresponsible. In the meantime, President Biden should listen to the Gwich’in and do all that he can to preserve these lands and waters. His legacy is on the line.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The court said that the law doesn’t take an adequately narrow approach to restricting such content, thereby infringing on First Amendment-protected speech or compelling unduly burdensome speech to avoid liability.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement:

“The court’s decision misses the fundamental problem with deepfakes, which is not simply that they make false claims but that they show candidates saying or doing things that the candidates did not say or do. The court suggests that a targeted candidate can just respond with counter speech – but that is not true, where the candidate has to ask the public not believe their eyes and ears. For this unprecedented kind of fraudulent deception, disclosure *is* the least speech-restrictive solution that can advance the government’s compelling interest in preserving election integrity.

“There are particular features of the California law – such as the requirement to label satire and font size required for disclosures – that appeared to color the court’s decision. And the court recognized that labeling requirements, if narrowly tailored, could pass constitutional muster. This decision therefore should not become an excuse for inaction against the threat of deepfakes.

“There’s nothing about the First Amendment that ties our hands in addressing fraud and a here-and-now threat to democracy.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Guardian reported this week a source from within the Foreign Office confirming what anyone paying close attention already knew.

By last February, according to the source, Britain’s then Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, had received official advice that Israel was using British arms components to commit war crimes in Gaza. Cameron sat on that information for many months, concealing it from the House of Commons and the British public, while Israel continued to butcher tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

Several points need making about the information provided to the Guardian:

1. The source says that the advice to Cameron on Israeli war crimes was “so obvious” it could not have been misunderstood by him or anyone else in the previous government. Given that the new Labour government has been similarly advised, forcing it to partially suspend arms sales, one conclusion only is possible: Cameron is complicit in Israel’s war crimes. The International Criminal Court must immediately investigate him. Its British chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, needs to issue an arrest warrant for Cameron as soon as possible. No ifs or buts.

2. Now in government, Labour has a legal duty to make clear the timeline of the advice Cameron received – and who else received it – to help the ICC in its prosecution of the former Foreign Secretary and other British officials for complicity in Israel’s atrocities.

3. The current furore being kicked up over Labour’s suspension of a tiny fraction of arm sales to Israel needs to be put firmly in context. David Lammy, Cameron’s successor, is keen to evade any risk of complicity charges himself. Leaders of the previous government are denouncing his decision on arms sales only because it exposes their own complicity in war crimes. Their outrage is desperate arse-covering – something the media ought to be highlighting but isn’t.

4. Labour needs to explain why, according to the source, the advice it has published has apparently been watered down from the advice Cameron received. As a result, Lammy has suspended 30 of 350 arms contracts with Israel – or 8 per cent of the total. He has avoided suspending the British components most likely to be assisting Israel in its war crimes: those used in Israel’s F-35 jets, made in the US.

Why? Because that would incur the full wrath of the Biden administration. He and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, dare not take on Washington.

In other words, Lammy’s decision has not only exposed the complicity of Cameron and the previous Tory leadership in Israeli war crimes. It also exposes Lammy and Starmer’s complicity. Put bluntly, following this week’s announcement, they are now 8 per cent less complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity than Cameron and the Tories were.

5. There has been lots of fake indignation from Israel and its lobbyists, especially in Britain’s Jewish community, about how offensive it is that the government should announce its suspension of a small fraction of arms sales to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza the day six Israeli hostages were buried.

The chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, for example, is incensed that the UK is limiting its arming of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, saying it “beggars belief”. He is thereby calling for the UK to trash international law, and ignore its own officials’ advice that Israel risks using British weapons to commit war crimes. He is demanding that the UK facilitate genocide.

The British Board of Deputies, which claims to represent British Jews, has retweeted Mirvis’ comment. The Board’s president has been all over the airwaves similarly decryingLammy’s decision.

Israel would, of course, have always found some reason to be appalled at the timing. There is an obviously far more important consideration than the bogus “sensitivities” of Israel and genocide apologists like Rabbi Mirvis. Each day the UK government delays banning all arms to Israel – not just a small percentage – more Palestinians in Gaza die and the more Britain contributes to Israel’s crimes against humanity.

But equally to the point: according to the rules Starmer imposed on the Labour party – that Britain’s Jewish leaders get to define what offends Jews and what amounts to antisemitism, especially on issues concerning Israel – the Labour government is now, judged by those standards, antisemitic. You can’t have one set of rules for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour left, and another for Starmer and the Labour right.

Or rather you can. That is precisely the game the entire British establishment has been playing for the past seven years. A game that has facilitated Israel’s genocide in Gaza even more than the sales of British weapons to Israel.

6. Many have dismissed the significance of recent rulings against Israel from the International Court of Justice – that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza and that its decades of occupation are illegal and a form of apartheid – as well as moves from the International Criminal Court to arrest Netanyahu as a war criminal.

Here we see how mistaken that approach is. Those legal decisions have set the two wings of the British establishment – the Tories and the Starmerite Labour right – at loggerheads. Both are now desperate in their different ways to distance themselves from charges of complicity.

The rulings have also opened up a potential rift with Washington. The State Department spokesman has been shown having to frantically justify why the US is not banning its own arms sales.

Journalist Humeyra Pamuk questioned State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on why the US has not followed the UK's decision to suspend arms sales to Israel over concerns about potential violations of international law. pic.twitter.com/mujwDyblgZ

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) September 4, 2024

Admittedly, these are only small fissures in the western system of oligarchy. But those fissures are weaknesses – weaknesses that those who care about human rights, care about international law, care about stopping a genocide, and care about saving their own humanity can exploit. We have few opportunities. We need to grasp every single one of them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Last week, CJPME sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, urging him to take 7 concrete steps to align Canadian policy with international law as outlined in the ICJ advisory opinion. Below, we will outline these steps and answer several other key questions.

For the full analysis, read CJPME’s letter here, or listen here to our Palestine Debrief podcast episode with former UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk. Stay tuned for further actions as we continue to pressure Canada to uphold international law.

Is this related to the ICJ’s genocide case against Israel?

No, the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion is unrelated to the ongoing genocide case probing Israel’s actions in Gaza, which was initiated by South Africa in December 2023. Instead, the origins of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion date back to Fall 2022, when the United Nations asked the ICJ to give its opinion on the legal implications of Israel’s prolonged occupation, settlement activities, and annexation of Palestinian territory. In other words, the ICJ was asked to provide an answer to the question: Given Israel’s illegal actions, is the occupation itself illegal?

What did the ICJ conclude?

The ICJ determined that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) is unlawful, and that Israel is obliged to end its illegal presence “as rapidly as possible.” This includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

The ICJ also determined that:

• Israel’s actions amount to the annexation of large parts of the OPT;
• Israel is committing apartheid against Palestinians in the OPT;
• Israel is obliged to provide full reparation for the damage caused, including through the return of land and property, the evacuation of all settlers, and allowing displaced Palestinians to return to their homes;
• All states, including Canada, are obliged “not to render aid or assistance” in maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation, including through trade or investment relations.

How has Canada responded so far?

To date, Canada has only said that Israel should “respond substantively to the ICJ’s advisory opinion,” and called for a reversal of settlement expansion. This is small progress, as Canada had voted against the original UN motion and tried to discourage the ICJ from taking this case in the first place. Nonetheless, it does not go nearly far enough.

How can Canada support the ICJ ruling?

1. Canada must support efforts by the UN to end Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT

The ICJ urged the United Nations to “consider what further action is required to put an end to the illegal presence of Israel” in the OPT. It further said that all states (including Canada) must cooperate with these efforts.

Canada is therefore obliged to assist the UN in bringing an end to Israel’s illegal occupation. As such, Canada should support all initiatives that affirm the ICJ opinion and seek Israel’s compliance, including co-sponsoring and voting in support of UN resolutions. Canada must also urge the United States not to veto any resolutions that may come before the Security Council on this matter.

2. Canada must impose sanctions on Israel in response to its breach of the UN Charter

The ICJ concluded that Israel’s actions amount to the annexation of large parts of the OPT, and noted that this violates the Charter of the United Nations (which prohibits states from acquiring territory through force). This represents a major breach of a fundamental principle of international law.

When Russia attempted to annex parts of Ukraine, Canada loudly and forcefully condemned these actions as a violation of the UN Charter, and then backed up its words with a comprehensive set of sanctions targeting Russian politicians and businesses. Following this standard, Canada should impose sanctions on Israel under the Special Economic Measures Act, targeting government and military officials as well as individuals and entities tied to Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT.

3. Canada must cancel the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement and ban trade with Israeli settlements

The ICJ concluded that all states, including Canada, have an obligation to structure their economic relations with Israel so that they do not contribute to its illegal presence in the OPT. For example, the ICJ found that states are obliged to:

• “abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the [OPT] or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory”;
• “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the [OPT]”; and
• “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the [OPT].”

Unfortunately, Canada is already violating these obligations through the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA), which extends free trade benefits to the entire territory under Israeli control, thus providing a direct material benefit to help Israel maintain its settlements and occupation. To comply with its obligations, Canada must cancel CIFTA and prohibit all trade in goods and services with Israel’s settlements.

4. Canada must comprehensively address the issue of Israeli settlements

The ICJ Advisory Opinion “reaffirms that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the régime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.” This includes the illegal transfer of settlers into occupied territory, the exploitation of natural resources, the forcible transfer of Palestinians from their homes, and “Israel’s systematic failure to prevent or to punish attacks by settlers.”

The ICJ concluded that Israel is obliged to provide restitution for the damage caused, including the immediate “evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements” in the OPT.

CJPME has previously asked Prime Minister Trudeau to adopt a “Whole-of-Government Approach” to address Canadian complicity in the settlements, which are a war crime under Canadian law. We put forward a series of 19 recommendations across 7 ministerial portfolios, including imposing economic sanctions on the Israeli settlement economy under the Special Economic Measures Act, revoking the charitable status of organizations that transfer money to settlements, and prosecuting the promotion and sale of settlement properties. By enacting these recommendations, Canada could move significantly towards compliance with its obligations as outlined by the ICJ.

5. Canada must suspend all military trade and cooperation with Israel

The ICJ said that all states, including Canada, are obliged “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the [OPT],” and must “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the [OPT].”

There is no question that Canada’s military trade with Israel assists in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful occupation. The export of weapons and military technology to Israel directly supports its military control over the OPT, while the import of Israeli weapons indirectly supports the occupation by sustaining the country’s defence industry and legitimizing its testing of new weaponry on Palestinians. To ensure that it is not rendering aid or assistance to Israel’s illegal military occupation of the OPT, Canada must impose a comprehensive two-way arms embargo under the Special Economic Measures Act.

6. Canada must terminate the Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership

The ICJ asserted that all states, including Canada, are obliged “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the [OPT].”

Canada violates this obligation through the Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership, which commits Canada to collaborate with many different branches of the Israeli state that are actively involved in maintaining its illegal occupation, including the Israeli Ministry of Defence and the Israeli Ministry of National Security. Given that Israel’s role as an illegal occupying power is premised on its military control over the OPT, there is no question that Canadian collaboration with these ministries renders aid and assistance in maintaining Israel’s illegal presence. To comply with its obligations as outlined by the ICJ, Canada must immediately terminate the Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership by sending written notice to the Israeli government.

7. Canada must recognize the State of Palestine

Unsurprisingly, the ICJ found that Israel’s actions violated the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Most importantly, the ICJ expressed that “the existence of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination cannot be subject to conditions on the part of the occupying Power, in view of its character as an inalienable right.”

No more excuses: Canada must recognize the State of Palestine immediately. The Advisory Opinion is clear that self-determination cannot be left indefinitely in a state of “suspension and uncertainty” or be conditioned on the demands of the illegal occupier. The rights of the Palestinian people as outlined by the ICJ cannot be bargained or negotiated away. Canada must recognize Palestine now, and work to realize the right of self-determination by ending Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

Vice President Kamala Harris has the backing of enough Democratic delegates to secure the party’s presidential nomination, with Democrats planning to hold a virtual roll call in the coming days to formalize her place atop the ticket ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. The Democratic Party has quickly coalesced around Harris following President Joe Biden’s stunning decision Sunday to drop his reelection bid, but questions remain about whether she will significantly alter Middle East policy. The “uncommitted” movement of voters seeking to pressure Democrats to stop U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza “breathed a sigh of relief” when Biden dropped out, says Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, an adviser to the movement, and activists are hopeful for Harris to take a new approach. Shahid adds that the Democratic Party cannot cast itself as a champion of democracy standing against far-right authoritarianism while continuing to arm the extremist Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it “makes a mockery of our party’s claim to be fighting on the right side of history.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

In May, RTÜK fined and issued a gag order after the outlet mentioned the mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule in 1915, which Turkey refuses to recognize as genocide as the successor of the Ottoman Empire. RTÜK canceled the outlet’s license earlier this month when the outlet continued to broadcast its programs. 

“In the case of Açık Radyo, the remarks in question are clearly covered by the right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by international human rights law, including the European Convention on Human Rights. We urgently call on RTÜK to swiftly reinstate Açık Radyo’s license,” the statement said.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

In response, Ben Jealous, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, released the following statement:

“The Supreme Court majority just asserted a power-grab that will give unelected judges more room to indulge their own policy preferences, and to override the considered judgment of public servants with the scientific and technical knowledge, experience, and accountability required to protect the public from corporate exploitation. Their decision will imperil the ability of the federal government to protect our air, water, and health, tackle the climate crisis, and enact the commonsense safeguards of our bedrock public-interest laws. This radical decision is yet another example of our nation’s highest court moving our country backwards, while Americans everywhere work for a better future. We will continue to aggressively pursue the urgent action needed to protect our health, the climate, and our future.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Pregnant women in dire medical emergencies bore the life-threatening consequences of the Supreme Court’s procedural “miscalculations” during the litigation of Idaho v. United States. And although the Supreme Court’s action today provides some degree of relief that medical providers in Idaho can do their job without fear of criminal sanctions, Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion reveals how extremist justices remain willing to commandeer the judiciary to effectuate their personal anti-abortion ideologies and politicize medicine.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“The court has spoken,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, said in a statement. “We are on track to resume elections for the Public Service Commission in 2025.”

The advocates who sued said they’re considering how to proceed — the commission’s decisions, which include everything from energy rates and discounts to building new power plants, remain as important as ever, they told Grist and WABE.

“People are not able to pay rent, they’re not able to feed their families,” said James Woodall, a public policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “So when I think about the decision, or lack thereof, to take on this case, I thought about those people.”

Each of Georgia’s Public Service Commissioners has to live in a specific district, but unlike members of congress they’re elected by statewide vote. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, all Black voters in Atlanta, argued this system dilutes their votes and therefore violates the Voting Rights Act. While a federal judge agreed, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees courts in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, overturned that decision. With the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will not consider the case, the 11th Circuit ruling will stand, leaving the system as-is.

Public Service Commission, or PSC, elections in Georgia, meanwhile, have been on hold since 2022, when the original judge issued a stay blocking any election until a new system could be devised — a decision the Supreme Court upheld. Two elections were canceled that year, and those commissioners were allowed to continue to serve and vote; a third commissioner who was up for reelection this year will also continue to serve without facing voters.

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“We have had these commissioners sitting in their seats pretty much unelected,” said Brionté McCorkle, another plaintiff and the executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Conservation Voters. “They’re making incredibly important decisions that are impacting the lives of Georgians and also impacting the climate crisis.”

The five-member Public Service Commission has final approval over most steps taken by Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, including how much the company charges for energy and how it makes that power. Since the cancellation of the 2022 elections, the commissioners have approved the construction of new natural gas turbines as well as bill increases to cover natural gas costs and construction of the newest nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle. Next year, they’ll make all-important decisions about Georgia Power’s future energy plans, including possible expansions of renewable energy and closure of coal plants, and the next several years of power rates — all before voters have the chance to send new representatives to the commission.

Under a state law passed this year, PSC elections would resume in 2025 with votes for two seats. The law lays out an election schedule for all five seats that would leave the current commissioners in power beyond their original six-year terms.

The plaintiffs are considering a challenge to that law, McCorkle said, though they’ve made no final decisions.

“We definitely feel like that is all very problematic,” she said of the law’s election schedule. “We’re gonna keep fighting for the people of Georgia.”

While McCorkle called the Supreme Court’s decision “a bummer,” she said she also felt “a little bit of relief” because there was no guarantee the high court would side with the plaintiffs.

Voting rights advocates are concerned about the implications of the 11th Circuit’s ruling, which didn’t weigh in on whether the plaintiffs had proven their votes were unfairly diluted. Rather, the appeals court argued a federal court can’t overrule the state’s choice to hold at-large elections because it would violate the “principles of federalism.”

“They endorsed the notion that the state has a vested interest in disenfranchising Black Georgians,” Woodall said. “For me, it is an endorsement that reflects over generations and generations of discrimination.”

Woodall, McCorkle, and others said they plan to continue educating Georgians about the PSC, as well as holding commissioners accountable.

“We’re gonna make sure people know who you are and what you do and that they can call you, call the commissioners, and make sure their voices are heard and represented in the decisions that they’re making,” McCorkle said of the commissioners. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After SCOTUS decision, Georgia will keep ‘problematic’ voting system for energy regulators on Jun 26, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Emily Jones.

“The court has spoken,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the office of the Georgia Secretary of State, said in a statement. “We are on track to resume elections for the Public Service Commission in 2025.”

The advocates who sued said they’re considering how to proceed — the commission’s decisions, which include everything from energy rates and discounts to building new power plants, remain as important as ever, they told Grist and WABE.

“People are not able to pay rent, they’re not able to feed their families,” said James Woodall, a public policy associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “So when I think about the decision, or lack thereof, to take on this case, I thought about those people.”

Each of Georgia’s Public Service Commissioners has to live in a specific district, but unlike members of congress they’re elected by statewide vote. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, all Black voters in Atlanta, argued this system dilutes their votes and therefore violates the Voting Rights Act. While a federal judge agreed, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees courts in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, overturned that decision. With the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will not consider the case, the 11th Circuit ruling will stand, leaving the system as-is.

Public Service Commission, or PSC, elections in Georgia, meanwhile, have been on hold since 2022, when the original judge issued a stay blocking any election until a new system could be devised — a decision the Supreme Court upheld. Two elections were canceled that year, and those commissioners were allowed to continue to serve and vote; a third commissioner who was up for reelection this year will also continue to serve without facing voters.

Read Next

Want clean electricity? These are the overlooked elected officials who get to decide.

Emily Jones

“We have had these commissioners sitting in their seats pretty much unelected,” said Brionté McCorkle, another plaintiff and the executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Conservation Voters. “They’re making incredibly important decisions that are impacting the lives of Georgians and also impacting the climate crisis.”

The five-member Public Service Commission has final approval over most steps taken by Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, including how much the company charges for energy and how it makes that power. Since the cancellation of the 2022 elections, the commissioners have approved the construction of new natural gas turbines as well as bill increases to cover natural gas costs and construction of the newest nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle. Next year, they’ll make all-important decisions about Georgia Power’s future energy plans, including possible expansions of renewable energy and closure of coal plants, and the next several years of power rates — all before voters have the chance to send new representatives to the commission.

Under a state law passed this year, PSC elections would resume in 2025 with votes for two seats. The law lays out an election schedule for all five seats that would leave the current commissioners in power beyond their original six-year terms.

The plaintiffs are considering a challenge to that law, McCorkle said, though they’ve made no final decisions.

“We definitely feel like that is all very problematic,” she said of the law’s election schedule. “We’re gonna keep fighting for the people of Georgia.”

While McCorkle called the Supreme Court’s decision “a bummer,” she said she also felt “a little bit of relief” because there was no guarantee the high court would side with the plaintiffs.

Voting rights advocates are concerned about the implications of the 11th Circuit’s ruling, which didn’t weigh in on whether the plaintiffs had proven their votes were unfairly diluted. Rather, the appeals court argued a federal court can’t overrule the state’s choice to hold at-large elections because it would violate the “principles of federalism.”

“They endorsed the notion that the state has a vested interest in disenfranchising Black Georgians,” Woodall said. “For me, it is an endorsement that reflects over generations and generations of discrimination.”

Woodall, McCorkle, and others said they plan to continue educating Georgians about the PSC, as well as holding commissioners accountable.

“We’re gonna make sure people know who you are and what you do and that they can call you, call the commissioners, and make sure their voices are heard and represented in the decisions that they’re making,” McCorkle said of the commissioners. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After SCOTUS decision, Georgia will keep ‘problematic’ voting system for energy regulators on Jun 26, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Emily Jones.

• Harris marks second anniversary of Dobbs abortion decision at Maryland campaign event.
• Ship that collapsed Baltimore bridge in deadly March accident, finally towed away from city.
• EU regulators accuse Apple of monopolistic practices on its App store.
• Netanyahu says temporary ceasefire possible, but no permanent end to war just yet.
• Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao makes first post raid public appearance, rejects stepping down.
• San Jose health care workers and advocates rally to save Valley Medical Center Trauma Center.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 24, 2024. Harris marks second anniversary of Dobbs abortion decision at Maryland campaign event.  appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju released the following statement:

“We’re relieved that the Supreme Court recognized this sham case for what it is, but this baseless push to block abortion access should never have been heard by them in the first place. Our most fundamental rights and freedoms shouldn’t be up to the whims of unchecked, extremist judges appointed to the Court by a president and Senate hell-bent on banning abortion nationwide. We need court reform to salvage the legitimacy of our federal judiciary—and we won’t stop fighting for it until it’s a reality.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“We are heartened that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be allowed to appeal his extradition to the United States,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg, in New York. “Assange’s prosecution in the United States would have disastrous implications for press freedom. It is time for the United States Department of Justice to drop its harmful charges against Assange.”

If extradited and convicted in the U.S., Assange’s lawyers have said that he faces up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, although U.S. prosecutors have said the sentence would be much shorter.

Last week, CPJ and partners sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Justice Department to drop charges against the Wikileaks founder.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Haggai Matar, executive director of the independent +972 Magazine, has described the Tel Aviv government’s decision to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel as “an attack on free speech and freedom of the press”.

The Israeli journalist told Al Jazeera the ban was “clearly a criminal and very dangerous decision”.

He described the move as an attack on Israel itself because it denies the country’s citizens alternative sources of information.

• READ MORE: Al Jazeera condemns Israeli government decision to shut down local offices

“We have very limited access to information coming out of Gaza in Israeli media outlets,” Matar said.

He said the absence of Al Jazeera journalists within Israel meant that different voices from Israeli society would also be heard less around the world.

His condemnation joined criticism from media freedom watchdogs and news media around the world.

+972 Magazine is an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists.

Founded in 2010, its mission is described on its website as to provide in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine.

The name of the site is derived from the telephone country code that can be used to dial throughout Israel-Palestine.

The Israeli government decision to close the award-winning Al Jazeera network’s operations in Israel came just two days after World Press Freedom Day when the Palestinian journalists covering the war on Gaza were awarded the Guillermo Cano world press freedom prize.

Al Jazeera Media Network condemned the Israeli government’s decision as a “criminal act” and warned that the country’s suppression of the free press “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law”.

‘Violates human rights’
“Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act that violates human rights and the basic right to access of information. Al Jazeera affirms its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences,” the network said in a statement last night.

“Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law.

Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to cover, whilst more than 140 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war on Gaza.

“The Network vehemently rejects the allegations presented by Israeli authorities suggesting professional media standards have been violated. It reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the values embodied by its Code of Ethics,” it said.

The statement comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously to close Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, weeks after Israel’s Parliament passed a law allowing the temporary closure of foreign broadcasters considered to be a threat to national security during the seven-month war in Gaza.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

“I am from northern Shan state and I’ve come to Kayin state for the revolution,” she says to Radio Free Asia.

Moe Pyae Sone pauses for a moment at an internally displaced people’s camp just south of Myawaddy, where ethnic rebels recently overran military junta positions.

Wearing camouflage pants and a tactical vest over a traditional red garment, she recalls her participation in protests – like so many other young people – against Myanmar’s military junta after the Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat.

Knowing of her desire to fight, her parents asked her to remain in school, she says. But in 2022, she secretly sold a pair of earrings to pay for travel expenses. 

On the other side of the country – in Chin state – she joined rebel forces and eventually became a trainer. 

“In Chin state, I’ve gained combat experience,” she says. “I’ve participated in quite a few battles.”

She speaks matter-of-factly and occasionally lets loose with a nervous giggle.

Earlier this year, she made her way to Kayin state to join with another group of anti-junta fighters. 

She’s the eldest of three siblings. She says her mother still lives in the same village in Shan state. 

“Of course they worry about me,” she says.

Then she jumps in the back of a pickup truck with a half dozen others. She turns around to wave goodbye – still smiling – as they drive off toward a junta outpost.

Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pimuk Rakkanam for Radio Free Asia.

PRISTINA -- Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.

The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.

Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.

Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province's 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.

"Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo's central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year," Kurti told RFE/RL's Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.

"We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism," Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.

The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.

The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.

"The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment," Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank's line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.

Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.

"We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose," Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.

"Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid," Kurti added.

However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo's controversial decision on the dinar was "an issue that we need to address immediately."

Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo's most reliable ally.

The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.

"It's not me as prime minister to decide about this thing," Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar's solutions.

"We're a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition," Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar's proposals.

"Let those who made the proposals speak," he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.

"No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution," he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.

Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: "I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers."

Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.

"I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.

"The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade," Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal "because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo's membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country."

Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government's statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.

"What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic's letter explained," Kurti said.

"I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia's quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia," he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.

"In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I'm there, it's the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.

"This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It's not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year," he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.

Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.

"I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department...they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history," Kurti said.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The news followed a controversial hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in December, in which Mangi, who was born in Pakistan, was asked to comment on both the September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel. While the committee voted to advance him along party lines, the outcome of a full Senate vote is now in question.

"Someone as qualified as Adeel Mangi should have broad and enthusiastic support from the whole Senate."

"A bipartisan coalition in the U.S. Senate is about to nix this judicial nominee because he's Muslim," Jameel Jaffer, the director of Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute, posted on social media in response to the news.

Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said on social media that the move to vote against him was "insufferable Islamophobia and cowardice."

Rashid pointed out that seven of the judges nominated by former President Donald Trump were rated as "not qualified" by the American Bar Association (ABA), yet the Senate still voted to confirm them. Mangi, on the other hand, is "highly qualified" and "highly rated" and "instead even Senate Democrats are running away from him."

The ABA rates Mangi as "well-qualified," and Benchmark Litigation placed him on its 2024 and 2023 lists of the "Top 100 Trial Lawyers" in the country. He earned law degrees from both Oxford and Harvard and has had a successful career both representing corporate clients at the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb, and Tyler and taking on pro bono cases.

One of his prominent pro bono victories involved Muslim communities who had been barred from building a mosque in two New Jersey towns. In another, he secured a settlement for the family of Karl Taylor, who died in a New York prison after being attacked by guards.

"Someone as qualified as Adeel Mangi should have broad and enthusiastic support from the whole Senate," People for the American Way posted in response to the CNN story. "Mangi has spent his career working pro bono for people who couldn't afford a lawyer and would be the first Muslim judge on the 3rd Circuit."

Muslim advocacy group Emgage Action urged the public to support Mangi's nomination and criticized the "overtly Islamophobic questioning" at his confirmation hearings.

"Call on your senators to swiftly move forward with his confirmation and advocate for Adeel Mangi's suitability for the federal bench!" the group said on social media.

One of the most vocal Republican opponents of Mangi's nomination is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Cruz was the one to ask him if he condemned "the atrocities of the Hamas terrorists," to which Mangi responded that the events of October 7 were "a horror." When Cruz then asked if he thought the attacks could be justified, Mangi answered, "I have no patience, none, for any attempts to justify or defend those events."

Cruz and other Republicans also questioned Mangi on his membership of the advisory board for the Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights, which they claimed supported antisemitism because of speakers it had hosted, as NorthJersey.com reported. In response, Mangi said the advisory board only met once annually and discussed the center's academic research, not its programming.

At the time, Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats denounced the Republicans' line of questioning on social media.

"Senate Judiciary Republicans reached a new low, hurling unfounded accusations of antisemitism at an historic Muslim American judicial nominee today. In fact, Adeel Mangi is a longtime advocate for religious liberty," the Democratic committee members wrote.

Several Jewish American groups have backed Mangi's nomination, and even the Anti-Defamation League, which has been criticized for adopting an overly broad definition of antisemitism that stigmatizes legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies, defended him against the Republican line of questioning.

"Just as associating Jewish Americans with certain views or beliefs regarding Israeli government actions would be deemed antisemitic, berating the first American Muslim federal appellate judicial nominee with endless questions that appear to have been motivated by bias toward his religion is profoundly wrong," the group wrote in a January statement.

In a social media post on Friday, Cruz seemed to steer his opposition to Mangi away from anything that could be construed as Islamophobic to instead paint him as a radical. Cruz shared a letter opposing his confirmation from the National Troopers Coalition over Mangi's role as an advisory board member of the Alliance of Families for Justice, which supports the family members of incarcerated individuals. However, the coalition argued Mangi's role on the board showed an anti-law enforcement bias.

"He is so far left that even some Democrats are opposing his nomination," Cruz wrote.

In response to the news that Democrats might vote against Mangi, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told CNN that the administration "continues to fight for his confirmation and to repudiate the vicious hate and bigotry with which he has been targeted because of his Muslim faith."

Bates called Mangi an "extraordinarily qualified nominee who is devoted to the rule of law, lived the American dream through hard work, proven his integrity, and would make history on the bench."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

While Minnesota is not a swing state, and therefore may not have the same leverage over the Biden campaign as Michigan, organizers hope they can still send a message and inspire voters in other states.

"We're hoping that what we do here will just continue to push the wave of uncommitted across the United States," Amanda Purcell of MN Families for PalestinetoldThe Guardian.

"Voting uncommitted is a chance for Minnesotans to ask the president we fought for to change course, and recommit to all of us."

Progressive voters hope to use the uncommitted campaigns to persuade Biden to back a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, something that 68% of U.S. voters support, including 80% of Democrats. The campaigns seek to persuade the Biden administration that funding and arming an assault that the International Court of Justice has ruled a plausible genocide is not only immoral, but also a political liability as Biden prepares to face off against former President Donald Trump in November.

"We are organizing our neighbors across the state to tell Joe Biden: permanent cease-fire now!" reads the Vote Uncommitted MN website. "With his approval ratings bottoming-out and a tight race for re-election, we know he is paying close attention to what happens at the ballot box."

Minnesota is not the only state to pick up the uncommitted call. It is, however, the Super Tuesday state with the most prominent campaign to date. Other Super Tuesday primaries that have an uncommitted or equivalent line are Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee, and American Samoa.

The Colorado Palestine Coalition along with local chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), launched a "Vote Noncommitted Colorado" campaign last Wednesday, though more than 762,000 people have already returned their ballots by mail.

"We figured if there's a way to make some waves and let our discontent be known, we might as well," organizer Grace Thorvilson toldAxios Denver.

However, organizers in Minnesota say an uncommitted campaign is primed to make an impact in the state because of its history of progressive, democratic engagement and its large Muslim and immigrant population.

"We vote in Minnesota. Number one in the country for turnout," Abandon Biden campaign in Minnesota co-chair Jaylani Hussein told The Guardian. "And when it comes to minorities and immigrants, we also have historically high, record turnout."

Campaigners have scrambled to get the word out in the wake of Michigan's success.

"Y'all Michigan had three weeks. Minnesota now has four and a half days," organizer Asma Mohammed said on a conference call last week reported by Minnesota Public Radio.

The campaign has received backing from local politicians, including St. Paul City Council President Mitra Jalali and Minneapolis City Council President Aisha Chughtai.

"When you elect leaders, you commit to navigating difficult decisions with them while holding them accountable and standing up for your communities," the pair wrote in an op-ed Monday in Sajan Journal. "Our communities deserve better than the idea that 'anyone is better than Trump'—we deserve real leadership that invites accountability. Voting uncommitted is a chance for Minnesotans to ask the president we fought for to change course, and recommit to all of us."

Some members of the coalition, such as the Abandon Biden movement, want to ensure that Biden does not win the general election in order to impose consequences for his position on Gaza. Others, however, see the primaries as a chance to pressure Biden to reverse course before the general in order to strengthen his position against Trump.

"I'm hoping that President Biden listens, because I don't want to have to organize my community out of becoming Republicans or just sitting at home," Mohammed said. "And it's not just my community."

Abou Amara, who has previously worked on campaigns for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party—the state's Democratic Party affiliate—said that the primary was exactly the right time to put intra-party pressure on candidates.

"The Democratic primaries and the Republican primaries are the moment to exercise political power and to have your voice heard," Amara told Minnesota Now. "And you're seeing the Biden administration continue to respond, to say I have to listen to various aspects of my coalition."

On Sunday, for example, Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech in Selma in which she called for an immediate cease-fire and said Israel was not doing enough to stop a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza. While Harris only backed a temporary, six-week cease-fire to facilitate a hostage exchange, her rhetoric reflects growing pressure on the party.

AJ+ media critic Sana Saeed said on social media that it was a "blatant attempt to put Harris as sober to Biden's zeal in the wake of Michigan and polls showing his unpopularity."

"They know they are in trouble," she added, "so this is pure PR bait, and it seems some people are falling for it."

Organizers of the Uncommitted MN campaign hope the pressure will keep up beyond Super Tuesday. Already the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000, the largest union in Washington State, has endorsed the uncommitted campaign in that state's primary on March 12. Efforts are also underway in states including Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.

"This is a national movement," Mohammed told The Guardian. "It doesn't stop with Michigan. It doesn't stop with Minnesota. All of us have to be all in to get the attention of the president."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photograph Source: U.S. Department of State – Public Domain

In its January 26 decision in South Africa v. Israel, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that “the State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” The institution best suited to provide “urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East. Sixteen countries, including the United States and other major donors, have suspended their voluntary contributions to UNRWA. I argue that suspending funding is an indirect violation of the ICJ’s decision and morally indefensible.

The sixteen countries that suspended funding are indirectly failing to provide the basic needs the ICJ ordered Israel to do. If the Court was concerned with the catastrophic situation of Palestinians in Gaza and UNRWA is the major organizations that provides basic services and humanitarian assistance, failing to fund UNRWA is indirectly failing to provide basic services as ordered by the Court.

Israel will never “take immediate and effective measures” to help Palestinians as the Court ordered. Its continued assault in Gaza is doing the exact opposite. So why couldn’t Israel use UNRWA to carry out the Court’s provisional measure?

Publicly, Israel has castigated UNRWA. “It’s time the international community and the U.N. itself understand that UNRWA’s mission has to end,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of ambassadors to the U.N. at his office in Jerusalem, as reported on February 1 by the Times of Israel. He was obviously upset that lawyers who represented South Africa at the ICJ cited UNRWA statements to support their case. “It [UNRWA] has to be replaced by some organization or organizations that will do the job,” he added.  And it is surely no coincidence that the suspension of funding for UNRWA happened on the same day of the ICJ’s decision to call for five provisional measures for Israel “to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services”.

Some Israelis do recognize the importance of UNRWA. “On the surface, Israel is really critical of UNRWA,” Anne Irfan, a lecturer at University College London, told National Public Radio, but behind the scenes, “they see it as preferable to the alternative. UNRWA provides the services which would otherwise come under Israel as the occupying power.” A high Israeli official was quoted in the Times of Israel as saying: “Israel does not push for its closure because there is no alternative,” the official explained. Even the Israeli ad hoc Judge in the case, Aharon Barak, voted in favor of the Court’s specific call for Israel “to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” (The only dissenting vote in the 16-1 decision on this provisional measure was by Judge Julia Sebutinde from Uganda, who voted against all the Court’s provisional measures.)

The suspension of major donors’ funding UNRWA further weakens whatever hope there was to alleviate the Gazans’ adverse conditions recognized by the Court. If Israel will not “take immediate and effective measures,” and UNRWA is underfunded, the Court’s injunction will not be carried out. As the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said: “If the funds continue to be suspended, we will be forced to close our activities at the end of February, not only in Gaza, but also in the entire region.”

Hence, the sixteen countries who have suspended funding UNRWA have acted indirectly counter to the spirit of the Court’s 16-1 decision to provide basic services to almost two million people.

UNRWA has always been a controversial agency since its founding in 1949 by the U.N. General Assembly. It was created to provide relief to Palestinians suffering from Israel’s creation and the ensuing conflicts. Unlike the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, which is responsible for refugees worldwide, UNRWA’s focus has always been only on Palestinian refugees located in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

The fact that UNRWA is mandated to deal only with Palestinians has been the cause of historic anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli biases against the organization. For example: Under President Trump, in 2018 the United States suspended funding to UNRWA when at the time roughly 200,000 children were enrolled in UNRWA schools; its twenty odd health clinics treated millions of patients. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, recently argued on Fox news against President’s Biden’s 2021 restoring funding for UNRWA: “I sat in President Trump’s office and said: ‘We have got to stop the money to UNRWA,’” she proudly recalled.

Unlike the inconsistent U.S. position, traditional UNRWA supporters have joined the United States in suspending contributions. The largest single donor to UNRWA, Germany – it has contributed nearly a billion dollars to UNRWA in the last five years – is among the 16 non-funders. “UNRWA is not making a contribution to a peaceful solution,” Max Lucks of the Green Party said. “Not a single cent from Germany should reach teachers who glorify the terror of Hamas,” he added, as reported in the National Review.

Can the sixteen countries suspending support for UNRWA be held responsible for not supporting the major organization capable of providing basic needs to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip? If countries can be held responsible for providing material to a country committing genocide, why can’t countries be held responsible for not providing material needed for basic services for almost two million people to survive? Can states be held responsible for the consequences of failing to provide basic services to Palestinians through UNRWA?

There should be no doubt about the importance of UNRWA. Several heads of U.N. agencies have expressed dire concerns about the suspended funding. “Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is perilous and would lead to the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, which would have far-reaching consequences,” warned Martin Griffiths (Humanitarian Coordinator), Volker Türk (High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR), Achim Steiner (United Nations Development Programme, UNDP), Cindy McCain (World Food Programme, WFP) and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (World Health Organisation, WHO) in a joint statement reported by Swissinfo.

Is the funding suspension valid?  Israel accuses 12 UNRWA employees of taking part in the October 7 Hamas attack, in one way or another. Nine of the accused staff have been dismissed. But to put the number 12 in perspective: UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza, 30,000 in the region. The allegations concern 0.1% of the UNRWA employees in Gaza. Like Israel’s disproportionate killing of over 25,000 Palestinians and destruction of most of Gaza’s infrastructure in response to October 7, the suspension of UNRWA’s funding is disproportional and biased, what Lazzarini has called “additional collective punishment.” PassBlue has called the allegations “murky.”

So at the same time negotiators are working to find some peaceful settlement to the current conflict with a suspension of fighting, and the International Court of Justice finds “plausible” reasons to decide preliminary measures to prevent genocide, the major relief organization in the region is being undermined. And the people of Gaza, once again, are the ones who suffer.

Whether responsibility for providing material to Israel’s “plausibly” committing genocide or responsibility for not paying voluntary contributions to UNRWA to provide basic needs to Palestinians will ever be legally punished is improbable. But there is a definite moral responsibility in both cases.

The heroic work of UNRWA should be recognized and supported. Even the U.S. State Department, which did not wait for the results of an investigation before it “temporarily paused” additional funding, recognized that UNRWA “plays a critical role in providing lifesaving assistance to Palestinians.”

Suspending funding to an organization at the very moment it is most needed is morally indefensible. Remembering that 152 UNRWA employees have lost their lives since October 7, the organization deserves continuing funding, not continuing attacks and defunding. UNRWA, like the Palestinian people, deserves better.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Daniel Warner.

U.S. officials have said they believe air strikes on dozens of Iranian-linked sites in Syria and Iraq late on February 2 in retaliation for the killing of three U.S. troops in northwest Jordan were successful and warned more strikes will follow, as Baghdad expressed anger and concerns persisted of widening conflict in the region.

U.S. President Biden had warned of imminent action after a drone attack at a U.S. base in Jordan killed three U.S. service members on January 28.

Washington blamed Iran and its supply of weapons to militia groups in the region.

Reports said the U.S. strikes had hit seven locations, four in Syria and three in Iraq.

“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement released shortly after the attacks that "our response began today," adding, "It will continue at times and places of our choosing."

“The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. But let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond,” he added.

General Yehia Rasool, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani accused the United States of a "violation" of Iraqi sovereignty with potentially "disastrous consequences for the security and stability of Iraq and the region."

After a previous U.S. air strike in Baghdad, Sudani asked for the 2,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq to be withdrawn -- a sensitive bilateral topic.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States "did inform the Iraqi government prior to the strikes" but did not provide details. He said the attacks lasted about 30 minutes and included B-1 bombers that had flown from the United States.

Kirby said defense officials would be able to further assess the strikes' impact on February 3.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, which has extensive contacts inside Syria, said at least 18 pro-Iran fighters had been killed in a strike near Al-Mayadeen in Syria.

U.S. Central Command earlier confirmed the strikes, saying its forces "conducted air strikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups."

"U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States," it said, adding that it had struck "command and control operations, centers, intelligence centers, rockets, and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and Coalition forces."

Syrian state media said there had been a number of casualties in several sites in Syria's desert areas along the border with Iraq.

U.S. officials have said that the deadly January 28 attack in Jordan carried the "footprints" of Tehran-sponsored Kataib Hizballah militia in Iraq and vowed to hold those responsible to account at a time and place of Washington’s choosing, most likely in Syria or Iraq.

On January 31, Kataib Hizballah extremists in Iraq announced a "suspension" of operations against U.S. forces. The group said the pause was meant to prevent "embarrassing" the Iraqi government and hinted that the drone attack had been linked to the U.S. support of Israel in the war in Gaza.

Biden has been under pressure from opposition Republicans to take a harder line against Iran following the Jordan attack, but said earlier this week that "I don't think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That's not what I'm looking for."

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said Tehran "will not start any war, but if anyone wants to bully us, they will receive a strong response."

Biden on February 2 witnessed the return to the United States of the remains of the three American soldiers killed in Jordan at a service at the Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.

The clashes between U.S. forces and Iran-backed militia have come against the background of an intense four-month military campaign in Gaza Strip against the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group Hamas after a Hamas attack killed at least 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians.

Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have also waged attacks on international shipping in the region in what they call an effort to target Israeli vessels and demonstrate support for Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to his fifth round of crisis talks in the region from February 3-8, with visits reportedly planned to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and the West Bank in an effort to promote a release of hostages taken by Hamas in its brutal October 7 raids.

With reporting by AFP, CNN, BBC, and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

In what many are calling a major victory for the climate movement, the Biden administration on Friday paused approvals for new liquified natural gas export terminals. In Louisiana, environmental justice activist Roishetta Sibley Ozane helped push for the change and calls the pause “a monumental decision in the fight for climate justice,” a result of years of organizing by activists and frontline communities. “There is nothing natural about releasing methane pollution into the community where children play.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“It is deeply shocking – indeed inhumane – that several governments have taken decisions that will cause further suffering to two million Palestinians, who are already facing the risk of genocide and an engineered famine just days after the International Court of Justice ruling concluded that the survival of Palestinians in Gaza is at risk. It is particularly appalling that such action has been taken over allegations concerning 12 employees out of UNRWA’s entire staff of 30,000,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

The allegations over the involvement of UNRWA staff in the 7 October attacks are serious and must be independently investigated; anyone against whom there is sufficient admissible evidence should be prosecuted in fair trials. But the alleged actions of a few individuals must not be used as a pretext for cutting off life-saving assistance in what could amount to collective punishment.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“The allegations over the involvement of UNRWA staff in the 7 October attacks are serious and must be independently investigated; anyone against whom there is sufficient admissible evidence should be prosecuted in fair trials. But the alleged actions of a few individuals must not be used as a pretext for cutting off life-saving assistance in what could amount to collective punishment.”

The UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, France and Finland joined the US, Australia and Canada in pausing funding to the aid agency. Together, they provided more than half of UNRWA’s budget in 2022. The decision follows allegations that 12 UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attacks in Israel carried out by Hamas. UNRWA immediately dismissed nine employees over the allegations and has launched an investigation.

At a time when Israel, the occupying power, continues to flagrantly violate its obligations vis-à-vis Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, UNRWA has long served as a sole lifeline, offering indispensable humanitarian aid, education and shelter. The agency also provides desperately needed aid for millions of other Palestinian refugees living in neighbouring Arab countries.

Norway, Spain, Ireland and Belgium are among states that have announced they will not suspend funding, recognizing the vital role that UNRWA continues to play in the distribution of humanitarian aid to those in desperate need.

“It is disgraceful that instead of heeding the ICJ’s ruling, and the court’s finding that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further, key states, including the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, and France have cut off funding to the main provider of aid for civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard.

“All states have a clear duty to ensure the ICJ measures are implemented, including those ordering Israel to take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza as a key step to preventing genocide and further irreparable harm.

Some of the very governments that announced they will cut off funds to UNRWA over these allegations have, in the meantime, continued to arm Israeli forces despite overwhelming evidence that these arms are used to commit war crimes and serious human rights violations.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“Some of the very governments that announced they will cut off funds to UNRWA over these allegations have, in the meantime, continued to arm Israeli forces despite overwhelming evidence that these arms are used to commit war crimes and serious human rights violations. Rushing to freeze funds for humanitarian aid, based on allegations that are still being investigated, while refusing to even consider suspending support for the Israeli military is a stark example of double standards,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Instead of suspending vital funding to those in need states should be working to halt arms transfers to Israel and Palestinian armed groups and pushing for an immediate and sustained ceasefire and full humanitarian access to help alleviate devastating suffering.”

The state of Israel and right-wing groups have for years led a smear campaign against UNRWA, which plays a key role in protecting Palestinians’ right of return to their lands.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Meanwhile, Kyiv and Moscow continued to dispute the circumstances surrounding the January 24 crash of a Russian military transport plane that the Kremlin claimed was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Kyiv said it has no proof POWs were aboard and has not confirmed its forces shot down the plane.

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General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian commander in the Tavria zone in the Zaporizhzhya region, said Russian forces had "significantly increased" the number of offensive and assault operations over the past two days.

"For the second day in a row, the enemy has conducted 50 combat clashes daily,” he wrote on Telegram.

"Also, the enemy has carried out 100 air strikes in the operational zone of the Tavria Joint Task Force within seven days," he said, adding that 230 Russian-launched drones had been "neutralized or destroyed" over the past day in the area.

Battlefield claims on either side cannot immediately be confirmed.

Earlier, the Ukrainian military said 98 combat clashes took place between Ukrainian troops and the invading Russian army over the past 24 hours.

"There are dead and wounded among the civilian populations," the Ukrianian military's General Staff said in its daily update, but did not provide further details about the casualties.

According to the General Staff, Russian forces launched eight missile and four air strikes, and carried out 78 attacks from rocket-salvo systems on Ukrainian troop positions and populated areas. Iranian-made Shahed drones and Iskander ballistic missiles were used in the attacks, it said.

A number of "high-rise residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, a shopping center, and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed or damaged" in the latest Russian strikes, the bulletin said.

"More than 120 settlements came under artillery fire in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolayiv regions," according to the daily update.

The General Staff also reported that Ukrainian defenders repelled dozens of Russian assaults in eight directions, including Avdiyivka, Bakhmut, Maryinka, and Kupyansk in the eastern Donetsk region.

Meanwhile, Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, said it remained unclear what happened in the crash of the Russian Il-76 that the Kremlin claimed was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were killed along with nine crew members.

The Kremlin said the military transport plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile despite the fact that Russian forces had alerted Kyiv to the flight’s path.

Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told RFE/RL that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.

The situation with the crash of the aircraft "is not yet fully understood,” Budanov said.

"It is necessary to determine what happened – unfortunately, neither side can fully answer that yet."

Russia "of course, has taken the position of blaming Ukraine for everything, despite the fact that there are a number of facts that are inconsistent with such a position," he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted Ukraine shot down the plane and said an investigation was being carried out, with a report to be made in the upcoming days.

In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the creation of a second body to assist businesses in the war-torn country.

Speaking in his nightly video address late on January 26, Zelenskiy said the All-Ukraine Economic Platform would help businesses overcome the challenges posed by Russia's nearly two-year-old invasion.

On January 23, Zelenskiy announced the formation of a Council for the Support of Entrepreneurship, which he said sought to strengthen the country's economy and clarify issues related to law enforcement agencies. Decrees creating both bodies were published on January 26.

Ukraine's economy has collapsed in many sectors since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Kyiv heavily relies on international aid from its Western partnes.

The Voice of America reported that the United States vowed to promote at the international level a peace formula put forward by Zelenskiy.

VOA quoted White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby as saying that Washington "is committed to the policy of supporting initiatives emanating from the leadership of Ukraine."

Zelenskiy last year presented his 10-point peace formula that includes the withdrawal of Russian forces and the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, among other things.

With reporting by Reuters and dpa

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Fiji’s fired Education Minister Aseri Radrodro rebuffed three letters from the Prime Minister and legal advice from the Solicitor-General that led to his sacking as a cabinet minister, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka revealed yesterday.

Rabuka also said he wrote twice to the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) leader Viliame Gavoka and met him once to discuss Radrodro’s non-compliance to his directives to reappoint members of the Fiji National University Council who he had sacked.

“I requested honourable Gavoka to urge the SODELPA Management Board to consider taking action to ensure the unlawful decisions outlined above, are rescinded, as it could invite serious legal consequences for the Coalition Government,” said Rabuka.

• READ MORE: Fiji’s coalition parties at loggerheads after Cabinet minister removed for ‘insubordination and disobedience’
• ‘It is fake news’: Fiji ministers embroiled in sex and drug scandal
• Other Fiji politics reports

He added that Radrodro would cease to be minister from today.

“Honourable Radrodro may attend his former office to remove his personal items and honourable Gavoka may request him for a handover-briefing on his return from official travel.”

Rabuka had announced the sacking of Radrodro for “insubordination and disobedience” via social media platform Facebook.

RNZ Pacific reports that Fiji’s three-party coalition government is at risk of collapse after just over 12 months in power following the dismissal of Radrodo, with calls for Rabuka to step down as prime minister.

Radrodro — who is one of three MPs from the kingmaker party, Sodelpa — told local media the sacking came as a surprise, saying he only received a letter of his dismissal after it had been announced on social media.

He told local media he was not sure if he remained an MP.

However, the Cabinet and Parliament are two separate institutions independent of each other and Radrodro remains a parliamentarian.

According to the Standing Orders, only Parliament can remove an MP either for disciplinary reasons through a process in Parliament as provided for in the Constitution or in any law or if an MP Member is expelled by his/her party, or he/she resigns from the party, under which the party formally informs the Speaker of such a resignation or expulsion.

Temalesi Vono is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission. This article is also republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Republicans have also applied this approach to the legislative branch as they have used their control of the House to block almost all legislation on anything, including efforts to deal with immigration. This is despite the fact that they endlessly yell about immigration as the number one crisis facing the country.

Now the chaos party is looking to take their brand to the judiciary, as Republican justices are debating whether to overturn the Chevron doctrine. The Chevron doctrine dates back to a case brought before the court in 1984.

In that case, Chevron was contesting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) interpretation of a law passed by Congress in 1977, which required an extensive environmental review for any industrial project that would establish a new stationary source of pollution. The EPA interpreted this law to mean that a significant expansion of any existing source also was subject to an EPA review.

Chevron contested this interpretation, arguing that it was not the precise wording of the law. The court decided in a unanimous decision (i.e. justices appointed by both Republicans and Democrats) that the EPA had acted correctly. The ruling, which became known as the Chevron doctrine, held that a decision by an administrative body, like the EPA, was binding as long as it was a reasonable interpretation of the statute passed by Congress.

The Supreme Court is now hearing a case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which right-wing legal groups hope will overturn the Chevron case. The issue being contested is whether the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the Commerce Department, can require fishing boats to pay the cost of observers placed on their boats to ensure that they are complying with the relevant fishing restrictions.

Loper Bright Enterprises is arguing that this is not a provision written directly into the law. The counterargument from the Commerce Department (Gina Raimondo is the department secretary) is that this requirement is a reasonable interpretation of the laws requiring the Fisheries Service to maintain a sustainable supply of fish over time.

Overturning Chevron is Pro-Chaos, not Pro Business

Much of the discussion around this case treats the prospect of overturning Chevron as being pro-business. While that could be the outcome in this particular case (although the fishing industry is the biggest beneficiary of efforts to ensure a sustainable supply of fish), that would not necessarily be the effect in general.

Laws always contain a substantial element of ambiguity, since it is impossible to lay out in legislation the specific factors that would be relevant in every individual case. This means that it is necessary for someone to determine how the law applies to the specific case in question.

The Chevron doctrine gives considerable authority to the administrative agencies. These agencies are staffed with career civil servants who become experts in specific areas and apply the same principles over many decades. This ensures a large degree of consistency in the law, which businesses can assume in making expansion and investment decisions.

Overturning Chevron does not remove the need to interpret laws, it just takes the power away from the administrative agencies and gives it to judges. This is likely to lead to far less certainty for two reasons.

First, unlike the administrative agencies, the judges making rulings are not going to have expertise in the areas on which they are being asked to make a ruling. The trial court judge making the initial ruling in this case likely knew nothing about sustainable fishing practices.

The same would be the case with countless other issues that routinely get brought before administrative agencies. A judge making a ruling on whether Boeing had complied with relevant safety legislation with its latest 737 plane, likely has no expertise in airline safety, unlike the FAA. A judge making a ruling on the safety of a new drug likely has no expertise on the sort of tests needed to determine a drug’s safety and efficacy, unlike the FDA.

The issue of drug safety brings up the second reason. Sometimes presidents appoint judges, not because they think they would be competent jurists, but because they adhere to a particular ideology.

We saw this recently when U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk overturned the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug used to induce abortions, which had been on the market for more than 20 years. Judge Kacsmaryk does not have any special medical expertise, he was a far-right legal scholar appointed by Donald Trump to appease the anti-abortion movement.

It’s likely that Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling will be overturned by the Supreme Court, it already has been stayed, so his prohibition on mifepristone’s use did not go into effect. But can anyone seriously contend that a world in which any judge can ban any drug that they don’t like, based on no scientific evidence whatsoever, is pro-business?

The pharmaceutical industry exaggerates the cost of developing drugs, but the major drug companies do spend tens of billions of dollars on research each year. Would this spending make sense in a context where any random judge can suddenly prohibit them from selling a drug that has long been established to be safe and effective?

The same story applies to almost every area of business. If the FAA had fully blessed Boeing’s airplane designs and safety tests, would it be good for Boeing if a judge could just ignore all the safety data and tell Boeing its planes are unsafe?

This also goes the other way. Car manufacturers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to comply with safety, pollution, and mileage standards. These companies would have a hard time competing with a new company who found a judge that said these rules don’t apply to them.

Needless to say, businesses don’t like rules that restrain them, but overturning Chevron doesn’t mean that they won’t have rules that restrain them. It just means that they won’t have the consistent enforcement that results from having career civil servants in administrative agencies attempting to apply laws in a uniform manner over time. Instead, they will be subject to random rulings from judges who span the political spectrum.

In short, the overturning of Chevron would be an effort by the Republican Justices to apply the same sort of chaos to the judiciary that the Republican Party has already applied to the executive and legislative branches. This would certainly enhance the Republicans’ ability to run as the party of chaos in 2024, but it would not do much to advance either business interests narrowly or the public interest more generally.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

The post Creating Judicial Chaos: Will the Supreme Court Overturn the Chevron Decision? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

Oleksandr Prokudin said a rocket attack on January 5 on the agricultural enterprise in Kherson killed a 35-year-old man and injured a 60-year-old resident.

Prokudin said "four targeted strikes" also destroyed buildings and equipment.

Russian troops regularly shell the de-occupied part of the Kherson region. Despite evidence and testimony to the contrary, Moscow denies targeting civilians.

In a rare admission of its military operations in Crimea, Ukraine has admitted it carried out attacks on a Russian military command post and a military unit in separate strikes on the Russia-occupied peninsula, saying it had inflicted "serious damage" to Russia's defense system.

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Nataliya Humenyuk, the spokeswoman of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine, said on January 5 that "really powerful combat" operations took place earlier this week, hitting Russia's military operations in Crimea especially hard.

"Not only one command post was affected," she said in a rare detailing of Ukrainian operations to repel the full-scale invasion Russia launched in February 2022.

"Now they have the same hysteria with movement again. They are trying to maneuver and position both the defense systems themselves and the objects they protect in other places," she added in an interview on the show Social Resistance.

It was not possible to verify Humenyuk's claims.

The attacks on Crimea come after an intensification of Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine.

Russian hypersonic and other missile attacks combined with drone strikes blanketed Ukraine on December 29 and again on January 2, killing more than 40 people and injuring dozens more. Ukraine hit back with attacks in southern Russia on December 30. Authorities in the Belgorod region said 25 people were killed.

The risk of air attacks continued on January 5 as sirens rang out three times across the Crimean city of Sevastopol on January 5, though there were no reports of explosions or impacts from drones or missiles.

In the early hours of January 5, the Russian city of Belgorod also was targeted by another round of Ukrainian shelling, officials said, hours after schools in the region were ordered to extend their holiday closures due to the risk of further attacks.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov also gave residents an opportunity to evacuate to safer areas. Residents will be helped to move to temporary accommodations in the other cities.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak on January 5 joined the United States in saying that Russia has hit Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time since launching its full-scale invasion.

Podolyak's statement came after the governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv said that it had been struck by missiles fired by Russia that were not Russian-made.

"There is no longer any disguise. The #Moscow regime is no longer concealing its intentions, nor is it trying to pass off a large-scale war of aggression as mythical 'denazification,'" Podolyak said on X, formerly Twitter.

Russia "is attacking Ukrainians with missiles received from a state where citizens are tortured in concentration camps for having an unregistered radio, talking to a tourist, watching TV shows," he added.

He did not provide evidence for the missiles being North Korean, but his statements come a day after U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House on January 4 that recently declassified intelligence found that North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic-missile launchers and several ballistic missiles.

Russian forces fired at least one of those missiles into Ukraine on December 30, and it landed in an open field in the Zaporizhzhya region, Kirby said. Russia also launched multiple North Korean ballistic missiles on January 2 as part of an overnight attack, he added.

Kirby also said Russia is seeking close-range ballistic missiles from Iran. A deal has not been completed, but the United States is concerned that negotiations "are actively advancing.”

With reporting by Reuters

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has hailed the news that Narges Mohammadi — an Iranian journalist RSF has been defending for years — has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “fight against the oppression of women in Iran,” her courage and determination.

Persecuted by the Iranian authorities since the late 1990s for her work, and imprisoned again since November 2021, she must be freed at once, RSF declared in a statement.

“Speak to save Iran” is the title of one of the letters published by Mohammadi from Evin prison, near Tehran, where she has been serving a sentence of 10 years and 9 months in prison since 16 November 2021.

• READ MORE: Iran’s jailed rights advocate Narges Mohammadi wins 2023 Nobel Peace Prize
• Other Narges Mohammadi reports

She has also been sentenced to hundreds of lashes. The maker of a documentary entitled White Torture and the author of a book of the same name, Mohammadi has never stopped denouncing the sexual violence inflicted on women prisoners in Iran.

It is this fight against the oppression of women that the Nobel Committee has just saluted by awarding the Peace Prize to this 51-year-old journalist and human rights activist, the former vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, the Iranian human rights organisation that was created by Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was herself awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003.

It is because of this fight that Mohammadi has been hounded by the Iranian authorities, who continue to persecute her in prison.

She has been denied visits and telephone calls since 12 April 2022, cutting her off from the world.

New charges
At the same time, the authorities in Evin prison have brought new charges to keep her in detention.

On August 4, her jail term was increased by a year after the publication of another of her letters about violence against fellow women detainees.

White Torture: The infamy of solitary confinement in Iran with Narges Mohammadi.

Mohammadi was awarded the RSF Prize for Courage on 12 December 2023. At the award ceremony in Paris, her two children, whom she has not seen for eight years, read one of the letters she wrote to them from prison.

“In this country, amid all the suffering, all the fears and all the hopes, and when, after years of imprisonment, I am behind bars again and I can no longer even hear the voices of my children, it is with a heart full of passion, hope and vitality, full of confidence in the achievement of freedom and justice in my country that I will spend time in prison,” she wrote.

She ended the letter with a call to keep alive “the hope of victory”.

RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:

“It is with immense emotion that I learn that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to the journalist and human rights defender Narges Mohammadi.

At Reporters Without Borders (RSF), we have been fighting for her for years, alongside her husband and her two children, and with Shirin Ebadi. The Nobel Peace Prize will obviously be decisive in obtaining her release.”

On June 7, RSF referred the unacceptable conditions in which Mohammadi is being detained to all of the relevant UN human rights bodies.

During an oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on July 5, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed concern over the “continued detention of human rights defenders and lawyers defending the protesters, and at least 17 journalists”.

It is thanks to Mohammadi’s journalistic courage that the world knows what is happening in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prisons, where 20 journalists are currently detained.

They include three other women: Elaheh Mohammadi, Niloofar Hamedi and Vida Rabbani.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The post Facts and Fiction About Oppenheimer: the Decision Bomb Japan With Atomic Weapons appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by N.D. Jayaprakash.

The leaders of five Melanesian countries and territories avoided a definitive update on the status of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua’s application for full membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group in Port Vila.

However, the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit was hailed as the “most memorable and successful” by Vanuatu’s prime minister as leaders signed off on two new declarations in their efforts to make the subregion more influential.

As well as the hosts, the meeting was attended by Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) of New Caledonia.

• READ MORE: ‘The world is watching’ – it’s a test for Melanesian leaders over West Papua, says Wenda
• Other MSG reports

But the meeting had an anticlimactic ending after the leaders failed to release the details about the final outcomes or speak to news media.

The first agreement that was endorsed is the Udaune Declaration on Climate Change to address the climate crisis and “urging countries not to discharge potentially harmful treated nuclear contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean”.

“Unless the water treated is incontrovertibly proven, by independent scientists, to be safe to do and seriously consider other options,” Vanuatu Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau said at the event’s farewell dinner last night.

The leaders also signed off on the Efate Declaration on Mutual Respect, Cooperation and Amity to advance security initiatives and needs of the Melanesian countries.

This document aims to “address the national security needs in the MSG region through the Pacific Way, kipung, tok stori, talanoa and storian, and bonded by shared values and adherence to the Melanesian vuvale, cultures and traditions,” Kalsakau said.

He said the leaders “took complex issues such as climate change, denuclearisation, and human rights and applied collective wisdom” to address the issues that were on the table.

Stefan Armbruster reporting from Port Vila.  Video: SBS World News

No update on West Papua
The issue of full membership for the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP)  was a big ticket item on the agenda at the meeting in Port Vila, according to MSG chair Kalsakau.

However, there was no update provided on it and the leaders avoided fronting up to the media except for photo opportunities.

ULMWP leader Benny Wenda (above) told RNZ Pacific late on Thursday he was still not aware of the result of their membership application but that he was “confident” about it.

“I don’t know the outcome. Maybe this evening the leaders will announce at the reception,” Wenda said.

“From the beginning I have been confident that this is the time for the leaders to give us full membership so we can engage with Indonesia.”

According to the MSG Secretariat the final communique is now expected to be released on Friday.

Referred to Pacific Islands Forum
However, it is likely that the West Papua issue will be referred to the Pacific Islands Forum to be dealt with.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said after the signing: “on the issues that was raised in regards to West Papua…these matters to be handled at [Pacific Islands Forum]”.

“The leaders from the Pacific will also visit Jakarta and Paris” to raise issues about sovereignty and human rights,” he said.

Kalsakau said he looked forward to progressing the implementaiton of important issue recommendations from the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit which also include “supporting the 2019 call by the Forum Leaders for a visit by the OHCHR to West Papua”.

Indonesia ‘proud’
Indonesia’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pahala Mansury, said Indonesia was proud to be part of the Melanesian family.

Indonesia is an associate member of MSG and has said it does not accept ULMWP’s application to become a full member because it claims that this goes against the MSG’s founding principles and charter.

During the meeting this week, Indonesian delegates walked out on occasions when ULMWP representatives made their intervention.

Some West Papua campaigners say these actions showed that Indonesia did not understand “the Melanesian way”.

“You just don’t walk out of a sacred meeting haus when you’re invited to be part of it,” one observer said.

However, Mansury said Indonesia hoped to “continue to increase, enhance and strengthen future collaboration between Indonesia and all of the Melanesian countries”.

“We are actually brothers and sisters of Melanesia and we hope we can continue to strengthen the bond together,” he said.

Australia and China attended as special guests at the invitation of the Vanuatu government.

China supported the Vanuatu government to host the meeting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The leaders of five Melanesian countries and territories avoided a definitive update on the status of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua’s application for full membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group in Port Vila.

However, the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit was hailed as the “most memorable and successful” by Vanuatu’s prime minister as leaders signed off on two new declarations in their efforts to make the subregion more influential.

As well as the hosts, the meeting was attended by Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) of New Caledonia.

• READ MORE: ‘The world is watching’ – it’s a test for Melanesian leaders over West Papua, says Wenda
• Other MSG reports

But the meeting had an anticlimactic ending after the leaders failed to release the details about the final outcomes or speak to news media.

The first agreement that was endorsed is the Udaune Declaration on Climate Change to address the climate crisis and “urging countries not to discharge potentially harmful treated nuclear contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean”.

“Unless the water treated is incontrovertibly proven, by independent scientists, to be safe to do and seriously consider other options,” Vanuatu Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau said at the event’s farewell dinner last night.

The leaders also signed off on the Efate Declaration on Mutual Respect, Cooperation and Amity to advance security initiatives and needs of the Melanesian countries.

This document aims to “address the national security needs in the MSG region through the Pacific Way, kipung, tok stori, talanoa and storian, and bonded by shared values and adherence to the Melanesian vuvale, cultures and traditions,” Kalsakau said.

He said the leaders “took complex issues such as climate change, denuclearisation, and human rights and applied collective wisdom” to address the issues that were on the table.

Stefan Armbruster reporting from Port Vila.  Video: SBS World News

No update on West Papua
The issue of full membership for the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP)  was a big ticket item on the agenda at the meeting in Port Vila, according to MSG chair Kalsakau.

However, there was no update provided on it and the leaders avoided fronting up to the media except for photo opportunities.

ULMWP leader Benny Wenda (above) told RNZ Pacific late on Thursday he was still not aware of the result of their membership application but that he was “confident” about it.

“I don’t know the outcome. Maybe this evening the leaders will announce at the reception,” Wenda said.

“From the beginning I have been confident that this is the time for the leaders to give us full membership so we can engage with Indonesia.”

According to the MSG Secretariat the final communique is now expected to be released on Friday.

Referred to Pacific Islands Forum
However, it is likely that the West Papua issue will be referred to the Pacific Islands Forum to be dealt with.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said after the signing: “on the issues that was raised in regards to West Papua…these matters to be handled at [Pacific Islands Forum]”.

“The leaders from the Pacific will also visit Jakarta and Paris” to raise issues about sovereignty and human rights,” he said.

Kalsakau said he looked forward to progressing the implementaiton of important issue recommendations from the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit which also include “supporting the 2019 call by the Forum Leaders for a visit by the OHCHR to West Papua”.

Indonesia ‘proud’
Indonesia’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pahala Mansury, said Indonesia was proud to be part of the Melanesian family.

Indonesia is an associate member of MSG and has said it does not accept ULMWP’s application to become a full member because it claims that this goes against the MSG’s founding principles and charter.

During the meeting this week, Indonesian delegates walked out on occasions when ULMWP representatives made their intervention.

Some West Papua campaigners say these actions showed that Indonesia did not understand “the Melanesian way”.

“You just don’t walk out of a sacred meeting haus when you’re invited to be part of it,” one observer said.

However, Mansury said Indonesia hoped to “continue to increase, enhance and strengthen future collaboration between Indonesia and all of the Melanesian countries”.

“We are actually brothers and sisters of Melanesia and we hope we can continue to strengthen the bond together,” he said.

Australia and China attended as special guests at the invitation of the Vanuatu government.

China supported the Vanuatu government to host the meeting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The leaders of five Melanesian countries and territories avoided a definitive update on the status of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua’s application for full membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group in Port Vila.

However, the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit was hailed as the “most memorable and successful” by Vanuatu’s prime minister as leaders signed off on two new declarations in their efforts to make the subregion more influential.

As well as the hosts, the meeting was attended by Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) of New Caledonia.

• READ MORE: ‘The world is watching’ – it’s a test for Melanesian leaders over West Papua, says Wenda
• Other MSG reports

But the meeting had an anticlimactic ending after the leaders failed to release the details about the final outcomes or speak to news media.

The first agreement that was endorsed is the Udaune Declaration on Climate Change to address the climate crisis and “urging countries not to discharge potentially harmful treated nuclear contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean”.

“Unless the water treated is incontrovertibly proven, by independent scientists, to be safe to do and seriously consider other options,” Vanuatu Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau said at the event’s farewell dinner last night.

The leaders also signed off on the Efate Declaration on Mutual Respect, Cooperation and Amity to advance security initiatives and needs of the Melanesian countries.

This document aims to “address the national security needs in the MSG region through the Pacific Way, kipung, tok stori, talanoa and storian, and bonded by shared values and adherence to the Melanesian vuvale, cultures and traditions,” Kalsakau said.

He said the leaders “took complex issues such as climate change, denuclearisation, and human rights and applied collective wisdom” to address the issues that were on the table.

Stefan Armbruster reporting from Port Vila.  Video: SBS World News

No update on West Papua
The issue of full membership for the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP)  was a big ticket item on the agenda at the meeting in Port Vila, according to MSG chair Kalsakau.

However, there was no update provided on it and the leaders avoided fronting up to the media except for photo opportunities.

ULMWP leader Benny Wenda (above) told RNZ Pacific late on Thursday he was still not aware of the result of their membership application but that he was “confident” about it.

“I don’t know the outcome. Maybe this evening the leaders will announce at the reception,” Wenda said.

“From the beginning I have been confident that this is the time for the leaders to give us full membership so we can engage with Indonesia.”

According to the MSG Secretariat the final communique is now expected to be released on Friday.

Referred to Pacific Islands Forum
However, it is likely that the West Papua issue will be referred to the Pacific Islands Forum to be dealt with.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said after the signing: “on the issues that was raised in regards to West Papua…these matters to be handled at [Pacific Islands Forum]”.

“The leaders from the Pacific will also visit Jakarta and Paris” to raise issues about sovereignty and human rights,” he said.

Kalsakau said he looked forward to progressing the implementaiton of important issue recommendations from the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit which also include “supporting the 2019 call by the Forum Leaders for a visit by the OHCHR to West Papua”.

Indonesia ‘proud’
Indonesia’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Pahala Mansury, said Indonesia was proud to be part of the Melanesian family.

Indonesia is an associate member of MSG and has said it does not accept ULMWP’s application to become a full member because it claims that this goes against the MSG’s founding principles and charter.

During the meeting this week, Indonesian delegates walked out on occasions when ULMWP representatives made their intervention.

Some West Papua campaigners say these actions showed that Indonesia did not understand “the Melanesian way”.

“You just don’t walk out of a sacred meeting haus when you’re invited to be part of it,” one observer said.

However, Mansury said Indonesia hoped to “continue to increase, enhance and strengthen future collaboration between Indonesia and all of the Melanesian countries”.

“We are actually brothers and sisters of Melanesia and we hope we can continue to strengthen the bond together,” he said.

Australia and China attended as special guests at the invitation of the Vanuatu government.

China supported the Vanuatu government to host the meeting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Beartooth Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mike Garrity.

A person holds up a sign reading “Trans People Belong in Alabama” during a rally outside the Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., on International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, 2023.

Photo: Kim Chandler/AP

Three Trump-appointed federal judges ruled on Monday to allow one of the country’s harshest bans on gender-affirming care for minors to go into effect. In Alabama, a doctor who treats a trans person under 19 years old with puberty blockers or hormones could now face felony charges carrying up to 10 years in prison.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision reverses an injunction that temporarily blocked the health care ban and stands at odds with the majority of federal court decisions on the issue so far. The disturbing ruling gives the clearest outline yet of the reactionary judicial logic that could be used to decimate trans peoples’ right to necessary health care, should the issue be taken up by the far-right Supreme Court: the very same reasoning used to end the right to abortion.

Just as SCOTUS ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson that abortion was not constitutionally protected because it was not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” the 11th Circuit stated that parents do not have a fundamental right to direct the transition-related medical care of their children.

“The use of these medications in general — let alone for children — almost certainly is not ‘deeply rooted’ in our nation’s history and tradition,” Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote, citing the Dobbs decision.

“Although there are records of transgender or otherwise gender nonconforming individuals from various points in history,” noted the ruling, “the earliest-recorded uses of puberty blocking medication and cross-sex hormone treatment for the purposes of treating the discordance between an individual’s biological sex and sense of gender identity did not occur until well into the twentieth century.”

That is, trans youths have no right to the medicine they need because that medicine is not hundreds of years old. The decision also implies that the same logic could also be used to find bans on adult trans health care unconstitutional.

To demand that unenumerated rights be “deeply rooted” in U.S. “history and tradition” is, after all, to insist that only the rights of propertied white men are recognized as fundamental.

The deployment of Dobbs to deny established civil rights comes as no surprise. When Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked, it was clear that the “history and tradition” standard would be invoked again to hack away at an array of rights and legal precedents hard won in the last century.

To demand that unenumerated rights be “deeply rooted” in U.S. “history and tradition” is, after all, to insist that only the rights of propertied white men are recognized as fundamental — as Alito and his Christo-nationalist allies well know. The AR-15 assault weapon was only invented “well into the twentieth century” too, but we can be sure that such an argument from history would do little to aid gun control advocates in court. Too much is at stake in our collective struggle for bodily autonomy to entertain the fantasy that pointing out right-wing hypocrisy undermines right-wing rule.

When the first trans youth health care bans were heard by federal courts this past year, it was heartening that judges in state after state saw the bans for what they are — at odds with scientific consensus, ideologically driven, discriminatory, and likely unconstitutional — and blocked them. Even in some notoriously conservative courts, federal judges from Florida to Kentucky to Arkansas agreed that arguments treating youth gender-affirming care as untested and dangerous are simply not based in fact. Only one other federal court, the 6th Circuit, has reversed an injunction and permitted a ban on trans youth health care to go through, in Tennessee.

With the circuits split on the issue, it is ever more likely that a case will soon go before the Supreme Court. The 11th Circuit ruling gives a chilling taste of what a SCOTUS decision could look like: poorly argued and drenched in the sort of authoritarian dogma that the nation’s highest court is known to embrace.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Natasha Lennard.

In addition to the lobbying group's leadership, the letter is addressed to executives of other chambers of commerce; the trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA); and the drug firms Merck & Co., Bristol Myers Squibb Company, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Astellas Pharma U.S.

"For top-selling drugs worldwide, drug corporations consistently make more money from U.S. sales than the rest of the world combined," the letter explains. "Drug corporations' prices for Medicare Part D even outstrip those paid by other government health programs, like Medicaid and the Department of Veterans Affairs."

"Aging Americans and people with disabilities and chronic health conditions bear the brunt of these excessive prices," the letter adds. "No one should have to go into debt, go without lifesaving medicines or choose between prescriptions and other basic needs like groceries and rent. Yet millions across this nation do."

The coalition celebrated that the IRA enacted "enormously popular" reforms—such as empowering Medicare to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies—which "are projected to save patients and consumers tens of billions of dollars and expand access while ensuring innovation and drug corporations' ability to achieve enormous financial success."

"We stand with patients across the country whose lives and well-being depend on access to affordable prescription drugs," the groups declared. "We will not relinquish these commonsense reforms while high drug prices remain a matter of life and death for so many Americans."

The signatories include American Economic Liberties Project, Be a Hero, Center for Popular Democracy, Doctors for America, Families USA, Health Care for America Now Education Fund, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, MomsRising, Our Revolution, Patients for Affordable Drugs, People's Action, Physicians for a National Health Program, Protect Our Care, Public Citizen, and Social Security Works.

"Pharmaceutical corporations have long shown that they care about nothing but profits. So it is not surprising that they are attempting to use the courts to subvert the will of the people and block Medicare from using its bulk purchasing power to get better prices," Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, said in a statement.

Still, campaigners forcefully called out the industry. Be a Hero co-executive director Ady Barkan charged that "Big Pharma's insatiable appetite for profit above all else is shameful," while Protect Our Care chair Leslie Dach said that "drug companies' greed knows no bounds" and stressed that "Americans are cutting pills and skipping doses" to save money.

Others also took aim at industry allies, with Public Citizen president Robert Weissman saying that "it's a disgrace that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is fronting for Big Pharma against the interests of the mom-and-pop businesses it purports to represent."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to designate up to 10 single-source drugs used in the Medicare Part D prescription program for the first round of negotiations, set to start October 1 and continue through next August.

However, that process could be delayed by federal cases—including one in Ohio involving multiple chambers of commerce. Earlier this week, Doctors for America, Families USA, Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, Protect Our Care, and Public Citizen filed an amicus brief in opposing a preliminary injunction motion in that case.

"It's clear where big drug companies and the Chamber of Commerce stand: profits over millions of older adults and people with disabilities who can't afford their prescription drugs," Yael Lehman, senior director of strategic partnerships at Families USA, said Wednesday.

"But we know families themselves feel differently—the reforms they are trying to tear away from millions of people who rely on Medicare for their health are extremely popular across all political and ideological spectrums," Lehman continued. "They need to drop their egregious lawsuit and stop making money from price gouging families' access to health and healthcare."

That sweeping support for the IRA drug pricing reforms is motivating action on the ground, as Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper, co-executive directors of the Center for Popular Democracy, highlighted.

"Our affiliates Make the Road NY, SPACES in Action, Texas Organizing Project, and Arkansas Community Organizations are rallying Wednesday to put our people over profits," they said. "We fought for years to get Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices—which we did through the Inflation Reduction Act—and we're going to keep fighting until healthcare is a human right in America."

Mark Hannay of Metro New York Health Care for All and Health Care for America Now's New York State Network said that "New Yorkers are fed up with being ripped off by drug corporations, and strongly support Medicare's new drug price negotiation program created as part of the Inflation Reduction Act."

"We call on these corporations to recognize political reality that their decadeslong profiteering off patients across the U.S. is over, and it's now time to come to the table and negotiate lower prices," Hannay added. "They'll still make plenty of profits regardless, just as they do in other countries with national health programs."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Meteo.it, Italy's weather news service, said Sunday that the country must "prepare for a severe heat storm that, day after day, will blanket the whole country."

"In some places," the service added, "ancient heat records will be broken."

The fastest-warming continent on the planet, Europe has been facing scorching heat over the past several weeks as scientists warn that the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis is making such heatwaves more likely and increasingly intense. Last summer was Europe's hottest season on record, and extreme heat killed more than 61,000 people on the continent between late May to early September of 2022.

But the current heatwave appears on track to be even more severe than last summer's.

As CNNreported Sunday, "Climate scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) say temperatures could reach 48°C (118.4°F) on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, 'potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.'"

"The ESA warned that Europe's heat wave has only just begun with Spain, France, Germany, and Poland expected to see extreme weather, just as the continent welcomes what is expected to be a record-breaking number of tourists coming for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic," the outlet added.

Giulio Betti, an Italian meteorologist and climate expert, told the BBC that "temperatures will reach a peak between 19 and 23 July—not only in Italy but also in Greece, Turkey, and the Balkans."

"Several local heat records within these areas may well be broken during those days," Betti added.

Europe's intensifying heatwave comes in the context of globally high temperatures fueled by El Niño conditions—which the climate crisis has likely made worse and more frequent.

Large swaths of the U.S., Asia, and Africa have experienced sweltering temperatures and other extreme weather—including deadly flooding—in recent weeks, heightening the urgency of coordinated climate action at the upcoming COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates.

"It was probably the Earth's hottest week in history earlier this month, following the warmest June on record, and top scientists agree that the planet will get even hotter unless we phase out fossil fuels," The Guardian's Dharna Noor wrote Sunday. "Yet leading energy companies are intent on pushing the world in the opposite direction, expanding fossil fuel production and insisting that there is no alternative. It is evidence that they are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say."

In February, after reporting a record-shattering $28 billion in 2022 profits, the London-based oil giant BP announced that it was walking back its emission-reduction goals and planning to produce more fossil fuels than expected.

Shell, which posted $40 billion in profits last year, followed suit last month, ditching its plans to reduce oil production by up to 2% per year.

In a New Yorkercolumn on Sunday, author and climate advocate Bill McKibben noted that the BBC aired an interview with Shell CEO Wael Sawan on July 6, the day scientists believe may have been the hottest on record.

During the interview, Sawan claimed that cutting oil and gas production would be "dangerous and irresponsible," drawing swift backlash.

McKibben noted that Sawan "told the BBC that, while there are not currently any plans, Shell wouldn't rule out moving its headquarters from the United Kingdom to the United States, where oil companies get higher market prices for their shares."

"This suggested to him that the U.S. is more supportive of oil and gas companies, and, as he has told investors, he wants to 'reward our shareholders today and far into the future,'" McKibben added. "That is pretty much the definition of 'business as usual,' and it's precisely what has generated this completely unprecedented heat. If the disasters we're seeing this month aren't enough to shake us out of that torpor, then the chances of our persevering for another hundred and twenty-five thousand years seem remote."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In reaction to the decision, Nicole Regalado, Vice President of Campaigns at UltraViolet, a leading national gender-justice organization, issued the following statement:

“The Justice Department made the right choice by reversing its earlier decision to shield Donald Trump from E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit. Defending a convicted sexual abuser was a waste of the Justice Department’s precious time, money, and resources.

“After becoming President in 2016, Donald Trump used the Department of Justice as his own law firm – hiding behind federal protections and shielding himself from accountability under criminal law. Trump deserves to face the consequences of his actions in Court without hiding behind federal government attorneys.

“Slandering survivors of sexual abuse should never be considered a legitimate function of federal office holders. That’s why the Justice Department’s decision to reverse course and stop defending Trump is a victory E. Jean Carroll and all survivors who seek legal redress against their abusers.”

In 2021, members of UltraViolet criticized Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice for shielding Trump from Carroll’s defamation lawsuit. The group also sent a joint letter to President Biden denouncing and launched a petition urging the Department of Justice not to defend Trump, which garnered over 30,000 signatures.

VIEW THE PETITION HERE: https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/DOJ_Trump/

UltraViolet has expressed its unwavering support for E. Jean Carroll since she filed suit against Trump since 2019.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In recent days, an adviser to Russia's nuclear agency has claimed Ukraine will imminently cause a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned of a potential false flag operation, claiming that "the Russian military has placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units."

While International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts at the facility have so far not observed any visible indications of mines or explosives, the new accusations led the United Nations watchdog on Wednesday to request additional access—specifically to the rooftops of two reactors along with parts of the turbine halls and cooling system.

"With military tension and activities increasing in the region where this major nuclear power plant is located, our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "Their independent and objective reporting would help clarify the current situation at the site, which is crucial at a time like this with unconfirmed allegations and counterallegations."

"In a time of national crises in multiple countries, increasing natural disasters, and a worsening climate emergency, nuclear power is demonstrating that it is a liability rather than an asset."

The U.S.-based group Beyond Nuclear noted in a lengthy statement Thursday that "Zaporizhzhia is in the news now almost every day. The propaganda may be deliberately alarmist, but the basis for the alarm is very real or it would not be the subject matter for headline-getting in the first place."

"The reason is simple. Nuclear power is the most dangerous way to boil water. It is unnecessary, expensive, and an obstacle to renewable energy development," the group argued. "It is time to see sense. Calling for a no-fire zone around Zaporizhzhia is not enough. We must call for no nuclear power at all."

Highlighting that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is far from the only threat to the world's nuclear facilities, the group added that "in a time of national crises in multiple countries, increasing natural disasters, and a worsening climate emergency, nuclear power is demonstrating that it is a liability rather than an asset."

Beyond Nuclear also weighed in on the intense debate among activists, Ukrainian and Russian officials, reporters, scientists, and others regarding the dangers of a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP, offering a list of unanswered questions:

• Has the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in fact been wired for detonation and whose interests would be served by blowing up the plant?
• Why is there an exodus of both Russian and Ukrainian plant personnel?
• Will the sabotage of the downstream Kakhovka dam that resulted in catastrophic flooding also lead to an equally catastrophic loss of available cooling water supplies for the reactors and fuel pools?
• Will the backup diesel generators, frequently turned to for powering the essential cooling each time the plant has lost connection to the electricity grid, last through each crisis, given their fuel must also be replenished, potentially not possible under war conditions?

"None of these threats would make headlines if Zaporizhzhia was instead home to a wind farm or utility-scale solar array," asserted Beyond Nuclear. "This perhaps explains the rush now to downplay the gravity of the situation, with claims in the press that a major attack on the plant would 'not be as bad as Chernobyl' and that radioactive releases would be minimal and barely travel beyond the fence line. This is an irresponsible dismissal of the real dangers."

As the group detailed:

After the massive explosion at Chernobyl, the graphite moderator used in the reactor fueled the fire, with the smoke further lofting radioactive fallout far and wide. This has led to an assumption that major fires and explosions at Zaporizhzhia would result in less serious consequences since the reactor designs are not the same as Chernobyl's.

However, if the uranium fuel in the Zaporizhzhia reactors or irradiated fuel storage pools overheats and ignites, it could then heat up the zirconium cladding around it, which would ignite and burn fiercely as a flare at temperatures too hot to extinguish with water. The resulting chemical reaction would also generate an explosive environment. The heat of the release and detonation(s) could breach concrete structures, then loft radioactive gas and fallout into the environment to travel on the weather.

Fallout could contaminate crucial agricultural land, potentially indefinitely, and would include Russia, should prevailing winds travel eastward at the time of the disaster.

Some have suggested that an attack on the plant would not seriously threaten surrounding communities. The American Nuclear Society, for example, said Wednesday that "our experts have carefully considered 'worst-case scenarios,' including bombardment and deliberate sabotage of the reactors and spent fuel storage canisters. They cannot foresee a situation that would result in radiation-related health consequences to the public."

"ZNPP's six reactors have been shut down for over 10 months and are no longer making enough heat to cause a prompt radiological release," the society said. "ZNPP is designed to withstand natural and manmade hazards. Thick, steel-reinforced concrete containment buildings protect the reactor cores and are designed to keep any radioactive materials isolated from the environment."

"In the unlikely event that containment structures were breached, any potential release of radiological material would be restricted to the immediate area surrounding the reactors. In this regard, any comparison between ZNPP and 'Chernobyl' or 'Fukushima' is both inaccurate and misleading," the group added, referencing the 2011 disaster in Japan.

Matthew Bunn, the James R. Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School, made the case at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday that the biggest danger regarding the ZNPP is intentional sabotage.

"How serious is the risk of a major radioactive disaster?" Bunn wrote. "That depends on whether we're talking about an intentional or inadvertent radioactive release. If the Russian forces that control the site want to cause a major radiation release—and are willing to use explosives to do it—they could contaminate a huge area. Although the reactors have been largely shut down and cooling for months, they still contain a huge amount of intensely radioactive material that explosives could disperse."

He continued:

A couple of mines on the roof of a reactor would not be enough. Causing a big release would require some serious demolition with explosives. But that's what was needed to destroy Ukraine's Kakhovka dam—which it appears was done with explosives from within, while Russian forces controlled the site—so a similar operation at Zaporizhzhia can't be ruled out.

No one can accurately evaluate how big an area might be affected; the extent of contamination would depend on how the disaster was caused, how hard the wind was blowing, whether rain brought the radioactive material back to the ground, and more. But one could easily imagine that Russia might hope that such a release would interfere with Ukraine's counteroffensive, forcing some units to focus on evacuating people and cleaning up radioactive fallout rather than battling Russian forces.

By contrast, looking only at inadvertent damage, there are reasons to be optimistic. The Zaporizhzhia reactors are built with thick concrete containment structures, have been cooling for months, and have extra safety features installed after the Fukushima accident in Japan. It is very unlikely that a few stray shells from fighting in the area would cause any serious radioactive release.

Bunn concluded that "over the longer term, there's a need to rethink nuclear safety and security in the context of the possibility that nuclear facilities can be exposed to war, mass civil unrest, or governmental collapse. And there's a need for new agreements to reduce the chance that major civilian nuclear facilities under international inspection will again be targets of military assault."

Meanwhile, Beyond Nuclear charged that "if Zaporizhzhia comes to harm, each side in the conflict will likely hold the other responsible. But ultimately, the responsibility we all share is to reject the continued use of a technology that has the potential to wreak such disastrous consequences on humanity."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In recent days, an adviser to Russia's nuclear agency has claimed Ukraine will imminently cause a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned of a potential false flag operation, claiming that "the Russian military has placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units."

While International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts at the facility have so far not observed any visible indications of mines or explosives, the new accusations led the United Nations watchdog on Wednesday to request additional access—specifically to the rooftops of two reactors along with parts of the turbine halls and cooling system.

"With military tension and activities increasing in the region where this major nuclear power plant is located, our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "Their independent and objective reporting would help clarify the current situation at the site, which is crucial at a time like this with unconfirmed allegations and counterallegations."

"In a time of national crises in multiple countries, increasing natural disasters, and a worsening climate emergency, nuclear power is demonstrating that it is a liability rather than an asset."

The U.S.-based group Beyond Nuclear noted in a lengthy statement Thursday that "Zaporizhzhia is in the news now almost every day. The propaganda may be deliberately alarmist, but the basis for the alarm is very real or it would not be the subject matter for headline-getting in the first place."

"The reason is simple. Nuclear power is the most dangerous way to boil water. It is unnecessary, expensive, and an obstacle to renewable energy development," the group argued. "It is time to see sense. Calling for a no-fire zone around Zaporizhzhia is not enough. We must call for no nuclear power at all."

Highlighting that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is far from the only threat to the world's nuclear facilities, the group added that "in a time of national crises in multiple countries, increasing natural disasters, and a worsening climate emergency, nuclear power is demonstrating that it is a liability rather than an asset."

Beyond Nuclear also weighed in on the intense debate among activists, Ukrainian and Russian officials, reporters, scientists, and others regarding the dangers of a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP, offering a list of unanswered questions:

• Has the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in fact been wired for detonation and whose interests would be served by blowing up the plant?
• Why is there an exodus of both Russian and Ukrainian plant personnel?
• Will the sabotage of the downstream Kakhovka dam that resulted in catastrophic flooding also lead to an equally catastrophic loss of available cooling water supplies for the reactors and fuel pools?
• Will the backup diesel generators, frequently turned to for powering the essential cooling each time the plant has lost connection to the electricity grid, last through each crisis, given their fuel must also be replenished, potentially not possible under war conditions?

"None of these threats would make headlines if Zaporizhzhia was instead home to a wind farm or utility-scale solar array," asserted Beyond Nuclear. "This perhaps explains the rush now to downplay the gravity of the situation, with claims in the press that a major attack on the plant would 'not be as bad as Chernobyl' and that radioactive releases would be minimal and barely travel beyond the fence line. This is an irresponsible dismissal of the real dangers."

As the group detailed:

After the massive explosion at Chernobyl, the graphite moderator used in the reactor fueled the fire, with the smoke further lofting radioactive fallout far and wide. This has led to an assumption that major fires and explosions at Zaporizhzhia would result in less serious consequences since the reactor designs are not the same as Chernobyl's.

However, if the uranium fuel in the Zaporizhzhia reactors or irradiated fuel storage pools overheats and ignites, it could then heat up the zirconium cladding around it, which would ignite and burn fiercely as a flare at temperatures too hot to extinguish with water. The resulting chemical reaction would also generate an explosive environment. The heat of the release and detonation(s) could breach concrete structures, then loft radioactive gas and fallout into the environment to travel on the weather.

Fallout could contaminate crucial agricultural land, potentially indefinitely, and would include Russia, should prevailing winds travel eastward at the time of the disaster.

Some have suggested that an attack on the plant would not seriously threaten surrounding communities. The American Nuclear Society, for example, said Wednesday that "our experts have carefully considered 'worst-case scenarios,' including bombardment and deliberate sabotage of the reactors and spent fuel storage canisters. They cannot foresee a situation that would result in radiation-related health consequences to the public."

"ZNPP's six reactors have been shut down for over 10 months and are no longer making enough heat to cause a prompt radiological release," the society said. "ZNPP is designed to withstand natural and manmade hazards. Thick, steel-reinforced concrete containment buildings protect the reactor cores and are designed to keep any radioactive materials isolated from the environment."

"In the unlikely event that containment structures were breached, any potential release of radiological material would be restricted to the immediate area surrounding the reactors. In this regard, any comparison between ZNPP and 'Chernobyl' or 'Fukushima' is both inaccurate and misleading," the group added, referencing the 2011 disaster in Japan.

Matthew Bunn, the James R. Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School, made the case at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday that the biggest danger regarding the ZNPP is intentional sabotage.

"How serious is the risk of a major radioactive disaster?" Bunn wrote. "That depends on whether we're talking about an intentional or inadvertent radioactive release. If the Russian forces that control the site want to cause a major radiation release—and are willing to use explosives to do it—they could contaminate a huge area. Although the reactors have been largely shut down and cooling for months, they still contain a huge amount of intensely radioactive material that explosives could disperse."

He continued:

A couple of mines on the roof of a reactor would not be enough. Causing a big release would require some serious demolition with explosives. But that's what was needed to destroy Ukraine's Kakhovka dam—which it appears was done with explosives from within, while Russian forces controlled the site—so a similar operation at Zaporizhzhia can't be ruled out.

No one can accurately evaluate how big an area might be affected; the extent of contamination would depend on how the disaster was caused, how hard the wind was blowing, whether rain brought the radioactive material back to the ground, and more. But one could easily imagine that Russia might hope that such a release would interfere with Ukraine's counteroffensive, forcing some units to focus on evacuating people and cleaning up radioactive fallout rather than battling Russian forces.

By contrast, looking only at inadvertent damage, there are reasons to be optimistic. The Zaporizhzhia reactors are built with thick concrete containment structures, have been cooling for months, and have extra safety features installed after the Fukushima accident in Japan. It is very unlikely that a few stray shells from fighting in the area would cause any serious radioactive release.

Bunn concluded that "over the longer term, there's a need to rethink nuclear safety and security in the context of the possibility that nuclear facilities can be exposed to war, mass civil unrest, or governmental collapse. And there's a need for new agreements to reduce the chance that major civilian nuclear facilities under international inspection will again be targets of military assault."

Meanwhile, Beyond Nuclear charged that "if Zaporizhzhia comes to harm, each side in the conflict will likely hold the other responsible. But ultimately, the responsibility we all share is to reject the continued use of a technology that has the potential to wreak such disastrous consequences on humanity."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In recent days, an adviser to Russia's nuclear agency has claimed Ukraine will imminently cause a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned of a potential false flag operation, claiming that "the Russian military has placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units."

While International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts at the facility have so far not observed any visible indications of mines or explosives, the new accusations led the United Nations watchdog on Wednesday to request additional access—specifically to the rooftops of two reactors along with parts of the turbine halls and cooling system.

"With military tension and activities increasing in the region where this major nuclear power plant is located, our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "Their independent and objective reporting would help clarify the current situation at the site, which is crucial at a time like this with unconfirmed allegations and counterallegations."

"In a time of national crises in multiple countries, increasing natural disasters, and a worsening climate emergency, nuclear power is demonstrating that it is a liability rather than an asset."

The U.S.-based group Beyond Nuclear noted in a lengthy statement Thursday that "Zaporizhzhia is in the news now almost every day. The propaganda may be deliberately alarmist, but the basis for the alarm is very real or it would not be the subject matter for headline-getting in the first place."

"The reason is simple. Nuclear power is the most dangerous way to boil water. It is unnecessary, expensive, and an obstacle to renewable energy development," the group argued. "It is time to see sense. Calling for a no-fire zone around Zaporizhzhia is not enough. We must call for no nuclear power at all."

Highlighting that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is far from the only threat to the world's nuclear facilities, the group added that "in a time of national crises in multiple countries, increasing natural disasters, and a worsening climate emergency, nuclear power is demonstrating that it is a liability rather than an asset."

Beyond Nuclear also weighed in on the intense debate among activists, Ukrainian and Russian officials, reporters, scientists, and others regarding the dangers of a nuclear disaster at the ZNPP, offering a list of unanswered questions:

• Has the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in fact been wired for detonation and whose interests would be served by blowing up the plant?
• Why is there an exodus of both Russian and Ukrainian plant personnel?
• Will the sabotage of the downstream Kakhovka dam that resulted in catastrophic flooding also lead to an equally catastrophic loss of available cooling water supplies for the reactors and fuel pools?
• Will the backup diesel generators, frequently turned to for powering the essential cooling each time the plant has lost connection to the electricity grid, last through each crisis, given their fuel must also be replenished, potentially not possible under war conditions?

"None of these threats would make headlines if Zaporizhzhia was instead home to a wind farm or utility-scale solar array," asserted Beyond Nuclear. "This perhaps explains the rush now to downplay the gravity of the situation, with claims in the press that a major attack on the plant would 'not be as bad as Chernobyl' and that radioactive releases would be minimal and barely travel beyond the fence line. This is an irresponsible dismissal of the real dangers."

As the group detailed:

After the massive explosion at Chernobyl, the graphite moderator used in the reactor fueled the fire, with the smoke further lofting radioactive fallout far and wide. This has led to an assumption that major fires and explosions at Zaporizhzhia would result in less serious consequences since the reactor designs are not the same as Chernobyl's.

However, if the uranium fuel in the Zaporizhzhia reactors or irradiated fuel storage pools overheats and ignites, it could then heat up the zirconium cladding around it, which would ignite and burn fiercely as a flare at temperatures too hot to extinguish with water. The resulting chemical reaction would also generate an explosive environment. The heat of the release and detonation(s) could breach concrete structures, then loft radioactive gas and fallout into the environment to travel on the weather.

Fallout could contaminate crucial agricultural land, potentially indefinitely, and would include Russia, should prevailing winds travel eastward at the time of the disaster.

Some have suggested that an attack on the plant would not seriously threaten surrounding communities. The American Nuclear Society, for example, said Wednesday that "our experts have carefully considered 'worst-case scenarios,' including bombardment and deliberate sabotage of the reactors and spent fuel storage canisters. They cannot foresee a situation that would result in radiation-related health consequences to the public."

"ZNPP's six reactors have been shut down for over 10 months and are no longer making enough heat to cause a prompt radiological release," the society said. "ZNPP is designed to withstand natural and manmade hazards. Thick, steel-reinforced concrete containment buildings protect the reactor cores and are designed to keep any radioactive materials isolated from the environment."

"In the unlikely event that containment structures were breached, any potential release of radiological material would be restricted to the immediate area surrounding the reactors. In this regard, any comparison between ZNPP and 'Chernobyl' or 'Fukushima' is both inaccurate and misleading," the group added, referencing the 2011 disaster in Japan.

Matthew Bunn, the James R. Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School, made the case at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday that the biggest danger regarding the ZNPP is intentional sabotage.

"How serious is the risk of a major radioactive disaster?" Bunn wrote. "That depends on whether we're talking about an intentional or inadvertent radioactive release. If the Russian forces that control the site want to cause a major radiation release—and are willing to use explosives to do it—they could contaminate a huge area. Although the reactors have been largely shut down and cooling for months, they still contain a huge amount of intensely radioactive material that explosives could disperse."

He continued:

A couple of mines on the roof of a reactor would not be enough. Causing a big release would require some serious demolition with explosives. But that's what was needed to destroy Ukraine's Kakhovka dam—which it appears was done with explosives from within, while Russian forces controlled the site—so a similar operation at Zaporizhzhia can't be ruled out.

No one can accurately evaluate how big an area might be affected; the extent of contamination would depend on how the disaster was caused, how hard the wind was blowing, whether rain brought the radioactive material back to the ground, and more. But one could easily imagine that Russia might hope that such a release would interfere with Ukraine's counteroffensive, forcing some units to focus on evacuating people and cleaning up radioactive fallout rather than battling Russian forces.

By contrast, looking only at inadvertent damage, there are reasons to be optimistic. The Zaporizhzhia reactors are built with thick concrete containment structures, have been cooling for months, and have extra safety features installed after the Fukushima accident in Japan. It is very unlikely that a few stray shells from fighting in the area would cause any serious radioactive release.

Bunn concluded that "over the longer term, there's a need to rethink nuclear safety and security in the context of the possibility that nuclear facilities can be exposed to war, mass civil unrest, or governmental collapse. And there's a need for new agreements to reduce the chance that major civilian nuclear facilities under international inspection will again be targets of military assault."

Meanwhile, Beyond Nuclear charged that "if Zaporizhzhia comes to harm, each side in the conflict will likely hold the other responsible. But ultimately, the responsibility we all share is to reject the continued use of a technology that has the potential to wreak such disastrous consequences on humanity."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Douglas Letter, Brady’s Chief Legal Officer, said:

“Prohibiting domestic violence abusers from accessing firearms is common-sense, life-saving, and constitutional. Firearms are the most common weapons used in domestic violence homicides, with female intimate partners more likely to be murdered with a gun than by all other means combined.

“The Fifth Circuit's decision in Rahimi is egregiously wrong, and is mistaken under the Supreme Court's instructions in the Bruen case. Brady looks forward to the Supreme Court hearing this case and correcting this terribly misguided ruling.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Lindsay Owens, Groundwork Collaborative’s Executive Director, reacted to the ruling with the following statement:

“Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, millions of workers and families are now staring down student loan payments this fall with no relief in sight. Revoking the promise of student debt relief punishes people who are already struggling in our economy.
“No one should have to choose between paying their rent and making their student loan payments. President Biden must exhaust all options to deliver student loan relief before millions of Americans are forced to restart payments this September.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Residents of Michigan and other U.S. states reported smelling burning plastic, prompting toxicologists at Michigan's Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to observe that "wood fires emit a lot of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)," most of which "are noticeable to our noses as the familiar 'campfire' smell, but they break down quickly when exposed to UV radiation from sunlight."

"Other VOCs like benzene, formaldehyde, and acrolein are also released and they outlast the 'campfire' VOCs," the state officials said. "It's these chemical compounds that you're smelling as the smoke wafts around for a few days and settles to the ground and reaches your nose."

Dr. Glen Clark, emergency center chief at Corewell Health's Beaumont Hospital in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, said in a statement to the Free Press that his medical center has seen "a significant increase in respiratory complaints" over the past week.

"We've seen both asthma and COPD patients, who have been well controlled, presenting with exacerbations requiring an increase in use of asthma medications, including rescue inhalers," said Clark. "Even otherwise healthy individuals have come in complaining of chest tightness."

As of Thursday morning, the Swiss firm IQAir ranked Chicago and Detroit as the cities with the worst air quality in the world. Minneapolis briefly cracked the top five the previous day.

CNNreported Wednesday that "Chicago asked all residents—especially those with heart or lung disease, older adults, pregnant people, and young children—to avoid outdoor activities and protect themselves from exposure."

"Chicago Public Schools and camps are also moving activities indoors, city officials said in a news release," the outlet added. "About 11 miles away, Evanston, Illinois closedall swimming beaches and canceled a concert Tuesday due to the poor air quality, the city said on Facebook, asking residents to limit outdoor exposure through Wednesday."

As air quality deteriorated across Northeast and the Midwest, the U.S. South and Southwest experienced scorching temperatures, with at least nine people dying of heat-related causes in Texas.

"This is what we've been warning about... more extreme heat linked to the climate crisis," the youth-led Sunrise Movementtweeted Wednesday.

"We need to declare a climate emergency," the group added, reiterating a longstanding demand that President Joe Biden has thus far rejected.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service (NWS) wrote on social media that "dangerous heat persists for much of the southern U.S.," where tens of millions of people are living under heat advisories.

"Heat is the leading cause of weather-related fatalities each year," the agency stressed. "Take it seriously."

The Washington Postreported that "much of the United States felt like a blazing inferno on Wednesday, as record heat attacked the South like a blowtorch, thick smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed the Great Lakes region, and triple-digit temperatures threatened to wallop California for the first time this year."

"Scientists said climate change helped shape the weather conditions that were causing misery and putting lives at risk from Mexico to Canada," the Post added. "There was no disputing the impact: If it wasn't way too smoky, it was way too hot."

"Texas is seeing a heatwave so deadly that the state is breaking all-time records for energy usage," the Institute for Policy Studies wrote Wednesday. "Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis are among the four cities with the worst air quality in the world due to [Canada wildfire] smoke. "We can't afford to wait. Climate action now."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

DeSantis officially outlined his plan at a Monday event in the Texas border city of Eagle Pass. He spoke in front of a banner and behind a podium that made "stop the invasion" one of three key slogans of his anti-immigrant agenda, along with "secure our border" and "build the wall." The proposals put forth by DeSantis are based on racist conspiracy theories and represent an escalation of GOP rhetoric on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Among other things, DeSantis advocated for using "deadly force" against suspected drug traffickers, as The New York Timesreported:

"Of course you use deadly force," Mr. DeSantis said after a campaign event on a sweltering morning in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city. "If you drop a couple of these cartel operatives trying to do that, you're not going to have to worry about that anymore," he added. He said they would end up "stone-cold dead."

He did not clarify how Border Patrol officers or other law enforcement authorities might determine which people crossing the border were smuggling drugs. He said only that "if someone is breaking through the border wall" while "demonstrating hostile intent or hostile action, you have to be able to meet that with the appropriate use of force."

As a point of clarification, the newspaper explained that "the overwhelming majority of drugs are smuggled in commercial vehicles coming across official ports of entry, not carried by migrants, according to U.S. border authorities."

Other elements of DeSantis' proposed crackdown on immigrants include:

• Ending birthright citizenship;
• Deputizing state and local law enforcement officers to arrest and deport migrants and to detain unaccompanied migrant children indefinitely;
• Detaining all migrants who make unauthorized border crossings until their immigration court hearing, likely requiring a massive expansion of carceral space;
• Completing construction of the border wall initiated by former President Donald Trump, even deploying U.S. troops to "assist" Border Patrol agents until the project is finished; and
• Restarting the "Remain in Mexico" program that endangers asylum-seekers.

"Those policies are sure to appeal to conservative voters in the Republican presidential primary contest," the Times observed, "but they would be likely to run into legal roadblocks and could test the limits of presidential authority."

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states cannot enact their own immigration policies that conflict with federal laws.

"The DeSantis policies and plans announced today wouldn't advance any real solutions for our broken immigration system," Mario Carrillo, the Texas-based campaign manager of America's Voice, said in a statement. "Instead, they are all just ugly and unworkable anti-immigrant red meat to keep the MAGA base inflamed and all 'justified' by advancing false and dangerous white nationalist rhetoric that has a mounting body count, including in Texas."

"My hometown of El Paso is still reeling from the mass shooting perpetrated by a white nationalist whose rhetoric is now touted by DeSantis and many more Republicans," said Carrillo. "Just a few days ago in Pittsburgh, the conviction of the Tree of Life synagogue shooter offered another reminder about the dangers of mainstreaming this rhetoric, while Buffalo recently commemorated their own anniversary of the attack in their city, again by a white nationalist who cited anti-immigrant conspiracies."

"That the DeSantis campaign is continuing to elevate and mainstream these false conspiracies is dangerous and irresponsible," Carrillo added, "but not surprising given the type of campaign he intends to run."

"The policy rollout on Monday suggested that Mr. DeSantis, who is trailing Mr. Trump by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, was trying to outflank the former president on immigration," the Times noted. Multiple experts "questioned the viability of Mr. DeSantis' proposals, suggesting they were driven by the political imperatives of a presidential campaign."

As governor, DeSantis has been at the forefront of cruel immigration policies.

Last September, he organized flights carrying roughly 50 South American asylum-seekers from San Antonio, Texas to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, precipitating a lawsuit and a criminal investigation into whether people were "lured... under false pretenses." The Bexar County Sheriff's Office recently recommended criminal charges over the Martha's Vineyard flights.

DeSantis flew additional migrants to Sacramento earlier this month, prompting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to threaten him with kidnapping charges.

Last month, DeSantis sent hundreds of Florida law enforcement officers and Florida National Guard members to Texas at the request of the state's Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who has repeatedly accused President Joe Biden of failing to "secure the border."

Just days ago, DeSantis "announced a national coalition of more than 90 local sheriffs who said they would band together to fight gang activity and illegal drugs that they argue are the result of the Biden administration's border policies," the Times reported.

Ominously, the immigration plan he revealed on Monday says: "If the Mexican government drags its feet, DeSantis will reserve the right to operate across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities. If the Mexican government won't stop cartel drug manufacturing, DeSantis will surge resources to the Navy and the Coast Guard and block precursor chemicals from entering Mexican ports."

According toThe Associated Press:

DeSantis was supportive of one audience member who suggested that the situation at the border constituted an "act of war."

"I think the state of Texas has the right to declare an invasion," DeSantis told the man. "You're going to see as president under Article 2 of the Constitution, you have a responsibility and a duty to protect the country. We are going to do that and we are going to do that robustly."

This makes DeSantis the latest Republican to express support for using military force against cartels south of the border, even though "critics have said such actions would violate Mexico's sovereignty and fail to address the drug overdose crisis that continues to devastate U.S. communities," as Al Jazeerareported.

In Florida, meanwhile, DeSantis recently signed a bill that places harsh restrictions on undocumented immigrants and requires the "repayment of certain economic development incentives" if the state, which plans to conduct random audits of businesses, "finds or is notified that an employer has knowingly employed" an undocumented immigrant without verifying their employment eligibility.

The law, which takes effect in less than a week, has pushed thousands of workers to flee the state, eliciting criticism not only from progressive opponents of DeSantis but also some capitalists who otherwise back the far-right governor.

As America's Voice pointed out, "The DeSantis plan and speech did not highlight the continued array of media coverage detailing the... toll on the economy and communities of the signature Florida anti-immigrant legislation he signed into law."

Carrillo argued that "the key storylines about Ron DeSantis' visit to the Texas border shouldn't just be about his collection of dehumanizing political stunts or the ugly and unworkable policy agenda he unveiled today. They also must include the economic and community harms that DeSantis has inflicted on Florida's crucial industries and the state's proud pro-immigrant traditions through his signature immigration bill set to go into effect on July 1."

"Even before the bill takes effect," Carillo said, "people are leaving, job sites are emptying, and employers—some of whom are DeSantis supporters—are complaining."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

DeSantis officially outlined his plan at a Monday event in the Texas border city of Eagle Pass. He spoke in front of a banner and behind a podium that made "stop the invasion" one of three key slogans of his anti-immigrant agenda, along with "secure our border" and "build the wall." The proposals put forth by DeSantis are based on racist conspiracy theories and represent an escalation of GOP rhetoric on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Among other things, DeSantis advocated for using "deadly force" against suspected drug traffickers, as The New York Timesreported:

"Of course you use deadly force," Mr. DeSantis said after a campaign event on a sweltering morning in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city. "If you drop a couple of these cartel operatives trying to do that, you're not going to have to worry about that anymore," he added. He said they would end up "stone-cold dead."

He did not clarify how Border Patrol officers or other law enforcement authorities might determine which people crossing the border were smuggling drugs. He said only that "if someone is breaking through the border wall" while "demonstrating hostile intent or hostile action, you have to be able to meet that with the appropriate use of force."

As a point of clarification, the newspaper explained that "the overwhelming majority of drugs are smuggled in commercial vehicles coming across official ports of entry, not carried by migrants, according to U.S. border authorities."

Other elements of DeSantis' proposed crackdown on immigrants include:

• Ending birthright citizenship;
• Deputizing state and local law enforcement officers to arrest and deport migrants and to detain unaccompanied migrant children indefinitely;
• Detaining all migrants who make unauthorized border crossings until their immigration court hearing, likely requiring a massive expansion of carceral space;
• Completing construction of the border wall initiated by former President Donald Trump, even deploying U.S. troops to "assist" Border Patrol agents until the project is finished; and
• Restarting the "Remain in Mexico" program that endangers asylum-seekers.

"Those policies are sure to appeal to conservative voters in the Republican presidential primary contest," the Times observed, "but they would be likely to run into legal roadblocks and could test the limits of presidential authority."

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states cannot enact their own immigration policies that conflict with federal laws.

"The DeSantis policies and plans announced today wouldn't advance any real solutions for our broken immigration system," Mario Carrillo, the Texas-based campaign manager of America's Voice, said in a statement. "Instead, they are all just ugly and unworkable anti-immigrant red meat to keep the MAGA base inflamed and all 'justified' by advancing false and dangerous white nationalist rhetoric that has a mounting body count, including in Texas."

"My hometown of El Paso is still reeling from the mass shooting perpetrated by a white nationalist whose rhetoric is now touted by DeSantis and many more Republicans," said Carrillo. "Just a few days ago in Pittsburgh, the conviction of the Tree of Life synagogue shooter offered another reminder about the dangers of mainstreaming this rhetoric, while Buffalo recently commemorated their own anniversary of the attack in their city, again by a white nationalist who cited anti-immigrant conspiracies."

"That the DeSantis campaign is continuing to elevate and mainstream these false conspiracies is dangerous and irresponsible," Carrillo added, "but not surprising given the type of campaign he intends to run."

"The policy rollout on Monday suggested that Mr. DeSantis, who is trailing Mr. Trump by roughly 30 percentage points in national polls, was trying to outflank the former president on immigration," the Times noted. Multiple experts "questioned the viability of Mr. DeSantis' proposals, suggesting they were driven by the political imperatives of a presidential campaign."

As governor, DeSantis has been at the forefront of cruel immigration policies.

Last September, he organized flights carrying roughly 50 South American asylum-seekers from San Antonio, Texas to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, precipitating a lawsuit and a criminal investigation into whether people were "lured... under false pretenses." The Bexar County Sheriff's Office recently recommended criminal charges over the Martha's Vineyard flights.

DeSantis flew additional migrants to Sacramento earlier this month, prompting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to threaten him with kidnapping charges.

Last month, DeSantis sent hundreds of Florida law enforcement officers and Florida National Guard members to Texas at the request of the state's Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who has repeatedly accused President Joe Biden of failing to "secure the border."

Just days ago, DeSantis "announced a national coalition of more than 90 local sheriffs who said they would band together to fight gang activity and illegal drugs that they argue are the result of the Biden administration's border policies," the Times reported.

Ominously, the immigration plan he revealed on Monday says: "If the Mexican government drags its feet, DeSantis will reserve the right to operate across the border to secure our territory from Mexican cartel activities. If the Mexican government won't stop cartel drug manufacturing, DeSantis will surge resources to the Navy and the Coast Guard and block precursor chemicals from entering Mexican ports."

According toThe Associated Press:

DeSantis was supportive of one audience member who suggested that the situation at the border constituted an "act of war."

"I think the state of Texas has the right to declare an invasion," DeSantis told the man. "You're going to see as president under Article 2 of the Constitution, you have a responsibility and a duty to protect the country. We are going to do that and we are going to do that robustly."

This makes DeSantis the latest Republican to express support for using military force against cartels south of the border, even though "critics have said such actions would violate Mexico's sovereignty and fail to address the drug overdose crisis that continues to devastate U.S. communities," as Al Jazeerareported.

In Florida, meanwhile, DeSantis recently signed a bill that places harsh restrictions on undocumented immigrants and requires the "repayment of certain economic development incentives" if the state, which plans to conduct random audits of businesses, "finds or is notified that an employer has knowingly employed" an undocumented immigrant without verifying their employment eligibility.

The law, which takes effect in less than a week, has pushed thousands of workers to flee the state, eliciting criticism not only from progressive opponents of DeSantis but also some capitalists who otherwise back the far-right governor.

As America's Voice pointed out, "The DeSantis plan and speech did not highlight the continued array of media coverage detailing the... toll on the economy and communities of the signature Florida anti-immigrant legislation he signed into law."

Carrillo argued that "the key storylines about Ron DeSantis' visit to the Texas border shouldn't just be about his collection of dehumanizing political stunts or the ugly and unworkable policy agenda he unveiled today. They also must include the economic and community harms that DeSantis has inflicted on Florida's crucial industries and the state's proud pro-immigrant traditions through his signature immigration bill set to go into effect on July 1."

"Even before the bill takes effect," Carillo said, "people are leaving, job sites are emptying, and employers—some of whom are DeSantis supporters—are complaining."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The potential RFS expansion into EV changing has been aggressively lobbied for by dirty energy industries looking for new subsidies. Freedom of Information Act requests unearthed by Friends of the Earth reveal a coordinated campaign between incinerator giant Covanta and pro-wood burning trade group, Biomass Power Association, to gain access to the program. Burning wood or trash are some of the dirtiest ways to produce energy and emits a number of toxic pollutants that disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color.

“The decision to drop this proposed rule is a huge win for the climate and for communities already overburdened with pollution,” said Sarah Lutz, Climate Campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “The EPA was on the verge of making a bad program even worse by tying the growth of EVs to massively harmful energy production. It’s wholly incompatible with President Biden’s commitment to reducing emissions and prioritizing environmental justice, and we’re committed to ensuring this proposal doesn’t rear its ugly head again.”

Friends of the Earth has led the opposition on e-RINS for electric vehicle-charging since FOIAs revealed that the Biden administration and Tesla were having closed-door discussions on the RFS as soon as the former’s term began. FoE is the lead author on three opposition letters to the EPA (2021, 2022, 2023) and collaborated with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) to develop a Congressional response in 2022.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"The launch of today's escalation campaign to fight back against fossil fuels builds on the legacy of a diversity of resistance movements from across the world who have been leading the fight against the fossil industry and its pernicious influence," said Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network. "We expect all governments to implement a rapid, just, and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels together with a scaled-up phase-in of renewables."

"They have to signal that this is the end of the fossil fuel era," Essop added. "COP28 is a good place to start."

"We expect all governments to implement a rapid, just, and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels together with a scaled-up phase-in of renewables."

The coalition behind the mass mobilization invited people around the world to register local events and issued a list of straightforward demands that they say political leaders must embrace if there's to be any hope of curbing runaway warming.

"The climate crisis is escalating but so is the global movement for climate justice," the coalition says on its website. "We need all hands on deck to win this fight."

The six demands are as follows:

1. No new fossil fuels—no new finance public or private, no new approvals, licenses, permits, or extensions. The provision of sufficient, consensual climate funding to realize this commitment everywhere.

2. A rapid, just, and equitable phaseout of existing fossil fuel infrastructure in line with the 1.5°C temperature limit and a global plan, like a Fossil Fuel Treaty, to ensure that each country does its part.

3. New commitments for international cooperation to drastically scale up financial and technology transfers to ensure renewable energy access, economic diversification plans, and Just Transition processes so that every country and community can phase out fossil fuels.

4. Stop greenwashing and claiming that offsets, carbon capture and storage, or geoengineering are solutions to the climate crisis.

5. Hold polluters responsible for the damage they've caused and make sure it's coal, oil, and gas corporations that pay reparations for climate loss and damage and for local rehabilitation, remediation, and transition.

6. End fossil fuel corporate capture. No to corporations writing the rules of climate action, bankrolling climate talks, or undermining the global response to climate change.

Brenna TwoBears, coordinator of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement Thursday that "the time is now to end fossil fuels."

"This has been centuries in the making, when colonizers brought the first extractive systems to Turtle Island and commodified the land," she added. "But shutting down fossil fuels is only one strand among many to weave a basket to hold up the next seven generations. We need a just and equitable transition, where Indigenous people are leading. We need a culture shift to live in balance with our sky and land relatives. We need real solutions that address the problem at its root, not after the fact. A fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is that real solution."

COP27 in Egypt late last year did not yield any meaningful progress toward a global fossil fuel phaseout, and campaigners feel COP28 is also poised to fail given the still-pervasive influence of the oil and gas industry and rich nations' refusal to act.

Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, COP28's president-designate, is the CEO of the UAE's state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

The Guardianreported last week that "Majid Al Suwaidi, director-general of the COP28 climate talks for its host nation... said governments were not in agreement over whether the phaseout of fossil fuels should be on the agenda for the conference, which begins in November."

"Al Suwaidi said fossil fuels would form a key part of the discussions at COP28," the newspaper added, "but whether a phaseout would be discussed as part of the official agenda of the talks was still up for grabs."

Romain Ioualalen, the global policy lead for Oil Change International, emphasized Thursday that "there is no room for additional fossil fuel expansion while limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C" and implored world leaders to "urgently lay the path for the end of oil, gas, and coal" at COP28.

"People around the world have been fighting against the fossil fuel industry for years and will escalate this fight this September at the United Nations in New York and beyond to secure a full, fair, fast, and funded fossil fuel phaseout and massive expansion of renewable energy," said Ioualalen.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted that "this is a HUGE surprise and a major voting rights victory," also noting that the high court's decision in Allen v. Milligan is "a boon to Democrats' chances" of retaking the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024.

"This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for."

Davin Rosborough, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, declared that "the Supreme Court rejected the Orwellian idea that it's inappropriate to consider race in determining whether racial discrimination led to the creation of illegal maps. This ruling is a huge victory for Black Alabamians."

The national ACLU, its Alabama arm, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Hogan Lovells LLP, and Wiggins Childs LLC sued Alabama in November 2021 on behalf of four individual voters—Evan Milligan, Shalela Dowdy, Letetia Jackson, and Khadidah Stone—along with Greater Birmingham Ministries and the NAACP of Alabama, arguing that the state's new congressional map is racially discriminatory under Section 2 of the VRA and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Although a three-judge panel granted a preliminary injunction in January 2022 and gave Alabama an opportunity to redraw the districts before last year's election, the state then obtained a stay from the Supreme Court and the contested map was used.

The high court's new ruling in the case—previously known as Merrill v. Milligan—was celebrated by the plaintiffs, who said in a joint statement:

In 2021, Alabama lawmakers targeted Black voters by packing and cracking us so we could not have a meaningful impact on the electoral process. They attempted to redefine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and shirk their responsibility to ensure communities of color are given an equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Today, the Supreme Court reminded them of that responsibility by ordering a new map be drawn that complies with federal law—one that recognizes the diversity in our state rather than erasing it. This fight was won through generations of Black leaders who refused to be silent, and while much work is left, today we can move forward with these reaffirmed protections civil rights leaders fought and died for.

LDF senior counsel Deuel Ross, who argued the case before the court in October, explained that "Alabama attempted to rewrite federal law by saying race had no place in redistricting. But because of the state's sordid and well-documented history of racial discrimination, race must be used to remedy that past and ensure communities of color are not boxed out of the electoral process."

"While the Voting Rights Act and other key protections against discriminatory voting laws have been weakened in recent years and states continue to pass provisions to disenfranchise Black voters, today's decision is a recognition of Section 2's purpose to prevent voting discrimination and the very basic right to a fair shot," Ross continued.

Tish Gotell Faulks, the ACLU of Alabama's legal director, said that "the key takeaway from today's decision is the court's acknowledgment that the Alabama Legislature knowingly continued its legacy of drawing illegal voting districts that disenfranchise Black voters."

"Though we were victorious today, history shows us that lawmakers will erect many more hurdles before every Alabamian, irrespective of their race, can vote for representatives that reflect their beliefs, values, and priorities," Jones warned. "Efforts remain underway from Montgomery to Jackson to Baton Rouge, and elsewhere across the country to minimize, marginalize, and eliminate the ability of Black and Brown people to have a voice in their communities. Our communities then—as now—understand that the fight to uphold our civil rights is a daily pursuit. We will persist."

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which has been involved in several lawsuits challenging rigged election maps and filed a friend-of-the-court brief for this case, also welcomed the Thursday decision while highlighting ongoing attacks on voting rights.

"When self-interested politicians draw maps that suit their own needs instead of the needs of their community, our democracy becomes less inclusive and accountable," said CLC senior vice president Paul Smith. "We are heartened that the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 of the VRA, one of the most important tools available to ensure every voter, particularly Black and Brown voters who have historically been denied the freedom to vote, has an equal voice in our democracy."

"While this ruling is a step in the right direction," Smith added, "we will continue to fight tirelessly alongside our local allies in Alabama and across the country to challenge racially discriminatory voting maps in court and develop innovative policy solutions that protect and expand the freedom to vote for every American."

Pointing to Shelby v. Holder, Kareem Crayton, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program, stressed that the new decision "still leaves us with a weakened tool of enforcement. Ten years ago, this court ended the most effective part of the legislation, preclearance, and in 2021, made it very hard to use Section 2 to challenge racially discriminatory voting rules."

"Congress can and should step in to protect fair access to voting and representation for all," according to Crayton. "Our legislators must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, notes in his analysis that $886 billion for the military is "a sum far higher in real terms than the peaks of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the height of the Cold War."

"These enormous sums are being marshaled in support of a flawed National Defense Strategy that attempts to go everywhere and do everything, from winning a war with Russia or China, to intervening in Iran or North Korea, to continuing to fight a global war on terror that involves military activities in at least 85 countries," Hartung writes. "Sticking to the current strategy is not only economically wasteful, but will also make America and the world less safe."

The Costs of War report echoes that assessment, noting that the continuous growth of the nation's military budget—which now makes up more than half of the federal government's total discretionary spending—"has the effect of squeezing out the resources and power of other sectors, and weakening the United States' ability to perform core functions such as healthcare, infrastructure, education, and emergency preparedness."

"Because the majority of taxpayer dollars and federal resources are devoted to the military and military industries, and most government jobs are in the defense sector, the political power of this sector has become more deeply entrenched and other alternatives have become harder to pursue," reads the Brown analysis, authored by Heidi Peltier. "Instead of having a federal government that addresses various national priorities—including the health and education of its population and the sustainability of its infrastructure and environment—the U.S. has a government that is largely devoted to war and militarism."

The budget deal reached by the Biden White House and congressional Republicans perpetuates that trend.

If approved in the appropriations process later this year, the Biden-GOP Pentagon budget deal would add $28 billion to U.S. military spending next fiscal year compared to current levels.

And some lawmakers are exploring ways to circumvent the $886 billion topline to hand even more money to the Pentagon as new caps on non-military spending threaten funding for food aid, rental assistance, and other programs.

Hartung warned Thursday that "Congress could pass an emergency military aid package for Ukraine that includes not only funds needed for that nation to defend itself, but tens of billions of dollars for Pentagon or congressional pet projects that have nothing to do with defending Ukraine."

"This is precisely what happened during the 10-year period covered by the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA)," he noted. "The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account—nominally meant to fund the Iraq and Afghan wars—was used to pay for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of items unrelated to the wars, as a way to evade the caps on the Pentagon's regular budget contained in the BCA."

"We are overspending on the Pentagon instead of providing adequate funding to address other urgent security needs, and too often favoring special interests over the national interest."

Such unchecked spending is likely to have massive benefits for the arms makers and other private contractors that aggressively lobby the federal government.

The Costs of War report points out that the five military-related companies that led their sector in lobbying spending in fiscal year 2021 also received the most contract dollars from the federal government.

"Firms such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Boeing spend millions of dollars in lobbying each year and use their political capital to secure monopoly-like contracts with the Department of Defense," the report notes.

Hartung similarly highlights the "undue influence exerted by the arms industry and its allies in Congress, backed up by over $83 million in campaign contributions in the past two election cycles and the employment of 820 lobbyists, far more than one for every member of Congress."

"The industry also leverages the jobs its programs create to bring lawmakers on board to fund ever-higher budgets, despite the fact that the economic role of the arms sector has declined dramatically over the past three decades, from 3.2 million direct jobs to just one million now—six-tenths of one percent of a national labor force of over 160 million people," Hartung writes. "Last year alone, Congress added $45 billion to the Pentagon budget beyond what the department requested, much of it for systems built in the states or districts of key members, a process that puts special interests above the national interest."

Both new reports make the case for cutting U.S. military spending—which is larger than that of more than 144 nations combined—and directing the savings toward neglected public services.

"Reducing the military budget and funding other priorities such as healthcare, education, clean energy, and infrastructure," the Brown analysis argues, "will help increase other forms of security—the kinds of meaningful human security rooted in good health, good living conditions, and a productive and well-educated society—while also increasing employment nationwide."

And Hartung contends that, contrary to war hawks' claims that Pentagon cuts would compromise national security, the U.S. "could mount a robust defense for far less money if it pursued a more restrained strategy that takes a more realistic view of the military challenges posed by Russia and China, relies more heavily on allies to provide for the defense of their own regions, shifts to a deterrence–only nuclear strategy, and emphasizes diplomacy over force or threats of force to curb nuclear proliferation."

"This approach could save at least $1.3 trillion over the next decade, funds that could be invested in other areas of urgent national need," Hartung writes. "But making a shift of this magnitude will require political and budgetary reforms to reduce the immense power of the arms lobby."

To that end, Hartung suggests restrictions on the "revolving door" between the Pentagon and major military contractors. An April report assembled by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) "identified 672 cases in 2022 in which the top 20 defense contractors had former government officials, military officers, members of Congress, and senior legislative staff working for them as lobbyists, board members, or senior executives."

Hartung also calls for a ban on "major weapons contractors funding the campaigns of members of the armed services committees and defense appropriations subcommittees of each house of Congress."

"We are overspending on the Pentagon instead of providing adequate funding to address other urgent security needs, and too often favoring special interests over the national interest," Hartung said in a statement Thursday. "Rethinking America's approach to defense can make us safer at a far lower cost."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The North Carolina Supreme Court signaled today it will not provide a check on legislative efforts to discriminate against resident voters, vacating a prior decisions that protected voters against partisan gerrymandering in voting maps.

The state’s highest court allowed decisions in Harper v. Hall and Holmes v. Moore, issued in December of 2022, to be reheard following a change in the composition of the Court in January 2022, a rare and unprecedented step.

The Court also issued separate decisions reinstating racially discriminatory voter ID and revoking voting rights in another case for individuals with a felony conviction. In all three cases, the justices were split 5-2 along party lines to toss extensive factual findings from multi-week trials in the lower courts — a rarity saved for exceptional circumstances, of which none of the cases had.

At 2.pm EST TODAY, Friday April 28, Common Cause and its legal team at Southern Coalition for Social Justice will hold a media briefing about the North Carolina decisions.

WHO: Hilary Harris Klein, Senior Counsel for Voting Rights at Southern Coalition for Social Justice; Jeff Loperfido, Interim Chief Counsel for Voting Rights at SCSJ; Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina; Kathay Feng, Vice President of Programs for Common Cause

WHAT: A press call to discuss the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decisions on Harper v. Hall and Holmes v. Moore.

WHEN: April 28, 2023 at 2 p.m. ET

WHERE: Zoom. Register to attend here.

No protections from partisan gerrymandering

Harper is a case brought by Common Cause North Carolina after lawmakers partisan gerrymandered legislative and Congressional maps to give Republicans an edge at the disproportionate expense of Black voters.

Justices ruled the high court did not have jurisdiction to weigh into partisan matters because the state Constitution contains no mention of partisanship in regards to elections. They granted GOP lawmakers’ request to not only reverse its December 2022 decision (Harper II) protecting voters from partisan gerrymandering but to also overturn its February 2022 decision (Harper I) arguing the standard articulated in that matter was flawed.

The Court also gave lawmakers power to redraw legislative and Congressional maps without any limitations on extreme partisan gerrymandering.

Read the full Harper decision here.

“Today’s decision marks a concerning and dramatic departure from the historic and important role our State Courts have played in protecting voters and providing a check on the Legislative branch,” said Hilary Harris Klein, Senior Counsel for Voting Rights at Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ). “Checks and balances are fundamental to our system of government, and we share the concern of the dissent that ‘the majority has already repeatedly revealed itself to be on a mission to pursue the agenda of this select few in the legislature.’ Like our client Common Cause, we will continue to pursue free and fair elections for all North Carolinians.”

Common Cause North Carolina is represented in Harper by Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) and co-counsel Hogan Lovells.

“This Supreme Court ruling will go down as one of the gravest assaults on democracy ever in North Carolina. Now, extreme partisan gerrymandering has been legalized and it will be weaponized against voters. That’s wrong,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Undoubtedly, the justices who wrote this shameful decision know it’s wrong, as do the self-serving legislators who embrace gerrymandering. Today, we are seeing our constitutional protections surrendered to the whims of extremist politicians. We will not give up. We will oppose any attempt by politicians to engage in racist and partisan gerrymandering. The people of North Carolina will not be silenced.”

Justice Anita Earls wrote a 71-page dissent in Harper, saying the decision removes the Court’s ability to protect residents’ basic rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

“Despite its lofty prose about the need for principled adherence to the state Constitution, the majority follows none of these principles today,” Earls wrote. “Nor does the majority even pay passing reference to the anti-democratic nature of extreme partisan gerrymandering. These efforts to downplay the practice do not erase its consequences and the public will not be gaslighted.”

Because Harper is the underlying case to the U.S. Supreme Court case Moore v. Harper, justices at the federal level asked parties in early March to submit additional briefs on whether or not the highest court still has jurisdiction in the case. Common Cause, through its attorneys at SCSJ and Hogan Lovells, argued that the U.S. Supreme Court is still the proper venue to decide this important case about the future of checks and balances in our election processes.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet responded to those briefs, but Common Cause remains hopeful the Court will reject the fringe independent state legislature theory presented in Moore.

“Today, in a highly partisan decision, the North Carolina Supreme Court shredded the state’s constitutional protection of free and fair elections, siding with power-hungry politicians to strip every voter of the right to cast a ballot without political manipulation, and taking away our freedom to determine the future of our families and our neighborhoods,” said Kathay Feng, Vice President of Programs for Common Cause. “We now await the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Moore v. Harper to determine if it will uphold the checks and balances enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions, or if it will give absolute power to state politicians to manipulate our federal elections and undermine our votes.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Payton Washington, 18, was shot twice and is in critical condition at a nearly intensive care unit, while Heather Roth was grazed by a bullet and was treated at the scene. Roth told reporters that the girls approached the car of the suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez, and opened the door before realizing it wasn't theirs.

Rodriguez got out of the car and began shooting at Washington and Roth as well as two other high school students they were with. The girls were members of a cheerleading team with Woodlands Elite Generals and were preparing for the World Championships in Orlando this weekend.

"We are becoming a heavily armed nation, so fearful and angry and hair-trigger anxious that gun murders are now just the way in which we work out our frustrations."

The shooting took place days after 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was fatally shot in Hebron, New York, after mistakenly driving up the wrong driveway with a group of friends while looking for a friend's house. A 65-year-old man named Kevin Monahan has been charged with second-degree murder.

The group had already realized their mistake and turned around when Gillis was shot on Saturday night.

"There were no words exchanged," Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey J. Murphy told reporters. "They were turning around, leaving... there certainly was no threat."

As Common Dreamsreported Monday, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot in the head and arm as he stood on the front porch of a home in Kansas City, Missouri where he believed his younger brothers were. He had mistakenly arrived at the wrong address and the homeowner, Andrew Lester, shot Yarl without "any words" being exchanged, according to prosecutors. Yarl had surgery to remove the bullets and was able to walk out of the hospital on Sunday and is expected to make a full recovery.

Prosecutors say "there was a racial component to the case" involving Yarl, who is Black.

Both Missouri and Texas have so-called "stand your ground" laws which permit people to use deadly force without retreating first if they believe they're being threatened with a crime, including robbery or burglary. Stand your ground laws apply "anyplace where a person has a legal right to be, not just at home," according to The New York Times.

About 30 states have stand your ground laws, and the majority have been enacted in the last 25 years—with Republican lawmakers enabling citizens to use deadly force to protect themselves from criminals even as crime rates significantly declined over the last three decades.

"This is literally the exact path everyone had predicted for years that the Republican obsession with looser gun laws and 'stand your ground' would lead," said podcast host and writer Fred Wellman. "We said it would get innocents killed. They don't care. That's the price we pay for their fear, racism, and guns."

Ari Freilich, state policy director for the gun control advocacy group Giffords Law Center, told The Guardian Wednesday that none of the suspects in the three cases should be permitted to invoke stand your ground laws in their defense.

"There's no state in the country where the existing laws are such that you can lawfully shoot someone for ringing the doorbell at the wrong house," said Freilich, adding that the cases "fit the pattern we've seen over and over again of racist fear intersecting with really widespread unvetted firearm access, combining in our country to make gun violence the leading cause of death by far for young Black men."

While New York does not have a stand your ground law, gun control advocates this week said the same worldview that has driven states to adopt such statutes, and led the U.S. population to amass about 120 privately owned guns for every 100 Americans, was also likely in play when Monahan allegedly shot Gillis.

"This week, this country is convulsed by a series of horrific shootings where mistakes and minor slights are being met by gunfire," said U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on the Senate floor on Wednesday. "We are becoming a heavily armed nation, so fearful and angry and hair-trigger anxious that gun murders are now just the way in which we work out our frustrations."

Times columnist Jamelle Bouie said the shootings demonstrate the consequences of the $28 billion gun industry's relentless selling of "the fantasy of blowing away anyone who intrudes on your property."

"Wrong-house shootings are a bleak reminder how many of our fellow Americans are armed and waiting for an opportunity to kill," said writer and historian Peter Manseau. "Expect more in the future: It's what happens when people have been sold weapons as 'home defense' for decades; they are desperate to get what they paid for."

"What 'home defense' has done is put Chekhov's gun in millions of American homes," he added. "Sooner or later, many will go off. And when they do, for the most part they will not be used for actual protection. They'll shoot innocent strangers, or family members, or the gun owners themselves."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• Supreme Court justices delay until Friday a decision on the continued use of the abortion drug mifepristone
• Texas man shoots two cheerleaders who mistake his car for their own
• Ukraine’s top prosecutor testifies to House committee on Russian abuses
• Antioch city council plans audit of police after racist text messages scandal

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This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

"These systems demonstrate capabilities in question answering, and the generation of text, image, and code unimagined a decade ago, and they outperform the state of the art on many benchmarks, old and new," says the report. "However, they are prone to hallucination, routinely biased, and can be tricked into serving nefarious aims, highlighting the complicated ethical challenges associated with their deployment."

As Al Jazeerareported Friday, the analysis "comes amid growing calls for regulation of AI following controversies ranging from a chatbot-linked suicide to deepfake videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appearing to surrender to invading Russian forces."

Notably, the survey measured the opinions of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—last May and June, months before the November release of OpenAI's ChatGPT "took the tech world by storm," the news outlet reported.

"A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

Just three weeks ago, Geoffrey Hinton, considered the "godfather of artificial intelligence," toldCBS News' Brook Silva-Braga that the rapidly advancing technology's potential impacts are comparable to "the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel."

Asked about the chances of the technology "wiping out humanity," Hinton warned that "it's not inconceivable."

That alarming potential doesn't necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

"Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI," Hinton told CBS News. "Now I think it may be 20 years or less."

Pressed by Silva-Braga if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he "would have said, 'No way.'"

"We have to think hard about how to control that," said Hinton. Asked if that's possible, Hinton said, "We don't know, we haven't been there yet, but we can try."

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the survey of computer scientists conducted last year, 57% said that "recent progress is moving us toward AGI," and 58% agreed that "AGI is an important concern."

In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a company blog post: "The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

More than 25,000 people have signed an open letter published two weeks ago that calls for a six-month moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI's latest chatbot, GPT-4, although Altman is not among them.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," says the letter.

The Financial Timesreported Friday that Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who signed the letter calling for a pause, is "developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with" OpenAI.

"It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now."

Regarding AGI, Hinton said: "It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now, even though it's not going to happen in the next year or two. People should be thinking about those issues."

While AGI may still be a few years away, fears are already mounting that existing AI tools—including chatbots spouting lies, face-swapping apps generating fake videos, and cloned voices committing fraud—are poised to turbocharge the spread of misinformation.

According to a 2022 IPSOS poll of the general public included in the new Stanford report, people in the U.S. are particularly wary of AI, with just 35% agreeing that "products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks," compared with 78% of people in China, 76% in Saudi Arabia, and 71% in India.

Amid "growing regulatory interest" in an AI "accountability mechanism," the Biden administration announced this week that it is seeking public input on measures that could be implemented to ensure that "AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe, and otherwise trustworthy."

Axiosreported Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is "taking early steps toward legislation to regulate artificial intelligence technology."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"These systems demonstrate capabilities in question answering, and the generation of text, image, and code unimagined a decade ago, and they outperform the state of the art on many benchmarks, old and new," says the report. "However, they are prone to hallucination, routinely biased, and can be tricked into serving nefarious aims, highlighting the complicated ethical challenges associated with their deployment."

As Al Jazeerareported Friday, the analysis "comes amid growing calls for regulation of AI following controversies ranging from a chatbot-linked suicide to deepfake videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appearing to surrender to invading Russian forces."

Notably, the survey measured the opinions of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—last May and June, months before the November release of OpenAI's ChatGPT "took the tech world by storm," the news outlet reported.

"A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

Just three weeks ago, Geoffrey Hinton, considered the "godfather of artificial intelligence," toldCBS News' Brook Silva-Braga that the rapidly advancing technology's potential impacts are comparable to "the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel."

Asked about the chances of the technology "wiping out humanity," Hinton warned that "it's not inconceivable."

That alarming potential doesn't necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

"Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI," Hinton told CBS News. "Now I think it may be 20 years or less."

Pressed by Silva-Braga if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he "would have said, 'No way.'"

"We have to think hard about how to control that," said Hinton. Asked if that's possible, Hinton said, "We don't know, we haven't been there yet, but we can try."

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the survey of computer scientists conducted last year, 57% said that "recent progress is moving us toward AGI," and 58% agreed that "AGI is an important concern."

In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a company blog post: "The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

More than 25,000 people have signed an open letter published two weeks ago that calls for a six-month moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI's latest chatbot, GPT-4, although Altman is not among them.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," says the letter.

The Financial Timesreported Friday that Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who signed the letter calling for a pause, is "developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with" OpenAI.

"It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now."

Regarding AGI, Hinton said: "It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now, even though it's not going to happen in the next year or two. People should be thinking about those issues."

While AGI may still be a few years away, fears are already mounting that existing AI tools—including chatbots spouting lies, face-swapping apps generating fake videos, and cloned voices committing fraud—are poised to turbocharge the spread of misinformation.

According to a 2022 IPSOS poll of the general public included in the new Stanford report, people in the U.S. are particularly wary of AI, with just 35% agreeing that "products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks," compared with 78% of people in China, 76% in Saudi Arabia, and 71% in India.

Amid "growing regulatory interest" in an AI "accountability mechanism," the Biden administration announced this week that it is seeking public input on measures that could be implemented to ensure that "AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe, and otherwise trustworthy."

Axiosreported Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is "taking early steps toward legislation to regulate artificial intelligence technology."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"These systems demonstrate capabilities in question answering, and the generation of text, image, and code unimagined a decade ago, and they outperform the state of the art on many benchmarks, old and new," says the report. "However, they are prone to hallucination, routinely biased, and can be tricked into serving nefarious aims, highlighting the complicated ethical challenges associated with their deployment."

As Al Jazeerareported Friday, the analysis "comes amid growing calls for regulation of AI following controversies ranging from a chatbot-linked suicide to deepfake videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appearing to surrender to invading Russian forces."

Notably, the survey measured the opinions of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—last May and June, months before the November release of OpenAI's ChatGPT "took the tech world by storm," the news outlet reported.

"A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

Just three weeks ago, Geoffrey Hinton, considered the "godfather of artificial intelligence," toldCBS News' Brook Silva-Braga that the rapidly advancing technology's potential impacts are comparable to "the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel."

Asked about the chances of the technology "wiping out humanity," Hinton warned that "it's not inconceivable."

That alarming potential doesn't necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

"Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI," Hinton told CBS News. "Now I think it may be 20 years or less."

Pressed by Silva-Braga if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he "would have said, 'No way.'"

"We have to think hard about how to control that," said Hinton. Asked if that's possible, Hinton said, "We don't know, we haven't been there yet, but we can try."

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the survey of computer scientists conducted last year, 57% said that "recent progress is moving us toward AGI," and 58% agreed that "AGI is an important concern."

In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a company blog post: "The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

More than 25,000 people have signed an open letter published two weeks ago that calls for a six-month moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI's latest chatbot, GPT-4, although Altman is not among them.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," says the letter.

The Financial Timesreported Friday that Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who signed the letter calling for a pause, is "developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with" OpenAI.

"It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now."

Regarding AGI, Hinton said: "It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now, even though it's not going to happen in the next year or two. People should be thinking about those issues."

While AGI may still be a few years away, fears are already mounting that existing AI tools—including chatbots spouting lies, face-swapping apps generating fake videos, and cloned voices committing fraud—are poised to turbocharge the spread of misinformation.

According to a 2022 IPSOS poll of the general public included in the new Stanford report, people in the U.S. are particularly wary of AI, with just 35% agreeing that "products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks," compared with 78% of people in China, 76% in Saudi Arabia, and 71% in India.

Amid "growing regulatory interest" in an AI "accountability mechanism," the Biden administration announced this week that it is seeking public input on measures that could be implemented to ensure that "AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe, and otherwise trustworthy."

Axiosreported Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is "taking early steps toward legislation to regulate artificial intelligence technology."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"These systems demonstrate capabilities in question answering, and the generation of text, image, and code unimagined a decade ago, and they outperform the state of the art on many benchmarks, old and new," says the report. "However, they are prone to hallucination, routinely biased, and can be tricked into serving nefarious aims, highlighting the complicated ethical challenges associated with their deployment."

As Al Jazeerareported Friday, the analysis "comes amid growing calls for regulation of AI following controversies ranging from a chatbot-linked suicide to deepfake videos of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appearing to surrender to invading Russian forces."

Notably, the survey measured the opinions of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—last May and June, months before the November release of OpenAI's ChatGPT "took the tech world by storm," the news outlet reported.

"A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

Just three weeks ago, Geoffrey Hinton, considered the "godfather of artificial intelligence," toldCBS News' Brook Silva-Braga that the rapidly advancing technology's potential impacts are comparable to "the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel."

Asked about the chances of the technology "wiping out humanity," Hinton warned that "it's not inconceivable."

That alarming potential doesn't necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

"Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI," Hinton told CBS News. "Now I think it may be 20 years or less."

Pressed by Silva-Braga if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn't rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he "would have said, 'No way.'"

"We have to think hard about how to control that," said Hinton. Asked if that's possible, Hinton said, "We don't know, we haven't been there yet, but we can try."

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the survey of computer scientists conducted last year, 57% said that "recent progress is moving us toward AGI," and 58% agreed that "AGI is an important concern."

In February, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a company blog post: "The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world."

More than 25,000 people have signed an open letter published two weeks ago that calls for a six-month moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI's latest chatbot, GPT-4, although Altman is not among them.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," says the letter.

The Financial Timesreported Friday that Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who signed the letter calling for a pause, is "developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with" OpenAI.

"It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now."

Regarding AGI, Hinton said: "It's very reasonable for people to be worrying about those issues now, even though it's not going to happen in the next year or two. People should be thinking about those issues."

While AGI may still be a few years away, fears are already mounting that existing AI tools—including chatbots spouting lies, face-swapping apps generating fake videos, and cloned voices committing fraud—are poised to turbocharge the spread of misinformation.

According to a 2022 IPSOS poll of the general public included in the new Stanford report, people in the U.S. are particularly wary of AI, with just 35% agreeing that "products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks," compared with 78% of people in China, 76% in Saudi Arabia, and 71% in India.

Amid "growing regulatory interest" in an AI "accountability mechanism," the Biden administration announced this week that it is seeking public input on measures that could be implemented to ensure that "AI systems are legal, effective, ethical, safe, and otherwise trustworthy."

Axiosreported Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is "taking early steps toward legislation to regulate artificial intelligence technology."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This decision is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “The appellate court order repeats serious errors in Judge Kascmaryk ruling. Again, it is wrong on the facts and the law, resulting in an unprecedented override of the FDA’s scientific judgment. The court rightly found that some claims were filed too late, but that should not distract from the radical assault on the FDA’s decision-making authority and the fact that it will wreak havoc on the provision of medication abortion if it stands.”

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000 and since that time, medication abortion has been used by nearly 5 million people across the country. Numerous studies have repeatedly shown the safety and efficacy of mifepristone in the two-drug medication abortion regimen. Medication abortion currently accounts for more than half (54%) of all abortions in the U.S., and 98% of medication abortions in 2020 used the two-drug protocol.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Reutersreports U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—issued a preliminary injunction against the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule after 24 states sued the Biden administration.

"This ruling readily bows to the forces in this country that have been trying for years to gut the Clean Water Act, throwing science under the bus and disregarding water safeguards for downstream communities and tribes," Janette Brimmer, an attorney for the green legal advocacy group Earthjustice who is defending the WOTUS rule on behalf of four Indigenous tribes, said in a statement.

"We will not give in to these forces; we will double down and fight along with our partners to ensure the law and science prevail and the will of the vast majority of citizens for clean water is carried out," Brimmer added.

Last month, Texas and Idaho were granted a separate injunction against the rule by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

According toProgressive Farmer, Hovland's ruling means that the WOTUS rule—which establishes protections for wetlands and seasonal streams—is now on hold in 24 more states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

States shaded in red will be affected by a federal judge's temporary injunction against the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. (Image: Earthjustice)

In 2020, the Trump administration rolled back WOTUS, which originated during the tenure of former President Barack Obama. The Biden administration revived the rule and last December it was finalized by the EPA.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden vetoed legislation passed by Republicans and corporate Democrats in Congress that would have eviscerated the administration's ability to enforce WOTUS.

Hovland stopped short of issuing the nationwide injunction against WOTUS sought by the American Farm Bureau Federation and other agriculture industry interest groups. Still, Big Ag and Republican politicians in affected states overwhelmingly welcomed the injunction against what they say is a major act of government overreach.

Indigenous leaders, however, slammed Wednesday's ruling.

"Clean water is essential to tribal citizens' spiritual, physical, mental well-being, and survival."

"Clean water is essential to tribal citizens' spiritual, physical, mental well-being, and survival" Gary Harrison, traditional chief of the Chickaloon Native Village in Alaska, said in a statement. "Removing vital clean water safeguards will harm wetlands and streams that sustain tribal citizens, including myself."

G. Anne Richardson, chief of the Rappahannock tribe in Virginia, said that "the court's order threatens to strip vital protections from the network of waters that have been the lifeblood of the Rappahannock Tribe since time immemorial."

"Without the Clean Water Act," she added, "projects that would destroy important wetlands and streams could get rammed through without any opportunity for the tribe to object."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The post A Hazardous Decision: Supplying Ukraine with Depleted Uranium Shells appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Environmental attorney Steven Donziger was joined by a number of U.S. Supreme Court observers on Monday in denouncing a decision by seven of the nine justices, who refused to consider Donziger's case regarding the appointment of three special prosecutors after he was charged with criminal contempt of court.

A number of observers noted that a dissent was signed by two conservative judges, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—suggesting that the three liberal justices on the high court refused to give Donziger a hearing of his appeal, essentially siding with oil giant Chevron.

Donziger sued Chevron in the 1990s on behalf of a group of Ecaudorian people who argued Chevron had polluted their community, and helped them win $9.5 billion in the class action lawsuit.

"The three liberal Supreme Court justices decided to let Donziger's absurd contempt conviction stand," said journalist Alex Shultz of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Donziger was jailed for six months—including 136 days under house arrest at the end of his sentence in addition to 800 days under house arrest while he awaited trial—after being charged with contempt of court in 2021 for refusing to turn over his electronic devices to Chevron lawyers in a case filed by the company. The fossil fuel company argued Donziger had won the lawsuit for the Ecuadorians through "coercion, fraud, and bribery."

The judge appointed three special prosecutors after the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to prosecute Donziger for contempt of court.

Donziger argued the judge had no right to appoint private attorneys as special prosecutors, saying the move violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution and that the judge wrongly overrode the U.S. attorney's discretion.

The Supreme Court's refusal to hear his case, said Donziger, represents "a huge blow to the rule of law."

The attorney was among those who pointed to Gorsuch's argument in favor of hearing the case, in which the Trump-appointed right-wing justice said his prosecution by three private lawyers "broke a basic constitutional promise essential to our liberty."

"He's got a point," wrote journalist Ian Millhiser at Vox. "Especially in an era where litigants with an axe to grind can choose which judge will hear their case, permitting the judiciary to decide who to prosecute—and then to hear the very same cases brought by its own court-appointed prosecutors—vests far too much power in unelected judges. If courts have this authority, it is likely to be abused by some of the most partisan judges in the country."

Convicting someone of a federal crime generally requires two branches of government—prosecutors representing the executive branch and judges representing the judiciary—to agree on the accused person's guilt.

In Donziger's case, the judiciary branch acted on its own to prosecute the lawyer.

"The Constitution gives courts the power to 'serve as a neutral adjudicator in a criminal case,' not 'the power to prosecute crimes," wrote Gorsuch in the dissenting opinion. "Our Constitution does not tolerate what happened here."

By refusing to hear Donziger's appeal, the majority of justices—including liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—"endorsed the persecution of Donziger" by Chevron, said author and Yale University history professor Greg Grandin.

"A corporatist Supreme Court is there to serve corporations more than to serve the Constitution," noted author Marianne Williamson.

While the details of Donziger's case are "absolutely shocking," said former U.S. Rep. Tom Winter (D-Mont.), "what's not shocking [is] our Supreme Court, as an institution, being just fine with corporate capture of the legal system."

Millhiser pointed out that the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Donziger's case could have implications for the pending ruling regarding the legality of the Food and Drug Administration's approval of a common abortion drug. Trump-appointed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas is expected to rule in the case in the coming days:

Armed with the additional power to initiate prosecutions, even if this power is limited to contempt of court cases, a partisan judge like Kacsmaryk could potentially issue a nationwide injunction prohibiting anyone from performing an abortion, even in states where it is legal. Then, because anyone who violates a court order can potentially be held in contempt, Kacsmaryk could appoint his own hand-picked prosecutors to target anyone who violates his self-imposed abortion ban.

If Kacsmaryk, or a similarly partisan judge, attempted this move today, Attorney General Merrick Garland would almost certainly fire any prosecutor that Kacsmaryk appointed. But, in a Republican administration, the attorney general would likely be much more reluctant to exercise such authority.

"Gorsuch is right," said Millhiser, "to warn us against a regime that upends this balance of power."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

Robin Waples: University of Washington (NOAA Fisheries, retired)

Topic: On the shoulders of giants: Under-appreciated studies in salmon biology with lasting influence.

In 1675 Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

This idea epitomizes the way that science progresses by incremental steps, punctuated occasionally by major breakthroughs. But often it is the case that neither these ‘giants’ nor their research are well-known or even routinely recognized.

I discuss four such studies conducted in Oregon that have had a profound influence on scientific developments in salmon biology in subsequent decades:

1) a 1960s study of southern Oregon Chinook salmon that was the first documentation of what has come to be known as the Portfolio Effect;

2) a 1970s study of Deschutes River steelhead that was the first attempt to empirically evaluate genetic differences between hatchery and wild fish;

3) a 1980s study of family size variation in Oregon coho salmon that helped pave the way for entirely new lines of research; and

4) a 1980s report on age structure and relative fecundity for Oregon Coast Chinook salmon that provided crucial empirical data to help parameterize models of the rates of genetic drift and loss of genetic variability in Pacific salmon.

I attended the talk just to be in situ at this Hatfield Marine Sciences Center and see what this 76-year-old fellow had to say = Robert Snowden Waples, Jr., born  in Berkeley, California. He attended Palo Alto High School, where he excelled in swimming; he went on to Yale to major in American Studies and to swim, competing with the likes of future Olympians Don Schollander, John Nelson, and Mark Spitz.

He has been at the forefront of wild salmon (and now hatchery salmon) research. He has been cited more than 25,000 times, has a plethora of articles, and he is credited with helping put some teeth in the endangered species act for salmon wild species. That is, he and others worked on the various genetic lines within species so they might get special categorization.

The ESA was set forth to bring a species to a status where it doesn’t need that endangered status. There are more than 50 percent of salmon species listed under the ESA.

The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fisheries has been and up and down situation. There are 20 to 30 different stocks of Coho salmon, and with sockeye, resiliency, representation, and redundancy are key to keeping this ecological area sustainable, Robin states.

While the talk was dry, and there were no photos or videos, graphics from Madison Avenue, he did his talk hoping the audience there was keyed into learning about the top four articles influencing him and the science of salmon research. The first article he cited was “Biocomplexity and Fisheries Sustainability” concerning fall Chinook salmon on the Sixes River, OR.

Crazy science, including the slow work looking at adult returns using interesting criteria — fast to the ocean once hatched in home stream; a little time in the estuary after hatching; a lot of time in the estuary; a lot of time in home tributaries; yearlings staying in fresh water for a year.

What helps with survivability. While the 2, 3 , 4 and 5 year returns included mostly those in the third group = a lot of time in the estuary before maturing and heading to sea. This was done in 1965, without Google, the internet and so many other tools.

The next article on Robin’s top four list includes looking Deschutes summer steelhead and the genetic differences in growth and survival of Juvenile Hatchery and Wild Steehead Trout, Salmo gairdneri.

The question posed in the 1970s research includes: What if there were no hatchery fish? That is, what would that effect be on wild fish? They call that hatchery supplementation since so many wild stocks (more than 50 percent) are endangered, in peril.

The research Robin goes over gets even more deep in terms of genetics and determining the status of coho salmon from WA, OR, and CA. That one was published in 1995.

Lots of work on wild populations and reproductive isolation and life history traits — they can be adapted to local areas.

He cited Valley Creek, near the Sawtooth mountains, where the salmon move from the ocean 900 miles away up to around 6,500 feet in elevation.

Of course, the questions from the audience include: what about the effects of climate change on the salmon community. Robin says there are tons of studies on how salmon sustainability will be changed by warming land and ocean areas. The southern range will have a more difficult time. The northern area will see salmon expansion as the ice recedes and the water gets warmer.

The big questions are around what sort of evolutionary changes can help them keep up. These are called evolutionary rescues, but he says warming seas might be too quick for that rescuing to occur.

Reduction in forests and such stream imperilment really affects salmon. Non-point source pollution is huge. More people are changing the land, through urbanization and agriculture. Rainfall and impervious surfaces add pollution loads. Robin states that there is great support for salmon, and most recent polls show 70 to 80 percent of people want to work with salmon mitigation and are willing to pay more for salmon survival and be taxed, as opposed to the spotted owl, with only gets 10 percent backing for massive tax increases to save them.

While Robin is not a fan of techno fixes, he is for more streamside tree planting for shading the homes of salmon to lower water temperatures. And making sure water from rainfall gets back into the system clean.

He notes that trout have been put everywhere around the world (trout being a cousin of salmon), and he notes that steelhead and chinook have been put into Patagonia rivers starting a hundred years ago. New Zealand has also introduced Pacific salmon there.

Here’s the talk,

I got to talk with Robin for a few minutes. We talked about his American Studies degree, and how he taught English at the University of Hawaii. And what got him into the sciences. We also mulled over why there is such a disconnect from his and his fellow scientists’ research and the average person including the fisher people who live here in our rural community fishing for rock fish, shrimp, crab, halibut, and other species.

Also discussed was the issue tied to K-12 students NEVER being at these events. And, alas, the problem of higher education pushing MBA programs and programs around coding and software application creation.

I introduced him to some of my work, with David James Duncan, with David Suzuki, and Tim Flannery and dozens of other groups, including Save Our Wild Salmon. And there is my “Interview with David James Duncan.”

 

See also “Flat-Earther Bush’s Style for Wild Salmon (Part III of III)
Saving Salmon, Saving Grace — Busting Dams,” August 31, 2005. And Part I & Part II.

Finally:

A Tribe Once Called “Power from the Brain”

---

How’d you end up in the Inbred Northwest… What act of fate dragged your Texas butt up here… You exchanged West Texas, Cormac McCarthy, real Tex-Mex food and sun for this? Or some variation on that theme greeted me when I first bivouacked in Spokane after heading to El Norte from “I fought the law but the law won” Bobby Fuller El Paso, Texas.

It was a hell of a Salmonidae journey, hitching my adult body and soul to the Pacific Northwest in the form of the Inland Empire, Spokane — “largest city between Seattle and Minneapolis,” they kept telling me. My olfactory memory burst with narrative skills by traveling the region as reporter, educator and environmental activist. Man, the work I did on writing about removing those four lower Snake River dams. Pieces on sustainable agriculture in Washington. Stories on the power of storytelling in this region of Earth.

This place is full of river-teeth; the place of Ice Age Floods’ erratic boulders dropped 12,000 years ago from ice rafts in the middle of the Willamette Valley; the ramming tectonics and ring of fire. Luckily for me, writers like Rick Bass, Lizzie Grossman, David James Duncan and so many others kept me busy as a desert salmon looking for some home stream back to the Pacific.

I left Sonora and then Chihuahua for Inland Salish land, where 24 distinct languages once ruled.

Npoqíniscn, or Spokane. For thousands of years the Inland Salish people here built permanent villages along these powerful rivers in order to connect to their lifeblood and make benedictions to brother-sister salmon. Over three million acres made up their distinct territory, and later other Indians introduced them to horses and plank houses.

It’s a place that encompasses a kind of hope trapped in the way the sun hits water through a stand of cedars and towering Douglas firs. “Sun People” Spokane is translated as, though I’ve talked to a few Spokane scholars who say it’s more closely, “the color of the sun reflecting through the water on a salmon’s back.”

That story dredging is what makes a place, place. The legend about my new home is even more poetic: “There was once a hollow tree. When an Indian beat upon it, a serpent living inside made a noise which sounded like spukcane, a phonetic sound without meaning in the tribe’s language. So, one day, as the tribe’s chief thought about those sounds, these vibrations reverberated from his head. Spukcane then blossomed to mean, ‘Power from the brain.’”

Even a thousand years ago marketing rued the day — Spukanee is what they ended up calling themselves. Children of the Sun.

One of my trips deeper into the spiritual and intellectual fabric of this place (new to me starting May, 2001) was with a contemporary Caucasian writer — David James Duncan. We were talking about dam breeching, slack water rivers, President Bush, war, salmon recovery, and writing. That was April 2008:

I’ve been surprised from time to time by the American people’s eagerness to vote for ways to increase their own suffering and their children’s destitution and Mother Earth’s degradation. But I refuse to despair. Salmon are my totem creature and salmon don’t despair. They keep trying to return home to their mountain birth houses and create a beautiful new generation no matter what kind of hellhole industrial man has made of their rivers. Mother Teresa spoke with the heart of a wild salmon when she said, ‘God doesn’t ask us to win. He only asks us to try.’ I’m in the business of trying. I leave the scorecard to the Scorekeeper.

That journey for me, those tallies by the proverbial Scorekeeper as Duncan frames it, is tied to salmon, as the corpuscles of that species have been in my bloodline for centuries. The blood of Celts and of Scots. Why not? The word “salmon” is from Old French: salmonem, salmo, maybe even from salire.

Salire — to leap.

My mother was born and raised in British Columbia, Powell River. The stench of the largest pulp mill in the world at that time was rotting the alveoli of her lungs and hundreds of others’ respiratory tracks, eventually resulting in emphysema, or what is referred to as COPD.

I remember from one stay there how I noticed a line of cars at the town’s free car washes when the day shift switched to night shift. Acid releases, ash snows, rotten egg winds, and automobile paint flaking.

Both her parents were from Ireland and Scotland ending up on the Sunshine Coast. Some call it Sechelt (shishalh) First Nation land, again, Salish (coastal).

I remember pulling in Coho and King salmon, huge ones in the 1960s. In fact, one that I hooked was close to my eight-year-old’s size, at seventy-five pounds. My Uncle Ted (not by blood, but my grandparents’ friend and boarder) had to take over for me, pulling on the rod with his tobacco-stained hands. His own tired lungs wheezed and rattled while he wrestled the magnificent muscular Chinook close to the gunnels while directing me to gaff it.

Here I was, on this boat along this dark-dark forested coast, with Uncle Ted, friend of my Irish-Scottish grandparents. Son of a chief, from the Sliammon Reserve, 20 miles north of Powell River.

That deep red heart and liver were still connected after Ted gutted it quickly — after some word in his native language he exhorted while proceeding to smash the salmon’s head. He put the heart and liver into an old bucket, the one we used to piss in. As I watched the rhythm of that seven-year-old fish’s power train still pulsating with life in salt water, after being eviscerated, dog fish sharks surfaced near us and gulls dive-bombed our foredeck. Just along the beach a mother and her two cubs paraded around that brown bear way, scenting our kill.

That was almost five decades ago.

Strawberries, spuds and these Douglas firs that stayed with me as shapes long after any J. R.R. Tolkien dreams.

Olfactory memory. I recall those smells on a dive boat off Honduras. I remember the taste of Sockeye blood when I was snorkeling off the Baja peninsula into the thrashing sailfish that was in the grips of a 12-foot hammerhead’s jaw.

Once in Vietnam, along the Laos border, in a bat cave with British and Vietnamese scientists, I tasted that Sechelt cedar fire when Uncle Ted took me and my sister to the “reservation” for a potlatch. Dried smoked salmon was on my deja vu mind in 2006 when I was with Nez Perce friends digging camas in a field near Lolo Pass, Idaho.

It’s cliche but apropos to think some of us are shaped by anadromous destinies, like the salmon, biologically programmed millions of years ago by small but mostly large geologic transformations, and the ice barriers, leaking rivers and creeks caused by melting ice. What got salmon going was the changing nature of the oceans cooling some 30 million years ago.

Theories abound, but the prevailing science says they started out as freshwater fish. Moved to the cold Pacific where nutrient rich waters attracted their ancestors.

That destiny to move, to follow some ancient walkabout song or subsonic calling, it’s been an arousing part of my life. I was born on the ocean — San Pedro, California — and then moved as an infant to the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia.

We moved like migrating salmon, hitching our lives to the tether of my old man’s military profession. I ended up teething on the island of Terceira, part of the Azores, Portugal, about 1,600 km west from Lisbon and 3,680 km east from New York City.

Fish, bread, saints and milagros. Miracles. And stories of fishermen hitting the open waters with poveiro boats launched from the Port of Póvoa de Varzim. Thirty oarsmen making it all the way to Newfoundland. Cod, sardine, ray, mackerel, whiskered sole, snook, whiting, alfonsino and salmon.

Also, tuna, migratory and strong. They’ve been recorded by modern biology traveling some 5,000 miles in 50 days. Albacora these fishermen call them.

Piano wires, hooks and barracuda brought up from the depths. I ate their flesh around beach fires, using colorful upturned boats as barriers from the whipping winds. These fishers talked of sperm whale hunts and monsters from the depths west in the Puerto Rico trench.

A uma profundidade de cinco milha, oito quilometros. More than 26,400 feet down.

Later in college, while working as a dive master in the Sea of Cortez, I was boning up for the History of Hispania course I was taking at the University of Arizona. I read about a 1755 earthquake in an undersea “fracture zone-subduction zone” off Portugal — near the Azores. It generated a giant tsunami that went both directions, as far as Caribbean islands. It killed more than 100,000 people and destroyed the city of Lisbon. It sapped Portugal as a going concern — European power — impacting in grand scale not only the religious thinking of the time but philosophical constructs.

Salmyo, Portuguese for salmon. Some of those old salty dogs talked about fishing a river along the Spanish border — Rio Mino — for salmon.

Atlantic salmon.

For me, Pacific salmon, a calling in Salish. Words whispered by the prince and his salmon people, lured me away from that walkabout. We ended up as a family moving to Paris, France, and then Munich and Edinburgh. We harbored in Arizona, where I became, of all things, a dive master. Then, Mexico, Central America, Belize. West Texas, New Mexico.

That home stream, that electromagnetic pull, got me to Spokane. I ended up working on a study guide for six through eight graders for Claire Rudolph Murphy’s Tsimshian tale, The Prince and the Salmon People.

I am here, in Vancouver, having traveled from Seattle via Spokane. I just finished work on two magazine pieces around the 70th Anniversary of Hanford, the Manhattan Project, also couched as the A-bomb. That was 2013. My pieces were on downwinders — those people throughout Washington, Idaho, Montana, California and Oregon hit with bursts or radioactive iodine 131. Secret government experiments during the cold war. Millions of gallons of radioactive waste in tanks buried along the Columbia.

The iodine 131 came with the winds and settled into feed, hay. The milk runs to Spokane from Pasco carried the radionuclide with them.

Stories of three-eyed salmon. Sheep born with two heads. My Nez Perce and Yakima Indian friends speak about young girls with cancers. Diseased thyroids for people in their twenties. Aches, pains, stomach ailments, early deaths. Stories of the Pacific Northwest, really, as those waters around Hanford leech into the mighty Columbia as it makes it way to the Pacific.

Salmon made me a storyteller. I have a sockeye tattooed on my right calf muscle. I listen to those sidebar stories. I listen to writers born in the Pacific Northwest. Born to tell the story of their own returned journey.

It’s a story etched in fossils a hundred million years old. Over and over, the stories, yet what is literacy unless we embrace the knowledge that rivers and streams have to be clean, unimpeded, free-flowing, and cold in order to harbor life, to make the salmon. To make warm-blooded storytellers.

David James Duncan:

To learn to live with the earth on the earth’s own terms is more important to me than literacy. I lived on the Oregon Coast at a time when the most ancient Sitka spruce groves in the world were being converted daily into the LA Sunday Times. There was, in my view, nothing in the Times’ stories of that era that compared in beauty or import to the trees that were slaughtered to create the newspapers. The news those trees were emitting was something invisible, called oxygen. The news those trees published constantly was keeping the planet alive. We killed them in the name of literacy.

The end

The Prince and the Salmon People Study Guide, Developed by Paul Haeder and Claire Rudolf Murphy

The post How Far Do We Go to Save a Species? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/24/how-far-do-we-go-to-save-a-species/feed/ 0 381697 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/24/how-far-do-we-go-to-save-a-species-2/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/24/how-far-do-we-go-to-save-a-species-2/#respond Fri, 24 Mar 2023 01:34:02 +0000 https://new.dissidentvoice.org/?p=138991

Robin Waples: University of Washington (NOAA Fisheries, retired)

Topic: On the shoulders of giants: Under-appreciated studies in salmon biology with lasting influence.

In 1675 Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

This idea epitomizes the way that science progresses by incremental steps, punctuated occasionally by major breakthroughs. But often it is the case that neither these ‘giants’ nor their research are well-known or even routinely recognized.

I discuss four such studies conducted in Oregon that have had a profound influence on scientific developments in salmon biology in subsequent decades:

1) a 1960s study of southern Oregon Chinook salmon that was the first documentation of what has come to be known as the Portfolio Effect;

2) a 1970s study of Deschutes River steelhead that was the first attempt to empirically evaluate genetic differences between hatchery and wild fish;

3) a 1980s study of family size variation in Oregon coho salmon that helped pave the way for entirely new lines of research; and

4) a 1980s report on age structure and relative fecundity for Oregon Coast Chinook salmon that provided crucial empirical data to help parameterize models of the rates of genetic drift and loss of genetic variability in Pacific salmon.

I attended the talk just to be in situ at this Hatfield Marine Sciences Center and see what this 76-year-old fellow had to say = Robert Snowden Waples, Jr., born  in Berkeley, California. He attended Palo Alto High School, where he excelled in swimming; he went on to Yale to major in American Studies and to swim, competing with the likes of future Olympians Don Schollander, John Nelson, and Mark Spitz.

He has been at the forefront of wild salmon (and now hatchery salmon) research. He has been cited more than 25,000 times, has a plethora of articles, and he is credited with helping put some teeth in the endangered species act for salmon wild species. That is, he and others worked on the various genetic lines within species so they might get special categorization.

The ESA was set forth to bring a species to a status where it doesn’t need that endangered status. There are more than 50 percent of salmon species listed under the ESA.

The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fisheries has been and up and down situation. There are 20 to 30 different stocks of Coho salmon, and with sockeye, resiliency, representation, and redundancy are key to keeping this ecological area sustainable, Robin states.

While the talk was dry, and there were no photos or videos, graphics from Madison Avenue, he did his talk hoping the audience there was keyed into learning about the top four articles influencing him and the science of salmon research. The first article he cited was “Biocomplexity and Fisheries Sustainability” concerning fall Chinook salmon on the Sixes River, OR.

Crazy science, including the slow work looking at adult returns using interesting criteria — fast to the ocean once hatched in home stream; a little time in the estuary after hatching; a lot of time in the estuary; a lot of time in home tributaries; yearlings staying in fresh water for a year.

What helps with survivability. While the 2, 3 , 4 and 5 year returns included mostly those in the third group = a lot of time in the estuary before maturing and heading to sea. This was done in 1965, without Google, the internet and so many other tools.

The next article on Robin’s top four list includes looking Deschutes summer steelhead and the genetic differences in growth and survival of Juvenile Hatchery and Wild Steehead Trout, Salmo gairdneri.

The question posed in the 1970s research includes: What if there were no hatchery fish? That is, what would that effect be on wild fish? They call that hatchery supplementation since so many wild stocks (more than 50 percent) are endangered, in peril.

The research Robin goes over gets even more deep in terms of genetics and determining the status of coho salmon from WA, OR, and CA. That one was published in 1995.

Lots of work on wild populations and reproductive isolation and life history traits — they can be adapted to local areas.

He cited Valley Creek, near the Sawtooth mountains, where the salmon move from the ocean 900 miles away up to around 6,500 feet in elevation.

Of course, the questions from the audience include: what about the effects of climate change on the salmon community. Robin says there are tons of studies on how salmon sustainability will be changed by warming land and ocean areas. The southern range will have a more difficult time. The northern area will see salmon expansion as the ice recedes and the water gets warmer.

The big questions are around what sort of evolutionary changes can help them keep up. These are called evolutionary rescues, but he says warming seas might be too quick for that rescuing to occur.

Reduction in forests and such stream imperilment really affects salmon. Non-point source pollution is huge. More people are changing the land, through urbanization and agriculture. Rainfall and impervious surfaces add pollution loads. Robin states that there is great support for salmon, and most recent polls show 70 to 80 percent of people want to work with salmon mitigation and are willing to pay more for salmon survival and be taxed, as opposed to the spotted owl, with only gets 10 percent backing for massive tax increases to save them.

While Robin is not a fan of techno fixes, he is for more streamside tree planting for shading the homes of salmon to lower water temperatures. And making sure water from rainfall gets back into the system clean.

He notes that trout have been put everywhere around the world (trout being a cousin of salmon), and he notes that steelhead and chinook have been put into Patagonia rivers starting a hundred years ago. New Zealand has also introduced Pacific salmon there.

Here’s the talk,

I got to talk with Robin for a few minutes. We talked about his American Studies degree, and how he taught English at the University of Hawaii. And what got him into the sciences. We also mulled over why there is such a disconnect from his and his fellow scientists’ research and the average person including the fisher people who live here in our rural community fishing for rock fish, shrimp, crab, halibut, and other species.

Also discussed was the issue tied to K-12 students NEVER being at these events. And, alas, the problem of higher education pushing MBA programs and programs around coding and software application creation.

I introduced him to some of my work, with David James Duncan, with David Suzuki, and Tim Flannery and dozens of other groups, including Save Our Wild Salmon. And there is my “Interview with David James Duncan.”

 

See also “Flat-Earther Bush’s Style for Wild Salmon (Part III of III)
Saving Salmon, Saving Grace — Busting Dams,” August 31, 2005. And Part I & Part II.

Finally:

A Tribe Once Called “Power from the Brain”

---

How’d you end up in the Inbred Northwest… What act of fate dragged your Texas butt up here… You exchanged West Texas, Cormac McCarthy, real Tex-Mex food and sun for this? Or some variation on that theme greeted me when I first bivouacked in Spokane after heading to El Norte from “I fought the law but the law won” Bobby Fuller El Paso, Texas.

It was a hell of a Salmonidae journey, hitching my adult body and soul to the Pacific Northwest in the form of the Inland Empire, Spokane — “largest city between Seattle and Minneapolis,” they kept telling me. My olfactory memory burst with narrative skills by traveling the region as reporter, educator and environmental activist. Man, the work I did on writing about removing those four lower Snake River dams. Pieces on sustainable agriculture in Washington. Stories on the power of storytelling in this region of Earth.

This place is full of river-teeth; the place of Ice Age Floods’ erratic boulders dropped 12,000 years ago from ice rafts in the middle of the Willamette Valley; the ramming tectonics and ring of fire. Luckily for me, writers like Rick Bass, Lizzie Grossman, David James Duncan and so many others kept me busy as a desert salmon looking for some home stream back to the Pacific.

I left Sonora and then Chihuahua for Inland Salish land, where 24 distinct languages once ruled.

Npoqíniscn, or Spokane. For thousands of years the Inland Salish people here built permanent villages along these powerful rivers in order to connect to their lifeblood and make benedictions to brother-sister salmon. Over three million acres made up their distinct territory, and later other Indians introduced them to horses and plank houses.

It’s a place that encompasses a kind of hope trapped in the way the sun hits water through a stand of cedars and towering Douglas firs. “Sun People” Spokane is translated as, though I’ve talked to a few Spokane scholars who say it’s more closely, “the color of the sun reflecting through the water on a salmon’s back.”

That story dredging is what makes a place, place. The legend about my new home is even more poetic: “There was once a hollow tree. When an Indian beat upon it, a serpent living inside made a noise which sounded like spukcane, a phonetic sound without meaning in the tribe’s language. So, one day, as the tribe’s chief thought about those sounds, these vibrations reverberated from his head. Spukcane then blossomed to mean, ‘Power from the brain.’”

Even a thousand years ago marketing rued the day — Spukanee is what they ended up calling themselves. Children of the Sun.

One of my trips deeper into the spiritual and intellectual fabric of this place (new to me starting May, 2001) was with a contemporary Caucasian writer — David James Duncan. We were talking about dam breeching, slack water rivers, President Bush, war, salmon recovery, and writing. That was April 2008:

I’ve been surprised from time to time by the American people’s eagerness to vote for ways to increase their own suffering and their children’s destitution and Mother Earth’s degradation. But I refuse to despair. Salmon are my totem creature and salmon don’t despair. They keep trying to return home to their mountain birth houses and create a beautiful new generation no matter what kind of hellhole industrial man has made of their rivers. Mother Teresa spoke with the heart of a wild salmon when she said, ‘God doesn’t ask us to win. He only asks us to try.’ I’m in the business of trying. I leave the scorecard to the Scorekeeper.

That journey for me, those tallies by the proverbial Scorekeeper as Duncan frames it, is tied to salmon, as the corpuscles of that species have been in my bloodline for centuries. The blood of Celts and of Scots. Why not? The word “salmon” is from Old French: salmonem, salmo, maybe even from salire.

Salire — to leap.

My mother was born and raised in British Columbia, Powell River. The stench of the largest pulp mill in the world at that time was rotting the alveoli of her lungs and hundreds of others’ respiratory tracks, eventually resulting in emphysema, or what is referred to as COPD.

I remember from one stay there how I noticed a line of cars at the town’s free car washes when the day shift switched to night shift. Acid releases, ash snows, rotten egg winds, and automobile paint flaking.

Both her parents were from Ireland and Scotland ending up on the Sunshine Coast. Some call it Sechelt (shishalh) First Nation land, again, Salish (coastal).

I remember pulling in Coho and King salmon, huge ones in the 1960s. In fact, one that I hooked was close to my eight-year-old’s size, at seventy-five pounds. My Uncle Ted (not by blood, but my grandparents’ friend and boarder) had to take over for me, pulling on the rod with his tobacco-stained hands. His own tired lungs wheezed and rattled while he wrestled the magnificent muscular Chinook close to the gunnels while directing me to gaff it.

Here I was, on this boat along this dark-dark forested coast, with Uncle Ted, friend of my Irish-Scottish grandparents. Son of a chief, from the Sliammon Reserve, 20 miles north of Powell River.

That deep red heart and liver were still connected after Ted gutted it quickly — after some word in his native language he exhorted while proceeding to smash the salmon’s head. He put the heart and liver into an old bucket, the one we used to piss in. As I watched the rhythm of that seven-year-old fish’s power train still pulsating with life in salt water, after being eviscerated, dog fish sharks surfaced near us and gulls dive-bombed our foredeck. Just along the beach a mother and her two cubs paraded around that brown bear way, scenting our kill.

That was almost five decades ago.

Strawberries, spuds and these Douglas firs that stayed with me as shapes long after any J. R.R. Tolkien dreams.

Olfactory memory. I recall those smells on a dive boat off Honduras. I remember the taste of Sockeye blood when I was snorkeling off the Baja peninsula into the thrashing sailfish that was in the grips of a 12-foot hammerhead’s jaw.

Once in Vietnam, along the Laos border, in a bat cave with British and Vietnamese scientists, I tasted that Sechelt cedar fire when Uncle Ted took me and my sister to the “reservation” for a potlatch. Dried smoked salmon was on my deja vu mind in 2006 when I was with Nez Perce friends digging camas in a field near Lolo Pass, Idaho.

It’s cliche but apropos to think some of us are shaped by anadromous destinies, like the salmon, biologically programmed millions of years ago by small but mostly large geologic transformations, and the ice barriers, leaking rivers and creeks caused by melting ice. What got salmon going was the changing nature of the oceans cooling some 30 million years ago.

Theories abound, but the prevailing science says they started out as freshwater fish. Moved to the cold Pacific where nutrient rich waters attracted their ancestors.

That destiny to move, to follow some ancient walkabout song or subsonic calling, it’s been an arousing part of my life. I was born on the ocean — San Pedro, California — and then moved as an infant to the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia.

We moved like migrating salmon, hitching our lives to the tether of my old man’s military profession. I ended up teething on the island of Terceira, part of the Azores, Portugal, about 1,600 km west from Lisbon and 3,680 km east from New York City.

Fish, bread, saints and milagros. Miracles. And stories of fishermen hitting the open waters with poveiro boats launched from the Port of Póvoa de Varzim. Thirty oarsmen making it all the way to Newfoundland. Cod, sardine, ray, mackerel, whiskered sole, snook, whiting, alfonsino and salmon.

Also, tuna, migratory and strong. They’ve been recorded by modern biology traveling some 5,000 miles in 50 days. Albacora these fishermen call them.

Piano wires, hooks and barracuda brought up from the depths. I ate their flesh around beach fires, using colorful upturned boats as barriers from the whipping winds. These fishers talked of sperm whale hunts and monsters from the depths west in the Puerto Rico trench.

A uma profundidade de cinco milha, oito quilometros. More than 26,400 feet down.

Later in college, while working as a dive master in the Sea of Cortez, I was boning up for the History of Hispania course I was taking at the University of Arizona. I read about a 1755 earthquake in an undersea “fracture zone-subduction zone” off Portugal — near the Azores. It generated a giant tsunami that went both directions, as far as Caribbean islands. It killed more than 100,000 people and destroyed the city of Lisbon. It sapped Portugal as a going concern — European power — impacting in grand scale not only the religious thinking of the time but philosophical constructs.

Salmyo, Portuguese for salmon. Some of those old salty dogs talked about fishing a river along the Spanish border — Rio Mino — for salmon.

Atlantic salmon.

For me, Pacific salmon, a calling in Salish. Words whispered by the prince and his salmon people, lured me away from that walkabout. We ended up as a family moving to Paris, France, and then Munich and Edinburgh. We harbored in Arizona, where I became, of all things, a dive master. Then, Mexico, Central America, Belize. West Texas, New Mexico.

That home stream, that electromagnetic pull, got me to Spokane. I ended up working on a study guide for six through eight graders for Claire Rudolph Murphy’s Tsimshian tale, The Prince and the Salmon People.

I am here, in Vancouver, having traveled from Seattle via Spokane. I just finished work on two magazine pieces around the 70th Anniversary of Hanford, the Manhattan Project, also couched as the A-bomb. That was 2013. My pieces were on downwinders — those people throughout Washington, Idaho, Montana, California and Oregon hit with bursts or radioactive iodine 131. Secret government experiments during the cold war. Millions of gallons of radioactive waste in tanks buried along the Columbia.

The iodine 131 came with the winds and settled into feed, hay. The milk runs to Spokane from Pasco carried the radionuclide with them.

Stories of three-eyed salmon. Sheep born with two heads. My Nez Perce and Yakima Indian friends speak about young girls with cancers. Diseased thyroids for people in their twenties. Aches, pains, stomach ailments, early deaths. Stories of the Pacific Northwest, really, as those waters around Hanford leech into the mighty Columbia as it makes it way to the Pacific.

Salmon made me a storyteller. I have a sockeye tattooed on my right calf muscle. I listen to those sidebar stories. I listen to writers born in the Pacific Northwest. Born to tell the story of their own returned journey.

It’s a story etched in fossils a hundred million years old. Over and over, the stories, yet what is literacy unless we embrace the knowledge that rivers and streams have to be clean, unimpeded, free-flowing, and cold in order to harbor life, to make the salmon. To make warm-blooded storytellers.

David James Duncan:

To learn to live with the earth on the earth’s own terms is more important to me than literacy. I lived on the Oregon Coast at a time when the most ancient Sitka spruce groves in the world were being converted daily into the LA Sunday Times. There was, in my view, nothing in the Times’ stories of that era that compared in beauty or import to the trees that were slaughtered to create the newspapers. The news those trees were emitting was something invisible, called oxygen. The news those trees published constantly was keeping the planet alive. We killed them in the name of literacy.

The end

The Prince and the Salmon People Study Guide, Developed by Paul Haeder and Claire Rudolf Murphy

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/24/how-far-do-we-go-to-save-a-species-2/feed/ 0 382853 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/21/uk-stokes-health-nuclear-fears-with-decision-to-send-ukraine-depleted-uranium-shells/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/21/uk-stokes-health-nuclear-fears-with-decision-to-send-ukraine-depleted-uranium-shells/#respond Tue, 21 Mar 2023 18:29:27 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/news/depleted-uranium-ukraine

Dismissing a warning from Russia that it would regard the deployment of Western depleted uranium munitions in Ukraine as an act of nuclear war, a top British defense official said Monday that the United Kingdom will send DU armor-piercing tank rounds to Ukrainian homeland defenders—a move condemned by peace campaigners in the U.K. and beyond.

Responding to a written question from Raymond Jolliffe, 5th Baron Hylton, a hereditary peer in the House of Lords, about "whether any of the ammunition currently being supplied to Ukraine contains depleted uranium," Minister of State at the Ministry of Defense Lord Annabel MacNicoll Goldie said that "alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor-piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles."

In addition to the British tanks, U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicles, as well as German Leopard 2 tanks can fire DU rounds—although American officials have not said whether such munitions would be included as part of military aid to Ukrainian forces fighting a yearlong Russian invasion.

Fired from tanks, aircraft, and field artillery, DU rounds—which are extremely dense—are ideal for piercing hardened armor. However, the exploding shells produce radioactive dust that contaminates soil, water, and air for many years. U.S. Army training manuals warn that DU contamination "will make food and water unsafe for consumption" and requires soldiers to wear protective clothing when in or near contaminated areas.

U.S. and allied forces fired DU munitions during the 1991 and 2003-11 invasions of Iraq, and in Syria during the campaign against Islamic State. Miscarriages, birth defects, and cancers soared in Iraq after both wars. According to one study, more than half of the babies born in Fallujah between 2007 and 2010 had birth defects. Among pregnant women in the study, over 45% experienced miscarriages in the two-year period following the battles for Fallujah. Geiger counter measurements of DU-contaminated sites in Iraqi cities have consistently shown radiation levels 1,000 to 1,900 times greater than normal.

"Like in Iraq, the addition of depleted uranium ammunition into this conflict will only increase the long-term suffering of the civilians caught up in this conflict," Kate Hudson, general secretary of the U.K.-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said in a statement. "DU shells have already been implicated in thousands of unnecessary deaths from cancer and other serious illnesses."

None

— (@)

"CND has repeatedly called for the U.K. government to place an immediate moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons and to fund long-term studies into their health and environmental impacts," Hudson added. "Sending them into yet another war zone will not help the people of Ukraine."

In January, Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control, cautioned NATO countries against giving Ukrainian forces DU shells, warning that "if Kyiv were to be supplied with such munitions for the use in Western heavy military hardware, we would regard it as the use of 'dirty nuclear bombs' against Russia, with all the consequences that entails."

"Another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer left."

Asked if the U.K.'s move brought the world closer to nuclear war, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told reporters Tuesday that "another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer left."

Responding to Goldie's announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin—who last week was hit with an International Criminal Court war crimes arrest warrant—said Tuesday that "if all this happens, Russia will have to respond accordingly, given that the West collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component."

On Telegram Tuesday, Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, decried what she called a "Yugoslav scenario," a reference to NATO's use of DU rounds during the 1999 air war in Serbia and Kosovo, which many believe caused a surge in leukemia in the region—both among the local population and foreign troops deployed there.

Zakharova added that "it is naive to believe that only those against whom all this will be used will become victims. In Yugoslavia, NATO soldiers, in particular the Italians, were the first to suffer. Then they tried for a long time to get compensation from NATO for lost health. But their claims were denied."

Numerous researchers and veterans groups believe DU may be the cause of the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome afflicting hundreds of thousands of U.S. and coalition troops, although in 2021 the Pentagon concluded there is "no link" between the illness and DU.

"CND has repeatedly called for the U.K. government to place an immediate moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons and to fund long-term studies into their health and environmental impacts."

Peace groups have long campaigned for a ban on DU munitions. The United Nations General Assembly last year approved an Indonesian draft resolution expressing concerns about "the health risks and environmental impact" of DU weapons and calling for a "cautionary approach" to their use. The vote was 147-4, with the U.S., U.K., France, and Israel dissenting and 24 nations abstaining.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/21/uk-stokes-health-nuclear-fears-with-decision-to-send-ukraine-depleted-uranium-shells/feed/ 0 381162 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/16/floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-censorship-bill-continues-to-be-blocked-after-eleventh-circuit-decision/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/16/floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-censorship-bill-continues-to-be-blocked-after-eleventh-circuit-decision/#respond Thu, 16 Mar 2023 21:33:55 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/florida-s-stop-w-o-k-e-censorship-bill-continues-to-be-blocked-after-eleventh-circuit-decision

In an important victory for professors, other educators, and students across Florida, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals left in place a preliminary injunction blocking Florida’s HB 7 — also known as the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop W.O.K.E. Act) — from being enforced in institutions of higher education, pending appeal. The procedural ruling maintains the preliminary injunction until the Eleventh Circuit issues a decision on the merits.

The previous order was issued in Pernell v. Lamb, a lawsuit filed by a multi-racial group of educators and a student in Florida colleges and universities challenging the discriminatory classroom censorship law that severely restricts Florida educators and students from engaging in scholarship about issues related to race and gender. The preliminary injunction immediately blocked the state from enforcing the law in institutions of higher education in Florida. And in separate litigation, Judge Mark Walker blocked the law from affecting Florida employers.

The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and pro bono counsel Ballard Spahr. Florida is one of more than a dozen states across the country that have passed at least 15 different laws aimed at censoring discussions around race and gender in the classroom.

“The court’s decision to leave in place the preliminary injunction is a recognition of the serious injury posed to educators and students by the Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” said Leah Watson, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “All students and educators deserve to have a free and open exchange about issues related to race in our classrooms — not censored discussions that erases the history of discrimination and lived experiences of Black and Brown people, women and girls, and LGBTQ+ individuals.”

The lawsuit argues the Stop W.O.K.E. Act violates the First and 14th Amendments by imposing viewpoint-based restrictions on educators (including professors, lecturers, and student teaching assistants) and students that are vague and discriminatory. Additionally, it argues the Stop W.O.K.E. Act violates the Equal Protection Clause because it was enacted with the intent to discriminate against Black educators and students.

“We are heartened by the court’s decision to leave in place the preliminary injunction issued by the federal court in November,” said Alexsis Johnson, assistant counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. “Institutions of higher education in Florida should have the ability to provide a quality education, which simply cannot happen when students and educators, including Black students and educators, feel they cannot speak freely about their lived experiences, or when they feel that they may incur a politician’s wrath for engaging in a fact-based discussion of our history.”

The bill specifically targets and places vague restrictions on educators’ ability to teach and discuss concepts around the legacy of slavery in America, white privilege, and anti-racism. In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced plans to prohibit “higher education institutions from using any funding, regardless of source, to support DEI, CRT,” and what he inaccurately calls “other discriminatory initiatives.” It’s yet another attempt to stop educators from teaching or even expressing viewpoints on race, racism, or gender that are disfavored by Florida lawmakers, even where those viewpoints are widely accepted and considered foundational information in their academic disciplines.

“We are pleased that the court protected the First Amendment rights of Florida students and educators by denying the State’s request for a stay,” said Jerry Edwards, staff attorney with the ACLU of Florida. “Lawmakers continue to threaten our democracy by attempting to curtail important discussions about our collective history and treatment of Black and Brown communities. This is an important step in preserving the truth, civil liberties, and a better future.”

The Stop W.O.K.E. Act imposes harsh penalties — including possible termination or loss of state funding — for educators who have been found to violate the law. As a result, universities across Florida have canceled or scaled back diversity and inclusion trainings and have taken down public-facing statements denouncing racism. This creates a hostile climate that stigmatizes discussions about race on campuses and generates fear among plaintiffs and other Black educators and students who teach or take coursework that touch upon race and gender issues.

“The movement to restrict academic freedom and curtail the rights of marginalized communities is as pervasive as it is pernicious,” said Jason Leckerman, litigation department chair at Ballard Spahr. “We are proud of the work we have done so far with our partners, the ACLU and Legal Defense Fund, but the fight is far from over. Today, we’ll take a moment to savor this result — and then we’ll keep working.”

The court’s refusal to lift the injunction during appeal could bolster similar challenges to classroom censorship efforts in Florida, and other states. Currently the ACLU has challenged similar classroom censorship laws in Oklahoma, which was the first federal lawsuit challenging one of these bills, and in New Hampshire, and awaits rulings in both cases.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/16/floridas-stop-w-o-k-e-censorship-bill-continues-to-be-blocked-after-eleventh-circuit-decision/feed/ 0 379954 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/13/accountable-us-statement-on-bidens-final-decision-on-willow-oil-and-gas-project/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/13/accountable-us-statement-on-bidens-final-decision-on-willow-oil-and-gas-project/#respond Mon, 13 Mar 2023 16:24:08 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/accountable-us-statement-on-bidens-final-decision-on-willow-oil-and-gas-project

River Valley Organizing (RVO), Toxic-Free Future, and other organizations signed the letter sent on Monday to agency leaders including EPA Administrator Michael Regan—which states that "to date, Norfolk Southern has done an extremely poor job of building trust with the community of East Palestine and other communities impacted by the disaster."

"We strongly recommend the U.S. EPA itself conduct the dioxin sampling or hire its own consultants to conduct the testing."

"To ensure this testing is adequately conducted, and to rebuild public trust, we strongly recommend the U.S. EPA itself conduct the dioxin sampling or hire its own consultants to conduct the testing," the letter continues. "Norfolk Southern should not be in charge of the dioxin sampling. This testing must be paid for by the responsible parties, not taxpayers."

Along with laying out what the groups believe should be detailed in the dioxin sampling plan—including goals, locations, detection limits, procedures, and laboratories used—the letter calls for allowing residents to weigh in before testing begins.

"All sampling data and test results should be made available to the public for review in a transparent and easily accessible format," the organizations argued. "This information must be accessible for review, given the need for results to be meaningful to impacted communities as well as to build trust through transparent action."

While the EPA has said that its own "monitoring for indicator chemicals has suggested a low probability" that dioxins were released as a result of the February 3 derailment and subsequent "controlled burn" of vinyl chloride, as the letter says:

Responders reportedly punctured and burned more than 115,000 gallons of vinyl chloride in uncontrolled conditions for numerous days, making it likely that dioxins and related chlorinated substances were formed and released into the communities surrounding the disaster site. Four train cars of polyvinyl chloride plastic also burned, also likely forming dioxins. There have been elevated levels of dioxins released in other major accidents involving chlorinated chemicals—from the 2004 explosion at the PVC plant in Illiopolis, Illinois, to the 1997 Plastimet PVC recycling fire in Ontario, to the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

The organizations also recommended that "the EPA work with other agencies to provide medical monitoring for impacted
communities, especially East Palestine and those in the combustion plume, that desire it."

"Communities surrounding and downwind of the derailment have a right to know whether the fire resulted in elevated concentrations of dioxins. The testing must be transparent and comprehensive," the letter asserts. "This would help demonstrate EPA's commitment to comprehensively responding to this disaster, rebuilding trust with East Palestine and other impacted communities, and advancing environmental justice."

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Leaders and experts at groups that signed the letter echoed its key messages in a statement Monday—including RVO co-executive director Amanda Kiger, who declared that "this community deserves to know what potential toxic chemicals they will have to live with for years to come due to Norfolk Southern's greed."

Just like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called forever chemicals, "dioxins are toxic even at very low levels of exposure," noted Mike Schade, director of Mind the Store, a program of Toxic-Free Future.

Stephen Lester, science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, highlighted that "exposure to dioxins can cause cancer, reproductive damage, developmental problems, immune effects, skin lesions, and other adverse effects."

"It's important for the residents of East Palestine that accurate and transparent testing for dioxin be done at the lowest levels possible, so that the residents can begin to understand the risks they face and can make informed decisions to protect their health," Lester said.

Others took aim at Norfolk Southern, which since the derailment has faced intense scrutiny for its safety culture and practices.

Given that "Norfolk Southern has obvious financial conflicts of interest in the outcomes of all environmental testing and public health evaluations," Dr. Ted Schettler, science director at the Science and Environmental Health Network, stressed the need for "rigorous oversight of the U.S. EPA, including strict quality control measures and split-sample testing."

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Judith Enck, a former U.S. EPA regional administrator who is now president of Beyond Plastics, said that "it is unfortunate that the EPA took a month to decide to test for dioxins, and then rather than doing it itself, is having Norfolk Southern consultants to do the actual testing."

"The testing plan is too limited and should be revised to require some testing inside people's homes, at schools, and air filters in schools and buildings and cars should be tested, not just soil," she added. "Rain has likely driven contaminants toward groundwater and that water should be tested over a period of months and year[s]."

Enck's comments came after she wrote in a New York Times opinion piece last week that the EPA should have "ordered comprehensive testing the very day of the burn" and "told residents, especially pregnant women and families with young children, not to return home until it was safe to do so."

"Instead, it timidly stood back, leaving local authorities, corporate interests, and rumors to fill the void," she charged. "In lieu of a comprehensive plan, the EPA appears to be playing a game of crisis whack-a-mole, waiting and then responding to the news cycle. This is no way to safeguard our communities."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/13/accountable-us-statement-on-bidens-final-decision-on-willow-oil-and-gas-project/feed/ 0 379175 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/11/denying-reports-white-house-says-no-final-decision-yet-on-willow-project/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/11/denying-reports-white-house-says-no-final-decision-yet-on-willow-project/#respond Sat, 11 Mar 2023 17:46:50 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/news/willow-project

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday denied reports that U.S. President Joe Biden would imminently approve the Willow Project, saying "no final decisions" have been made on the highly controversial $8 billion ConocoPhillips oil drilling endeavor in northern Alaska slammed by critics as a "climate catastrophe."

"Anyone who says there has been a final decision is wrong," Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday evening after outlets including Bloomberg, CNN, and The New York Timesreported that the Biden administration would green-light what would be the single-largest oil operation in the United States.

"President Biden is delivering on the most aggressive climate agenda of any U.S. president in history and spurring an unprecedented expansion of clean energy," the White House spokesperson added.

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Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—who supports the project—told the Times that she had not received notification of its approval.

"We are not celebrating yet, not with this White House," she said.

Climate campaigners, Indigenous groups, environmentalists, dozens of Democratic U.S. lawmakers, and others are vehemently opposed to what many have called a "ticking carbon bomb" and a "climate catastrophe."

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The Biden administration's own assessment of the project acknowledges that it "would likely incur spills," and the Interior Department has expressed "substantial concerns" about the proposal.

According to the Sierra Club:

Willow is sited in a vast Arctic landscape that provides critical habitat for birds from all over the world as well as animals like the caribou that subsistence hunters rely on to feed their families and communities. Native communities, like Nuiquset, are already dealing with the consequences of oil development in the region, including deteriorating air quality and a spike in respiratory disorders. Last year, a well in Conoco's Alpine Field blew out, spewing methane into the air and endangering residents of Nuiquset. These risks are already here, and Willow only makes them worse.

On Friday, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore called the proposed project "recklessly irresponsible," adding that "we must end the expansion of oil, gas, and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips."

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Len Montgomery, public lands campaign director at Environment America, told Common Dreams via email that "we need our leaders to think long-term. Clean energy, not oil, is our future."

"Allowing a brand new Arctic oil project to break ground in one of our most sensitive ecosystems would be short-sighted," Montgomery argued. "This project will exacerbate climate change and will directly harm caribou and polar bears. We are inspired by the outpouring of opposition against this project from across the country and we will continue our efforts to prevent the chillers, the ice roads, and the well pads from ever encroaching on this pristine area."

Quannah Chasinghorse—a Han Gwich'In and Sicangu/Oglala Lakota land protector, climate justice activist, and fashion model from Eagle Village, Alaska and the tribes of South Dakota—wrote in a CNNopinion article Friday that "ConocoPhillips has claimed that the Willow Project could create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent ones, along with needed oil, but at what cost?"

"We must change the narrative that the land serves us and only exists so that we can extract resources from it."

"Make no mistake, it will not only be local communities, or even Alaskans, who will feel the negative climate impacts of this project," she continued. "According to an analysis from the Center for American Progress, developing and burning oil from the Willow Project would produce up to 287 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. That's equal to the annual emissions of 76 coal power plants—a third of all coal plants in the United States."

"We must change the narrative that the land serves us and only exists so that we can extract resources from it," Chasinghorse asserted. "My elders tell me that if we take care of the land, the land will take care of us. We cannot live without healthy land. Not just us Gwich'in. All of us, everywhere"

"President Biden, stop the Willow Project," she added. "Stop climate chaos, before it's too late"

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/11/denying-reports-white-house-says-no-final-decision-yet-on-willow-project/feed/ 0 378842 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/09/president-biden-announces-budget-plan-that-republicans-immediately-reject-norfolk-southern-ceo-apologizes-for-train-derailment-abortion-providers-nervously-await-texas-judge-decision-on-abortion-pil/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/09/president-biden-announces-budget-plan-that-republicans-immediately-reject-norfolk-southern-ceo-apologizes-for-train-derailment-abortion-providers-nervously-await-texas-judge-decision-on-abortion-pil/#respond Thu, 09 Mar 2023 18:00:41 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=737592f872d6e557ea7b2231c64baec5

• President Biden outlines budget that Republicans vow is dead on arrival
• Norfolk Southern CEO apologizes at Senate hearing on train derailment – but won’t support bipartisan safety plan
• Immigrants rights groups urge update to registry allowing applications for permanent residency
• State sues Huntington Beach for failing to allow more housing
• State lawmakers seek to renew rules on use of facial recognition technology

 

 

Image: James St. John, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The post President Biden announces budget plan that Republicans immediately reject; Norfolk Southern CEO apologizes for train derailment; Abortion providers nervously await Texas judge decision on abortion pill: The Pacifica Evening News March 9 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/09/president-biden-announces-budget-plan-that-republicans-immediately-reject-norfolk-southern-ceo-apologizes-for-train-derailment-abortion-providers-nervously-await-texas-judge-decision-on-abortion-pil/feed/ 0 378363 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/06/lawsuit-challenges-biden-decision-to-open-73-3-million-acres-of-gulf-of-mexico-for-oil-leasing/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/06/lawsuit-challenges-biden-decision-to-open-73-3-million-acres-of-gulf-of-mexico-for-oil-leasing/#respond Mon, 06 Mar 2023 19:49:23 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/lawsuit-biden-gulf-oil-leasing Gulf community and environmental groups filed a legal challenge in federal court today to the Department of the Interior’s lease sale 259. The sale would offer 73.3 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing.

The Biden administration previously canceled this and other sales, citing delays and “conflicting court rulings.” Then Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) included provisions for Gulf of Mexico oil leasing in Biden’s landmark climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022. The sale is now scheduled for March 28, 2023, less than a month before the 13th memorial of the Deepwater Horizon BP Disaster.

While the Inflation Reduction Act directs the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to hold a lease sale, it does not require such a vast area to be auctioned to industry, nor does it exempt the sale from any existing laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act.

Lease sale 259 would offer up all unleased areas in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, which could lock in a massive drilling operation to extract more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years, directly contradicting the administration’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to clean energy.

The complaint notes that in approving this lease sale, BOEM did not consider the health hazards it will cause for Gulf communities living near oil refineries and other polluting infrastructure connected with offshore drilling. Nor did it adequately consider the grave climate harms of such a massive new source of fossil fuel development. The Gulf ecosystem and surrounding communities are already absorbing the impacts of climate change through sea-level rise, coastal erosion and increased storms.

This lease sale also jeopardizes the survival of endangered marine life. Five of the world’s seven species of sea turtles inhabit Gulf waters, and the Gulf is the exclusive home of the endangered Rice’s whale, whose numbers may have dwindled to fewer than 50 individuals.

Earthjustice, Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia on behalf of Healthy Gulf, Bayou City Waterkeeper, Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. It was filed against Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management following the final notice of lease sale 259.

Earthjustice and clients released the following statements:

“We're at a point where we should be moving away from fossil fuels, not enabling an astounding amount of drilling for more than a generation to come,” said Kristen Schlemmer, legal director and waterkeeper for Bayou City Waterkeeper. “For communities along the Houston Ship Channel, which are predominantly Black, brown, and lower-income, lease sale 259 creates an especially toxic combination of risks. More drilling means more facilities in their backyards. This will compound already elevated rates of cancer and heart and lung diseases, while also increasing risks during major storms.”

“BOEM must characterize the environmental impact of this lease sale, and include a full assessment of impacts on low-income and minority communities living near the petrochemical industries that process oil and gas resulting from this Gulf offshore leasing,” said Andrew Whitehurst, water program director for Healthy Gulf.

“Holding this offshore oil lease sale without careful environmental review is both unlawful and morally reprehensible,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “More oil drilling in the Gulf is too big a risk for the communities and wildlife living there, and too harmful to the climate. The Biden administration needs to end new extraction, phase out drilling, and start taking its commitment to climate action seriously.”

“This administration has pledged to oversee a historic transition to clean energy, but actions speak louder than words,” said Earthjustice attorney George Torgun. “We don’t need a billion new barrels of crude oil threatening people and ecosystems in the Gulf.”

“Selling off more of our lands and waters to the fossil fuel industry is the last thing we should do at a time when we need to be rapidly transitioning away from oil and gas to meet our nation’s climate goals and create a livable planet for all,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program. “Offshore drilling devastates millions of acres of nature, contributes to an increasing number of climate disasters, and creates a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions. While the IRA represents a historic step forward in achieving our nation’s climate goals, we cannot let the bad provisions of the bill, including oil and gas leasing, undercut what we stand to gain.”

“Yet again we find ourselves in the courtroom with the Biden administration over another unlawful and disastrous oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director of Friends of the Earth. “With each carbon bomb he drops, the president’s pledge to end oil and gas drilling feels long forgotten. BOEM should be proceeding with the utmost caution and ensuring that its oil and gas decisions comply with federal laws, not adding to our climate crisis.”

“As steward of the country’s public lands and waters, Interior has a duty to fully consider the harms offshore leasing can cause, from air pollution to oil spills, and beyond,” said Irene Gutierrez, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This vast lease sale poses threats to Gulf communities and endangered species — like Rice’s whale — while contributing to the climate crisis this region knows far too well. We are holding the agency to its obligation to carefully assess the fallout of this giveaway to Big Oil.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/06/lawsuit-challenges-biden-decision-to-open-73-3-million-acres-of-gulf-of-mexico-for-oil-leasing/feed/ 0 377447 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/01/rent-decision-by-supreme-court-will-allow-criminal-landlords-to-exploit-tenants/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/01/rent-decision-by-supreme-court-will-allow-criminal-landlords-to-exploit-tenants/#respond Wed, 01 Mar 2023 14:20:07 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/criminal-landlords-rent-repayment-order-supreme-court/ Britain’s highest court has maintained that certain landlords don't have to pay back rent if tenancy rules are broken

]]> Britain’s highest court has maintained that certain landlords don't have to pay back rent if tenancy rules are broken

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Ruby Lott-Lavigna.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/03/01/rent-decision-by-supreme-court-will-allow-criminal-landlords-to-exploit-tenants/feed/ 0 376262 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/28/this-is-not-a-difficult-decision/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/28/this-is-not-a-difficult-decision/#respond Tue, 28 Feb 2023 05:05:57 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/further/this-is-not-a-difficult-decision After his creator went on a loathsome tirade declaring black people "a hate group" that white people should "get away" from, once-amusing office drone and comic anti-hero Dilbert has been dropped by hundreds of newspapers, his distributor and his book publisher in a rare move of decency and solidarity befitting the close of Black History Month. Online, his still-bellicose creator Scott Adams is whining he's been "cancelled" for "being white." Nope, many argue. It's for "being a racist douchebag."

Born in 1989, the satirical comic strip starring vacant, chubby, office drone Dilbert - first or last name unknown - was at first lauded for capturing the zeitgeist of newly computerized, cubby-holed, white-collar corporate culture. Full Disclosure: When we still worked in a mainstream newsroom, we loved its deadpan skewering of that system's mind-numbing, soul-deadening bureaucracy, the lunacy it bred and the perseverance of so many dogged workers slogging through it. We also loved the evil Dogbert, Dilbert's dog, officially deemed "a sadistic megalomaniac, dreaming to conquer the world and enslave all humanity." At one point in his 34-year-career, Dilbert appeared in over 2,000 newspapers across the country; there were also dozens of books, a video game, a (short-lived) animated TV series and a gazillion coffee mugs and other merch. But maybe 'cause all good things come to end - and we're a fallible species - the deftness of Dilbert waned over the last decade as its creator ran out of ideas and, lamentably, ideals and became what Norman Solomon once called "an offbeat sugary substance that helps the corporate medicine go down.".

In recent years, the strip lost readers and bounced between distributors as Adams began his "long slide into right-wing buffoonery," mostly via a blog. By 2016 he'd become a loud-mouthed Trumper, with the ugly rants to prove it. Electing Hillary Clinton would "diminish" the role of men, women seeking equal pay were like "children demanding candy," if Biden was elected "there's a good chance you'll be dead within the year - Republicans will be hunted," the BLM movement was "a domestic terror organization," he'd lost three jobs "because I'm white," women are "treated differently by society for exactly the same reason children and the mentally handicapped are - it's just easier this way," he'd decided "to self-identify as a Black woman until Biden picks his Supreme Court nominee" (because) I don't want to completely take myself out of the conversation for the job." Last year, he introduced into the strip Dave the Black Engineer, his first black character in years, evidently just to mock "woke" culture, workplace diversity and the LGBTQ community; the tone around Dave was so blatantly nasty that 77 papers dropped the strip in response.

When he needed more time and space to rant, he started a “Coffee with Scott Adams” podcast. And in a now-infamous Feb. 22 episode - his "most expensive podcast right here" - he stepped in his own shit so deep much of America has decided, "You will get what you deserve, honky." In a rambling, racist tirade, Adams called Black Americans - yes, all of 'em - a "hate group" and advised white Americans - ditto - to "get the fuck away" from them." Triggered by a Rasmussen poll he didn't seem to realize stems from a 4Chan white supremacist campaign, he noted only 53% of Blacks agreed with the sentiment, "It's OK to be white." “Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people,” he said “Just get the fuck away...Because there’s no fixing this...You just have to escape. (So) I went to a neighborhood where I have a very low Black population." Bafflingly citing "the Mike Pence rule" on women, he added, "Every one of you should be open to making a racist personal career decision...which is completely allowable." We have no idea what that means, but it doesn't sound good.

The publishing industry seemed to agree. Hundreds of newspapers have dropped Dilbert, arguing they "believe in the free and fair exchange of ideas, but when those ideas cross into hate speech, a line must be drawn." The Washington Post ripped Adams' "recent statements promoting segregation." The Los Angeles Times, New York Times, San Antonio Express, USA Today Network cited his "hateful" and "discriminatory" comments. California's Press Democrat, noting the need for "a community conversation" about race, clarified, "It’s not canceling. It’s doing the right thing." Cleveland's Plain Dealer affirmed, "We are not a home for those who espouse racism...This is not a difficult decision." Each vowed to find a replacement that, per Michigan's MLive Media, "does not violate basic standards of decency and respect for others.” Adams' publisher also said they were dropping plans for an upcoming book, and in likely the most pricey repercussion, Adams' distributor said they will no longer syndicate the strip. But the news wasn't all bad: Elon Musk, God love him 'cause nobody else will, charged the media is now "racist against whites."

Meanwhile Adams, who doesn't know when to STFU, daily rails on Twitter against those who "hate me and are canceling me":"I haven't heard anyone disagree," "I was also labeled a misogynist, which I have come to understand is a synonym for male," and in vicious response to a thoughtful black reader - "Black people liked Dilbert. Black people didn’t try to take anything from you" - "Blocking you for being an asshole." All in all, there was much snark and little sympathy for a "rich white Trumper dude whining about how unfair things are": "I think you're confusing being white with being mediocre," "Hey Scott, I appreciate you taking the time to angrily respond to every tweet about this thing that didn’t happen," "I'm so sorry, Scott...I remember the day every white TV writer was fired for being white...It sounds crazy, since there haven't been any for so long!" and, noting Adams had admitted nobody watched his show, "You also seem incredibly charming and easy to work with, so that can't be it." And from another sorta fan, "Being an old racist white man isn’t special, but to be willing to burn your comfortable life down for that cred - Do you, Dilbert."

Finally, weirdly, there's Adams' "peculiar," little-noted claim he's "been identifying as Black for a while" - "I like to be on the winning team" - but now "it makes no sense as a white citizen of America (so) I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America," thus echoing "what white Americans have been saying for the past 400 years about Native Americans, African Americans, Vietnamese, Iraqis (and) many other people." Jon Schwartz runs through our bloody history: The 1629 Massachusetts charter that later helped "500 women, children, and other civilians become dead," Andrew Jackson's "benevolent removal" of 60,000 Indians and its "happy consummation" on the Trail of Tears, Teddy Roosevelt's claim “no (other) colonizing nation has treated the original savage owners of the soil with such generosity," slavery deemed "within the sanctions of justice and propriety," the Vietnam War dubbed "the most significant example of philanthropy extended by one people to another (in) our times," and Bush standing "ready to help the citizens of a liberated Iraq," eager for a well-deserved "outbreak of gratitude." And so to "the genuine distress" of Scott Adams: No wonder he's tired "of not getting the least bit of thanks."

"In a world of Scott Adams', be a Charles Schulz."

New and improved and hooded Dilbert.Strip by (blocked) Lukey McGarry

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/28/this-is-not-a-difficult-decision/feed/ 0 375862 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/08/green-groups-defend-biden-decision-to-delay-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/08/green-groups-defend-biden-decision-to-delay-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases/#respond Wed, 08 Feb 2023 22:07:15 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-delay-oil-gas-drilling

More than a dozen groups intervened in a case in Wyoming on Wednesday to defend the Biden administration's decision to postpone the sale of oil and gas leases in the state, arguing that numerous court ruling and settled laws have affirmed the U.S. Interior Department is free to determine when such sales will go forward—or whether they will at all.

The legal groups Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center are representing 17 national and local groups in the case, in which the state of Wyoming and two industry trade groups sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in December over its postponement of sales that had been planned for 2021 and 2022.

The BLM currently has several sales scheduled for 2023, covering nearly half a million acres, but as Friends of the Earth (FOE) said in a press statement Wednesday, the groups "want the court to order the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the BLM to hold lease sales every three months across the West"—despite warnings from energy experts and scientists that fossil fuel extraction must be phased out in order to avoid the worst effects of the climate emergency.

"Today's filing demonstrates that we refuse to sit back and allow Big Oil to push for policies that perpetuate dirty energy," said Hallie Templeton, legal director for FOE. "The law is crystal clear: the federal government holds broad authority over whether, when, and how to lease public lands for oil and gas development. The energy sector should be looking to the future of justly sourced renewable energy, not pushing outdated technology that exploits people and the planet."

FOE is joined by groups including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Citizens for a Health Community, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils in defending the Biden administration's decision.

A U.S. District Court ruling in Wyoming in September 2022 affirmed that the administration can postpone the sales, and the U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the agencies "have broad discretion to determine the timing and scope of lease sales, including not holding them at all," FOE said in the press statement.

\u201cNEWS RELEASE: Conservation groups to defend @POTUS administration postponement of oil, gas lease sales. Again.\n\nWe won this case last year, too.\n\nhttps://t.co/pN5NO55VgM @Earthjustice @Wilderness @foe_us @CenterForBioDiv @MTEIC @PRBResCouncil @NPCA @WildernessWork @SierraClub\u201d

— Western Environmental Law Center (@Western Environmental Law Center) 1675882076

Bob LeResche, a Powder River Basin Resource Council board member and chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils, noted that the industry has already "stockpiled" more than 9,000 approved federal drilling permits.

"Forcing Interior to lease without fully weighing public impacts is industry’s attempt to continue looting public resources by accumulating excess leases at bargain basement prices," said LeResche. "The industry could continue drilling and producing as normal for decades even with no new leases."

The postponement represents a correction of BLM's longtime practice of "blindly" leasing public lands for oil and gas drilling "without actually understanding the impacts of development," said Peter Hart, an attorney with Wilderness Workshop.

"Now the agency is working to reevaluate its oil and gas management and to assess impacts, like those that new development will have on the climate," he added. "It just makes sense to pause new leasing until the program is brought into this century, and it is well within the agency’s authority."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/08/green-groups-defend-biden-decision-to-delay-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases/feed/ 0 370980 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/08/green-groups-defend-biden-decision-to-delay-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases-2/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/08/green-groups-defend-biden-decision-to-delay-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases-2/#respond Wed, 08 Feb 2023 22:07:15 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-delay-oil-gas-drilling

More than a dozen groups intervened in a case in Wyoming on Wednesday to defend the Biden administration's decision to postpone the sale of oil and gas leases in the state, arguing that numerous court ruling and settled laws have affirmed the U.S. Interior Department is free to determine when such sales will go forward—or whether they will at all.

The legal groups Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center are representing 17 national and local groups in the case, in which the state of Wyoming and two industry trade groups sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in December over its postponement of sales that had been planned for 2021 and 2022.

The BLM currently has several sales scheduled for 2023, covering nearly half a million acres, but as Friends of the Earth (FOE) said in a press statement Wednesday, the groups "want the court to order the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the BLM to hold lease sales every three months across the West"—despite warnings from energy experts and scientists that fossil fuel extraction must be phased out in order to avoid the worst effects of the climate emergency.

"Today's filing demonstrates that we refuse to sit back and allow Big Oil to push for policies that perpetuate dirty energy," said Hallie Templeton, legal director for FOE. "The law is crystal clear: the federal government holds broad authority over whether, when, and how to lease public lands for oil and gas development. The energy sector should be looking to the future of justly sourced renewable energy, not pushing outdated technology that exploits people and the planet."

FOE is joined by groups including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Citizens for a Health Community, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils in defending the Biden administration's decision.

A U.S. District Court ruling in Wyoming in September 2022 affirmed that the administration can postpone the sales, and the U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the agencies "have broad discretion to determine the timing and scope of lease sales, including not holding them at all," FOE said in the press statement.

\u201cNEWS RELEASE: Conservation groups to defend @POTUS administration postponement of oil, gas lease sales. Again.\n\nWe won this case last year, too.\n\nhttps://t.co/pN5NO55VgM @Earthjustice @Wilderness @foe_us @CenterForBioDiv @MTEIC @PRBResCouncil @NPCA @WildernessWork @SierraClub\u201d

— Western Environmental Law Center (@Western Environmental Law Center) 1675882076

Bob LeResche, a Powder River Basin Resource Council board member and chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils, noted that the industry has already "stockpiled" more than 9,000 approved federal drilling permits.

"Forcing Interior to lease without fully weighing public impacts is industry’s attempt to continue looting public resources by accumulating excess leases at bargain basement prices," said LeResche. "The industry could continue drilling and producing as normal for decades even with no new leases."

The postponement represents a correction of BLM's longtime practice of "blindly" leasing public lands for oil and gas drilling "without actually understanding the impacts of development," said Peter Hart, an attorney with Wilderness Workshop.

"Now the agency is working to reevaluate its oil and gas management and to assess impacts, like those that new development will have on the climate," he added. "It just makes sense to pause new leasing until the program is brought into this century, and it is well within the agency’s authority."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/08/green-groups-defend-biden-decision-to-delay-oil-and-gas-drilling-leases-2/feed/ 0 370981 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/07/tory-mp-grills-government-over-decision-to-let-warlord-sue-journalist/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/07/tory-mp-grills-government-over-decision-to-let-warlord-sue-journalist/#respond Tue, 07 Feb 2023 14:25:08 +0000 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/alicia-kearns-yevgeny-prigozhin-leo-docherty-liam-byrne/ Conservative chair of Foreign Affairs Committee says she’s “aghast” and “appalled” at “shameful” granting of Prigozhin licence

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Jim Fitzpatrick.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/07/tory-mp-grills-government-over-decision-to-let-warlord-sue-journalist/feed/ 0 370501 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/01/earthjustice-responds-to-biden-administration-decision-advancing-conocophillips-willow-project/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/01/earthjustice-responds-to-biden-administration-decision-advancing-conocophillips-willow-project/#respond Wed, 01 Feb 2023 18:17:16 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/earthjustice-responds-to-biden-administration-decision-advancing-conocophillips-willow-project

"It remains unclear when House Republicans will bring the Omar resolution to the floor for debate and a final vote," The Hillreported. "Democrats still need to formally submit a separate resolution with their roster for the Foreign Affairs Committee." That is expected to happen by Thursday.

The GOP has sought for years to remove Omar, a principled critic of Israeli apartheid and Washington's role in perpetuating it, from the HFAC. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has unilateral authority to boot any lawmaker from a select committee, but because the HFAC is a standing committee, removing a member from it requires a full House vote.

On Tuesday night, after Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) introduced the measure to remove Omar from the HFAC over supposedly "antisemitic" remarks, the progressive lawmaker tweeted that "there is nothing objectively true in this resolution."

In response to Miller's argument that "Omar clearly cannot be an objective decision-maker on the Foreign Affairs Committee given her biases against Israel and against the Jewish people"—a contention that wrongfully equates criticism of Israel's colonization of Palestine with criticism of Jewish people—the Minnesota Democrat said that "if not being objective is a reason to not serve on committees, no one would be on committees."

In a Wednesday statement, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) called the House GOP's pending vote against Omar "the latest racist attack by the far-right to silence progressives in Congress who speak up for a human rights-centered foreign policy, including Palestinian human rights."

"The GOP is riddled with white nationalists and antisemites. It is infuriating and absurd that they are trying to distract from the bigoted hatred in their own party by attacking a progressive woman of color."

"Anti-Palestinian politicians and organizations" have long tried "to censor the Congresswoman's consistent calls for accountability for the Israeli government's apartheid and human rights violations against Palestinians," said JVP. "Sadly, these Republican attempts to attack Congresswoman Omar have been buoyed in the past by attacks on Palestinian rights advocates within the Democratic party."

According to Beth Miller, political director of JVP Action: "These attacks are happening because Congresswoman Omar is effective. Because she is a progressive. Because she is a Black Muslim woman. Because her values are universal and include fighting for Palestinians."

"The GOP is riddled with white nationalists and antisemites," said Miller. "It is infuriating and absurd that they are trying to distract from the bigoted hatred in their own party by attacking a progressive woman of color. Congresswoman Omar consistently calls for the Israeli government to be held accountable for its crimes—crimes the GOP would rather cover up."

Meanwhile, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Monday that the CPC "stands fully behind our deputy chair."

"Omar is a valued member of the Democratic caucus and of this Congress," said Jayapal. "Throughout her service in Congress and on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, she has brought her essential and unique voice and lived experience to bear: as a refugee, war survivor, and soon, as the first African-born ranking member on the Africa Subcommittee."

"You cannot remove a member of Congress from a committee simply because you do not agree with their views," Jayapal continued. "This is both ludicrous and dangerous. In the last Congress, Republican members were moved from committees with a bipartisan vote for endangering the safety of their colleagues. Speaker McCarthy is attempting to take revenge and draw false comparisons."

Jayapal praised the few Republicans "who have already rejected this idea" and expressed hope that "more will join them to state their opposition so it is not brought to the floor, or vote against it should it be brought to the floor."

As The Washington Post reported Wednesday:

Republican leaders have worked for weeks to ensure that there were enough votes to pass a resolution removing Omar from the committee through their razor-thin majority margin, which stands at three as Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) remains away from Washington recuperating from a traumatic fall. Opposition to the effort emerged last month as four lawmakers signaled that they wouldn't support the measure, citing concerns that it would continue a precedent set by former speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

But the inclusion of a provision in the four-page resolution, that Republicans argue provides due process to Omar, seems to have appeased at least one crucial voter, as Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) announced Tuesday that she would now support the measure. Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) have publicly suggested that they would vote against it before the resolution's text was released Tuesday, while Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has said he remained undecided. Republican leadership aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to outline private whip counts, said they have the votes to pass the measure whenever Democrats formally appoint Omar to her committee.

Jayapal affirmed earlier this week that Democrats "will stand strongly with Rep. Omar: an esteemed and invaluable legislator, a respectful and kind colleague, and a courageous progressive leader."

On Sunday, Omar argued that House Republicans are trying to oust her from the HFAC because they disapprove of having a Muslim refugee from Somalia on the panel, as Common Dreamsreported.

Omar has been the frequent target of Islamophobic bigotry, including from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which paid Facebook to host attack ads that endangered the lawmaker's life. Due to credible death threats, the Minnesota Democrat is often assigned security by the U.S. Capitol Police.

In her Sunday conversation with CNN's Dana Bash, Omar acknowledged that she apologized for the wording of her February 2019 tweets tying U.S. lawmakers' support for Israel to money from lobbyists—at the time, she specifically called out AIPAC, which has given millions of dollars to members of Congress.

The GOP's campaign to expel her from the HFAC "is politically motivated," Omar said. "In some cases, it's motivated by the fact that many of these members don't believe a Muslim, a refugee, an African should even be in Congress, let alone have the opportunity to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee."

On Monday, Omar asserted that her work on the HFAC has contributed positively to "advancing human rights, holding government officials accountable for past harms, and advancing a more just and peaceful foreign policy."

\u201cWe\u2019ve been clear in our work to center international law and human rights.\u201d

— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Rep. Ilhan Omar) 1675118259

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) concurred, tweeting Monday that Omar's work on the panel "matters deeply and Republicans' cowardly efforts to remove and silence her are a disgrace."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed Pressley, writing on social media: "It's shameful that Republicans are trying to remove her [from the HFAC] after smearing her for years. We need her voice, values, and expertise on the committee."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), meanwhile, noted that "Omar is once again facing ugly personal and political attacks with incredible courage and dignity."

"It is outrageous that the House leadership wants to boot her off the Foreign Affairs Committee," Sanders tweeted. "Fair-minded Republicans must join Democrats in preventing that from happening."

This article has been updated to include a statement from Jewish Voice for Peace.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2023/02/01/earthjustice-responds-to-biden-administration-decision-advancing-conocophillips-willow-project/feed/ 0 369090 https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/31/epa-issues-landmark-clean-water-act-decision-protecting-bristol-bay-watershed-from-pebble-mine/ https://www.radiofree.org/2023/01/31/epa-issues-landmark-clean-water-act-decision-protecting-bristol-bay-watershed-from-pebble-mine/#respond Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:19:11 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/epa-issues-landmark-clean-water-act-decision-protecting-bristol-bay-watershed-from-pebble-mine

Today, Earthjustice joins with a broad and unified coalition of Tribes, Bristol Bay residents, commercial and sport fishers, environmental organizations, businesses, and many others to celebrate the Environmental Protection Agency’s Final Determination protecting the Bristol Bay watershed under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act.

The EPA’s Final Determination is a hard-won victory by all those who have been fighting for decades to stop the Pebble Mine project. It follows an earlier decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to deny a key permit to Pebble Mine. Collectively, these decisions effectively spell victory in the decades-long fight to protect Bristol Bay from Pebble Mine.

Earthjustice is honored to stand with Tribes and other regional leaders – the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, Bristol Bay Native Association, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, local Tribes and municipalities, village corporations, non-governmental organizations, nonprofits and more – in thanking the EPA and the Biden Administration for listening to concerns raised by local and national stakeholders and taking this important step to protect this critical watershed and people it supports.

Two out of three Alaskans oppose the Pebble Mine and support these protections. If today’s Final Determination is challenged in court, as expected, those plaintiffs will not be representing the wishes of most Alaskans or many Americans.

Today’s decision is an important step in preserving Bristol Bay and its residents’ way of life. It will now be more important than ever for elected leaders to continue fighting to ensure Bristol Bay and its ecosystem will thrive and provide for future generations.

The following statements from Earthjustice and our clients were issued in response to today’s news. For additional quotes from the Bristol Bay region or to be connected with the Bristol Bay Defense Fund coalition, please contact Grace Nolan at grace@team-arc.com.

Bonnie Gestring, Northwest Program Director, Earthworks:

“We’re thrilled to see the Environmental Protection Agency fulfill its commitment to the people of Alaska to provide enduring protection for Bristol Bay, its economy, its salmon, and its people from the dangerous and destructive Pebble Mine. Congratulations to the Biden administration and EPA for seeing this landmark decision through. We are proud to stand in support of the Bristol Bay Tribes and commercial fishermen whose lives and livelihoods depend on this thriving fishery.”

Marc Fink, Senior Attorney, Center for Biological Diversity:

“We applaud the EPA for taking this critical step to protect the irreplaceable ecosystems of Alaska’s Bristol Bay. From salmon and grizzly bears to the rare Iliamna Lake seals, a remarkable array of wildlife depends on this watershed. This should be the final nail in the coffin of the disastrous Pebble Mine proposal, but we’ll keep fighting until this watershed is permanently protected.”

Erin Colón, Senior Attorney, Earthjustice:

“After a fierce, decades-long battle waged by the people of Bristol Bay and so many others, EPA today followed the law and science to establish enduring protections for the Bristol Bay watershed under the Clean Water Act. This is a major victory worth celebrating, but we cannot rest until even more permanent protections are in place. The Bristol Bay watershed is one of the world’s great ecosystems, and the way of life and the abundant future it supports is worth the fight. Earthjustice is committed to continuing to represent those who oppose unlawful and destructive mining projects like the proposed Pebble Mine.”

Background

Pebble Mine, a vast, open-pit copper and gold mine proposed in prime salmon habitat in the Bristol Bay watershed, has for decades threatened the way of life for the region’s residents and all others who depend on its abundant salmon populations. Today’s Final Clean Water Act Determination issued by the EPA should spell the end of the Pebble Mine proposal.

Years of litigation by Earthjustice and others on behalf of both regional and national clients have supported the coalition’s efforts to stop the Pebble Mine.

In 2010, six Bristol Bay Tribes asked the EPA to protect the Bristol Bay watershed from the Pebble Mine. An initial assessment released by the EPA in 2014 concluded a mine could have unacceptable impacts. Later that year, the EPA issued a Proposed Determination restricting the use of parts of the watershed to dispose of material from mining.

Unfortunately, Pebble Mine developers challenged those actions in three lawsuits against the EPA, asking the courts to throw out both the assessment and the Proposed Determination. Although those lawsuits did not succeed, EPA was temporarily blocked from finalizing the proposed protections.

Then in 2017, under the Trump administration, the EPA settled with the Pebble developers, agreeing to consider withdrawing its prior determination. Again, tens of thousands of concerned members of the public told the EPA to protect the Bristol Bay watershed. EPA reversed course and withdrew its prior determination to put protections in place.

In 2019, Earthjustice, representing Earthworks, joined Tribes, Tribal organizations, and many other Bristol Bay champions in a lawsuit challenging that withdrawal. Ultimately, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that the withdrawal was unlawful and reinstated the agency’s Clean Water Act decision process, clearing the way for EPA to follow the extensive scientific record supporting the need for protections. Earthjustice filed comments on behalf of Earthworks, Friends of the Earth U.S., and the Center for Biological Diversity urging EPA to finalize robust protections. Today’s Final Determination marks the culmination of that process.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — the federal agency leading the process to permit the Pebble Mine — denied the key permit for Pebble Mine on Nov. 25, 2020. The Corps decision highlighted many of the concerns that opponents of the project, including Earthjustice, have pointed out all along. That denial is under appeal by the Pebble Partnership.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

"Much of the water pollution from refineries is legal," EIP's report explains, "because EPA and the states have failed to set any limits on certain pollutants and have failed to update and modernize permit limits for other pollutants" despite the Clean Water Act's mandate that EPA does so. "But a portion of the problem is also illegal. As it turns out, EPA and state enforcement of existing permit limits for refineries is lax and rarely results in penalties for violations."

"Almost 83% of refineries (67 of 81) exceeded their permitted limits on water pollutants at least once between 2019 to 2021, according to EPA enforcement and compliance records," the report notes. "But only about a quarter of the refineries with violations (15 of the 67) were penalized during this period."

Other key findings of the report, titled Oil's Unchecked Outfalls, include:

• Wastewater discharged by 68% of the refineries examined (55 of 81) contributes to the "impairment" of downstream waterways—meaning they are too polluted to support aquatic life or allow for recreational uses like swimming or fishing.
• U.S. refineries are often old–averaging 74 years, but some dating back to the 1880s—and many have antiquated and inadequate pollution control systems. Most have also expanded over the last forty years, increasing both the volume and variety of pollutants they discharge. But EPA has not updated its standards for refineries since 1985.
• Two-thirds of the refineries examined by EIP (56 of 81) are located in areas where the percentage of low-income households within three miles exceeds the national average, and over half are located in areas where the percentage of people of color exceeds the national average.
• Sixty-seven refineries were flagged by EPA as violating permitted pollution limits 904 times between 2019 and 2021, including for dumping excessive amounts of cyanide, zinc, total suspended solids, ammonia, and oil and grease.

"Oil refineries are major sources of water pollution that have largely escaped public notice and accountability in the U.S., and too many release a witches' brew of contaminants to our rivers, lakes, and estuaries," EIP executive director Eric Schaeffer said in a statement. "This is because of lax federal standards based on wastewater treatment methods that are nearly forty years old."

"The Clean Water Act requires EPA to impose more stringent standards that reflect the advanced wastewater treatment methods available today," said Schaeffer, former director of civil enforcement at EPA. "After decades of neglect, EPA needs to comply with the law and set strong effluent limits for refineries that protect public health and environment. EPA and the states also need to start enforcing the limits that exist and penalizing polluters."

EIP identified which refineries are the top dischargers of key pollutants. When it comes to selenium, the Chevron El Segundo Refinery in California and the Motiva Port Arthur Refinery in Texas are the worst offenders, each dumping more than 12 pounds per day into local waterways. The Phillips 66 Wood River Refinery in Illinois and the BP Cherry Point Refinery in Washington pour out more nickel than any other facility in the country. El Segundo is also the biggest discharger of nitrogen, at 4,351 pounds per day, followed by the PBF Delaware City Refinery’s 3,283 pounds per day. For total dissolved solids, the worst offenders are the ExxonMobil Baytown Refinery (347,345 pounds per day) and the Valero Corpus Christi Bill Greehey Refinery (291,527 pounds per day), both in Texas.

EIP also documented the worst refineries for permit violations from 2019 to 2021. The Hunt Southland Refinery in Mississippi exceeded its permitted pollution limits 144 times during that time period but faced just two Clean Water Act enforcement actions totaling $85,500. The Phillips 66 Sweeny Refinery in Texas, meanwhile, ran up 44 violations but was hit with just a single $30,000 fine.

"After decades of neglect, EPA needs to comply with the law and set strong effluent limits for refineries that protect public health and environment. EPA and the states also need to start enforcing the limits that exist and penalizing polluters."

"EPA's national discharge limits for refineries apply to just ten pollutants, including ammonia, chromium, and oil and grease," states the report. "These skeletal standards do not begin to address the variety and volume of dangerous contaminants found in the wastewater from refining processes."

For example, the report documents that refineries are "a notable source" of toxic "forever chemicals" (PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), in part because they use firefighting foams that contain them. Even though PFAS have been linked to numerous adverse health impacts, EPA's newly released plan for regulating industrial discharges does not establish limits on these synthetic compounds in refinery wastewater.

"EPA's current rules for refineries are almost 40 years old, based on outdated treatment methods, and do not even apply to most of the pollutants that refineries discharge," says EIP's report. "EPA needs to waste no further time and move quickly to update these standards and impose the more stringent discharge limits the law requires."

"The states and the EPA also need to penalize permit violations more consistently so that refining companies have an economic incentive to clean up waterways," the report continues. "Currently, most violations by refineries are not penalized at all, and when they are, the amounts are paltry compared to the profitability of the industry. More stringent enforcement will provide a financial incentive for violators to update their pollution control systems and improve their operations to protect public health and the environment."

Bruze Reznick, executive director of Los Angeles Waterkeeper, lamented that "once again, the U.S. government has turned a blind eye while oil and gas companies pollute our environment, including our sensitive marine ecosystems, and disproportionately harm our frontline communities."

"We must now put the spotlight on oil refineries' essentially unregulated water pollution and demand that EPA fulfill its duty under the Clean Water Act by setting, updating, and actually enforcing discharge limits for these refineries," said Reznick.

He was echoed by Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, who said that "it's high time for EPA to crack down on the toxic pollution from oil refineries that's threatening both wildlife and human health."

EIP researchers argued that "EPA's failure to require the cleanup of refinery wastewater is a part of a wider pattern."

"Most of the discharge limits in effect today for industries across the U.S. were established well before the end of the last century," the report points out. "According to the latest state water quality reports, about half of America's rivers, streams, and lakes, and a quarter of our estuaries are too polluted to support aquatic life, swimming, fishing, or to supply drinking water. The 1972 Clean Water Act promised to make all waters fishable and swimmable, but we are only halfway home to that goal more than fifty years later."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Ruby Lott-Lavigna.

Photo by Jon Tyson

Denial at the top of the Democratic Party about Joe Biden’s shaky footing for a re-election run in 2024 became more untenable over the weekend. As the New York Times reported, investigators “seized more than a half-dozen documents, some of them classified, at President Biden’s residence” in Delaware. The newspaper noted that “the remarkable search of a sitting president’s home by federal agents — at the invitation of Mr. Biden’s lawyers — dramatically escalated the legal and political situation for the president.”

Donald Trump’s obstructive refusal to cooperate with the federal investigation into the far more numerous classified documents in his possession stands in sharp contrast with Biden’s apparently full cooperation with the Justice Department. Yet Biden now faces a documents scandal that’s sure to fester for quite a while — the average length of special counsel investigations has been upwards of 900 days — and the impacts on his plans to seek re-election are unclear.

Meanwhile, here’s an assumption so routine that it passes as self-evident among power brokers and corporate-media journalists: Democratic voters are presumed to be mere spectators awaiting Biden’s decision on whether to seek a second term. Hidden in plain sight is a logical question that remains virtually off-limits to raise in standard political discourse: Why not ask them?

What a concept. Biden could actually seek guidance from the Democratic base — the people who regularly turn out to vote for the party’s candidates, give millions of small-dollar donations and do priceless volunteer work in support of campaigns to defeat Republicans.

Biden’s decision on whether to run again should be seen as much more than just a matter of personal prerogative. Rather than treating it as such, Biden could put party and country first by recognizing that the essential Democratic task of defeating the Republican ticket in 2024 will require widespread enthusiasm from grassroots Democrats. Biden would be boosting the chances of beating the GOP by including those Democrats in the decision-making process as he weighs whether to officially declare his candidacy.

But there’s one overarching reason why the Biden White House has no interest in any such idea. The president doesn’t want to ask the question of loyal Democratic voters because he probably wouldn’t like the answer. His stance is clear: It’s my party and I’ll run if I want to.

A glimmer of that attitude showed through during a news conference shortly after the midterm election. Noting that “two-thirds of Americans in exit polls say that they don’t think you should run for re-election,” a reporter asked: “What is your message to them?” Biden’s reply: “Watch me.” Later, CNN and CNBC polls found that nearly 60 percent of Democrats didn’t want Biden to run again. Yet from all indications, he still intends to do just that.

Defying the wishes of most of the party’s voters could be spun as leadership, but a more fitting word is hubris. Whatever the characterization, it runs a serious risk of self-defeat. For instance, only wishful thinking leads to a belief that the Democratic presidential nominee next year can win without a strong turnout from those who represent the party’s bedrock base and its future — the young.

Biden’s “watch me” attitude is especially out of whack in relation to youthful Democratic voters. A New York Times poll last summer found that a stunning 94 percent of them under age 30 said they didn’t want Biden to be the party’s nominee. Such a disconnect spells trouble if Biden does run. Too many young people might heed the “watch me” attitude by declining to volunteer or vote for Biden before he goes down to defeat.

In normal times, a president’s renomination has been his for the taking. But in this case, when most of the party’s supporters don’t want him to run, exercising raw intra-party leverage to get nominated would indicate a high degree of political narcissism. It’s hardly a good look or an auspicious path.

If he runs in 2024, Joe Biden would be the foremost symbol of the status quo — not a good position to be in when faux populism will predictably be the name of the Republican game. In a poll last November, only 21 percent of registered voters told Hart Research that the country was “headed in the right direction” while 72 percent said it was “off on the wrong track.”

For the president, gaining the Democratic nomination next year would likely be much easier than winning the White House for a second time. If Biden is content to become the party’s nominee again while ignoring the majority of Democrats who don’t want him to run, he’ll be boosting the chances that a Republican will get to work in the Oval Office two years from now. To prevent such a catastrophe, grassroots Democrats will need to directly challenge the party elites who seem willing to whistle past the probable graveyard of Biden’s second-term hopes.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Norman Solomon.

Reports Sunday that President Joe Biden has chosen Jeff Zients to replace outgoing White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain were met with alarm among progressive watchdogs, who pointed to Zients' disastrous tenure as the administration's coronavirus czar as well as his history in the corporate world—where he built a fortune investing in healthcare companies accused of fraud.

Klain, who developed a solid working relationship with progressives in Congress, is expected to depart shortly after Biden's State of the Union address on February 7.

Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser called the elevation of Zients to White House chief of staff a "catastrophic decision," saying in a statement that "the Biden administration has been at its best when it has been on the attack against corporate excesses that wide majorities of Americans find abhorrent."

"Americans are appalled by profiteering in healthcare—Jeff Zients has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare," said Hauser. "Americans are aghast at how social media companies have built monopolies and violated privacy laws—Zients served on the Board of Directors of Facebook as it was defending itself against growing attacks from both political parties."

The Revolving Door Project's Daniel Boguslaw and Max Moran wrote for The American Prospect last year that Zients—who was replaced as Covid-19 response coordinator back in April—has "controlled, invested in, and helped oversee" healthcare companies that "were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud."

"They have also been accused of surprise-billing practices and even medical malpractice," Boguslaw and Moran noted. "Taken together, an examination of the companies that made Zients rich paints a picture of a man who seized on medical providers as a way to capitalize on the suffering of sick Americans. In the end, it seems to have all paid off."

"The most egregious violation is documented in a 2015 Justice Department settlement announcement," they added. "Portfolio Logic—the investment firm Zients founded with his own money—agreed to pay almost $7 million to resolve allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing, involving a subsidiary (Pediatric Services of America Healthcare, or PSA) that it purchased in 2007."

"Hopefully Zients will prove us wrong—but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."

Progressives have also been highly critical of Zients' performance in government.

In early 2022, Boguslaw urged the Biden administration to fire Zients over his "failure to "provide the materials necessary to improve the U.S. response" to Covid-19 "or the guidance necessary to keep the pandemic under control."

Following news that he would be leaving the coronavirus response post, Public Citizen's Robert Weissman lamented that Zients "refused to pay appropriate attention to global solutions to the global pandemic, because of political concerns or otherwise."

"And the Zients-led Covid response refused to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control, in the U.S. and globally, over technologies that relied crucially on public support," Weissman continued. "As a result, the United States and other rich countries failed to expand vaccine supply sufficiently to meet global need. Without adequate supply, efforts to bolster low-income country distribution and delivery systems consequently have lagged and been similarly under-resourced."

During his time as pandemic response coordinator, Zients was far and away the wealthiest member of Biden's cabinet, disclosing assets worth at least $89.3 million and as much as $442.8 million.

Citing the Revolving Door Project's work, progressive strategist Murshed Zaheed said Sunday that "Zients as a businessman embodies much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch led by a Democratic Party ought to be cracking down on."

But the Biden White House doesn't appear remotely concerned about Zients' corporate past.

With Biden expected to launch a bid for reelection in the coming weeks, The New York Timesreported that "the president could lean on" Zients to "help run the government while other advisers focus on the politics of winning a second term."

Hauser said Sunday that "hopefully Zients will prove us wrong—but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Reports Sunday that President Joe Biden has chosen Jeff Zients to replace outgoing White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain were met with alarm among progressive watchdogs, who pointed to Zients' disastrous tenure as the administration's coronavirus czar as well as his history in the corporate world—where he built a fortune investing in healthcare companies accused of fraud.

Klain, who developed a solid working relationship with progressives in Congress, is expected to depart shortly after Biden's State of the Union address on February 7.

Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser called the elevation of Zients to White House chief of staff a "catastrophic decision," saying in a statement that "the Biden administration has been at its best when it has been on the attack against corporate excesses that wide majorities of Americans find abhorrent."

"Americans are appalled by profiteering in healthcare—Jeff Zients has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare," said Hauser. "Americans are aghast at how social media companies have built monopolies and violated privacy laws—Zients served on the Board of Directors of Facebook as it was defending itself against growing attacks from both political parties."

The Revolving Door Project's Daniel Boguslaw and Max Moran wrote for The American Prospect last year that Zients—who was replaced as Covid-19 response coordinator back in April—has "controlled, invested in, and helped oversee" healthcare companies that "were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud."

"They have also been accused of surprise-billing practices and even medical malpractice," Boguslaw and Moran noted. "Taken together, an examination of the companies that made Zients rich paints a picture of a man who seized on medical providers as a way to capitalize on the suffering of sick Americans. In the end, it seems to have all paid off."

"The most egregious violation is documented in a 2015 Justice Department settlement announcement," they added. "Portfolio Logic—the investment firm Zients founded with his own money—agreed to pay almost $7 million to resolve allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing, involving a subsidiary (Pediatric Services of America Healthcare, or PSA) that it purchased in 2007."

"Hopefully Zients will prove us wrong—but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."

Progressives have also been highly critical of Zients' performance in government.

In early 2022, Boguslaw urged the Biden administration to fire Zients over his "failure to "provide the materials necessary to improve the U.S. response" to Covid-19 "or the guidance necessary to keep the pandemic under control."

Following news that he would be leaving the coronavirus response post, Public Citizen's Robert Weissman lamented that Zients "refused to pay appropriate attention to global solutions to the global pandemic, because of political concerns or otherwise."

"And the Zients-led Covid response refused to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control, in the U.S. and globally, over technologies that relied crucially on public support," Weissman continued. "As a result, the United States and other rich countries failed to expand vaccine supply sufficiently to meet global need. Without adequate supply, efforts to bolster low-income country distribution and delivery systems consequently have lagged and been similarly under-resourced."

During his time as pandemic response coordinator, Zients was far and away the wealthiest member of Biden's cabinet, disclosing assets worth at least $89.3 million and as much as $442.8 million.

Citing the Revolving Door Project's work, progressive strategist Murshed Zaheed said Sunday that "Zients as a businessman embodies much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch led by a Democratic Party ought to be cracking down on."

But the Biden White House doesn't appear remotely concerned about Zients' corporate past.

With Biden expected to launch a bid for reelection in the coming weeks, The New York Timesreported that "the president could lean on" Zients to "help run the government while other advisers focus on the politics of winning a second term."

Hauser said Sunday that "hopefully Zients will prove us wrong—but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday announced that an internal investigation failed to identify the person who leaked a draft of the Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had established a constitutional right to abortion.

The Court’s marshal, Gail A. Curley, who oversaw the inquiry, said investigators had conducted 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom had denied being the source of the leak. (In a one-page statement accompanying the report, Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, asserted that Curley’s team had conducted a thorough investigation and he could not “identify any additional useful investigative measures” they should have taken.)

This shouldn’t end the matter.

A modern Sherlock Holmes might well conclude that the leaker was … Justice Samuel Alito, Jr.

First, it’s unlikely any of the justices was interviewed. The report said all witnesses were told they could be dismissed if they refused to answer questions. That’s a dead giveaway: Supreme Court justices cannot be dismissed from their jobs.

Even if uncontroverted evidence emerges that Alito leaked the Dobbs decision, there’s nothing the Supreme Court could do to discipline him.

Second, Alito had a motive for leaking. He wrote the draft in Dobbs and got four other justices to tentatively sign on. He presumably wanted to lock them in. Leaking the draft was a way to do so.

Third, Alito is already under suspicion for leaking another draft Court opinion that he authored, which marked another triumph for the religious right.

On November 19, the New York Times quoted Christian minister Rob Schenck as claiming that in 2014 Alito divulged the outcome of a Supreme Court case known as Hobby Lobby, which he authored — weeks before the opinion was released to the public. According to Rev. Schenck, Alito’s leak occurred when he and his wife were dining with a couple who were secretly collaborating with Schenck. Hobby Lobby allowed religious exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement for certain for-profit corporations.

Alito has denied the allegation.

Even if uncontroverted evidence emerges that Alito leaked the Dobbs decision, there’s nothing the Supreme Court could do to discipline him. The Court has no code of conduct or rules of ethics. (Think Clarence Thomas.) Partly for this reason, public trust in the Supreme Court has been plummeting.

The last Congress introduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act which would, among other things, require the Court to adopt a binding code of conduct. With Republicans in control of the House, the current Congress is unlikely to do the same.

But the Court need not await Congress. If Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t want to be remembered as the Chief who allowed the Court to drown in disrepute, he will take the lead in creating clear ethical rules that all Supreme Court justices will swear to abide.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Robert Reich.

The New York Times recently asked the question: “Have the Anticapitalists Reached Harvard Business School?“ In past generations, Students at Harvard Business School, Yale School of Management, and other similar institutions would almost certainly learn that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud.”

This is Milton Friedman, in a famous 1970 Op-Ed, also published in the New York Times. Now, students of elite business schools are, apparently, dissatisfied with this purpose, and are eager to question and even challenge this fundamental assumption—at least for a while. “[M]anagement professors have realized that their students, more than in previous decades, are looking for lessons that go beyond accounting,” the Times reports. “They want to discuss business’s role in society, how it has created social ills and how it may help solve them. Mr. Rouen, at Harvard, said the demand for classes on social impact and E.S.G. had been so high that those themes had been integrated into nearly every introductory class, including accounting.”

This is not an entirely new development. A few years ago, the influential Business Roundtable issued a statement regarding corporate purpose. The statement suggested that—again, contrary to Milton Friedman—corporations should no longer strive solely to increase shareholder value. Corporations should also consider, the statement suggests, the needs of the corporation’s customers, employees, suppliers, and communities generally. Increasing shareholder value is still a goal, naturally. But this is the final point in the Business Roundtable’s statement, rather than first and foremost, as previously presumed.

If a new generation of CEOs, business school graduates, and management gurus can change the direction of global capitalism, address climate change, reduce poverty, etc., then we should all be grateful. But this entire discussion raises an obvious question. Why should these individuals choose the ultimate purposes of our most powerful corporations, rather than an institution that, at least theoretically, expresses the goals and values of the entire population—that is, the government and its legal system?

A corporation is, after all, a legal institution offering a certain benefit to entrepreneurs—limited liability. A state’s laws grant individuals, provided they file certain forms in certain state offices, the ability to conduct business in the name of a fictional person. The business’ liabilities are then limited, in all but very rare cases, to that fictional person. This protects the personal wealth of entrepreneurs. Individuals can engage in business enterprise without having to expose their personal assets to the liabilities of failure. My business might file for bankruptcy, but thanks to the protection of the laws of incorporation, the business’ creditors can’t seize my home if the business’ liabilities exceed its assets.

The social benefit of limited liability? It encourages entrepreneurship. Ostensibly, economic growth benefits everyone. But with looming environmental threats and persistent global poverty, students at even the most elite business schools are growing skeptical. As the Times reports, “Curtis Welling, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, asks his students every year whether capitalism needs to be reformed. A decade ago, roughly one-third said yes. This year, two-thirds said yes.”

This leads to the question of corporate purpose. Given that limited liability is a benefit granted to individuals by a society—specifically, by a state, through its laws—why shouldn’t the very laws which create the institution require beneficiaries (entrepreneurs) to consider the corporation’s customers, employees, suppliers, and communities generally, rather allow them not to and hope that they do?

In the U.S., corporate law already requires corporate bylaws to contain certain provisions for the protection of shareholders. In some countries, co-determination laws give workers representation on a corporation’s board of directors. There is no reason corporate statutes could not require all bylaws to consider the needs of customers, employees, suppliers, and communities in general, or even to offer other interest groups board representation. Perhaps communities subject to environmental pollution, for example, should have the same rights against the managers of corporations that shareholders have now. The possibilities are limited only by our imagination and political will.

If corporate protection is a creation of the state, then a constraint on its benefits is a condition on a state endowment rather than a limitation on some kind of a pre-state endowment or right.

To be clear, this legal entity, the corporation, is a creation of the state, not simply private individuals associating with each other. The individuals forming a corporation don’t have to get consent from all of the individuals in a society to limit their claims to the corporation’s holdings, rather than the proprietors’ personal property. Owners don’t have to convince us to treat their business as a different person. That protection is granted by the law.

This means constraining corporate purpose cannot possibly be said to “take” anything from the entrepreneurs which they would have had independently of the state, as taxation is often characterized. Nor is it a state imposition on private property, as regulation is often characterized. If corporate protection is a creation of the state, then a constraint on its benefits is a condition on a state endowment rather than a limitation on some kind of a pre-state endowment or right. No one has to incorporate, after all. Entrepreneurs who don’t want to take the concerns of the community into account when conducting business would be free to forego limited liability and put their personal property on the line.

If the problem is that corporations’ failure to take these other interests into account could cause social problems, then the law—which after all literally creates these entities—should address the problem. Corporate purpose should be constrained by something like Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act rather than the goodwill of enlightened CEOs and Harvard Business School grads.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jason Mays.

This morning, 112 organizations across 20+ states called on the Environmental Protection Agency to refer the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)’s decision to construct a new fossil gas plant and pipeline to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The organizations call for the CEQ to review the serious public health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel expansion. Read their letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan here.

“This is a matter in which the Biden Administration has power — and no required 50th Senate vote as a roadblock — to make good on its promises to tackle the global climate emergency. It is an issue of legacy where the EPA can either use its legal power to advance the clean energy economy, or, given the alternative of no action, can needlessly sign off on dangerous fossil fuel expansion,” the organizations wrote.

The organizations include environmental, faith, labor, and political activism associations at the national, statewide, and local levels. Organizations from states which receive their power from the TVA signed on, including groups based in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and North Carolina. They were joined by national organizations such as Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Friends of the Earth.

In their letter, the organizations point out that Section 309 of the Clean Air Act requires the EPA Administrator to refer government actions to the CEQ if agency heads fail to fully consider the public health and environmental impacts of their actions. The EPA’s own review of the TVA’s draft environmental impact statement on the issue found that it “does not fully quantify or adequately disclose the impacts of the GHG emissions from the proposed action and alternatives.” The CEQ can, in turn, refer a decision to the President.

The decision to replace two TVA coal plants with a new gas plant and pipeline was made by TVA CEO Jeff Lyash, who was a fossil fuel CEO for 17 years before joining the TVA. Under his leadership, Duke Energy leaked toxic chemicals into the sole source of drinking water for nearly one million North Carolina residents. Lyash’s TVA still generates 21 percent of its energy from coal and 26 percent from methane gas. It projects that it will emit over 34 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 2038.

Revolving Door Project Climate Research Director Dorothy Slater said: “The enormous response to this letter from the TVA’s own customers, and across the country, shows that Jeff Lyash does not have anything like a popular mandate to expand fossil fuels at the TVA. Administrator Regan needs to step up and faithfully execute the laws, as is his mandate.”

Read the organizations’ letter to Administrator Regan here. Slater wrote for The New Republic about Lyash and the fossil gas expansion last March.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This year's most notable decision affecting gender justice—the overturning of federal protection of the right to abortion in the US—happened more than 6,000 miles from Africa, but its impact was felt here too.

TheUS Supreme Court's decision will affect legal, policy and public service spheres on the African continent. It will also intensify the ideological war to control women's bodies and push LGBTIQ citizens further to the margins.

The loudest and most active conservative voices and efforts in Africa are often closely linked to the far right in the US and Europe.

African states havediverse abortion policies. For example, in Cape Verde and South Africa, abortion is available on demand—in theory if not in practice, especially for poorer women. In Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt and Gabon, however, it is prohibited without any exceptions. Between those two poles are dozens of countries that allow terminations in some circumstances.

Following the US reversal of Roe v Wade, I was among the African gender justice advocates who feared a domino effect on the continent. That hasn't happened. However, even though we haven't seen any changes to the law to further restrict abortion access, the US decision has definitely re-energised anti-abortion narratives.

After all, the loudest and most active conservative voices and efforts in Africa are often closely linked to the far right in the US and Europe.

Big wins for US conservatives on the home front will no doubt free up funds to invest in frustrating progress elsewhere, including Africa. In the past, US conservatives havefunded efforts in Malawi to dissuade the national parliament from expanding the circumstances in which abortion is permitted.

Looking forward to 2023 and beyond, Africa's feminist movements will have to reinvest in their own defence of bodily autonomy, in accordance with theMaputo Protocol. Adopted by the African Union in 2003, this treaty obliges countries to legalise medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother or the foetus isn't viable. But the ideological war extends beyond the control of pregnant bodies.

Thenewly elected president of Kenya, William Ruto, is acontroversial figure who has branded himself a Christian nationalist and spoken out against homosexuality. His firstexecutive order restricted state recognition of a family to heterosexual couples. This policy has been a priority for conservative Western movements active in Kenya, such asSpain's CitizenGo.

These movements and their powerful allies seek to protect a very colonial understanding of family in Africa over more expansive indigenous definitions of family. But Western conservatives' ideas are at odds with modern African realities. Increasingly, other forms of family are emerging across the continent in households headed by single women or children, or communal homes shared by queer people ostracised by their birth families.

The emerging forms of families will need feminist movements to continue fighting for their equal recognition and protection under the law. This is especially so because conservative movements will work to tip the balance against them.

These fights are important because so often, they are a matter of life and death for Africa's gender-oppressed peoples. In the last two years, at leasttwomen are reported to have bludgeoned their wives to death after learning they were using contraception. Meanwhile, a man in Kenya has sued his former partner for denying him the "right" to be on "her pregnancy journey", claiming that his desire to have children should take precedence over her feelings. LGBTIQ Africans can often be a target, too, as is suspected to have been the case forKenya's Sheila Lumumba andUganda's Matthew Kinono.

In isolation, these events may seem random but they are directly linked to the extremist conservative Western activism that the US reversal of Roe v Wade emboldened. This activism promotes false claims such as fetal personhood,spreads misinformation about contraceptives, pushes for women to be forced back into gendered family roles and stokesmoral panic about LGBTIQ people. Consequently, African feminism is faced with a considerable challenge—pushing African governments to protect their citizens from these dangerous influences.

Meanwhile, the disinformation and misinformation that propels these exclusivist movements is likely to get worse, especially as libertarian billionaires such as Elon Musk take over social media platforms like Twitter. AMozilla report published ahead of Kenya's general election in August showed how foreign groups can manipulate a country's public discourse through Twitter. The report's case study was CitizenGo's disinformation campaign against Kenya's 2020 Reproductive Health Bill, which was eventually defeated in parliament.

The failure and/or disinterest of Big Tech owners to regulate the abuse of their platforms will only embolden such bad faith campaigns, putting women, LGBTIQ and other marginalised communities at risk, just as in the offline world.

Arecent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate noted the increasing number of posts containing slurs since Musk took over at Twitter.

Meanwhile, national governments on the continent are increasingly intolerant of the speech of groups that hold them to account. They are passing laws such as Uganda'sComputer Misuse Amendment Act and arresting critics, as happened repeatedly in Nigeria this year.

Compounding these challenges for Africa's feminists is the fact that local elites and leaders lean towards conservative policies. In the two years since the Trump administration joined Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Uganda to co-sponsorthe notorious Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), it has gained further signatories: 36 countries, 17 of them in Africa, now support the aims of the GCD, which declares that "there is no international right to abortion". We are ending 2022 with the Ghanian government seemingly inclined towards a revised version of "the harshest anti-gay law in the world", which has been linked to US ultra-conservatives.

If the current trends do not decisively spell disaster, they are certainly a clear indication that African feminists and their allies have a steep uphill battle to fight in the culture war waged by Western conservatives.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Joy Asasira.

The legal team of human rights attorney Steven Donziger is challenging what he describes as the U.S. Department of Justice's "disastrous decision to side with Chevron and back private corporate prosecutions."

At issue is the DOJ's recently submitted brief in opposition to Donziger's pending appeal of his widely criticized contempt of court conviction. Donziger's reply to the Justice Department's December 16 brief was filed Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2011, a Donziger-led legal team representing more than 30,000 farmworkers and Indigenous people harmed by over three decades of oil drilling in Ecuador won an $18 billion judgment against Chevron for deliberately dumping more than 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater and other hazardous pollutants in the delicate Amazonian ecosystem—an act that caused a " rainforest Chernobyl." Punitive damages were later reduced to $9.5 billion.

Although the historic ruling against Chevron was upheld by the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, the oil giant moved its operations out of the country to avoid paying for cleanup, alleged that the $9.5 billion settlement had been fraudulently obtained, and launched what six House Democrats described last year as an "unjust legal assault" on Donziger.

In July 2019, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York, a former corporate lawyer with investments in Chevron, held Donziger in contempt of court for refusing to turn over his computer and cellphone, a move that would have disclosed privileged client information.

Soon after, Donziger began his "completely unjust" 993-day detention on a misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum sentence of six months.

Donziger has received support from United Nations human rights experts and nearly 70 Nobel Prize Laureates, including 1997 peace prize recipient Jody Williams, who argued in May 2021 that Donziger's house arrest and the criminal contempt case against him was a "gross miscarriage of justice" meant to dissuade others from challenging corporations' human rights violations and ecological crimes.

"If he's a principled lawyer taking on a powerful corporation and the justice system punishes him, that has a profound chilling effect."

Along with dozens of other Nobel prize winners, Williams asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Donziger's predicament, writing that "a high-level review will reveal that the case clearly is a violation of Mr. Donziger's rights and the rights of the affected communities in Ecuador."

Garland's DOJ, however, refused to reassert main jurisdiction over the case. Although the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York chose not to prosecute Donziger's misdemeanor contempt of court charge, Kaplan hand-picked a right-wing colleague, Judge Loretta Preska, to hear the case.

Kaplan and Preska, previously a leader in the Chevron-funded Federalist Society, then selected Rita Glavin, an attorney at Seward & Kissel LLP, to act as a special prosecutor even though her law partner was a former member of Chevron's board of directors and Chevron had been one of the firm's clients as recently as 2018.

Despite the fact that he had already been confined to his home for 24 months, including more than 20 months pretrial, Donziger was convicted by Preska in July 2021 and later sentenced to six months in federal prison, a term that he finished on house arrest.

Following Donziger's conviction, Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) sounded the alarm about the use of private prosecutors in the federal court system.

When Donziger was behind bars late last year, nine House Democrats implored Garland to "take immediate action" to secure his release.

"Donziger sits in a crowded federal prison because a Chevron attorney made it so, without executive branch supervision or ever seeing a jury of his peers," the lawmakers wrote. "As the United States is a party to the district court case against Mr. Donziger, we request that you act immediately to reclaim control of this case, dismiss the charges, and free Mr. Donziger from his imprisonment."

The DOJ declined to intervene on Donziger's behalf. So too did U.S. President Joe Biden, who was asked by more than 100 human rights groups to pardon Donziger.

An appeals court upheld Donziger's conviction in a split decision this June, two months after he was released. In September, Donziger appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, arguing that the DOJ's lack of supervision during his prosecution violated the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers.

Less than two weeks ago, the Justice Department filed a brief in opposition to Donziger's pending Supreme Court appeal, prompting the environmental lawyer's Tuesday response.

"Progressive movements rightly saw [Donziger's case] as an attempt to criminalize corporate accountability, and that hit a nerve," Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who was among the progressives pushing for Donziger's release, toldThe Hill on Tuesday. "If he's a principled lawyer taking on a powerful corporation and the justice system punishes him, that has a profound chilling effect."

"We can't become afraid of fighting for what's right," Bowman continued. "Donziger's work was important. I'm thankful he's free now, but he shouldn't have had to fight for that freedom."

According to The Hill, in interviews, "Donziger expressed concern that he was a test case for what he called the corporate capture of American civil institutions by energy giants like Chevron, with a goal of silencing opposition."

"The industry's figured out that if they can control the courts, or at least, influence them to a great degree, they can prevent themselves from being held accountable and obtain effective impunity for their misdeeds, for their wrongdoing, for their pollution, [and] for the harm they cause," Donziger told the outlet.

"That doesn't mean that we shouldn't use our courts," he added. "We must—there are ways to use them effectively in climate justice—but make no mistake about it, the U.S. federal courts right now are very hostile to climate cases" due to a decadeslong Republican campaign to create a judiciary friendly to Big Oil.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with WWL-TV and The Times-Picayune | The Advocate. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Rebuilding a home in a poor neighborhood can cost a lot more than the house is worth on paper. So after Hurricane Katrina, when the U.S. government decided that home values would factor into rebuilding grants, it left many Louisiana homeowners short.

Why the federal government required that has long been a mystery. It had rarely, if ever, allowed home values to be used to calculate rebuilding aid after a disaster. It doesn’t allow it anymore.

But it did for Katrina. That formula hurt poor neighborhoods, most of which in New Orleans were majority Black, according to an investigation published this week by WWL-TV, The Times-Picayune | The Advocate, and ProPublica.

Now, the news organizations have pieced together what led officials to use home values to calculate aid for Road Home, the largest housing recovery program in U.S. history. In Congress and the White House, leaders were worried about federal spending and how Louisiana corruption would come into play, the news outlets found.

So when Louisiana officials negotiated with congressional leaders and the White House, they settled on pre-storm value as a way to achieve two goals: Help Louisiana rebuild after an unprecedented disaster, but limit the size of the check.

In doing so, they created a system in which many poor homeowners would get less money than they needed to rebuild, perpetuating long-standing inequities in New Orleans.

“The tension was always, are the American taxpayers paying more than what the value was worth and what the current market held?” said Don Powell, President George W. Bush’s coordinator of Gulf Coast rebuilding.

“One man’s accountability,” he said, “is another man’s red tape.”

The back-to-back 2005 hurricanes of Katrina and Rita devastated south Louisiana, damaging or destroying 305,000 housing units. Most homeowners didn’t have sufficient insurance to cover all rebuilding costs. Louisiana leaders were concerned that without a massive injection of federal housing aid, communities would never recover.

In December 2005, Congress allocated $11.6 billion to Louisiana and Mississippi. Louisiana got $6.2 billion, of which state leaders said they would use about $4.5 billion to rebuild owner-occupied housing.

Those leaders said that wasn’t enough even to start a housing recovery program; the Louisiana Recovery Authority estimated it needed at least $14 billion to run what would later become Road Home.

State officials worked to convince the federal government to give them more. Powell was the intermediary.

“I was a fiduciary trying to represent the American taxpayer and trying to make sure that the people along the Gulf Coast were taken care of,” said Powell, now 81 and retired.

The negotiations were intense, he recalled, in part because of the fraught relationship between then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, and the Republicans who controlled the White House and Congress. Blanco, who died in 2019, had complained loudly when GOP-led Mississippi got almost half of the initial aid package, despite having just 20% of the damaged housing units.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., presented the biggest obstacle to getting more money, former Powell aide Taylor Beery said. Just days after Katrina, Hastert suggested large parts of New Orleans should be “bulldozed” and said spending billions of dollars to rebuild the city “doesn’t make sense to me.” (He later backtracked, saying he meant the city should be rebuilt in a way that protected residents.)

Louisiana’s reputation for graft also worked against it, according to former LRA officials. State leaders repeatedly promised to be good stewards of federal aid.

Beery and former LRA staffer Adam Knapp said factoring in the value of homes was raised in a series of meetings as a way to limit the price tag.

In January 2006, Powell said, three LRA board members — Xavier University President Norman Francis, shipbuilder Boysie Bollinger and investment banker David Voelker — went to Powell’s home in Amarillo, Texas, to make their case for more money.

Powell recalled that “several folks,” including “some staff members in Congress,” suggested using homes’ pre-storm value to limit grants. He doesn’t know exactly who first mentioned it, because federal and state staffers had already addressed a lot of those details beforehand.

Bollinger, a Republican who acted as a liaison between the Bush and Blanco teams, confirmed that pre-storm value was first brought up during those tense negotiations, but he doesn’t remember who raised it. Francis, who is 91, was not available to comment, and Voelker died in 2013.

Powell indicated there was no discussion about how using pre-storm value could lead to unequal impacts. “I think that’s one of the misfires,” he said.

When Louisiana leaders returned from Texas, they had a commitment from Congress to provide $4.2 billion more in recovery aid. Combined with the initial appropriation, Louisiana now had enough to run a $7.5 billion housing recovery program. (It ended up being a $10 billion program.)

LRA Executive Director Andy Kopplin and Walter Leger, who headed the LRA’s housing task force, introduced the housing plan a month later, in February 2006, with a presentation that read, “Louisiana contributes up to pre-storm value” to cover home repairs.

Without another disaster program to model it on, Leger said the LRA took cues from the Victim Compensation Fund set up after the Sept. 11 terror attacks — which was also designed to compensate people for their losses.

In order to get money to people as quickly as possible — and follow federal rules — Louisiana officials ended up compensating people for their losses even before they rebuilt, rather than reimbursing them for repairs as work was completed. HUD had to issue a waiver from its disaster aid rules to allow Louisiana and Mississippi to do that.

When HUD later approved similar waivers for Louisiana and Texas after hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008, the Federal Register entry said there was little data on how compensation money had been used during previous programs. The only examples it cited were the programs run by Mississippi and Louisiana after Katrina and Rita.

The U.S. government now forbids state and local governments from using HUD’s disaster recovery grants to compensate people for losses after a disaster, so home values are no longer a factor. Since 2010, HUD has required states to reimburse people for approved expenses, including repairs.

HUD made that decision after it and Louisiana settled a federal lawsuit in which Black homeowners and housing advocates alleged discrimination by Road Home.

“After the Road Home settlement, HUD made the decision that, for future disasters, it would not permit its recipients of disaster relief to distribute ‘compensation for loss’ directly to homeowners as an eligible use of that money,” De’Marcus Finnell, deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said in a written statement.

“HUD and other federal partners recognized the shortcomings of the federal response in Louisiana,” Finnell said, “and have worked to improve those programs in the 15 years since.”

Even after Road Home launched, the LRA changed how it would calculate grants several times, which resulted in larger grants. Each formula still capped initial awards at a home’s pre-storm value.

Under the final formula, approved in November 2006, damage assessments would be done on every home. Grants would be based on the home’s pre-storm value or its damage assessment, whichever was lower. Road Home would subtract any payments from insurance or FEMA, plus a penalty for those who didn’t have insurance. The maximum award was $150,000.

In interviews, former LRA board members and staffers said they realized factoring in home values would mean some people would get more help than others, but they thought an affordable loan program for low- to middle-income homeowners — later converted to a grant — would eliminate the gaps.

The news organizations’ analysis of state data found those additional grants helped. But even with that extra money, people in the poorest areas of New Orleans had to cover an average of 30% of their rebuilding costs after Road Home, FEMA aid and insurance. In the wealthiest areas, where residents had far more resources to draw on, the shortfall was 20%.

The state Office of Community Development took issue with the analysis, but none of the points it raised affected the news organizations’ findings. Leger and Kopplin said they found the findings troubling.

The first to make waves criticizing how grants were calculated was Melanie Ehrlich, a genetics professor at Tulane University School of Medicine. She had founded a grassroots organization, Citizens Road Home Action Team, to advocate for Road Home applicants.

In October 2006, she emailed Leger to ask him to allow applicants to choose whether their grants would be based on pre-storm value or the cost of rebuilding. By then, nine months had passed since that meeting in Amarillo.

Leger shot her down, saying the Road Home “has always contained a grant cap of the lesser of pre-storm value or $150,000.” He wrote, “Neither the limited budget nor time would allow for change in the cap.”

Later that month, Ehrlich sent Leger and other officials a chart showing that using pre-storm value on homes with lower appraisals meant people who needed the most help “are given the least help.”

Leger said he agreed and took her complaint to HUD officials. He got HUD to allow the state to include land values in property appraisals, but he said the agency still insisted that initial calculations had to be capped at the property value.

At the next LRA meeting in December 2006, Leger reported that HUD had insisted on limiting grants to pre-storm value, according to board minutes.

“This wasn’t and isn’t the way America should fund major disaster recovery,” Knapp said in an interview. Political battles led to budget shortfalls in Road Home, he said, and “budget was always the problem to the program design.”

Leger said he didn’t remember any of the 16 other LRA board members, including the eight Black members, ever raising concerns about inequitable impacts of the grant formula.

Two Black former board members, Francis and Virgil Robinson Jr., said in 2010 they never realized the formula could end up being discriminatory. This month, another Black former board member, Calvin Mackie, said he raised concerns about using home values but they were lost in the shuffle.

“Everyone was rushing to get a workable solution,” he said, “and get the money out the door.”

His father, whose home in the Gentilly neighborhood flooded in Katrina, didn’t get anything from Road Home, he said. “My dad died in the process of fighting for the money, and in the end we got $0,” Mackie said. “For me, it’s real. I’m still living it.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by David Hammer, WWL-TV.

The recent decision by the United States Department of Justice to open an investigation into the killing, last May, of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is not a game-changer, but important and worthy of reflection, nonetheless.

A real investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh could open up a Pandora’s box of other findings pertaining to Israel’s many other illegal practices and violations of international—and even US law.

Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel, and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for its illegal occupation of Palestine, one can confidently conclude that there will not be any actual investigation.

A real investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh could open up a Pandora’s box of other findings pertaining to Israel’s many other illegal practices and violations of international—and even US law. For example, the US investigators would have to look into the Israeli use of US-supplied weapons and munitions, which are used daily to suppress Palestinian protests, confiscate Palestinian land, impose military sieges on civilian areas and so on. The US Leahy Law specifically prohibits “the US Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”

Moreover, an investigation would also mean accountability, if it concludes that Abu Akleh, a US citizen, was deliberately killed by an Israeli soldier, as several human rights groups have already concluded.

That, too, is implausible. In fact, one of the main pillars that define US-Israeli relationship is that the former serves the role of the protector of the latter at the international stage. Every Palestinian, Arab or international attempt at investigating Israeli crimes has decisively failed simply because Washington systematically blocked every potential investigation under the pretense that Israel is capable of investigating itself, alleging at times that any attempt to hold Israel accountable is a witch hunt that is tantamount to antisemitism.

According to Axios, this was the gist of the official Israeli response to the US decision to open an investigation into the murder of the Palestinian journalist. “Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any other foreign country or entity,” outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, adding: “We will not abandon our soldiers to foreign investigations.” 

Though Lapid’s is the typical Israeli response, it is quite interesting—if not shocking—to see it used in a context involving an American investigation. Historically, such language was reserved for investigations by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and by international law judges, the likes of Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone and Michael Lynk. Time and again, such investigations were conducted or blocked without any Israeli cooperation and under intense American pressure.

In 2003, the scope of Israeli intransigence and US blind support of Israel reached the point of pressuring the Belgian government to rewrite its own domestic laws to dismiss a war crimes case against late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

Moreover, despite relentless efforts by many US-based rights groups to investigate the murder of an American activist, Rachel Corrie, the US refused to even consider the case, relying instead on Israel’s own courts, which exonerated the Israeli soldier who drove a bulldozer over the body of 23-year-old Corrie in 2003, for simply urging him not to demolish a Palestinian home in Gaza.

Worse still, in 2020, the US government went as far as sanctioning International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other senior prosecution officials who were involved in the investigation of alleged US and Israeli war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.

All of this in mind, one must then ask questions regarding the timing and the motives of the US investigation.

Axios revealed that the decision to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh was “made before the November 1 elections in Israel, but the Justice Department officially notified the Israeli government three days after the elections.” In fact, the news was only revealed to the media on November 14, following both Israel and US elections on November 1 and 7, respectively.

Officials in Washington were keen on communicating the point that the decision was not political, and neither was it linked to avoiding angering the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington days before the US elections nor to influencing the outcomes of Israel’s own elections. If that is the case, then why did the US wait until November 14 to leak the news? The delay suggests serious backdoor politics and massive Israeli pressure to dissuade the US from making the announcement public, thus making it impossible to reverse the decision. 

Knowing that a serious investigation will most likely not take place, the US decision must have been reasoned in advance to be a merely political one. Maybe symbolic and ultimately inconsequential, the unprecedented and determined US decision was predicated on solid reasoning:

First, US President Joe Biden had a difficult experience managing the political shenanigans of then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time as vice president in the Obama Administration (2009-2017). Now that Netanyahu is poised to return to the helm of Israeli politics, the Biden Administration is in urgent need of political leverage over Tel Aviv, with the hope of controlling the extremist tendencies of the Israeli leader and his government.

Second, the failure of the Republican so-called ‘Red Wave’ from marginalizing Democrats as a sizable political and legislative force in the US Congress has further emboldened the Biden Administration to finally reveal the news about the investigation—that is if we are to believe that the decision was indeed made in advance.

Third, the strong showing of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian candidates in the US Mid-term Elections - in both national and state legislative elections—further bolsters the progressive agenda within the Democratic Party. Even a symbolic decision to investigate the killing of a US citizen represents a watershed moment in the relationship between the Democratic Party establishment and its more progressive grassroots constituencies. In fact, re-elected Palestinian Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was very quick to respond to the news of the investigation, describing it as “the first step towards real accountability”.

Though the US investigation of Abu Akleh’s murder is unlikely to result in any kind of justice, it is a very important moment in US-Israeli and US-Palestinian relationships. It simply means that, despite the entrenched and blind US support for Israel, there are margins in US policy that can still be exploited, if not to reverse US backing of Israel, at least to weaken the supposedly ‘unbreakable bond’ between the two countries.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Photograph Source: שי קנדלר – CC BY-SA 4.0

The recent decision by the United States Department of Justice to open an investigation into the killing, last May, of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is not a game-changer, but important and worthy of reflection, nonetheless.

Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel, and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for its illegal occupation of Palestine, one can confidently conclude that there will not be any actual investigation.

A real investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh could open up a Pandora’s box of other findings pertaining to Israel’s many other illegal practices and violations of international – and even US – law. For example, the US investigators would have to look into the Israeli use of US-supplied weapons and munitions, which are used daily to suppress Palestinian protests, confiscate Palestinian land, impose military sieges on civilian areas and so on. The US Leahy Law specifically prohibits “the US Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”

Moreover, an investigation would also mean accountability, if it concludes that Abu Akleh, a US citizen, was deliberately killed by an Israeli soldier, as several human rights groups have already concluded.

That, too, is implausible. In fact, one of the main pillars that define US-Israeli relationship is that the former serves the role of the protector of the latter at the international stage. Every Palestinian, Arab or international attempt at investigating Israeli crimes has decisively failed simply because Washington systematically blocked every potential investigation under the pretense that Israel is capable of investigating itself, alleging at times that any attempt to hold Israel accountable is a witch hunt that is tantamount to antisemitism.

According to Axios, this was the gist of the official Israeli response to the US decision to open an investigation into the murder of the Palestinian journalist. “Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any other foreign country or entity,” outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, adding: “We will not abandon our soldiers to foreign investigations.”

Though Lapid’s is the typical Israeli response, it is quite interesting – if not shocking – to see it used in a context involving an American investigation. Historically, such language was reserved for investigations by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and by international law judges, the likes of Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone and Michael Lynk. Time and again, such investigations were conducted or blocked without any Israeli cooperation and under intense American pressure.

In 2003, the scope of Israeli intransigence and US blind support of Israel reached the point of pressuring the Belgian government to rewrite its own domestic laws to dismiss a war crimes case against late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

Moreover, despite relentless efforts by many US-based rights groups to investigate the murder of an American activist, Rachel Corrie, the US refused to even consider the case, relying instead on Israel’s own courts, which exonerated the Israeli soldier who drove a bulldozer over the body of 23-year-old Corrie in 2003, for simply urging him not to demolish a Palestinian home in Gaza.

Worse still, in 2020, the US government went as far as sanctioning International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other senior prosecution officials who were involved in the investigation of alleged US and Israeli war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.

All of this in mind, one must then ask questions regarding the timing and the motives of the US investigation.

Axios revealed that the decision to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh was “made before the November 1 elections in Israel, but the Justice Department officially notified the Israeli government three days after the elections.” In fact, the news was only revealed to the media on November 14, following both Israel and US elections on November 1 and 7, respectively.

Officials in Washington were keen on communicating the point that the decision was not political, and neither was it linked to avoiding angering the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington days before the US elections nor to influencing the outcomes of Israel’s own elections. If that is the case, then why did the US wait until November 14 to leak the news? The delay suggests serious backdoor politics and massive Israeli pressure to dissuade the US from making the announcement public, thus making it impossible to reverse the decision.

Knowing that a serious investigation will most likely not take place, the US decision must have been reasoned in advance to be a merely political one. Maybe symbolic and ultimately inconsequential, the unprecedented and determined US decision was predicated on solid reasoning:

First, US President Joe Biden had a difficult experience managing the political shenanigans of then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time as vice president in the Obama Administration (2009-2017). Now that Netanyahu is poised to return to the helm of Israeli politics, the Biden Administration is in urgent need of political leverage over Tel Aviv, with the hope of controlling the extremist tendencies of the Israeli leader and his government.

Second, the failure of the Republican so-called ‘Red Wave’ from marginalizing Democrats as a sizable political and legislative force in the US Congress has further emboldened the Biden Administration to finally reveal the news about the investigation – that is if we are to believe that the decision was indeed made in advance.

Third, the strong showing of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian candidates in the US Mid-term Elections – in both national and state legislative elections  –  further bolsters the progressive agenda within the Democratic Party. Even a symbolic decision to investigate the killing of a US citizen represents a watershed moment in the relationship between the Democratic Party establishment and its more progressive grassroots constituencies. In fact, re-elected Palestinian Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was very quick to respond to the news of the investigation, describing it as “the first step towards real accountability”.

Though the US investigation of Abu Akleh’s murder is unlikely to result in any kind of justice, it is a very important moment in US-Israeli and US-Palestinian relationships. It simply means that, despite the entrenched and blind US support for Israel, there are margins in US policy that can still be exploited, if not to reverse US backing of Israel, at least to weaken the supposedly ‘unbreakable bond’ between the two countries.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel, and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for its illegal occupation of Palestine, one can confidently conclude that there will not be any actual investigation.

A real investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh could open up a Pandora’s box of other findings pertaining to Israel’s many other illegal practices and violations of international – and even US – law. For example, the US investigators would have to look into the Israeli use of US-supplied weapons and munitions, which are used daily to suppress Palestinian protests, confiscate Palestinian land, impose military sieges on civilian areas and so on. The US Leahy Law specifically prohibits “the US Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”

Moreover, an investigation would also mean accountability if it concludes that Abu Akleh, a US citizen, was deliberately killed by an Israeli soldier, as several human rights groups have already concluded.

That, too, is implausible. In fact, one of the main pillars that define US-Israeli relationship is that the former serves the role of the protector of the latter at the international stage. Every Palestinian, Arab or international attempt at investigating Israeli crimes has decisively failed simply because Washington systematically blocked every potential investigation under the pretense that Israel is capable of investigating itself, alleging at times that any attempt to hold Israel accountable is a witch hunt that is tantamount to antisemitism.

According to Axios, this was the gist of the official Israeli response to the US decision to open an investigation into the murder of the Palestinian journalist. “Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any other foreign country or entity,” outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, adding: “We will not abandon our soldiers to foreign investigations.”

Though Lapid’s is the typical Israeli response, it is quite interesting – if not shocking – to see it used in a context involving an American investigation. Historically, such language was reserved for investigations by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and by international law judges, the likes of Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone and Michael Lynk. Time and again, such investigations were conducted or blocked without any Israeli cooperation and under intense American pressure.

In 2003, the scope of Israeli intransigence and US blind support of Israel reached the point of pressuring the Belgian government to rewrite its own domestic laws to dismiss a war crimes case against late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.

Moreover, despite relentless efforts by many US-based rights groups to investigate the murder of an American activist, Rachel Corrie, the US refused to even consider the case, relying instead on Israel’s own courts, which exonerated the Israeli soldier who drove a bulldozer over the body of 23-year-old Corrie in 2003, for simply urging him not to demolish a Palestinian home in Gaza.

Worse still, in 2020, the US government went as far as sanctioning International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other senior prosecution officials who were involved in the investigation of alleged US and Israeli war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.

All of this in mind, one must then ask questions regarding the timing and the motives of the US investigation.

Axios revealed that the decision to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh was “made before the November 1 elections in Israel, but the Justice Department officially notified the Israeli government three days after the elections.” In fact, the news was only revealed to the media on November 14, following both Israel and US elections on November 1 and 7, respectively.

Officials in Washington were keen on communicating the point that the decision was not political, and neither was it linked to avoiding angering the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington days before the US elections nor to influencing the outcomes of Israel’s own elections. If that is the case, then why did the US wait until November 14 to leak the news? The delay suggests serious backdoor politics and massive Israeli pressure to dissuade the US from making the announcement public, thus making it impossible to reverse the decision.

Knowing that a serious investigation will most likely not take place, the US decision must have been reasoned in advance to be a merely political one. Maybe symbolic and ultimately inconsequential, the unprecedented and determined US decision was predicated on solid reasoning:

First, US President Joe Biden had a difficult experience managing the political shenanigans of then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time as vice president in the Obama Administration (2009-2017). Now that Netanyahu is poised to return to the helm of Israeli politics, the Biden Administration is in urgent need of political leverage over Tel Aviv, with the hope of controlling the extremist tendencies of the Israeli leader and his government.

Second, the failure of the Republican so-called ‘Red Wave’ from marginalizing Democrats as a sizable political and legislative force in the US Congress has further emboldened the Biden Administration to finally reveal the news about the investigation – that is if we are to believe that the decision was indeed made in advance.

Third, the strong showing of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian candidates in the US Mid-term Elections – in both national and state legislative elections  –  further bolsters the progressive agenda within the Democratic Party. Even a symbolic decision to investigate the killing of a US citizen represents a watershed moment in the relationship between the Democratic Party establishment and its more progressive grassroots constituencies. In fact, re-elected Palestinian Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was very quick to respond to the news of the investigation, describing it as “the first step towards real accountability”.

Though the US investigation of Abu Akleh’s murder is unlikely to result in any kind of justice, it is a very important moment in US-Israeli and US-Palestinian relationships. It simply means that, despite the entrenched and blind US support for Israel, there are margins in US policy that can still be exploited, if not to reverse US backing of Israel, at least to weaken the supposedly ‘unbreakable bond’ between the two countries.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Adam Ramsay.