The submission details a sharp decline in media freedom in Georgia since the last review in 2021, as well as an ongoing crackdown on journalists and their newsrooms that appears designed to muzzle independent reporting.

Georgia, previously regarded as a democratic forerunner in post-Soviet Eurasia, is taking an authoritarian turn under the ruling Georgian Dream party, with mass protests against the country’s suspension of its European Union (EU) accession talks.

CPJ identified the following key areas of concern:

• Jailing of journalists on politically motivated charges. This includes the unwarranted pre-trial detention and trial of media manager Mzia Amaglobeli, who faces up to seven years in prison on charges widely condemned as excessive and retaliatory. A verdict is expected on August 1.

• Numerous large-scale incidents of apparently organized violence against journalists, particularly by law enforcement officers. For example, on July 5, 2021, more than 50 journalists covering a LGBTQ+ pride event in the capital Tbilisi were attacked by anti-LGBTQ+ protesters.

Between November 28, 2024, and May 1, 2025, rights organizations documented 145 incidents of attacks and other violations against 193 journalists reporting on protests against the suspension of EU accession talks, mostly by police. No police officers have yet been held accountable.

• The enactment of a raft of repressive laws targeting independent media.

These include:

-A 2024 “foreign agent” law and even harsher 2025 Foreign Agents Registration Act, with penalties of up to five years in prison;

-Amendments to the broadcasting law expanding the parliament-appointed regulator’s power to fine broadcasters and suspend their licenses;Amendments to the law on grants, requiring foreign donors to obtain government permission for grants. This adversely impacts online news outlets in particular, given their heavy reliance on foreign funding to ensure editorial independence;A “family values” law banning broadcasters from reporting on LGBTQ+ issues;

-Amendments to free speech laws abolishing key protections and facilitating defamation suits against the press.

–At least 16 foreign journalists have been denied entry since 2022. These denials appear to be in retaliation for critical reporting or views that conflict with Georgian Dream priorities.

–A significant increase in defamation lawsuits brought by politically influential individuals against critical media and journalists, with more than 40 such cases since 2021. These lawsuits, often referred to as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), aim to silence journalists.

–A sharp deterioration in access to public information and institutions. For example, in 2023 new regulations restricted journalists’ rights to film and conduct interviews in Parliament and granted Parliament the power to suspend their accreditation for violations. Since then, at least 15 journalists have had their accreditation suspended, all from critical media outlets.

–A marked rise in disinformation and hate speech.

Read the full 18-page report here.

Please send press inquiries to press@cpj.org.

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

Nobody has a bad word to say about the French Resistance in the Second World War, right?  Who would criticise a group confronting fascism, right?

Yet this month the UK group Palestine Action has been proscribed as a “terrorist” organisation by their government for their non-violent direct action against UK-based industries supplying technology to fuel Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people.

Are they terrorists or the very best of us in the West?

• READ MORE: Palestine Action: What has the group done, as it faces a ban?
• Other Israel’s Gaza genocide reports

Stéphane Hessel, a leading member of the French Resistance, survived time in Nazi concentration camps, including Buchenwald. After the war he was one of the co-authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), a pillar of international law to this day.

The Declaration affirms the inherent dignity and equal rights of all humans. In later years Hessel (d. 2013), who was Jewish, saw the treatment of the Palestinians as an affront to this and repeatedly called Israel out for crimes against humanity.

Hessel argued people needed to be outraged just as he and his fellow fighters had been during the war.

In 2010, he said: “Today, my strongest feeling of indignation is over Palestine, both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The starting point of my outrage was the appeal launched by courageous Israelis to the Diaspora: you, our older siblings, come and see where our leaders are taking this country and how they are forgetting the fundamental human values of Judaism.”

In his book Indignez-vous (Time for Outrage!) he called for a “peaceful insurrection” and pointed to some of the non-violent forms of protests Palestinians had used over the years.

“The Israeli authorities have described these marches as ‘nonviolent terrorism’. Not bad . . .  One would have to be Israeli to describe nonviolence as terrorism.”

How wrong Stéphane Hessel was on this point. The British Parliament has just proscribed Palestine Action as “terrorists” despite them having never attacked anyone, never used weapons, but only undertaken destruction of property linked to the arms industry.

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

On May 15, the Tamaulipas Electoral Institute (IETAM) ordered de Mauleón – one of Mexico’s most well-known investigative journalists – to take down his May 1 column, which mentioned corruption allegations against a relative of a candidate, Tania Contreras, in the northern state and to refrain from publishing articles linking her to criminal individuals or acts. The woman sued de Mauleón and his newspaper El Universal on May 15 for slander and political violence based on gender. De Mauleón was found guilty, but the dates of the verdict and his sentencing were not made public.

Such vexatious lawsuits are an increasingly popular tool for Mexican politicians to censor critical journalism, and CPJ has documented their use since 2016, when a court in Mexico City eliminated the maximum compensation plaintiffs could sue for in moral damages suits. Over the past five years, at least 158 journalists faced libel suits, according to the office in Mexico of Article 19, a London-based advocacy group and CPJ partner organization.

It’s a global trend. In Europe and the United States, Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation, commonly known as SLAPPs, are widely used as retaliatory measures to intimidate journalists and suppress public interest reporting.

Political violence based on gender

The crime of political violence based on gender, introduced in 2020, was designed to protect female candidates in a country where gender violence is among the highest in the world, including against women running for or holding public office, numerous studies found.

Reporter Arturo Ángel Arrellano Camarillo of Al Calor Político news site has been found guilty of the same crime in the eastern state of Veracruz. In January of this year he was ordered to pay an unspecified fine and reparations to Mara Chama, a woman he named in a 2021 article about politicians’ relatives running for office, according to the court ruling, reviewed by CPJ.

Arellano’s name will also be added to a register of Persons Sanctioned for Political Violence against Women held by the National Electoral Institute, which organizes Mexico’s federal elections.

“The rulings against journalists Héctor de Mauleón and Arturo Arellano are clear examples of judicial harassment, with politicians abusing the law to silence critical reporting – an increasingly common phenomenon in Mexico,” said CPJ Mexico Representative Jan-Albert Hootsen. “We call on Mexican politicians to stop bringing meritless cases to court to prevent the publication of news that is in the public interest.”

In both cases, lower courts rejected the charges, but their rulings were overturned.

The charges against the two journalists appear to be baseless, as there was no evidence of political violence or of the journalists singling out the women because of their gender, human rights lawyer Jorge Ruiz del Ángel told CPJ. “There appears to be little merit in these cases”, he said. “In either one the damage the articles would have caused is not clear, nor the specific component of gender.”

At risk

De Mauleón did not withdraw the article, despite the risk of arrest. He told CPJ that retracting it would create a dangerous precedent of self-censorship for journalists in Mexico.

He is used to being harassed over his work. For the last decade, De Mauleón been threatened multiple times for his reporting on organized crime, extortion, drug trafficking, and corrupt networks involving politicians and celebrities.

But this case concerned him because the court order was handed to him at his Mexico City home.

“I was told that my personal information was given to the IETAM, which I believe places me at risk,” De Mauleón told CPJ.

Mexico is the deadliest country in the Americas for journalists, according to CPJ research. Since 2020, 40 journalists and media workers were killed in work-related, or possibly work-related incidents, according to CPJ research. Mexico ranked eighth on CPJ’s 2024 Global Impunity Index.

CPJ made several attempts to reach Tania Contreras via calls to her campaign’s office in Tamaulipas and to Mara Chama via the Teocelo municipal government in Veracruz for comment, but none of the calls were answered.

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

The UPR, a United Nations mechanism that conducts a peer review of each member state’s human rights record every 4 ½ years, assesses progress made since the previous review cycle and provides recommendations on how countries can better meet their human rights obligations.

The joint report highlights an escalating crackdown on journalists, bloggers, and press freedom in Kuwait. It also raises serious concerns about the repression of the stateless Bedoon community and increasing restrictions on the rights to free expression, association, and peaceful assembly. The report documents harassment and attacks targeting journalists, human rights defenders, and former members of parliament.

CPJ’s UPR submission on Kuwait is available in English here and Arabic here.

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

The report, sent to the UPR on April 7, alerts of laws restricting freedom of expression and press freedom in Honduras; murders and attacks against journalists and indigenous media; threats to academic freedom and the limitation of equal participation of women journalists and authors in the media and publishing houses as well as violence against women journalists and historically marginalized communities.

Among 13 recommendations include the revision of the Protection Law and its regulations to strengthen the institutional protection mechanism; the repeal of crimes against honor to prevent further violations of the media and journalists; and the application of the necessary measures to ensure that an inclusive gender and diversity perspective is fully integrated into public and private cultural, journalistic and editorial programs.

Read the joint statement in English here and in Spanish here.

Read the full report in Spanish here.

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

Image by Markus Spiske.

The winds of March are roaring and everywhere you look peace is in the air, or at least that’s the impression you might get from eyeballing the latest headlines. Every other day it seems like another batch of barrel bomb-flipping butchers is getting together over finger sandwiches in the banquet room of a different five-star hotel to draw up plans for another ceasefire here or another peace deal there, but somehow people are still getting blown to bits all over the goddamn map.

We keep hearing how committed everyone is to peace in the Middle East and yet Benjamin Netanyahu seems to invade a new neighbor every other week, blasting through one red light after another and daring a very concerned international community to pull him over. The Europeans all shake their heads, but they keep cutting that psychopath checks instead of tickets between the endless procession of toothless interventions and talks about more toothless interventions. And we see a lot more of this same kind of shit going on over at the other global catastrophe in Ukraine.

While Donald Trump makes little secret about his desire to pave over the Gaza Strip and build a second Boca Raton on the mass graves, he’s hustling like a shit-eating European to keep Putin and Zelensky on the phone together. Every day we’re told by one of his sycophants that the mythic peace deal he promised to deliver on day one of his presidency is coming a little bit closer and yet cluster bombs are still dropping on both sides of Dnieper River.

In the latest peace fake out, just hours after agreeing informally to halting attacks on energy infrastructure, both Putin and Zelensky launched massive drone attacks deep into each other’s air spaces against pretty much every other kind of target. Yet the only time Trump ever turns off the tap of American artillery to Ukraine is when Zelensky hurts his feelings during another one those endless goddamn peace junkets.

The depressing reality here is that while peace talks may be in the air, talk is cheap among imperial death merchants. Powerful warlords like the ones in charge of the US and the EU frequently adopt a pacifist posture when their crusades begin to become toxic among their constituents back home, but this rarely amounts to much more than smoke and mirrors.

In no Babylonian hellhole is this truer than it is in Washington, where every president is a pacifist until his first war crime and sometimes even for a while after that. Richard Nixon was elected to end a war he would drastically escalate to downright genocidal proportions in Indochina. George W. Bush ran against the reckless Balkan interventionism of the Clinton regime before declaring war on pretty much everybody and Barack Obama ran on moving Dubya’s troops out of Iraq and back into the jaws of the Hindu Kush only to ship many of them back to Mosul anyway.

In spite of all the attempts by more liberal warmongers to paint Trump as some kind of Putinist Nevelle Chamberlain he is no exception to the rule. Donald spent his first term throwing freedom of navigation drills off the Russian coasts of the Black Sea while he shredded one Reagan era nuclear armistice after another. This Zionist rodeo clown isn’t a non-interventionist, he just poses like one for the cameras so he can appear vaguely principled while shaking down our fatted allies for spare change.

The really gross thing is that all this isolationist posturing, and empty peace talk seems to be souring entire generations of otherwise thoughtful people on the notion of minding our own goddamn business as a virtue. In Europe, the communists are turning to fascism again and in North America many of my fellow anarchists are beginning to sound like neoliberals. I see it online every day; well-intentioned social anarchists adopting a posture of hyper-internationalism that views isolationism with contempt and interventionism as woke, and all this does is push more equally well-intentioned rural populists away from the real solution to the globalism that they are perfectly right to detest.

The biggest problem in one warzone after another, from Yugoslavia and Iraq to Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, is that the Westphalian nation state makes citizenship an involuntary life sentence delivered at birth. If you look at maps of Ukraine and Israel over the last century alone, their borders convulse and contract like a cartographic cancer, trapping hundreds-of-thousands of people on either side of them like wayward sheep based on the arbitrary whims of whichever asshole signed the last peace deal between bloodbaths. Why should any population be expected to respect such flagrant madness?

Ukraine’s current borders are essentially a freeze frame of something slapped together by Stalin’s errand boys and then divided from Russia with Yeltsin’s equally unilateral divorce of the Soviet Union. No one in that cockamamy country had a say on any of this and the strife caused by chaining Novorossiyans and Ukrainians together before throwing away the key is what set the stage for opportunistic psychopaths like Victoria Nuland and Vladimir Putin to turn this region into a free fire zone.

The situation in Israel is even worse but fundamentally similar with the big thinkers of the so-called international community carving a hunk off of the Ottoman Empire’s corpse and then declaring it a Jewish homeland in spite of the fact of the Jewish population being a peacefully stateless minority in the region until the British began flooding it with Zionist lunatics from Europe. More recently, the same western know-it-alls of the global north have been giving lip service to the notion of a two-state solution, but even the ones who are serious about this posture fail to recognize that no matter where you draw the border, somebody gets cut off and fucked over just like the people of the Donbass and Ukraine.

If you study the demographic maps of both of these regions you will recognize that there are no straight lines to be drawn. Jews and Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox, all spattered across the board in pockets and enclaves like a Jackson Pollock painting. It looks like chaos until you realize that violence didn’t break out between these groups on any massive scale until other people began to organize them into states. Many empires rampaged across the Steppes and the Levant over the centuries but for the most part these regions remained largely decentralized and self-governed for thousands of years before the Nakbas and Holodomors started up.

The best way to respect the complicated diversity of these regions or any region for that matter is with a no-state solution based on the principles of pan-secession and panarchy. Allow any population of consenting citizens the right to form a nation anywhere at any time as long as that nation is governed by voluntary citizenship rather than geography. This way the members of a Palestinian caliphate could exist anywhere they herd their goats so long as any dissatisfied tribe of Bedouins is free to secede and form their own government whenever the spirit moves them.

That way Ukraine is free to secede from Russia, the Donbass is free to secede from Ukraine and Luhansk is free to secede from the Donbass without a single shot fired between them. This is the dream of panarchy or many anarchies; a world governed beneath a million flags with each flag free to represent any ideology or creed that its people desire so long as citizenship remains a choice, and boundaries are defined purely by who happens to occupy that patch of dirt at any given time.

This too would be a world of constant peace deals and ceasefires, but these would all occur daily and locally between neighbors over grazing rights and neighborhood charters. There would be little need for heavily armed jet sets of Bilderberg charlatans or massive global conglomerates like NATO and the European Union because people would no longer be governed by contrived cartels of belligerent bureaucrats that require industrial complexes just to wipe their ass. They would be governed by communities too small to bomb and markets too diverse to regulate.

You see dearest motherfuckers, at the end of the day, panarchy isn’t a philosophy, it is a universal peace deal between consenting citizens because all citizens deserve the right to consent to what governs them. Leave it to a state to make peace a dirty word but leave it to a million tribes to smash the state and make peace common sense again.

The post Panarchy is the Universal Peace Deal appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nicky Reid.

Nicaragua’s final UPR report was scheduled for adoption on March 26, during the 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council. However, the Nicaraguan State did not submit its report nor attend the session, leading to the suspension and postponement of the procedure. This comes after Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council in February 2025.

The joint statement warns that Nicaragua’s failure to complete the review process is a troubling sign of its ongoing disregard for international human rights standards and urges the Human Rights Council to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that the evaluation process can move forward.

Read the full statement here.

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

“Universal Basic Income Explained – Free Money for Everybody?“

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

President Donald Trump’s growing trade war against other countries is wreaking havoc on financial markets, upending the global trade system and angering long-standing U.S. allies. Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on a range of imports, including aluminum and steel, since his inauguration. Many countries have responded with their own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, though countries have also delayed or withdrawn some of the levies as the Trump administration makes near-daily changes to its trade policies. We speak with investigative journalist and author Dave Lindorff, who says the Trump administration’s drive to bring back manufacturing and other jobs that have been outsourced over the last several decades is ignoring the role of healthcare in raising costs. “The fact that we don’t have national healthcare here like they have in Canada … is making American industry not competitive,” says Lindorff.

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

The submission, dated July 16, 2024, was made ahead of Angola’s January 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR), during which the U.N. member states on the council will assess its human rights record and make recommendations for improvement in keeping with its human rights obligations under international law.

In the submission, CPJ, the Angolan Journalists’ Syndicate, and the Angolan chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa document four years of judicial harassment of journalists through criminal defamation and insult laws, suspension of broadcasts and broadcast permissions, harassment and detention of members of the press, and the enactment of new laws that will further restrict media freedom. The three organizations recommend that Angola improve its press freedom record, including by freeing journalist Carlos Raimundo Alberto, who has been detained since 2023, desisting from imprisoning journalists for their work, as well as abolishing criminal defamation and repealing other laws that criminalize journalism.

The full UPR submission is available in English here.

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

The UPR is a peer review mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council, through which the human rights records of the Council’s member states are reviewed every 4.5 years, and recommendations are made for improvement.

Since January 2020, authorities in Guinea-Bissau have undermined press freedom through physical and verbal attacks, arbitrary detention of journalists, and legal harassment, according to the October 2024 submission by CPJ, the local journalists’ union (Sinjotecs), and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). 

The three organizations recommend that Guinea-Bissau improve its press freedom record by investigating and ensuring accountability for past attacks on the press, ending arbitrary detentions and media shutdowns, repealing laws that criminalize journalism, and allowing the press to establish self-regulatory mechanisms.

The UPR submission is available in English here.

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

The U.N. mechanism is a peer review of each member state’s human rights record. It takes place every 4 ½ years and includes reports on progress made since the previous review cycle and recommendations on how a country can better fulfill its human rights obligations.

CPJ’s submission, together with the MENA Rights Group, a Geneva-based advocacy organization, and the local human rights groups Press Freedom Advocacy Association in Iraq and Community Peacemaker Teams Iraq, shows that journalists face threats, online harassment, physical violence, and civil and criminal lawsuits.

The submission notes an escalating crackdown on civic space in Iraq where crimes against journalists are rarely investigated, fueling a cycle of violence against the press, while public officials have voiced anti-press rhetoric and attempted to limit access to information.

Iraq is ranked 6th in CPJ’s Global Impunity Index 2023, with 17 unsolved murders of journalists, and is one of the few countries to have been on the Index every year since its inception in 2007.

CPJ’s UPR submission on Iraq is available in English here.

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

The submission, prepared for Nicaragua’s Universal Periodic Review in 2024, documents the government’s use of various tactics to silence journalists, including media shutdowns, property confiscations, and the suppression of independent reporting. The report highlights how press freedom has been systematically dismantled during the 2019-2023 review cycle.

The coalition of organizations aims to bring these ongoing violations of free expression and access to information to the attention of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The submission’s findings are based on data collected and analyzed by the signatory groups, emphasizing that these abuses continue without consequence.

Read the full submission here.

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

Republican vice-presidential nominee Ohio Senator JD Vance has doubled down on his sexist remarks that Democrats are led by “childless cat ladies,” claiming the party is anti-family. He made the original comment on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in 2021. He has also previously suggested parents should be given more votes than childless people. “I just find the entire line of attack to be ridiculous and also unpopular,” says New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose, who notes that Republicans generally also oppose paid leave, universal child care and other policies that make it easier to have families. “There’s still this idea that if you are a woman, unless you bear children, you are somehow less than.”

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

  Rolling Stone (6/10/24)

Janine Jackson: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, fresh off revelations of a “Stop the Steal”-denoting upside-down flag flying at his Virginia home while the Court was deciding whether to hear a 2020 election case, was captured on tape responding to a question about how to address the polarization between left and right in this country. Quote: “One side or the other is going to win. I don’t know, I mean, there can be a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised,” close quote. 

Given what we understand Alito sees as his side, how this sits with you has something to do with your understanding of the role of the Supreme Court, its ethics and accountability, and in terms of some justices, how much brazenness is too much? Joining us now to to think about it is FAIR editor Jim Naureckas. He’s here in studio. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Jim Naureckas.

Jim Naureckas: Hey, it’s always great to be here.

JJ: Well, what do you think was actually revealed in this captured conversation? As CNN (6/12/24) said, Alito’s religious zeal, you know, he talks at one point about making the US a place of godliness. That’s been evident in his statements and his opinions. So what is noteworthy about this latest?

JN: I think there is a bit of a mask being taken off with this statement. If you look at his rulings, the way he votes, he clearly is coming from a place of Christian nationalism. I think that the people who are doing a read on his jurisprudence would agree on that. 

But it’s always framed in the idea of universal values, of constitutional principles. When he flies a flag endorsing the overthrow of the US government, he blames it on his wife. He always has an out, and I think he doesn’t have so much of an out here. When he says one side or the other is going to win, clearly he wants his side to win. He’s not a neutral observer on the sides. He’s on the side of what he calls “godliness.” 

I think that is important for us to recognize and important for journalists who are covering the Court to take these statements into account when they talk about the rulings that Alito authors and the votes he takes. They should be put in this context.

JJ: Well, absolutely, and that’s kind of the next thing I was going to say, because the filmmaker Lauren Windsor, you know, but we should know that when Alito was talking to her, she was just a woman that he was talking to at a public event, but she asked him about public trust in the Supreme Court, and he said he blames the media, quote, “because they do nothing but criticize us, and so they have really eroded trust in the Court,” close quote. Well, of course, what a lot of folks would say is the Court is eroding trust in itself, but building on what you’ve just said, a lot of folks might say, well, actually, elite media have, through commission and omission, been kind of propping up the idea that the Court is dispassionate, long past the idea where we’ve seen that that’s not true.

In a typical headline, the New York Times (6/14/24) obscures the partisan nature of a recent Court ruling. In the article, the paper writes that the 6-3 decision “split along ideological”—rather than partisan—”lines.”

JN: Yeah. When you see there’s a real difference in the way that journalists cover the Supreme Court versus Congress versus the White House. When Congress does something, they talk about how the Democrats voted and how the Republicans voted, and you can see that there’s generally a substantial difference along party lines. The president is identified by party, and a Democratic president does certain things differently than Republican presidents, hopefully. 

That is not usually the case when they’re discussing Supreme Court rulings. They don’t say “there was a six to three ruling from the Supreme Court. The six Republican appointed justices voted one way, and the three Democratic appointed justices voted the other way,” and they should. It’s a political branch of the government, like the other two branches of government. They are not applying universal principles as philosopher kings. They have, as Alito’s statements make very clear, partisan allegiances, and they have outcomes that they’re trying to achieve through their votes and through their rulings, and that should be made clear when journalists are talking about the Supreme Court.

JJ: Well, and finally and relatedly, Lauren Windsor explained in her interview with Rolling Stone why she chose to go to this elite event and record. And it’s because the Court is shrouded in so much secrecy and because it refuses to submit to accountability, which listeners will know all about, in the face of evidence of serious ethics breaches, and I think a lot of folks would recognize that. 

But I can also still hear folks saying, well, she did this secretly. If she’d only gone through proper channels to get this information, then we might take it more seriously. I mean, maybe that day has passed, but I do think that folks can recognize that you can’t just go up as a corporate reporter and expect Supreme Court justices to tell you what is really going on. So what do you say about this method of obtaining information?

Jim Naureckas: “I think that is important for journalists who are covering the Court to take these statements into account when they talk about the rulings that Alito authors and the votes he takes. They should be put in this context.”

JN: Well, it probably wasn’t George Orwell who said that journalism is what people don’t want reported; everything else is public relations. That is true to a great extent, that people need to have information that people in power are trying to keep from them, and sometimes you can’t get that information except by going undercover. There are things that happen behind closed doors that are said to people who are ideological compatriots that are not said to the general public. You don’t know what those things are unless you get behind those closed doors, and sometimes subterfuge is the only way to get behind those doors.

There has been a real shift in journalism, which used to celebrate undercover reporting and used to give awards to people who set up—there’s a famous example of a fake tavern set up in Chicago, it was a real tavern run by journalists to see how many bribes we demanded from them, and they got prizes for that. 

But starting with the Food Lion case where reporters went to a supermarket, got jobs there, found out the horrific way that meat was being handled and mishandled there, and a judge ruled against them. And ever since then, there’s been this idea that, oh, we’re really too ethical to do something like get a job in a supermarket to expose threats to public health. The pendulum really has shifted. I think it’s a shame, because I think that the public does have a right to know how supermarkets are tainting their food, and they have a right to know what Supreme Court justices are really thinking about the decisions that are going to affect all of our lives.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Jim Naureckas. He’s editor here at FAIR of the website FAIR.org and the newsletter Extra!. Thanks, Jim Naureckas, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

JN: Thanks for having me on.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

On Wednesday, the Republican Study Committee, of which some three-quarters of House Republicans are members, released its 2025 budget entitled “Fiscal Sanity to Save America.” Tucked away in the 180-page austerity manifesto is a block of text concerned with a crucial priority for the party: ensuring children aren’t being fed at school.

Eight states offer all students, regardless of household income, free school meals — and more states are trending in the direction. But while people across the country move to feed school children, congressional Republicans are looking to stop the cause.

The budget — co-signed by more than 170 House Republicans — calls to eliminate “the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) from the School Lunch Program.” The CEP, the Republicans note, “allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.” 

“Additionally,” the Republicans continue, “the RSC Budget would limit spending in the program to truly needy households.”

The CEP allows schools and districts in low-income areas to provide breakfast and lunch to all students, free of charge. The program thus relieves both schools and families from administrative paperwork, removing the inefficiencies and barriers of means-testing, all on the pathway to feeding more children and lifting all boats.

This year, the Biden administration further expanded the CEP, allowing another estimated 3,000 school districts to serve students breakfast and lunch at no cost.

Instead of universality, the RSC suggests sending block grants for child nutrition programs to states, to give them “needed flexibility” to “promote the efficient allocation of funds to those who need it most,” while avoiding “widespread fraud.” Such a proposal, which has been pitched before without gaining much traction, could theoretically eliminate the baseline standards for nutrition standards and basic access, said Crystal FitzSimons, the child nutrition programs and policy director at the Food Research & Action Center. 

“At this point, we have over 40,000 schools participating in community eligibility, and that allows them to offer breakfast and lunch to all students at no charge,” FitzSimons said about CEP. “There have been year after year increases in participation because the option is so popular to eligible schools across the country.”

Republicans have worked for years to undermine school lunch programs, but the staying focus on the goal, even in rhetoric, is notable given the warm reception some states have received in instituting universal school lunch. In Minnesota, for example, 70 percent of Minnesotans, including 57 percent of conservatives and 54 percent of senior citizens, were found to have approved of the policy change that took effect last summer — even after reports that the program was proving to be more costly than anticipated, due to greater-than-expected demand. Statewide polling in Pennsylvania last year found 82 percent of people supporting expanding their free school breakfast program to include lunch too, while 87 percent of Ohio K-12 parents were found in 2022 to support school meals for all, regardless of ability to pay.

Another seven states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, and Vermont — have also passed universal school lunch programs, while at least 26 more states (including Washington, D.C.) are considering ways to achieve the policy too. Nevada, meanwhile, used leftover Covid-19 relief funding to offer one more year of free school meals to all students through this school year. The ambition is endorsed by an increasingly large coalition of groups, including the American Federation of Teachers, the American Heart Association, and the National Education Association.

Republicans however view the universal version of the policy as fundamentally wasteful. The “school lunch and breakfast programs are subject to widespread fraud and abuse,” reads the RSC’s proposed yearly budget, quoting a report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. The Cato report blames people who may “improperly” redeem free lunches, even if they are technically above the income cutoff levels. The “fraudulence” the think tank is concerned about is not some shadowy cabals of teachers systematically stealing from the school lunch money pot: It’s students who are being fed, even if their parents technically make too much to benefit from the program. In other words, Republicans’ opposition to the program is based on the assumption that people being “wrongly” fed at school is tantamount to abusive waste.

“If the program is designed to offer free meals to all students,” FitzSimons said, “that question about fraud really disappears if you’re allowed to serve every single child.”

The Republican Study Committee is the largest ideological caucus in Congress, and for the past 51 years, it has served as a principle priority-setter for the party. The committee was chaired as recently as three years ago by House Speaker Mike Johnson. He and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise still sit on the Executive Committee, while Oklahoma Rep. Kevin Hern serves as chair. Its annual budget is not binding, but it does offer a useful window into conservatives’ policy priorities, which can best be summarized as accelerating the planet’s burning, an indifference to mass shootings, and actively threatening consumers and workers.

On the environment — amid the hottest year recorded on Earth — the word “climate” appears 110 times and the word “environment” 53 times in the budget. Not one of those instances has anything to do with a positive Republican vision to address climate change or protect the environment. The RSC instead opposes the creation of a carbon tax and wants to give oil and gas companies deductions on costs like labor and safety, ramp up oil and gas projects on federal lands, and defund the Environmental Protection Agency. 

The Republicans also throw their weight behind bills like Virginia Rep. Bob Good’s “No American Climate Corps Act,” to stop federal funds from being used for the American Climate Corps — a revolutionary clean energy jobs program whose applications open next month. While millions of Americans have been surrounded by throat-scratching smog, livelihood-destroying wildfires, and relentless flooding and heat waves, the Republicans call to prohibit the use of emergency disaster or public health emergency declarations “from being used to address purported climate change.” 

On guns, Republicans call to undercut or block an array of gun regulations. For instance, the budget supports “defunding the constitutionally dubious red flag provisions in the so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.” That law allocates $750 million to support ongoing state implementation of red-flag laws that remove firearms from individuals who are deemed a threat to themselves or others; it doesn’t force any state to do anything.

On reproductive rights, Republicans call for the passage of an array of anti-choice bills, like Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles’s “Ending Chemical Abortions Act of 2023,” which would federally outlaw the use of abortion pills, and West Virginia Rep. Alex Mooney’s “Life at Conception Act,” which would designate embryos made through in vitro fertilization as being alive — even as many of the same Republicans have scrambled to claim they support IVF in the aftermath of a similar Alabama Supreme Court ruling that led multiple clinics to halt IVF procedures.

Like every good Republican fiscal document, the RSC budget threatens changes to Social Security, including by raising the retirement age. Other Republican budget priorities include eliminating all future funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees; prohibiting federal subsidies for high-speed rail; getting rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; reducing funding for the famously under-supported Occupational Safety and Health Administration; and eliminating the National Labor Relations Board, which, under President Joe Biden, has done much to protect workers’ right to organize.

Not to be confused as completely frugal, the Republicans call to finish construction of border wall projects proposed by former President Donald Trump. And not to be confused as focused, the budget includes the word “woke” 37 times.

“As in previous years,” the Republicans say about their master plan, “the RSC budget also celebrates the work of House conservatives who have fought for legislation that preserves American values, combats Biden’s woke and weaponized government, and protects the freedoms that should be enjoyed by every American.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Prem Thakker.

In the course of little more than a century the attempts to aggregate popular demands within the channels of conflict resolution have led to the abolition of class-oriented and programmatic political parties. The last of these survived in the colonial/ neo-colonial environments of Central and South America until they were defeated in the last decade of the 20th century. Despite the preservation of conventional labels inherited from the French Revolution, the range of political ideologies available has been reduced to the West’s universal values of neo-liberalism. Liberalism and conservatism also mutated into forms that would be barely recognizable to those whose tracts laid the theoretical basis for these positions. This did not happen overnight. Nor was it a natural phenomenon. Counter-insurgency complemented by the infiltration and manipulation of the standard bearers of nationalism and socialism in Latin America ultimately subdued those few attempts to restore class and programmatic politics after 1945.

Of course there was also violent counter-insurgency waged (e.g., Gladio) by the covert operators of the State (and its owners) in the US and throughout the territories where Anglo-American power was projected, mainly through NATO and in the western peninsula of Eurasia also through its civil department the European Economic Community or European Union. By the time the official socialist states associated with the Soviet Union were defeated and transformed into Western vassals, the leadership—such as it was—of ostensibly left-leaning political organizations had been decapitated and or replaced by academically credentialed professionals indebted to corporate funding. Before the European Management Forum/ World Economic Forum initiated its cadre program, numerous transatlantic entities such as the German Marshall Fund, Fulbright and Rhodes Scholarships and other lesser-known programs recruited and indoctrinated the predecessors to today’s “global leaders”. Funds channelled through parastatal agencies, NGOs and corporate tax dodges promoted generations of scholars, journalists, teachers and bureaucrats enabling them to march through the institutions with competitive advantage over those with sincere political convictions.

Anyone paying attention to this process could see that parallel to this transfer of “leadership” academic literature and the publications of the so-called quality press were reshaping the language of post-war mass movements, turning activism into grant-funded research. Beneath the banner of postmodernism in the Anglo-American dominated humanities and social sciences the principles of empirical Marxist analysis were subsumed by a theological form of scholarship even more dogmatic than the much-maligned work of the state institutes for Marxism-Leninism in the so-called Soviet bloc. While the latter were explicitly responsible for regulating the application of core Marxist texts to state ideology, the sacerdotal caste of the postmodernist cult preached the dissolution of explicit state action in social management. Nationalism, racial equality, feminism and socialism itself were relegated to the dustbin of archaic ideologies for social formations that had been dissolved or rendered obsolete by the alleged maturity of identity-based humanism. Possessive individualism, both metaphoric and literal, emerged as the driving force behind the sublimation of citizenship and the exaltation of consumerism as its apogee. Social movements arising from resistance to centuries of Western domination were redefined as mere aggregates of individual ambitions that the new freedom would inevitably manifest. Hence fundamental changes in productive relations and the distribution of political power over whole classes of people were abandoned in favour of enhanced personal opportunities to participate in the pillage by the prevailing system of embedded power. The appointment of a single member of a previously oppressed or subordinated class was interpreted as a sign that the class was no longer the target of the domination against which it had arose in resistance. Class ceased to exist as a meaningful category of human interest. A myriad of excuses were provided to show that there was neither a society nor a power structure in control of it.

In the 1980s the academy-based political cadre, supported by covertly funded career tracks began redesigning all of the systemic criticism that had characterized liberation struggles in anticipation of the radically individualized mass media that would soon dominate the political and economic space contested by all those who, perhaps naively, expected that the United Nations Charter would guarantee their liberation and an end to “non-self-governing territories”. Then just as industrialization provided the means by which chattel slavery could be abandoned, the onset of digitalization began to render organized industrial workforces redundant, depriving them of their practical tools of asserting control over the means of production and the media for social organization necessary to convert that into social power. By the time formal decolonization had increased the membership in the United Nations from 51 in 1951 to 194 in 2024, the capacity of nation-states to develop and protect their citizens had been thoroughly undermined by the absolute corporate control over the intergovernmental body and its agencies. Instead of local industrialization and internal development augmented by fair trade, the blue flag with its wreath encircled polar projection of Earth not only represented the corporate ideal of its founders. It became the banner of a global public-private partnership for the monopoly in the traffic of labour, money, information and with blue helmets armed force.

This was enhanced by the redesign of human development. Instead of the liberation of peoples from centuries of exploitation, the vast majority of the world’s population became de-territorialized. Social development was translated into a mere aggregate of individual enrichment or impoverishment, subject to a global “free” market governed by corporate management on behalf of finance capital. Moreover this postmodern political economy was subjected to the neo-Malthusian strategy of competitive advantage by which nations were converted into warehouses for latent resources to be traded or bunkered according to the exigencies of discounted cash flows. The humanist democratic governance principles imperfectly asserted in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and expanded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were abandoned. Instead they were proclaimed as absorbed in the corporate governance doctrines formalized and propagated by the Anglo-American capitalist theocracy, housed in the leading Business faculties at mainly American universities and non-governmental organizations. It is perhaps no accident that the technology for surrogate childbirth—once highly controversial—was perfected at the same time as NGOs through “civil society” usurped citizenship for whole classes of disenfranchised persons.

As I have argued elsewhere, the political economy of surplus allocation associated with classical economics, e.g. Adam Smith, was transformed into the neo-classical analysis of scarcity at the same time that chattel slavery was abolished in the 1880s. Postmodernism expanded this doctrine to denounce human social development at the end of the Second World War. Instead the value of human society and collective development was reclassified in the global accounting regulations as a threat to an abstract planetary welfare. That planetary welfare, currently promoted in various forms such as Climate Change dogma or DIE (diversity, inclusion, equity) doctrine, is merely a euphemism for the ascendency of finance capital and its neo-feudal oligarchy. Applied to the human race, natural reproduction and economic activity in lived human communities are unacceptable costs, which the management of the global private-public partnership must reduce if the rate of profit and the magnification of centralized power are to be sustained. In cost accounting terms, every human being, excepting the caste of oligarchs and their retainers, is a unit cost that had to be eliminated if the capitalist enterprise is to remain sustainable.

The human development indices cease to reflect increases in the level of nutrition, education, healthy live births and sufficient living conditions in the places real human beings actually inhabit. The preservation of wildlife, whether plant or animal, is only important for sustaining the class of those who claim to own everything. The intergovernmental regime, discretely appropriated and managed by international corporations through their postmodern cadre, measure human development by success in reducing the number of exhaling lungs and depriving those still allowed to breath of the energy resources required to feed, clothe, house and otherwise carry on meaningful lives.

Not satisfied with crushing national independence and development efforts worldwide, local autonomy is to be subverted by means of a pseudo-healthcare regime that grants carte blanche to pharmaments manufacturers and other branches of the armed forces to incarcerate indefinitely or even to poison the population wherever cyclical mayhem and destruction leaves survivors.

In order to preserve the veneer of coherence with the ideals espoused in the UN Charter, the social structures of historical communities are aggressively deprived of their material base. Here “civil society” performs a chimeric function facilitating the current manifestation of global parasitism. Just like the keyboard attached to a computer imitates the function of the manual typewriter, the hyper-individualism embedded in the NGO surrogate pronounces social values of the obsolete modernist humanism while driving computational processes created and controlled by the software and ultimately the hardware of the new feudal estate.

Within this constellation the terms “left”, “right” and “centre” have retained nothing of their original associations. They are entirely inadequate to describe the positions, program, loyalties, or motives of the bureaucratic-sacerdotal class still recruited to perform electoral charades. While those who still go to the polls may try to discern what words are really meant in the storm of gestures and synthetic sound bites, they can be sure that the solution to the riddle their vote has offered is wrong. They may see the hand waving or grimace as an allusion to a tradition they value. They may interpret the high-minded slogan escaping through the lips of some young LSE graduate or a legacy party functionary as a sign that their interest in a decent life and future are supported. They may paint one clown with a red nose and the other with a blue, green or brown one. Yet by the end of the performance, the clowns will remain and they, the audience, will be swept away like so many empty popcorn bags or cold drink cups on the ground. It is a truism that whenever there is some accident or mishap in the midst of a circus performance—they send in the clowns. Unfortunately on the eve of great destruction there are no laughing matters.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by T.P. Wilkinson.

This December, as the world marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of  Human Rights, which guarantees the basic right to receive and impart information (Article 19), it is vital that everyone can exercise that right. Similarly, international humanitarian law states that journalists are civilians who must be respected and protected by all warring parties. The deliberate targeting of journalists or media infrastructure constitutes a war crime.

Failing to protect journalists in the Israel-Gaza war would be a resounding failure to protect press freedom and our collective right to be informed. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the international community, particularly on the 50 countries that make up the Media Freedom Coalition, who have committed to promoting media freedom at home and abroad, to support the following calls to action: 

Protect the lives of journalists

1. Media credentials and press insignia must be respected by all warring parties, who should abstain from obstructing, harassing, shooting, or detaining journalists, who are civilians doing their jobs. As Israel’s intense bombing and ground operations in Gaza continue, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) must follow transparent, rigorous rules of engagement to avoid targeting or causing journalist killings, injuries, and arbitrary arrest. This includes the practice of “administrative detention” or incarceration ordered by an Israeli military commander without charge or time limit, alleging that a person plans to commit an offense.

2. Israel should facilitate access to humanitarian aid and the safe delivery of personal protective equipment to journalists in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.  Journalists, like all civilians in Gaza are struggling to obtain the essentials – such as food, water and sanitary supplies – necessary to live, let alone to report. Israel deems standard protective items, such as helmets and flak jackets, which offer a modicum of safety in a raging conflict, to be military equipment and prevents its transportation to journalists in the Palestinian territories. 

Provide access and the ability to report

3. Egypt and Israel should grant international news organizations access to Gaza so that they may directly cover the hostilities on the ground and related news stories, including the humanitarian toll. More than 2,800 international journalists have arrived in Israel to cover the conflict and received accreditation, according to the Israeli government. 

4. Israel should refrain from imposing further communications blackouts and maintain internet and mobile service. This will allow journalists to continue to report and obtain information from local sources. 

5. All parties should refrain from any legal or regulatory curtailment of media operations. Israel should not pursue restrictions such as the emergency regulations that allow for the shutdown of news organizations and the imprisonment of journalists and others who “hurt national morale,” which would amount to a censorship regime.

  Investigate attacks and end impunity

6. Israel must break its longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF and investigate all attacks on journalists during the ongoing war. These investigations should be swift, transparent, and thorough, following internationally accepted standards in line with the Minnesota Protocol. Cases where there are credible claims of IDF culpability, such as the attack that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in southern Lebanon on October 13, should be prioritized. Where appropriate, other countries should offer technical or other relevant assistance.  

At this dark hour, CPJ stands with journalists, whose daily work keeps us informed with facts that shed light on the human condition and help to hold power to account. We ask that leaders across the world uphold their international commitments, preserve human rights, and defend the rule of law by supporting journalists and press freedom.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

This December, as the world marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of  Human Rights, which guarantees the basic right to receive and impart information (Article 19), it is vital that everyone can exercise that right. Similarly, international humanitarian law states that journalists are civilians who must be respected and protected by all warring parties. The deliberate targeting of journalists or media infrastructure constitutes a war crime.

Failing to protect journalists in the Israel-Gaza war would be a resounding failure to protect press freedom and our collective right to be informed. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the international community, particularly on the 50 countries that make up the Media Freedom Coalition, who have committed to promoting media freedom at home and abroad, to support the following calls to action: 

Protect the lives of journalists

1. Media credentials and press insignia must be respected by all warring parties, who should abstain from obstructing, harassing, shooting, or detaining journalists, who are civilians doing their jobs. As Israel’s intense bombing and ground operations in Gaza continue, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) must follow transparent, rigorous rules of engagement to avoid targeting or causing journalist killings, injuries, and arbitrary arrest. This includes the practice of “administrative detention” or incarceration ordered by an Israeli military commander without charge or time limit, alleging that a person plans to commit an offense.

2. Israel should facilitate access to humanitarian aid and the safe delivery of personal protective equipment to journalists in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.  Journalists, like all civilians in Gaza are struggling to obtain the essentials – such as food, water and sanitary supplies – necessary to live, let alone to report. Israel deems standard protective items, such as helmets and flak jackets, which offer a modicum of safety in a raging conflict, to be military equipment and prevents its transportation to journalists in the Palestinian territories. 

Provide access and the ability to report

3. Egypt and Israel should grant international news organizations access to Gaza so that they may directly cover the hostilities on the ground and related news stories, including the humanitarian toll. More than 2,800 international journalists have arrived in Israel to cover the conflict and received accreditation, according to the Israeli government. 

4. Israel should refrain from imposing further communications blackouts and maintain internet and mobile service. This will allow journalists to continue to report and obtain information from local sources. 

5. All parties should refrain from any legal or regulatory curtailment of media operations. Israel should not pursue restrictions such as the emergency regulations that allow for the shutdown of news organizations and the imprisonment of journalists and others who “hurt national morale,” which would amount to a censorship regime.

  Investigate attacks and end impunity

6. Israel must break its longstanding pattern of impunity in cases of journalists killed by the IDF and investigate all attacks on journalists during the ongoing war. These investigations should be swift, transparent, and thorough, following internationally accepted standards in line with the Minnesota Protocol. Cases where there are credible claims of IDF culpability, such as the attack that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others in southern Lebanon on October 13, should be prioritized. Where appropriate, other countries should offer technical or other relevant assistance.  

At this dark hour, CPJ stands with journalists, whose daily work keeps us informed with facts that shed light on the human condition and help to hold power to account. We ask that leaders across the world uphold their international commitments, preserve human rights, and defend the rule of law by supporting journalists and press freedom.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

From the war in Ukraine to mass incarceration of Black, Latino and Native Peoples in the U.S. to Obama’s ongoing war in Yemen to murderous economic sanctions, coups, assassinations, war and abandonment of Afghanistan, international arms sales, commodification of COVID vaccines, illegal military occupations in Syria and Iraq, the pending invasion of Haiti and the resource wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that have cost over six million lives. The one force behind all of this death and destruction is the United States’ culture of death. This culture is the same one that allowed millions – disproportionately working class, African, and racialized peoples – to die from COVID-19 with little support, and that fuels the wider U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination globally, fundamentally opposed to the fulfillment of true democracy and human rights.

The current genocide in Gaza and the destruction of Palestinian society and culture perpetuated by the Zionist state of Israel – in full view of the world – with the full support of the United States of America, demonstrates once again what Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out more than fifty years ago:  the U.S. continues to be the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. The racist right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu could not carry out its genocidal policies in Gaza without the material and political support from the U.S.

Therefore, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls on the international community to demonstrate that it will not allow the normalization of fascist genocidal violence that systematically destroys the credibility of the human rights idea, as well as the structures that are, theoretically, supposed to protect fundamental human rights.

The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1674 on April 28, 2006 that “reaffirmed” decisions from the World Summit of the previous year, where the concept of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity was adopted. This resolution was framed as a strengthening of international mechanisms for ensuring that the interlinking principles of the United Nations Charter, peace, security, international development – but especially human rights – would be protected.

The resolution commits the Security Council to act when civilian populations are being subjected to acts that constitute genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

The U.S. veto of the December 8, 2023 UNSC resolution calling for a ceasefire in order to address the humanitarian crisis impacting the occupied Palestinian population being subjected to ethnic cleansing and genocide, placed the U.S. in opposition to the very principles of the UN Charter and the international consensus on human rights.

The people of the world are asking: where is the “humanitarian intervention” and “responsibility to protect” for Palestinians? The sacrifice of the people of Gaza dramatically exposes the cynicism, opportunism, and vacuousness of the Western human rights rhetoric. It is now absolutely clear that so-called humanitarian intervention to protect human rights only occurs when it is in the interests of white Western imperialism.

The egregious crimes in Gaza should result in the U.S. and Israel being expelled from the United Nations at minimum. But beyond that, charges should be brought against the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister and U.S. President Joe Biden along with his Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with immediate sanctions imposed on other Israeli and U.S. officials involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza. As a peace and human rights organization, we further call on all states to exercise the concept of Universal Jurisdiction to arrest and prosecute those named individuals.

Yet, we do not see that kind of definitive action being executed by the states that make up the United Nations.

This is also why on this Human Rights Day, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) reasserts its commitment to the Black radical People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs) framework as an alternative to the individualistic, legalistic, conservative and state-centered liberal framework. For BAP, human rights are political, emanating from the demands of the people, collectively committed to social justice, authentic democracy, and self-determination.

As Ajamu Baraka, BAP’s Coordinating Committee Chairperson and leading theorist on PCHRs points out:

The idea that Western colonial/capitalist states were defenders of human rights struck many in the colonized South as either delusional or an affirmation that in the eyes of the West they were not human. For the colonized and racialized who were burned alive, tortured, and murdered by these champions of human rights, it was understood that whatever human rights were supposed to be they did not include the racialized and colonized peoples of the world.

And what are People(s)-Centered Human Rights?

PCHRs proceeds from the assumption that the genesis of the assaults on human dignity at the core of human-rights violations is located in the ongoing structural relationships of colonial-capitalist oppression. Therefore, the PCHRs framework does not pretend to be non-political. It is a political project in the service of Africans, as well as the colonized working classes, peasants, and socially oppressed. It names the enemies of freedom: the Western white-supremacist, colonial-capitalist patriarchy.

This conception and practice of human rights is the only way for the human rights idea to have any relevance to oppressed nations, peoples, and even states victimized by the globalized colonial/capitalist world order.

From this approach, human rights becomes a weapon for the oppressed and provides a vision of the new societies that must be constructed in order for fundamental human rights – the right to food, housing, health, education, the means to earn a living, leisure, and the rights of mother-earth – to be realized.

A fundamental right within the People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework is the collective right of the oppressed to fight their oppressor. This is the right being exercised by the Palestinian resistance against the illegitimate Israeli fascist apartheid occupation state.

Peace is also a fundamental PCHR. BAP’s call to support the demand to make the “Americas” a Zone of Peace was launched with this in mind. On this Human Rights Day, we say that the right of peoples and nations to self-determination in our region must be absolute to counter the hegemonic plans of the human rights monstrosity to the North – the United States of America where one of its military leaders, SOUTHCOM commander, Laura Richardson argues with a straight face why the racist, imperialist Monroe Doctrine is still applicable.

As a strategic priority, BAP will launch its “North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights” under the direction of Ajamu Baraka on the commemoration of the assassination  of Malcolm X on February 21, 2024. The objective of the project is to liberate and decolonize human rights, grounding its creation, protections and implementation within the peoples of the world struggling for radical social change. In the meantime, BAP will continue to demand that the state-centered human rights regime take seriously its own mechanisms and principles and end the impunity for outlaw states like the U.S. and Israel.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.

“The German court’s conviction and sentencing to life imprisonment of death squad driver Bai Lowe is an important first step for the family of Deyda Hydara and all those seeking justice and accountability for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by then Gambian president Jahya Jammeh and his murderous ‘junglers’,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator.

“But Jammeh, not only his foot soldiers, must stand trial for his reign of terror. Justice will only prevail when Jammeh is extradited from his exile in Equatorial Guinea and faces charges in Gambia’s special criminal court.”

A German regional court found Lowe guilty of crimes against humanity, murder, and attempted murder for his role as a driver for Jammeh’s so-called junglers under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a country to prosecute crimes against humanity regardless of where they were committed. Lowe was the first person accused of human rights violations during Jammeh’s dictatorship to be tried outside Gambia.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

The state of civic space in Indonesia has been rated as “obstructed” in the latest CIVICUS Monitor report.

The civic space watchdog said that ongoing concerns include the arrest, harassment and criminalisation of human rights defenders and journalists as well as physical and digital attacks, the use of defamation laws to silence online dissent and excessive use of force by the police during protests, especially in the Papuan region.

In July 2023, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, expressed concerns regarding the human rights situation in the West Papua region in her opening remarks during the 22nd Meeting of the 53rd Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

• READ MORE: West Papuan, Indonesian youth protest over ‘illegal’ 1962 Rome Agreement
• The CIVICUS Monitor report
• Other West Papua reports

She highlighted the harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention of Papuans, which had led to the appropriation of customary land in West Papua.

She encouraged the Indonesian government to ensure humanitarian assistance and engage in “a genuine inclusive dialogue”.

In August 2023, human rights organisations called on Indonesia to make serious commitments as the country sought membership in the UN Human Rights Council for the period 2024 to 2026.

Among the calls were to ratify international human rights instruments, especially the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), to provide details of steps it will take to implement all of the supported recommendations from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and to fully cooperate with the Special Procedures of the Council.

Call to respect free expression
The groups also called on the government to ensure the respect, protection and promotion of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, for clear commitments to ensure a safe and enabling environment for all human rights defenders, to find a sustainable solution for the human rights crisis in Papua and to end impunity.

In recent months, protests by communities have been met with arbitrary arrests and excessive force from the police.

The arbitrary arrests, harassment and criminalisation of Papuan activists continue, while an LGBT conference was cancelled due to harassment and threats.

Human rights defenders continue to face defamation charges, there have been harassment and threats against journalists, while a TikTok communicator was jailed for two years over a pork video.

Ongoing targeting of Papuan activists
Arbitrary arrests, harassment and criminalisation of Papuan activists continue to be documented.

According to the Human Rights Monitor, on 5 July 2023, four armed plainclothes police officers arrested Viktor Makamuke, a 52-year-old activist of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a pro-independence movement.

He was subsequently detained at the Sorong Selatan District Police Station where officers allegedly coerced and threatened Makamuke to pledge allegiance to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).

A week earlier, Makamuke and his friend had reportedly posted a photo in support of ULMWP full membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — an intergovernmental organisation composed of the four Melanesian states.

Shortly after the arrest, the police published a statement claiming that Makamuke was the commander of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) — an armed group — in the Bomberai Region.

The Human Rights Monitor reported that members of the Yahukimo District police arbitrarily arrested six activists belonging to the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) in the town of Dekai, Yahukimo Regency, on 6 July 2023.

KNPB is a movement promoting the right to self-determination through peaceful action and is one of the most frequently targeted groups in West Papua.

The activists organised and carried out a collective cleaning activity in Dekai. The police repeatedly approached them claiming that the activists needed official permission for their activity.

Six KNPB activists arrested
Subsequently, police officers arrested the six KNPB activists without a warrant or justifying the arrest. All activists were released after being interrogated for an hour.

On 8 August 2023, three students were found guilty of treason and subsequently given a 10-month prison sentence by the Jayapura District Court.

Yoseph Ernesto Matuan, Devio Tekege and Ambrosius Fransiskus Elopere were charged with treason due to their involvement in an event held at the Jayapura University of Science and Technology (USTJ) in November 2022, where they waved the Morning Star flag, a banned symbol of Papuan independence.

Their action was in protest against a planned peace dialogue proposed by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

According to Amnesty International Indonesia, between 2019 and 2022 there have been at least 61 cases involving 111 individuals in Papua who were charged with treason.

At least 37 supporters of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) were arrested in relation to peaceful demonstrations to commemorate the 1962 New York Agreement in the towns Sentani, Jayapura Regency and Dekai, Yahukimo Regency, on 14 and 15 August 2023.

Allegations of police ill-treatment
There were also allegations of ill-treatment by the police.

On 2 September 2023, police officers detained Agus Kossay, Chairman of the West Papua National Coalition (KNPB); Benny Murip, KNPB Secretary in Jayapura; Ruben Wakla, member of the KNPB in the Yahukimo Regency; and Ferry Yelipele.

The four activists were subsequently detained and interrogated at the Jayapura District Police Station in Doyo Baru. Wakla and Yelipele were released on 3rd September 2023 without charge.

Police officers reportedly charged Kossay and Murip under Article 160 and Article 170 of the Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP) for “incitement”.

• The full CIVICUS Monitor report on Indonesia

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

The post Ancient Roots: A Promising New Project to Organize Humanity’s Universal Heritage appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eric Laursen.

The submission, sent for the 44th session of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group scheduled for November, documents impunity in cases of killings and abductions of journalists, violence against members of the press in custody, and the death of writer Mushtaq Ahmed in jail in February 2021. It also highlights instances of arbitrary detention, harassment, and violence against family members of critical exiled journalists.

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

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

An Australian advocacy group for West Papua self-determination has condemned yesterday’s arrest by Indonesian security forces of 10 West Papua National Committee (KNPB) members.

The activists were arrested “simply because they were handing out leaflets informing people of a rally to be held today” to show support for West Papua becoming a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), said the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) in a statement.

The security forces detained the activists and took them to the Jayapura Resort Police station in Sentani for questioning.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua-MSG reports

They were eventually released after being detained for eight hours.

It was reported that the police were threatening the KNPB activists and asking therm to make a statement not to carry out West Papuan independence struggle activities.

“Yet again we have peaceful activists arrested for simply handing out leaflets about an upcoming rally, which is their right to do under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said Joe Collins of AWPA:

Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

“Hopefully any rallies that take place today will be allowed to go ahead peacefully and there will not be a repeat of the brutal crackdowns that occurred at other peaceful rallies in the past.”

The Melanesian Spearhead Group is due to meet in Port Vila, Vanuatu, this month, although the dates have not yet been announced.

The MSG consists of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of Kanaky (New Caledonia).

West Papua has observer status while Indonesia has associate membership and Jakarta has been conducting an intense diplomatic lobbying with MSG members over recent months.

The United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) has applied for full membership.

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

Since March, López Obrador has sharply criticized Article 19, national investigative magazine Proceso, privately owned online news outlets Animal Político and Aristegui Noticias, and Animal Político investigative reporter Nayeli Roldán over their coverage of the Mexican federal government’s alleged use of illegal spyware.

The president’s statements have led to online abuse and threats of violence against Article 19, the three outlets, and their reporters, according to Roldán, Animal Político’s editorial director Daniel Moreno, and Article 19’s regional director Leopoldo Maldonado, who all spoke to CPJ by phone. 

“Mexican President López Obrador’s recent attempts to discredit journalist Nayeli Roldán, three critical news outlets, and Article 19 are more proof that his administration prefers harassing journalists over solving the country’s catastrophic press freedom crisis,” said CPJ Mexico Representative Jan-Albert Hootsen. “López Obrador’s constant verbal attacks on reporters, which serve only as a distraction from the issues they report on, must stop before they lead to further violence against the press.”

Since he assumed office in 2018, López Obrador repeatedly stated that his government does not engage in illegal surveillance with spyware and denied that his administration uses such applications for anything other than national security.

However, a series of reports published in March 2023 provided evidence that the Mexican military used Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli NSO group, to monitor conversations between human rights activist Raymundo Ramos and two journalists at the Mexico City newspaper El Universal since 2019.

In a March 10 press briefing, Roldán asked López Obrador about those allegations, to which he responded by saying Roldán was “always against his government.” When Roldán insisted the military must explain the legal basis for the spying, he accused her of “not being objective,” and called her “unprofessional” and part of the “tendentious, bribed media.”

During an April 28 press conference, the president told reporters that Roldán was paid in 2022 by the National Institute for Access to Information, a federal autonomous body that handles freedom of information requests and regulates the protection of personal data. López Obrador has been highly critical of the institute, which he claims is “useless,” “onerous, opaque, and unnecessarily expensive,” and opposes his administration and him personally, according to news reports.

During a May 2 press briefing, López Obrador accused Article 19 of being funded by the U.S. government to work “against his government,” therefore “violating our sovereignty” and called the organization “interventionist,” adding that he would send a diplomatic cable to the U.S. government “in protest.”  

Moreno, Roldán, and Maldonado told CPJ that the president’s remarks have led to many hateful comments on social media against them personally, as well as on websites and social media pages of Article 19, Proceso, Animal Político, and Aristegui Noticias. Roldán said she received “vicious” misogynistic comments, while Maldonado said he and his organization received many threats and statements echoing the president’s comments.

“I’ve been receiving lots of insults, an increasing number. I’d even call it stalking,” Roldán told CPJ, adding that the pressure has forced her to keep a lower profile on social media. “I can’t send out a single tweet without it receiving insults.” 

Moreno said the president’s comments have made him and his reporters feel less safe, leading some of his reporters to ask not to be named in bylines. 

“We try to respond to the president, who constantly lies about us and never rectifies false information. His daily press briefing is a far bigger platform than anything we could ever hope to have,” Moreno said. “We have seen an increase in the number of attacks and insults against us, including social media users openly asking who our family members are to accost them as well.”

CPJ contacted presidential spokesperson Jesús Ramírez Cuevas for comment via messaging app but did not receive any response.  

Mexico was the deadliest country in the Western Hemisphere for journalists in 2022. At least three reporters were murdered in direct connection to their work, and CPJ is investigating another 10 killings to determine the motive.

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

I was at a Chamber (local) meeting with 50 folk. Yesterday. Yeah, jolly jolly, out to a community college room, with pastries from the local bakery, and people there wondering really what the art world future of the little 2,100 populous Waldport has in store. Art? Crafts? This is delusion. Not real jobs, real community buttressing, real services, bringing in older people to live and survive in nice facilities, townhomes, what have you, with a thriving intergenerational community to aid those aging in place. What a dream, but not a Universal Right, no?

You see, a city or town predicated on a few restaurants and art galleries (sic), and trickles of tourism bucks, that is the question. At a community college building that has largely been left vacant, save for the past year of letting the teachers of the K12 schools use the facility (five rooms) for a pop-up day care.

Oh yeah, day care, a universal right, too. (chuckle-chuckle). Not in a social Darwin dog-eat-dog, survival of the richest (fittest).

There were big ideas coming from people who, for the most part, are not precarious in the sense that they only have one giant frayed safety net — social security payments (oh, a universal right, right, etched in stone . . . or is it out-of-the-universe pie in the sky dream?) income (fixed and felonious) and that’s that. Maybe one or two renters, really, and they own a home or two, and not to knock them, some are trying to make a go at, well, food-art-crafts-kayaking. The rest are doing okay, in the upper middle class category kind of doing okay way. Most, not all. And that is the elephant in the room — listening to bluster and PR, when there are proverbial elephants in the room after proverbial gorillas in the room, wherever you go!

In a small town with aging housing stock, threats of ocean tide rises, lots of 10-inches-in-three-days rain events, and, well, that Republican and Democrat Build Nothing Back Better smile, and the menu for the morning was arts and crafts, and eateries.

Oh, a few wringing of the hands about housing (there is none for rent, and those for sale, are match stick cabanas for half a million$). But the beat goes on, as a city manager was in attendance ($100K a year?) and the mayor (he said he failed to read the entire email for this breakfast invitation so he was an hour late, after ending up driving north, to the Newport college campus, which on so many levels is inane and bizarre, since this town is called Waldport and this town has a community college campus building a mile from where the guy lives but this dude thinks we’d all be driving 30 minutes north to another town with their own Chamber of Commerce?). You gotta give it to small towns, but they are really, just big towns, are they not since many come to the rural areas from big town jobs and lives?

Testament after testament on the level (low bar) of schooling people have gotten, and are giving. Amazing the mental density of the average American. Oh, the local schools have failed — so we have a few thousand kids in all 11 schools in Lincoln County, and, well, the graduation rate is in the tank, and, the Zoom Doom is dooming more of them, and the generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is out the roof with Fauci’s Felony Follies, and, well, teachers are dropping like flies, that is, they are not wanting the gig anymore. Leaving. Quitting. Washing their hands of Five Decades of Failure! Public Education!

Here, what follows, our local rag’s coverage of a meeting of the school representative of the union giving some results of a survey for Lincoln County teachers, just a few days ago:

Before launching into the results, Lohonyay foreshadowed them with a personal note. “In the last 96 hours, I’ve gotten phone calls, text messages and emails from six teachers asking, ‘How can I can resign?’” he said, adding that there had been a dozen more such communications since classes started.

He said that while teachers were overwhelmingly happy to have students back in the classroom and “grateful for some of the stuff that the school district’s brought to us,” 85 percent of 121 teachers surveyed said they have experienced more job-related stress during the first two months of this school year than in previous years, and 73 percent said they were experiencing more anxiety. (Source — Teachers say they are over scrutinized, burned out)

It is complicated, no, working with young people, when staffing is threadbare, when classroom disruptions are out the ceiling, when parents are stressed and stressing youth, and that state of the state is like a 1984 War Zone, all fitted with masks, social distancing and the jab-jab-jab? “We want to have time to have fun with our students,” Lohonyay said, something he added was acutely missing this year.

So, the teachers are getting way to much evaluation, too many professional development requirements and are up to their ears in strict pacing guides and assessment schedules. They also want more support from building administrators, better communication with leadership and compensation for time spent covering for staff shortages and quarantine preparation, according to the survey.

The district superintendent states she was shocked at being broadsided by this survey, by the complaints, and, well, she did bring up another pre/during Covid fact —

“I want people to have fun in school, too. But 50 percent of our kids can’t read at grade level, so where’s the fun in that? There isn’t any.” (Superintendent Karen Gray)

Again, a superintendent who should not be in the job. In fact, there should not be this top down “management,” and one overlord, we know that, really,  come on. Spread out the work of a single superintendent, spread out the signature power for other people, too;  spread out the perspectives and contexts and background. But one superintendent who is over her head, big time? That is the broken system of systems management in the USA, elsewhere.

It gets worse — so those youth with developmental, intellectual, learning disabilities/challenges/ realities, they are getting fewer hours of special education instruction on life skills, social skills, the 3 R’s, etc. Staffing shortages have dented the Lane Education Service District, representing 16 school districts including Eugene. They are cutting one day a week of Life Skills classes for students with cognitive disabilities.

It’s a teacher-counselor-paraeducator shortage, statewide — and that, my friends, is the Zoom plan, the at-home zooming crap that has created so much anxiety in the first place, yet, the consequences are dire on every Build Nothing Back Better level: Giving an unequal (less) amount of instruction time to students with disabilities is a violation of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

“Civil rights don’t go away in the midst of a pandemic,” said committee member Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis. “It’s against the law, it’s outrageous and it’s immoral.” (School staffing issues in Oregon called ‘real, emergency situation’)

And so this all comes back to Waldport, to families, to people wanting to enroll in college, when in fact, there is no housing, and, this Highway 101 strip is for retirees and marine scientists, and builders and laborers and hotel staff. This is not a family-engaging place, on some levels, and with so many parents pre-during Covid shirking their responsibilities around engaging kids (their own, neighbors’ kids) and getting them to read and think, this place seems like a dead zone, Zombie Land, since Disneyfication of La-La Land has pretty much hijacked a majority of families into mind-numbing consumerism and endless TV and video games.

And this is just Oregon, this emergency!!

But that Build Back Nothing Better beat keeps on tapping — Oh, those Centers for Disease Control reports the United States hit over 100,000 drug overdose deaths over a 12-month period ending April 2021 — they say, nearly 30-percent increase over the previous year. CDC states it’s the first time annual U.S. overdose deaths reached six figures. Oh, these new dashboards we can put on our smartphones — Covid infections, Covid death, Overdose hospitalization, Overdose deaths! Get your hear rate, BP and number of steps while tracking Techno Hell! We get all sorts of causes for ODs, such as isolation and stress brought on by the pandemic led to higher rates of drug abuse. Opioids including Sackler Family stuff, and the powerful drug fentanyl accounted for about three-quarters of all overdose deaths. But they miss the point of capitalism as inflammatory DISEASE!

So what do I as a college teacher, who can’t get a class here on The Zombie Coast, but if I could what would I be able to teach if he/I were teaching critical reading and writing classes at the college level? In reality, Build Back Nothing Better is killing the education arena in higher education. Right now, after 10 years of lagging community college enrollments countrywide (but community college presidents get six figures and their henchmen and henchwomen get six figures and pretty landscaping and building construction continues and state legislatures continue to defund them), community colleges are struggling big time. They will go the way of the Dodo, that is, correspondence Zoom Doom, University of Phoenix Power Point and Webinar crap. That was in the plan, remote unlearning! Decades ago!

The technofascists have been working on this project for decades, way before DARPA and the virus, and this fear-fear-fear has been a project of the United Slaves of America for two centuries, or more, really, when that Smith Colony come in looking for wood, metals, gems, gold, and slaves, really. That dark-dark forest and those dark-dark men and women, they were the devil’s doing. Captain Smith, err, Captain Fear, The Village style.

In a hypothetical class, would I be able to look at the public record of say, Fauci, the highest paid government official, or would that be a fineable/fireable offense, or worse — myself being brought before a tribunal of cancel culture henchwomen and henchmen? Tattooed on my forehead, a  scarlet letter, “A,” “A” for Anti-Christ, Anarchist, Antithesis of Capitalism’s Soldiers? Fauci, and his record — something to chew on, a sadist’s story, really.

Flesh-eating flies on these animals (above image), for 90 days, while the sentient beings’ vocal chords were slashed without anesthesia so the mad scientists wouldn’t have to hear their screams as their faces were being eaten alive. NIH, Fauci style: New reports allege that Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) division greenlit tests in which experimenters drugged beagle puppies and locked their heads in cages filled with hungry, infected sandflies. The drug tests were apparently executed even though the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require new drugs to be tested on dogs.

This, from Simon and Schuster’s website for Kennedy’s most recent book, see below. Would this book be allowed in a community college? Would fellow faculty (most being Covidians) allow students to course through some debates and critical thinking exercises using this book as one of several to explore the entire concept of Big Pharma? Do we get to look at Big Medicine? Big Mining? Big Oil? Big Media? Big Finance? Big Prison? Big Ag? Big Real Estate? Big Timber? Big Retail? Big Surveillance? Big AI? Big Fourth Industrial Revolution? Big New Green Lie? Big Nonprofit Industrial Complex? Big Military/Propaganda/Bioweaponry/Digital Complex?

Or are the youth coming to classes so brain fogged from K12, that is, for all intents and purposes, which is the wasteland of intentional harm, intentional miseducation? This in a country of Republicans making anime shit with AOC as a murdered victim, and then, cancel culture on steroids, and then Neanderthals fighting real history in each community’s courts of public opinion fighting against the very real 1619 Project? Does this become more Monty Python-SNL fodder?

All Power to the People? Check it out, a documentary which can’t be shown in K12, say, even in a senior- level social studies class. These are murdering-book banning times, and the USA has always been a lynching country, a slaver country, one that puts the power into the hands of white supremacists with guns, bombs, and, well, now with these Fauci Types and Trump LLC’s and Republicans and Democrats and Bankers, they have the power of foreclosure. Foreclosing on people, on medicine, on health care, on housing, on education, on food, on electricity. This is the Out of This Universe bullshit of universal rights to a roof over your head? Come on, what are you thinking? So, that’s a one-0bedroom shack, with or without running water, and a toilet, and electricity? Hmm, is that with or without food? Hmm, is that with or without your diabetes meds? You get the picture. These billionaires and their Eichmann Armies are all about FORECLOSING, and that has wormed its way into the very thought processes of the average American, scared, pissed, etc. A snapshot into the perversity of every part of the Complex coming from the rightwing book publisher of RFK, Jr’s book. The Real Anthony Fauci [imagine a thousand books with that same title, but The Real Fill-in-the-Blank. FORECLOSING on the American MIND!

As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci dispenses $6.1 billion in annual taxpayer-provided funding for scientific research, allowing him to dictate the subject, content, and outcome of scientific health research across the globe. Fauci uses the financial clout at his disposal to wield extraordinary influence over hospitals, universities, journals, and thousands of influential doctors and scientists—whose careers and institutions he has the power to ruin, advance, or reward.

During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unearthed a shocking story that obliterates media spin on Dr. Fauci . . . and that will alarm every American—Democrat or Republican—who cares about democracy, our Constitution, and the future of our children’s health.

The Real Anthony Fauci reveals how “America’s Doctor” launched his career during the early AIDS crisis by partnering with pharmaceutical companies to sabotage safe and effective off-patent therapeutic treatments for AIDS. Fauci orchestrated fraudulent studies, and then pressured US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators into approving a deadly chemotherapy treatment he had good reason to know was worthless against AIDS. Fauci repeatedly violated federal laws to allow his Pharma partners to use impoverished and dark-skinned children as lab rats in deadly experiments with toxic AIDS and cancer chemotherapies.

In early 2000, Fauci shook hands with Bill Gates in the library of Gates’ $147 million Seattle mansion, cementing a partnership that would aim to control an increasingly profitable $60 billion global vaccine enterprise with unlimited growth potential. Through funding leverage and carefully cultivated personal relationships with heads of state and leading media and social media institutions, the Pharma-Fauci-Gates alliance exercises dominion over global health policy.

The Real Anthony Fauci details how Fauci, Gates, and their cohorts use their control of media outlets, scientific journals, key government and quasi-governmental agencies, global intelligence agencies, and influential scientists and physicians to flood the public with fearful propaganda about COVID-19 virulence and pathogenesis, and to muzzle debate and ruthlessly censor dissent.

Oh, those monkeys in those mad scientists’ experiments. Now, let’s graduate to . . . .

Homo Sapiens . . . . Children! And school hallway movements, oh boy:

And we wonder where are all the smarts in this new generation of children? Where are those future renters? Those future home buyers? Those future workers? Ya think this is not planned? Right, I am just a Tin Foil Hat conspiracy Freak.

“The pernicious new selling of virtual travel is potentially a way to kill off the dream center of children, to kill their imagination. To move freely, even within the area from which you were born, is in my opinion the most indelible of rights. What is going on is a ruling class soft coup, a less overtly violent coup and their vision of a digital feudal planet is terrifying, if only because it is cannot possibly work. It is delusion.” — A Solution Without a Solution, September 18, 2021, John Steppling

Yes, John, these are monsters, and they are elite, and they are the chosen few, and yes, they come from a select and selective grouping of people, schooled and trained, in the way of the financial abuser, in the art of propaganda and mind control, and they have the floor now, as their prostitutes in Congresses, Senates, on Boards, in Houses of Parliament, inside Presidential Palaces, what have you, are their work horses, all proud of their Eichmann Status — sure, updated Eichmann’s, but still, a spade is a spade:

“Our identity is, literally, who we are, and as the digital technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution advance, our identity is increasingly digital. This digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed off to us.” – September 2018, World Economic Forum Insight Report, Identity in a Digital World, A New Chapter in the Social Contract November 1, 2018: “If Dave Birch of Consult Hyperion is correct, identity is the new money.”

Monsters! (Watch: Digital ID; Freedom-as-a-Service. The Lure of Entitlement as the Method for Entrapment)

Finally, fortunately, the previous piece I wrote is up on DV, Collusion: The End of Nature, Brought to us by Zoom

And while we never are really finished tweaking our writing, but in this time of nanosecond news, we have to expect that once an article hits the digital ink, that’s that, move on. Luckily, here we are, add to this story, and it’s not pretty — Oregon middle school closes over safety concerns, student ‘socialization’ issues from year of virtual learning

Fistfights and yelling, and youth unable to sit, stand, walk still. Imagine that, as if the people like those I align with did not anticipate this. School has already been a shit-show of outbursts, “behaviors” (that’s what they call it, his or her behavior) and youth lacking concentration skills.

Ya think all those chemicals and compounds and poisons in the food, air, water, around us, they have nothing to do with ADHD, more and more Autism Spectrum disorder. Robert Kennedy Jr says it right when he points out that we do not see a bunch of 67 year olds (his age) walking around with helmets on and with weighted blankets and yammering Autistic jumbled nothingness. He stresses that EPA and FDA and USDA, the entire suite of agencies supposedly in the employ of the public, that they have no common sense to wonder why so many peanut allergies, so many learning and developmental disabilities?

So, get the jab-jab-booster-booster, and keep eating that nanoparticle filled cream pie, and, bam, we have the post lockdown, return to school, well, lockdown because of “behaviors.”

“The shifts in learning methods and isolation caused by COVID-19 closures and quarantines have taken a toll on the well-being of our students and staff,” superintendent Dr. Danna Diaz wrote in a letter to families and staff Tuesday justifying the sudden decision. “We are finding that some students are struggling with the socialization skills necessary for in-person learning, which is causing disruption in school for other students.”

A district spokesman, Steve Padilla, told The Oregonian that the closure was prompted by fights and other behavioral problems among students but declined to go into detail about the frequency of those on-campus brawls. He said weapons were not involved according to the best of his knowledge.

“We need to take care of this now. It’s urgent,” Padilla said. “It’s not just fighting – It’s disruptive behaviors as well. Students are disrupting other students, making it hard for them to learn.”

Yes, the isolation, the fear mongering, the pathetic death of common sense, common medicine, holism. We reap what we sow, no, RFK, Jr.?

Reality is —

Over 40 New Products Added to Nanotechnology Database

FDA has failed to take adequate action on dangerous chemicals despite acknowledging harm

Here, the interview of Kennedy, by Mercola, deemed one of the enemies of the world on the internet. Viral virus debunker spreader: Interview here!

In this interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental activist and attorney turned ultimate freedom fighter, discusses his latest book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” which is a must-read if you want to know more about the behind-the-scenes of this giant fraud. We could talk for hours and not cover but a fraction of what’s in this book, which Kennedy calls a “devastating indictment of Tony Fauci.”

In a nutshell, Kennedy describes how Fauci turned the National Institutes of Health into an incubator for pharmaceutical products, and essentially sold the entire country to the drug industry. The book is an incredibly well-referenced record of his history of decimating human health, and exposes him as a self-serving charlatan.

I particularly enjoyed how Kennedy placed Fauci in the context of Rockefeller’s legacy with respect to Bill Gates, who developed an alliance with Fauci over 20 years ago. Rockefeller set us on a course of toxic, profit-driven medicines synthesized from the byproducts of the oil refinery process a century ago, and Gates picked up where he left off and then collaborated heavily with Fauci.

Let the school Game of Thrones begin! More Tasers in school. More isolation rooms in schools. More SWAT teams in school (there is no defunding the Gestapo/Pigs/Cops!). The billionaires’ system is running very very smoothly.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

I was at a Chamber (local) meeting with 50 folk. Yesterday. Yeah, jolly jolly, out to a community college room, with pastries from the local bakery, and people there wondering really what the art world future of the little 2,100 populous Waldport has in store. Art? Crafts? This is delusion. Not real jobs, real community buttressing, real services, bringing in older people to live and survive in nice facilities, townhomes, what have you, with a thriving intergenerational community to aid those aging in place. What a dream, but not a Universal Right, no?

You see, a city or town predicated on a few restaurants and art galleries (sic), and trickles of tourism bucks, that is the question. At a community college building that has largely been left vacant, save for the past year of letting the teachers of the K12 schools use the facility (five rooms) for a pop-up day care.

Oh yeah, day care, a universal right, too. (chuckle-chuckle). Not in a social Darwin dog-eat-dog, survival of the richest (fittest).

There were big ideas coming from people who, for the most part, are not precarious in the sense that they only have one giant frayed safety net — social security payments (oh, a universal right, right, etched in stone . . . or is it out-of-the-universe pie in the sky dream?) income (fixed and felonious) and that’s that. Maybe one or two renters, really, and they own a home or two, and not to knock them, some are trying to make a go at, well, food-art-crafts-kayaking. The rest are doing okay, in the upper middle class category kind of doing okay way. Most, not all. And that is the elephant in the room — listening to bluster and PR, when there are proverbial elephants in the room after proverbial gorillas in the room, wherever you go!

In a small town with aging housing stock, threats of ocean tide rises, lots of 10-inches-in-three-days rain events, and, well, that Republican and Democrat Build Nothing Back Better smile, and the menu for the morning was arts and crafts, and eateries.

Oh, a few wringing of the hands about housing (there is none for rent, and those for sale, are match stick cabanas for half a million$). But the beat goes on, as a city manager was in attendance ($100K a year?) and the mayor (he said he failed to read the entire email for this breakfast invitation so he was an hour late, after ending up driving north, to the Newport college campus, which on so many levels is inane and bizarre, since this town is called Waldport and this town has a community college campus building a mile from where the guy lives but this dude thinks we’d all be driving 30 minutes north to another town with their own Chamber of Commerce?). You gotta give it to small towns, but they are really, just big towns, are they not since many come to the rural areas from big town jobs and lives?

Testament after testament on the level (low bar) of schooling people have gotten, and are giving. Amazing the mental density of the average American. Oh, the local schools have failed — so we have a few thousand kids in all 11 schools in Lincoln County, and, well, the graduation rate is in the tank, and, the Zoom Doom is dooming more of them, and the generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is out the roof with Fauci’s Felony Follies, and, well, teachers are dropping like flies, that is, they are not wanting the gig anymore. Leaving. Quitting. Washing their hands of Five Decades of Failure! Public Education!

Here, what follows, our local rag’s coverage of a meeting of the school representative of the union giving some results of a survey for Lincoln County teachers, just a few days ago:

Before launching into the results, Lohonyay foreshadowed them with a personal note. “In the last 96 hours, I’ve gotten phone calls, text messages and emails from six teachers asking, ‘How can I can resign?’” he said, adding that there had been a dozen more such communications since classes started.

He said that while teachers were overwhelmingly happy to have students back in the classroom and “grateful for some of the stuff that the school district’s brought to us,” 85 percent of 121 teachers surveyed said they have experienced more job-related stress during the first two months of this school year than in previous years, and 73 percent said they were experiencing more anxiety. (Source — Teachers say they are over scrutinized, burned out)

It is complicated, no, working with young people, when staffing is threadbare, when classroom disruptions are out the ceiling, when parents are stressed and stressing youth, and that state of the state is like a 1984 War Zone, all fitted with masks, social distancing and the jab-jab-jab? “We want to have time to have fun with our students,” Lohonyay said, something he added was acutely missing this year.

So, the teachers are getting way to much evaluation, too many professional development requirements and are up to their ears in strict pacing guides and assessment schedules. They also want more support from building administrators, better communication with leadership and compensation for time spent covering for staff shortages and quarantine preparation, according to the survey.

The district superintendent states she was shocked at being broadsided by this survey, by the complaints, and, well, she did bring up another pre/during Covid fact —

“I want people to have fun in school, too. But 50 percent of our kids can’t read at grade level, so where’s the fun in that? There isn’t any.” (Superintendent Karen Gray)

Again, a superintendent who should not be in the job. In fact, there should not be this top down “management,” and one overlord, we know that, really,  come on. Spread out the work of a single superintendent, spread out the signature power for other people, too;  spread out the perspectives and contexts and background. But one superintendent who is over her head, big time? That is the broken system of systems management in the USA, elsewhere.

It gets worse — so those youth with developmental, intellectual, learning disabilities/challenges/ realities, they are getting fewer hours of special education instruction on life skills, social skills, the 3 R’s, etc. Staffing shortages have dented the Lane Education Service District, representing 16 school districts including Eugene. They are cutting one day a week of Life Skills classes for students with cognitive disabilities.

It’s a teacher-counselor-paraeducator shortage, statewide — and that, my friends, is the Zoom plan, the at-home zooming crap that has created so much anxiety in the first place, yet, the consequences are dire on every Build Nothing Back Better level: Giving an unequal (less) amount of instruction time to students with disabilities is a violation of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

“Civil rights don’t go away in the midst of a pandemic,” said committee member Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis. “It’s against the law, it’s outrageous and it’s immoral.” (School staffing issues in Oregon called ‘real, emergency situation’)

And so this all comes back to Waldport, to families, to people wanting to enroll in college, when in fact, there is no housing, and, this Highway 101 strip is for retirees and marine scientists, and builders and laborers and hotel staff. This is not a family-engaging place, on some levels, and with so many parents pre-during Covid shirking their responsibilities around engaging kids (their own, neighbors’ kids) and getting them to read and think, this place seems like a dead zone, Zombie Land, since Disneyfication of La-La Land has pretty much hijacked a majority of families into mind-numbing consumerism and endless TV and video games.

And this is just Oregon, this emergency!!

But that Build Back Nothing Better beat keeps on tapping — Oh, those Centers for Disease Control reports the United States hit over 100,000 drug overdose deaths over a 12-month period ending April 2021 — they say, nearly 30-percent increase over the previous year. CDC states it’s the first time annual U.S. overdose deaths reached six figures. Oh, these new dashboards we can put on our smartphones — Covid infections, Covid death, Overdose hospitalization, Overdose deaths! Get your hear rate, BP and number of steps while tracking Techno Hell! We get all sorts of causes for ODs, such as isolation and stress brought on by the pandemic led to higher rates of drug abuse. Opioids including Sackler Family stuff, and the powerful drug fentanyl accounted for about three-quarters of all overdose deaths. But they miss the point of capitalism as inflammatory DISEASE!

So what do I as a college teacher, who can’t get a class here on The Zombie Coast, but if I could what would I be able to teach if he/I were teaching critical reading and writing classes at the college level? In reality, Build Back Nothing Better is killing the education arena in higher education. Right now, after 10 years of lagging community college enrollments countrywide (but community college presidents get six figures and their henchmen and henchwomen get six figures and pretty landscaping and building construction continues and state legislatures continue to defund them), community colleges are struggling big time. They will go the way of the Dodo, that is, correspondence Zoom Doom, University of Phoenix Power Point and Webinar crap. That was in the plan, remote unlearning! Decades ago!

The technofascists have been working on this project for decades, way before DARPA and the virus, and this fear-fear-fear has been a project of the United Slaves of America for two centuries, or more, really, when that Smith Colony come in looking for wood, metals, gems, gold, and slaves, really. That dark-dark forest and those dark-dark men and women, they were the devil’s doing. Captain Smith, err, Captain Fear, The Village style.

In a hypothetical class, would I be able to look at the public record of say, Fauci, the highest paid government official, or would that be a fineable/fireable offense, or worse — myself being brought before a tribunal of cancel culture henchwomen and henchmen? Tattooed on my forehead, a  scarlet letter, “A,” “A” for Anti-Christ, Anarchist, Antithesis of Capitalism’s Soldiers? Fauci, and his record — something to chew on, a sadist’s story, really.

Flesh-eating flies on these animals (above image), for 90 days, while the sentient beings’ vocal chords were slashed without anesthesia so the mad scientists wouldn’t have to hear their screams as their faces were being eaten alive. NIH, Fauci style: New reports allege that Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) division greenlit tests in which experimenters drugged beagle puppies and locked their heads in cages filled with hungry, infected sandflies. The drug tests were apparently executed even though the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require new drugs to be tested on dogs.

This, from Simon and Schuster’s website for Kennedy’s most recent book, see below. Would this book be allowed in a community college? Would fellow faculty (most being Covidians) allow students to course through some debates and critical thinking exercises using this book as one of several to explore the entire concept of Big Pharma? Do we get to look at Big Medicine? Big Mining? Big Oil? Big Media? Big Finance? Big Prison? Big Ag? Big Real Estate? Big Timber? Big Retail? Big Surveillance? Big AI? Big Fourth Industrial Revolution? Big New Green Lie? Big Nonprofit Industrial Complex? Big Military/Propaganda/Bioweaponry/Digital Complex?

Or are the youth coming to classes so brain fogged from K12, that is, for all intents and purposes, which is the wasteland of intentional harm, intentional miseducation? This in a country of Republicans making anime shit with AOC as a murdered victim, and then, cancel culture on steroids, and then Neanderthals fighting real history in each community’s courts of public opinion fighting against the very real 1619 Project? Does this become more Monty Python-SNL fodder?

All Power to the People? Check it out, a documentary which can’t be shown in K12, say, even in a senior- level social studies class. These are murdering-book banning times, and the USA has always been a lynching country, a slaver country, one that puts the power into the hands of white supremacists with guns, bombs, and, well, now with these Fauci Types and Trump LLC’s and Republicans and Democrats and Bankers, they have the power of foreclosure. Foreclosing on people, on medicine, on health care, on housing, on education, on food, on electricity. This is the Out of This Universe bullshit of universal rights to a roof over your head? Come on, what are you thinking? So, that’s a one-0bedroom shack, with or without running water, and a toilet, and electricity? Hmm, is that with or without food? Hmm, is that with or without your diabetes meds? You get the picture. These billionaires and their Eichmann Armies are all about FORECLOSING, and that has wormed its way into the very thought processes of the average American, scared, pissed, etc. A snapshot into the perversity of every part of the Complex coming from the rightwing book publisher of RFK, Jr’s book. The Real Anthony Fauci [imagine a thousand books with that same title, but The Real Fill-in-the-Blank. FORECLOSING on the American MIND!

As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci dispenses $6.1 billion in annual taxpayer-provided funding for scientific research, allowing him to dictate the subject, content, and outcome of scientific health research across the globe. Fauci uses the financial clout at his disposal to wield extraordinary influence over hospitals, universities, journals, and thousands of influential doctors and scientists—whose careers and institutions he has the power to ruin, advance, or reward.

During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unearthed a shocking story that obliterates media spin on Dr. Fauci . . . and that will alarm every American—Democrat or Republican—who cares about democracy, our Constitution, and the future of our children’s health.

The Real Anthony Fauci reveals how “America’s Doctor” launched his career during the early AIDS crisis by partnering with pharmaceutical companies to sabotage safe and effective off-patent therapeutic treatments for AIDS. Fauci orchestrated fraudulent studies, and then pressured US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators into approving a deadly chemotherapy treatment he had good reason to know was worthless against AIDS. Fauci repeatedly violated federal laws to allow his Pharma partners to use impoverished and dark-skinned children as lab rats in deadly experiments with toxic AIDS and cancer chemotherapies.

In early 2000, Fauci shook hands with Bill Gates in the library of Gates’ $147 million Seattle mansion, cementing a partnership that would aim to control an increasingly profitable $60 billion global vaccine enterprise with unlimited growth potential. Through funding leverage and carefully cultivated personal relationships with heads of state and leading media and social media institutions, the Pharma-Fauci-Gates alliance exercises dominion over global health policy.

The Real Anthony Fauci details how Fauci, Gates, and their cohorts use their control of media outlets, scientific journals, key government and quasi-governmental agencies, global intelligence agencies, and influential scientists and physicians to flood the public with fearful propaganda about COVID-19 virulence and pathogenesis, and to muzzle debate and ruthlessly censor dissent.

Oh, those monkeys in those mad scientists’ experiments. Now, let’s graduate to . . . .

Homo Sapiens . . . . Children! And school hallway movements, oh boy:

And we wonder where are all the smarts in this new generation of children? Where are those future renters? Those future home buyers? Those future workers? Ya think this is not planned? Right, I am just a Tin Foil Hat conspiracy Freak.

“The pernicious new selling of virtual travel is potentially a way to kill off the dream center of children, to kill their imagination. To move freely, even within the area from which you were born, is in my opinion the most indelible of rights. What is going on is a ruling class soft coup, a less overtly violent coup and their vision of a digital feudal planet is terrifying, if only because it is cannot possibly work. It is delusion.” — A Solution Without a Solution, September 18, 2021, John Steppling

Yes, John, these are monsters, and they are elite, and they are the chosen few, and yes, they come from a select and selective grouping of people, schooled and trained, in the way of the financial abuser, in the art of propaganda and mind control, and they have the floor now, as their prostitutes in Congresses, Senates, on Boards, in Houses of Parliament, inside Presidential Palaces, what have you, are their work horses, all proud of their Eichmann Status — sure, updated Eichmann’s, but still, a spade is a spade:

“Our identity is, literally, who we are, and as the digital technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution advance, our identity is increasingly digital. This digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed off to us.” – September 2018, World Economic Forum Insight Report, Identity in a Digital World, A New Chapter in the Social Contract November 1, 2018: “If Dave Birch of Consult Hyperion is correct, identity is the new money.”

Monsters! (Watch: Digital ID; Freedom-as-a-Service. The Lure of Entitlement as the Method for Entrapment)

Finally, fortunately, the previous piece I wrote is up on DV, Collusion: The End of Nature, Brought to us by Zoom

And while we never are really finished tweaking our writing, but in this time of nanosecond news, we have to expect that once an article hits the digital ink, that’s that, move on. Luckily, here we are, add to this story, and it’s not pretty — Oregon middle school closes over safety concerns, student ‘socialization’ issues from year of virtual learning

Fistfights and yelling, and youth unable to sit, stand, walk still. Imagine that, as if the people like those I align with did not anticipate this. School has already been a shit-show of outbursts, “behaviors” (that’s what they call it, his or her behavior) and youth lacking concentration skills.

Ya think all those chemicals and compounds and poisons in the food, air, water, around us, they have nothing to do with ADHD, more and more Autism Spectrum disorder. Robert Kennedy Jr says it right when he points out that we do not see a bunch of 67 year olds (his age) walking around with helmets on and with weighted blankets and yammering Autistic jumbled nothingness. He stresses that EPA and FDA and USDA, the entire suite of agencies supposedly in the employ of the public, that they have no common sense to wonder why so many peanut allergies, so many learning and developmental disabilities?

So, get the jab-jab-booster-booster, and keep eating that nanoparticle filled cream pie, and, bam, we have the post lockdown, return to school, well, lockdown because of “behaviors.”

“The shifts in learning methods and isolation caused by COVID-19 closures and quarantines have taken a toll on the well-being of our students and staff,” superintendent Dr. Danna Diaz wrote in a letter to families and staff Tuesday justifying the sudden decision. “We are finding that some students are struggling with the socialization skills necessary for in-person learning, which is causing disruption in school for other students.”

A district spokesman, Steve Padilla, told The Oregonian that the closure was prompted by fights and other behavioral problems among students but declined to go into detail about the frequency of those on-campus brawls. He said weapons were not involved according to the best of his knowledge.

“We need to take care of this now. It’s urgent,” Padilla said. “It’s not just fighting – It’s disruptive behaviors as well. Students are disrupting other students, making it hard for them to learn.”

Yes, the isolation, the fear mongering, the pathetic death of common sense, common medicine, holism. We reap what we sow, no, RFK, Jr.?

Reality is —

Over 40 New Products Added to Nanotechnology Database

FDA has failed to take adequate action on dangerous chemicals despite acknowledging harm

Here, the interview of Kennedy, by Mercola, deemed one of the enemies of the world on the internet. Viral virus debunker spreader: Interview here!

In this interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental activist and attorney turned ultimate freedom fighter, discusses his latest book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” which is a must-read if you want to know more about the behind-the-scenes of this giant fraud. We could talk for hours and not cover but a fraction of what’s in this book, which Kennedy calls a “devastating indictment of Tony Fauci.”

In a nutshell, Kennedy describes how Fauci turned the National Institutes of Health into an incubator for pharmaceutical products, and essentially sold the entire country to the drug industry. The book is an incredibly well-referenced record of his history of decimating human health, and exposes him as a self-serving charlatan.

I particularly enjoyed how Kennedy placed Fauci in the context of Rockefeller’s legacy with respect to Bill Gates, who developed an alliance with Fauci over 20 years ago. Rockefeller set us on a course of toxic, profit-driven medicines synthesized from the byproducts of the oil refinery process a century ago, and Gates picked up where he left off and then collaborated heavily with Fauci.

Let the school Game of Thrones begin! More Tasers in school. More isolation rooms in schools. More SWAT teams in school (there is no defunding the Gestapo/Pigs/Cops!). The billionaires’ system is running very very smoothly.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

Republican Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota on Monday signed one of the nation's most draconian abortion bans into law, just weeks after the state's GOP lawmakers shot down a proposal to provide free school lunches to low-income students.

The new forced pregnancy law, which takes immediate effect, prohibits abortion care in nearly all cases. Abortion is allowed in cases of rape or incest, but only during the first six weeks of pregnancy—before many people realize they are pregnant. Abortion is also allowed without gestational limits if terminating a pregnancy could prevent the pregnant person's "death or a serious health risk."

North Dakota is one of several states where dormant abortion bans took immediate effect last June when the U.S. Supreme Court's reactionary majority overturnedRoe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had legalized the healthcare procedure nationwide.

However, "North Dakota's trigger ban was blocked last year by a district judge, after its sole abortion provider, the Red River Women's Clinic, filed a lawsuit against the law," The New York Times reported Monday. "The state Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling last month and said the state constitution protected abortion rights in some situations."

Burgum, a former vice president at Microsoft, said in a statement that North Dakota's new forced pregnancy law "clarifies and refines" the existing abortion ban that has been blocked by courts.

As the Times noted:

Under the earlier ban, providers who performed an abortion to save the life of a mother could face felony prosecution. The provider would need to offer an "affirmative defense" proving that the abortion was medically necessary within the confines of the state law.

Under the new version of the law, the exceptions do not require an affirmative defense from providers. But providers could still face criminal charges if they violate the exceptions detailed in the law.

Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, accused North Dakota lawmakers of "attempting to bypass the state constitution and court system with this total ban."

"They made the exceptions a little bit less narrow but essentially tried to repackage the trigger ban," she told the Times.

North Dakota has been completely bereft of abortion clinics since August, when the Fargo-based Red River Women's Clinic moved its operations a short distance across the border to Moorhead, Minnesota. But as the Times reported, Center for Reproductive Rights attorneys representing the clinic "say it is important to ensure that the ban does not take effect, so that patients facing medical emergencies can receive abortions in hospitals and from their doctors."

As the lawsuit opposing North Dakota's currently enjoined abortion ban proceeds, fresh legal challenges to the state's new forced pregnancy law are expected.

"I don't think women in North Dakota are going to accept this, and there will be action in the future to get our rights back," state Rep. Liz Conmy (D-11) toldThe Associated Press. "Our Legislature is overwhelmingly pro-pregnancy, but I think women in the state would like to make their own decisions."

Burgum, who also signed a bill prohibiting gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth last week, argued that the new abortion ban "reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state."

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, contrasted North Dakota Republicans' willingness to enact a forced pregnancy law with their refusal last month to expand access to free school lunches.

Condemning GOP lawmakers and officials, Newsom summarized their position as follows: "Mandating birth is state responsibility. Helping feed those kids is not."

Just 10 days after North Dakota Republicans rejected a bill that would have broadened eligibility for free school lunches, they voted in early April to increase their own daily meal reimbursements from $35 to $45, adding insult to injury.

"I'm beyond enraged at these cruel backward MAGA extremist politicians," tweeted human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid. "A special place in hell."

In sharp contrast to their counterparts in Bismarck, North Dakota, lawmakers in St. Paul recently made Minnesota the fourth state to guarantee universal free school meals.

Meanwhile, a first-of-its-kind lawsuit filed last month by five Texas women whose lives were endangered by that state's near-total abortion ban underscores the spurious nature of so-called "abortion exceptions," as Common Dreamsreported.

With its new law, North Dakota became at least the 14th state with an active ban on nearly all abortions. Additional states have slightly less restrictive prohibitions in place.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 opinion last summer in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ended the constitutional right to abortion and turned regulation of the procedure over to individual states, leaving tens of millions of people without access to lifesaving reproductive healthcare.

The ruling's elimination of federal protections has enabled right-wing lawmakers to prohibit or restrict abortion in more than half of the states, unleashing a life-threatening crisis that human rights advocates consider a violation of U.S. obligations under international law.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

The United Kingdom’s commitments to upholding human rights have come under question this week over the West Papua issue, resulting in a heated exchange between a government representative and five members of the House of Lords.

The exchange occurred on Monday after the Minister of State for the United Nations, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, responded to a question posed by Lord Harries of Pentregarth on what progress had been made in obtaining access to West Papua for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Lord Ahmad said the UK government welcomed recent engagements between the UN and Indonesia to meet the recommendations of a Universal Periodic Review, calling for the UN to access and review the human rights situation in West Papua.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

He said Indonesia was an important bilateral partner.

“We recognise that a significant amount of time has passed since the visit was first proposed, but we hope that both parties can come together to agree dates very soon,” Lord Ahmad said.

The statement was unsatisfactory for Lord Harries, who pointed out that the UK was not among the eight countries which had endorsed the universal periodic review, and demanded clarity on where the UK stood.

“He (Lord Ahmad) mentioned the universal periodic review of Indonesia. He will know that, at that review, a number of major countries, including the United States, Australia and Canada, called for an intervention from the UN in Indonesia and an immediate visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,” Lord Harries said.

Support not clear
“It is not at all clear that the United Kingdom was among those supporting that call. Perhaps the minister will be able to enlighten us.”

Lord Ahmad acknowledged a visit by the UN human rights chief to West Papua had been “pending for a long time” but added that the conservative government supported an earlier visit.

The answer was not well received by Lord Lexden, who condemned Indonesia’s control over the Melanesian region.

“Is it not clear that this small country is suffering grievously under a colonial oppressor,” Lord Lexden said.

“Indonesia, which is busily exploiting the country’s rich mineral resources and extensive forests in its own interests? Will the government do all in their power, in conjunction with Commonwealth partners in the region, to get the UN to act and to act decisively?”

Lord Hanny of Chiswick, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Purvis of Tweed shared their frustrations, describing the details of human right reports on West Papua and pressing Lord Ahmad on why the UK was not among 8 countries that endorsed the Universal Periodic Review.

“It is over a year since the UN special rapporteur’s allegations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and the forced displacement of thousands of indigenous Papuans,” Lord Kennedy said.

Foreign Office ‘does nothing’
“What is the point of the Foreign Office highlighting human rights concerns if it does nothing about them in its negotiations with the country in question?,” Lord Purvis said.

“Why the UK does not seem to have been part of that group of eight countries that pressed for an early visit by the High Commissioner for Human Rights?” Lord Hannay of Chiswick said.

“It is surely reasonable to ask a democratic country such as Indonesia to admit the high commissioner to look into abuses of human rights. That is what it should do, and I hope that we will press that strongly,” Lord Hannay added.

Lord Ahmad said he had spoken to the High Commissioner of Rights about the situation, and acknowledged that a visit was overdue.

He said, the alleged human rights abuses, are regularly brought up in bilateral talks between Indonesia and the UK.

“My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that we engage with them quite regularly,” he said.

“As I said earlier, Indonesia is an important bilateral and regional partner with which we engage widely on a range of issues of peace, conflict and stability in and across the region; it is a key partner.

“In all our meetings, we raise human rights in the broad range of issues, and we are seeing some progress in Indonesia, including on freedom of religion or belief,” he added.

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

Thank you to Lord Harries for your tireless support, as well as Lords Lexden, Kennedy, Hannay, and Purvis.
Pressure is growing on Indonesia. They cannot ignore the international call for a UN visit any longer @MsgSecretariat @ForumSEC @UNHumanRights pic.twitter.com/hjlLxXLDN9

— Benny Wenda (@BennyWenda) April 18, 2023

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

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by A. Kayum Ahmed.

Post Fiji Ltd continues to engage legal services both locally and in Australia in order to recover approximately $9.6 million owed to them by an Australia-based logistics company for remailing services conducted between 2014 and 2016.

The informal agreement forged between the two entities in September of 2011 saw an official agreement drafted but never signed as the companies, as they were in 2011, seemed satisfied with the continual payments made in the first two years of the partnership.

In 2014, however, discrepancies in the invoices of each entity marked the start of a slow deterioration of the partnership, racking up the owed $9.6 million before the partnership ended and Post Fiji sought legal action against the logistics company in the hopes of recovering the amount.

• READ MORE: An earlier report about this controversy

Universal Postal Union (UPU) regulations reportedly detail additional charges for mail exceeding a defined weight threshold.

When the additional charges were added to the payments owed by the logistics company, they allegedly refused to reimburse Post Fiji for the additional charges and accepted only the base rates.

According to the current executive team and CEO of Post Fiji they are unlikely to be able to recover the amount because of the logistics company reportedly becoming insolvent.

Dr Anirudha Bansod, CEO since 2019, is awaiting the formation of a new PFL board in the hopes of addressing the issue and elevating it to the government level.

“Naturally we are now very careful with our agreements,” Dr Bansod said.

“What happened then has been through the due processes and continues to, but I would like to assure the people of Fiji that the current standing of Post Fiji is of a healthy company.”

He said there was no threat of the company becoming insolvent or suffering any major ruin as Post Fiji had transitioned to being a profit generating company within the past few years, long after the $9.6 million loss in 2016.

“We are monitoring, checking, auditing each and every agreement at this stage, and whenever we take a decision, we conduct the necessary risk identifications before we go ahead,” Dr Bansod added.

“Our operations are going smoothly with all 192 UPU countries and we do not owe any country any debts in regard to this case.

“Our services to our customers will not be affected.”

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

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

Post Fiji Ltd has engaged a law firm to recover $9.6 million from an Australia-based mail logistics company that used Post Fiji’s logo to conduct business dealings with postal agencies around the globe.

This, according to the Auditor-General in his report on the review of public enterprises 2020-2021 that was tabled in Parliament this week.

The Auditor-General said Post Fiji Ltd had no legal contract with the company that racked up the $9.6 million debt.

“To ensure that the company’s (Post Fiji Ltd) interests are always protected, any business engagements with external parties must be formalised with an agreement endorsed by the board,” said the Auditor-General.

“An international mail logistics company based in Australia used the logo of Post Fiji (Pte) Ltd for its business dealings with various postal agencies around the globe.

“Consequently, the international postal agencies recognised Post Fiji Ltd as the sender of all the international mails sent by the international company.

“As a result, Post Fiji (Pte) Ltd was invoiced by the international postal agencies for doing business with the international company.

“In addition, under the Universal Postal Union Agreement, Post Fiji (Pte) Ltd has a legal obligation to pay the international postal agencies through an invoice amount.

“To recover its costs, Post Fiji Ltd invoiced the international company for the amount it paid plus a percentage mark-up.

“Post Fiji (Pte) Ltd was unable to recover the cost as there was no legally binding agreement with the international company.”

The Auditor-General recommended that Post Fiji should explore all avenues to recover the significant debt owed and ensure that all significant business engagements in the future are endorsed by the board and an agreement is in place.

Post Fiji Ltd said lawyers were handling the matter and the legal battle between PFL, and the international company would take some time to resolve.

The balance of $9.6 million remains outstanding since June 2020.

Anish Chand is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

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

A trio of progressive U.S. lawmakers on Thursday reintroduced legislation that advocates say would slash the nation's child poverty rate by nearly two-thirds.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.) revived the End Child Poverty Act, which was first introduced by Tlaib and then-Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) in February 2022.

If passed and signed into law by President Joe Biden, the legislation would replace the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the child provisions in the Earned Income Tax Credit with a Universal Child Benefit paying families $393 per month per child.

People's Policy Project, a progressive think tank and one of five organizations supporting the bill, estimates that the legislation would reduce U.S. child poverty by 64% and deep child poverty—defined as living in a household with a total cash income below 50% of its poverty threshold—by 70%.

"Poverty is a policy choice," Tlaib said in a statement. "The End Child Poverty Act will create a universal child assistance program and ensure that every child has the resources they need to reach their full potential."

"The expanded Child Tax Credit lifted 2.9 million children out of poverty and cut child poverty in nearly half, but now that it has expired, too many families are struggling to make ends meet," she added. "In the richest country in the history of the world, no family should have to choose between keeping a roof over their head and putting food on the table to feed their children."

Federal data released last year showed the U.S. child poverty rate nearly halved from 9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021, thanks largely to the CTC expansion included in the American Rescue Plan pandemic relief package signed by Biden in March 2021. The CTC expansion expired at the end of 2022.

Omar said: "In the midst of a devastating pandemic, President Biden and Democrats in Congress took dramatic action to help families in my district stay afloat—expanding life-changing benefits like Medicaid and SNAP, and expanding the child tax credit to finally benefit the most vulnerable among us. This action alone cut child poverty nearly in half."

"It is a tragedy that we let the child tax credit expansion expire," Omar continued. "I am thrilled that Minnesota plans to expand the state's child tax credit, but Congress must take federal action to address child poverty and help millions of families afford basics like food, rent, childcare, and healthcare."

A fact sheetreleased by Tlaib's office stated that because the program would be universal and include no income phase-ins or phase-outs, children in the U.S. would be "automatically enrolled at birth, and every family would receive a monthly payment for every child they are currently caring for" until the age of 18.

"This universal child benefit proposal would dramatically simplify our nation's child benefit system and provide financial security for all families when they have a child," said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project.

Tlaib contended: "The End Child Poverty Act would cut childhood poverty by nearly two-thirds. It is exactly the type of bold action our party should be championing to finally address child poverty in this country and make sure families aren't going hungry in one of the wealthiest countries in the world."

"It is a tragedy that we let the child tax credit expansion expire."

Noting the "442,000 children living in poverty in Illinois," García said that "this crucial legislation provides financial security for families living paycheck to paycheck."

"We must continue to work towards reducing child poverty," he added, "and ensure every family has the opportunity to thrive in this country."

The reintroduction of the End Child Poverty Act comes a little over a month after 30 million people across the United States had their family's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food benefits slashed, despite high prices driven by corporate greed and inflation and experts' warnings about a looming "hunger cliff."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The post How American Cultural Assumptions Keep Us From Having Universal Health Care appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Nick Licata.

Hypocrisy and humanity's failure to "unite around consistently applied human rights and universal values" expose a system unfit to tackle global crises, according to a report published by Amnesty International on Monday, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"The West's robust response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine contrasts sharply with a deplorable lack of meaningful action on grave violations by some of their allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt," Amnesty said in an introduction to its annual global human rights report.

"As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 75, Amnesty International insists that a rules-based international system must be founded on human rights and applied to everyone, everywhere," the group asserted.

None

— (@)

Amnesty continued:

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed numerous war crimes, generated a global energy and food crisis, and sought to further disrupt a weak multilateral system. It also laid bare the hypocrisy of Western states that reacted forcefully to the Kremlin's aggression but condoned or were complicit in grave violations committed elsewhere...

Double standards and inadequate responses to human rights abuses taking place around the world fuelled impunity and instability, including deafening silence on Saudi Arabia's human rights record, inaction on Egypt, and the refusal to confront Israel's system of apartheid against Palestinians.

The report also highlights China's use of strong-arm tactics to suppress international action on crimes against humanity it has committed, as well as the failure of global and regional institutions—hamstrung by the self-interest of their members—to respond adequately to conflicts killing thousands of people including in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Yemen.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a chilling example of what can happen when states think they can flout international law and violate human rights without consequences," Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said in a statement.

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created 75 years ago, out of the ashes of the Second World War. At its core is the universal recognition that all people have rights and fundamental freedoms," she added. "While global power dynamics are in chaos, human rights cannot be lost in the fray. They should guide the world as it navigates an increasingly volatile and dangerous environment. We must not wait for the world to burn again."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Minnesota last week became just the fourth U.S. state to guarantee universal free school meals, triggering a fresh wave of demands and arguments for a similar federal policy to feed kids.

"Universal school meals is now law in Minnesota!" Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the state, tweeted Monday. "Now, we need to pass our Universal School Meals Program Act to guarantee free school meals to every child across the country."

Omar's proposal, spearheaded in the upper chamber by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), "would permanently provide free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack to all school children regardless of income, eliminate school meal debt, and strengthen local economies by incentivizing local food procurement," the lawmakers' offices explained in 2021.

Congressional Republicans last year blocked the continuation of a Covid-19 policy enabling public schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all 50 million children, and now, many families face rising debt over childrens' cafeteria charges.

"The school bus service doesn't charge fares. Neither should the school lunch service."

Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, highlighted Monday that while children who attend public schools generally have not only free education but also free access to bathrooms, textbooks, computer equipment, playgrounds, gyms, and sports gear, "around the middle of each school day, the free schooling service is briefly suspended for lunch."

"How much each kid is charged is based on their family income except that, if a kid lives in a school or school district where 40% or more of the kids are eligible for free lunch, then they are also eligible for free lunch even if their family income would otherwise be too high," he detailed. "Before Covid, in 2019, 68.1% of the kids were charged $0, 5.8% were charged $0.40, and 26.1% were charged the full $4.33... The total cost of the 4.9 billion meals is around $21 billion per year. In 2019, user fees covered $5.6 billion of this cost."

Bruenig—whose own child has access to free school meals because of the community eligibility program—continued:

The approximately $5.6 billion of school lunch fees collected in 2019 were equal to 0.7% of the total cost of K-12 schooling. In order to collect these fees, each school district has to set up a school lunch payments system, often by contracting with third-party providers like Global Payments. They also have to set up a system for dealing with kids who are not enrolled in the free lunch program but who show up to school with no money in their school lunch account or in their pockets. In this scenario, schools will either have to make the kid go without lunch, give them a free lunch for the day (but not too many times), or give them a lunch while assigning their lunch account a debt.

Eligibility for the $0 and $0.40 lunches is based on income, but this does not mean that everyone with an eligible income successfully signs up for the program. As with all means-tested programs, the application of the means test not only excludes people with ineligible incomes, but also people with eligible incomes who fail to successfully navigate the red tape of the welfare bureaucracy.

The think tank leader tore into arguments against universal free meals for kids, declaring that "hiving off a tiny part of the public school bundle and charging a means-tested fee for it is extremely stupid."

Bruenig pointed out that socializing the cost of child benefits like school meals helps "equalize the conditions of similarly-situated families with different numbers of children" and "smooths incomes across the lifecycle by ensuring that, when people have kids, their household financial situation remains mostly the same."

"Indeed, this is actually the case for the welfare state as whole, not just child benefits," the expert emphasized, explaining that like older adults and those with disabilities, children cannot and should not work, which "makes it impossible to receive personal labor income, meaning that some other non-labor income system is required."

Conservative opponents of free school lunches often claim that "fees serve an important pedagogical function in society to get people to understand personal responsibility" and because they "are means-tested, they serve an important income-redistributive function in society," he noted. "Both arguments are hard to take seriously."

Pushing back against the first claim, Bruenig stressed that right-wingers don't apply it to other aspects of free schooling such as bus services. He also wrote that the means-testing claim "is both untrue and at odds with their general attitudes on, not just redistribution, but on how child benefit programs specifically should be structured."

A tax for everyone with a certain income intended to make up the $5.6 billion in school meal fees, he argued, "would have a larger base and thus represent a smaller share of the income of each person taxed and such a tax would smooth incomes over time," while also eliminating means-testing—which would allow schools to feed all kids and ditch costly payment systems.

As Nora De La Cour reported Sunday for Jacobin: "The fight for school meals traces its roots all the way back to maternalist Progressive Era efforts to shield children and workers from the ravages of unregulated capitalism. In her bookThe Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools, Jennifer Gaddis describes how early school lunch crusaders envisioned meal programs that would be integral to schools' educational missions, immersing students in hands-on learning about nutrition, gardening, food preparation, and home economics. Staffed by duly compensated professionals, these programs would collectivize and elevate care work, making it possible for mothers of all economic classes to efficiently nourish their young."

Now, families who experienced the positive impact of the pandemic-era program want more from the federal government.

"When schools adopt universal meals through community eligibility or another program, we see improvements in students' academic performance, behavior, attendance, and psychosocial functioning," wrote De La Cour, whose reporting also includes parent and cafeteria worker perspectives. "Above all, the implementation of universal meals causes meal participation to shoot up, demonstrating that the need far exceeds the number of kids who are able to get certified."

Crystal FitzSimons, director of school-based programs at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), told Jacobin, "There is a feeling that we can't go back."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

Surrounded by students, teachers, and advocates, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday afternoon signed into law a bill to provide breakfast and lunch at no cost to all of the state's roughly 820,000 K-12 pupils regardless of their household income.

The move to make Minnesota the fourth U.S. state to guarantee universal free school meals—joining California, Maine, and Colorado—elicited praise from progressives.

"Beautiful," tweeted Stephanie Kelton, a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University.

"No child should go hungry for any reason, period."

UC-Berkeley professor and former U.S. labor secretary Robert Reich wrote on social media: "Let this serve as a reminder that poverty is a policy choice. In the richest country in the world, it is absolutely inexcusable that millions of our children go to school hungry because they are living in poverty."

An estimated 1 in 6 children in Minnesota don't get enough to eat on a regular basis. But 1 in 4 food-insecure kids live in households that don't qualify for the federal free and reduced meal program, leading to "mounting school lunch debts in the tens of thousands of dollars," Minnesota Public Radioreported.

Tens of thousands of children are set to benefit from Minnesota's new law, which could be operational as early as summer school in July. Some of them were there to thank Walz at the signing ceremony, where the sense of elation was palpable.

"As a former teacher, I know that providing free breakfast and lunch for our students is one of the best investments we can make to lower costs, support Minnesota's working families, and care for our young learners and the future of our state," Walz said. "This bill puts us one step closer to making Minnesota the best state for kids to grow up, and I am grateful to all of the legislators and advocates for making it happen."

The Minnesota House—led by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, the state's Democratic affiliate—first passed the bill in February in a 70-58 party-line vote. The state Senate—where the DFL holds just a single-seat advantage—approved it on Tuesday by a 38-26 margin. The state House rubber-stamped an amended version of the bill on Thursday.

In a now-viral clip from the state Senate's debate over the bill earlier this week. Sen. Steve Drazkowski (R-20) questioned whether hunger is really a problem in Minnesota—even as the state's food banks reported a record surge in visits last year, months before federal lawmakers slashed pandemic-era Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

"I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry," Drazkowski said before voting against the bill. "I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don't have access to enough food to eat."

During Friday's signing ceremony, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (DFL) said, "To our decision-makers who believe they have never met someone who is experiencing or has experienced hunger: Hi, my name is Peggy Flanagan, and I was 1 in 6 of those Minnesota children who experienced hunger."

"By providing free breakfast and lunch to all of our students, we are removing barriers and removing stigma from the lunch room," said Flanagan. "We are helping family pocketbooks, especially for those 1 in 4 who don't qualify for financial assistance with school meals. We are leading with our values that no child should go hungry for any reason, period."

"This is an investment in the well-being of our children, as well as an investment in their academic success," Flanagan added, calling the "generation-changing" bill "the most important thing" she's ever worked on in her life.

"By providing free breakfast and lunch to all of our students, we are removing barriers and removing stigma from the lunch room... This is an investment in the well-being of our children, as well as an investment in their academic success."

As Minnesota Reformerreported: "The majority of Minnesota schools receive federal funding from the National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools for each meal served, though it doesn't cover the cost of the entire meal. Under the new law, schools are prohibited from charging students for the remaining cost, and the state will foot the rest of the bill—about $200 million annually."

MPR noted that "the legislation is similar to a program that was introduced during the pandemic to provide meals for all students, but was discontinued at the end of last year."

Last month, The Star Tribune editorial board opined that providing free breakfast and lunch to all of Minnesota's students, including affluent ones, is "excessive."

Pushing back against this argument for means-testing, Darcy Stueber—director of Nutrition Services for Mankato Area Public Schools and public policy chair of the Minnesota School Nutrition Association—asserted that meals should be guaranteed to all kids at no cost, just like other basic learning necessities.

"We don't charge for Chromebooks and desks and things like that," she told MPR. "It's a part of their day and they're there for so many hours. It just completes that whole learning experience for the child."

Minnesota Rep. Sydney Jordan (DFL-60A), the bill's lead author, made the same point to counter GOP lawmakers' complaints following the initial passage of the legislation.

"We give every kid in our school a desk," Jordan said last month. "There are lots of kids out there that can afford to buy a desk, but they get a desk because they go to school."

Walz, for his part, stressed Friday that his administration is "just getting started" when it comes to boosting education funding.

"The big stuff," said the governor, "is still coming."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Kenny Stancil.

“The revelations that Mexican authorities have continued to spy on activists, including their communications with reporters, is a shocking confirmation that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s promises to do away with illegal surveillance have not been realized,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative. “The previous failure to hold officials engaged in spying to account all but guaranteed that little would change. Only a credible, swift, and transparent investigation into these abuses will show that the government is taking such actions seriously.”

Joint reporting published Tuesday, March 7, by The New York Times and the independent Mexican outlet Aristegui Noticias showed that military authorities used Pegasus surveillance software designed by the Israeli firm NSO Group to spy on Ramos.

According to that reporting, an intelligence unit with Mexico’s Defense Secretariat attacked Ramos’ phone on numerous occasions between 2019 and 2020, and listened in on conversations he had with journalists at the newspaper El Universal about alleged extrajudicial executions of civilians in the northern state of Tamaulipas. The documents also revealed that the secretariat accused Ramos of working for a criminal gang in the state.

López Obrador, who assumed office in 2018, pledged that his government would end surveillance and denied the continued use of Pegasus. Past investigations into the use of Pegasus have not led to the arrest of public officials allegedly responsible for the surveillance.

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

Since late January, authorities have suspended 15 foreign media outlets operating in Somali Regional State, and also revoked the license of a regional journalists’ association, according to news reports and people familiar with the cases.

“The recent suspensions of 15 media outlets the ban on a media association in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State have eroded reporting in the region, and paint a picture of a government unwilling to make room for dissenting voices,” said CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should allow journalists from these outlets to resume their jobs, ensure that enforcement of licensing regulations is not used to muzzle the media.”

On January 28, the Somali Regional State Communication Bureau,  a government office that oversees the region’s media, indefinitely suspended the 15 media outlets and their representatives from operating in the state, saying that they did not have the licensing required for foreign media outlets, according to a letter from the bureau reviewed by CPJ and multiple media reports.

Those outlets, all of which broadcast in the Somali language and have their headquarters outside of Ethiopia, include BBC Somali, Kalsan TV, Universal TV, Horyaal TV, Eryal TV, CBA TV, Horn Cable TV, Star TV, RTN Somali TV, STN TV, Goobjoog TV, Saab TV, Sahan TV, MM TV, and Five Somali TV, according to those sources.

In the letter, the communication bureau said it was complying with an earlier directive from the federal Ethiopian Media Authority to enforce federal licensing requirements. Federal regulations on foreign media registration, which came into force in May 2022, require foreign broadcasters opening a branch in the country to register with the media authority and prohibit journalists from contributing to foreign outlets without a registration certificate.

Abdulrazaq Hassan, chair of the Somali Region Journalists Association, a local media rights group, told CPJ via messaging app that most of those outlets did not have offices in Ethiopia, but instead worked with correspondents in the country.

The SRJA was quoted in those media reports saying that licensing was being used as pretext to shutter independent outlets, and that journalists from the 15 media companies had previously operated with permits from the regional communication bureau.

Abdulkadir Reshid Duale, the head of the Somali communication bureau, told CPJ in a statement that his office had issued temporary permits to the outlets in 2018, which had since expired. He said the media outlets had been warned about the need for federal licensing, and would be allowed to resume working once they had the federal license.

Journalists and managers from eight of the suspended outlets told CPJ that they had been previously granted permission to operate by regional authorities, that the steps to receive a federal license were not clear, and that the suspensions were enforced without adequate warning.

Also, on January 31, the Somali Region Justice Bureau, which oversees the registration of civil society organizations in the region, revoked the SRJA’s license and accused it of having “acted inappropriately,” according to a letter from the bureau reviewed by CPJ and a statement by the Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy, an Ethiopian nongovernmental organization.

In a February 3 letter reviewed by CPJ, the communication bureau asked police and state security to take “appropriate action” against the SRJA, which it accused of operating illegally and “spreading incorrect and misleading messages.”

Separately, regional police detained Muhiyadin Mohammed Ali, a reporter with the U.K.-based broadcaster Kalsan TV, after he published a video on his personal Facebook page protesting the suspensions. He was released on February 2 without charge, according to news reports, a statement by the SRJA, and a person familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation.  In his statement, Abdikadir said Muyihadin threatened a government official in the video.

The Ethiopian Media Authority did not respond to CPJ’s queries sent via messaging app and email.

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

The Democratic-led Minnesota House of Representatives voted Thursday night in favor of legislation to provide free school meals for all students, a move meant to alleviate childhood hunger in a state where 1 in 6 children don't have enough to eat.

The bill, HF 5, provides universal school meals—lunch and breakfast—to all of Minnesota's 600,000 pupils at no cost. House lawmakers voted 70-58 along party lines in favor of the measure.

If approved by the state Senate—in which the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), the state's Democratic affiliate, holds a single-seat advantage—and signed into law by DFL Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher, the policy will cost the government around $387 million during fiscal year 2024-25, according to estimates.

"We're feeding the kids," tweeted Rep. Sydney Jordan (DFL-60A), the bill's lead author, after the House vote.

Rep. Mary Frances Clardy (DFL-53A), another author of the bill, said that "as a teacher of 27 years, I've seen the impact hunger has on our students and their ability to concentrate and learn in the classroom. We have the resources to step up and deliver the food security families need."

However, DFL leaders say the program will save Minnesota families between $800 and $1,000 on annual food costs.

According to a fact sheet in support of the bill, 1 in 6 Minnesota children report not having enough to eat; however, a quarter of food-insecure kids come from households that can't get government food support because their families earn too much to qualify.

"When school meals are provided at no cost to all students, these hungry kids no longer fall through the cracks," the publication said. "They consistently get nutritious food that sustains their energy and focus in the classroom."

Jordan said that "in a state with an agricultural tradition as rich as ours, it is particularly unacceptable that any child go hungry."

"We know hunger is something too many students bring with them to their classrooms," she added. "And we know the current status quo is letting Minnesota school children go hungry."

Republicans, meanwhile, slammed the bill as an example of "reckless spending."

"Paying for lunches for every student, kids that can afford it, families that can afford this, that doesn't make sense," said Rep. Peggy Bennett (R-23A), who offered an amendment to the bill that would expand current eligibility for free school meals, with income limits.

Jordan dismissed the Republicans' argument, saying "we give every kid in our school a desk. There are lots of kids out there that can afford to buy a desk, but they get a desk because they go to school."

Advocates of universal school meals across the country hailed the Minnesota House vote on the bill. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—who helped negotiate legislation allowing schools to temporarily drop regulatory burdens such as income-based eligibility requirements in order to deliver free meals to as many students as possible — tweeted that she is "incredibly proud of our state for leading the way to ensure no child goes hungry and receives the nutrition they need to succeed."

Chef and television personality Andrew Zimmern said on Twitter that he is "so proud today to be a Minnesotan."

"Prioritizing meals for kids should be job one and we can figure out the compensatory issues tomorrow," he added. "No child should be hungry. Ever. This is a big step towards that."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 20 states have considered or passed legislation to establish universal free school meals, with California, Colorado, Maine, and Vermont being the first ones to enact the policy.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Congress initially responded to the Covid-19 pandemic by enabling U.S. public schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all 50 million children, but Republicans blocked a continuation of the program last summer—and now, districts and kids are suffering.

Halfway through the academic year, the nonprofit School Nutrition Association (SNA) on Wednesday released the results of a November survey that shows school meal programs are struggling with increasing costs, staff and menu item shortages, and unpaid charges.

"Congress has an opportunity to protect this critical lifeline."

Last June, Congress passed the Keep Kids Fed Act, bipartisan compromise legislation that increased the federal reimbursement rates for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) by 40 cents and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) by 15 cents for the 2022-23 school year.

However, only around a quarter of the 1,230 districts that responded to SNA's survey said those levels are sufficient, and 99.2% of them have moderate or serious concern about the raised rates expiring.

Additionally, a majority of districts that charge for meals said that the loss of the federal pandemic waiver enabling them to feed all students led to a rise in unpaid meal debt (96.3%), complaints and concerns from families (86.8%), administrative burden (86.5%), and stigma for low-income students (66.8%).

Over two-thirds of the districts reported unpaid meal debt collectively totaling $19.2 million. By district, debt ranged from just $15 to $1.7 million, but the median was $5,164.

A new position paper outlines SNA's primary recommendations:

• Make permanent the Keep Kids Fed Act reimbursement rates;
• Expand NSLP/SBP to offer healthy school meals for all students at no charge;
• Ensure the U.S. Department of Agriculture maintains current nutrition standards; and
• Reduce administrative and regulatory burdens.

"School meal programs are at a tipping point as rising costs, persistent supply chain issues, and labor shortages jeopardize their long-term sustainability," said SNA president Lori Adkins. "Congress has an opportunity to protect this critical lifeline by making reimbursement increases permanent and allowing us to offer free meals to ensure all students are nourished during the school day."

SNA is far from alone in demanding congressional action—though the dynamic on Capitol Hill is even more complicated now than it was last summer, since a divided Republican Party took narrow control of the U.S. House of Representatives last week.

"We are experiencing cost increases in food, supplies, and labor like we have never seen before, and the meal reimbursement rate is not sufficient to cover the costs," Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, a nonprofit created by school food service professionals, told The Washington Post, which reported on the SNA survey.

"We are witnessing large negative balances in schools since free meals have been discontinued," Wilson added, noting that some districts have started giving children with certain levels of debt alternate, lesser meals.

Highlighting that school meal policies vary by state and district, Wilson's organization tweeted Wednesday that "access to good nutrition should not depend on where a child lives or their family finances!"

As USA Today—which also reported on SNA's survey Wednesday—detailed:

After pandemic-era waivers granting universal schools meal expired at the start of the school year, some states effectively extended them this school year, including Massachusetts, Nevada, Vermont, and Pennsylvania.

California, Maine, and now Colorado are the only states with laws ensuring permanent universal meal programs for all children, regardless of parents' income.

A few districts, including Chicago and New York City, also offer free meals to kids.

However, Donna Martin, nutrition director for the Burke County school district in Georgia, warned the Post that "doing universal school meals state by state is way too piecemeal and will ultimately leave needy students out."

"School districts are incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in school meal debt that the school districts' budgets—not school nutrition—will eventually have to cover," Martin stressed. "This takes dollars away from teaching and learning."

Elliot Haspel, author of Crawling Behind: America's Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It, said in a series of tweets Wednesday that "I, too, dislike the state-by-state approach. HOWEVER, given the political makeup of Congress, I think every state that can needs to be passing universal school meals (at solid reimbursement rates) during the '23 legislative session."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

As child care centers across the U.S. were closing or struggling to stay open last year and appealing to the Democratic Party to pass far-reaching aid for the industry and families as part of the Build Back Better Act, a coalition of deep-pocketed nationwide chains was working to ensure the families they serve would not benefit from the legislation, fearing reduced profits.

In a report on private equity firms taking interest recently in investing in child care chains such as Bright Horizons and Primrose Schools, The New York Times noted on Friday that several nationwide for-profit chains used their lobbying arm, the Early Care and Education Consortium, to express concerns to lawmakers about Build Back Better (BBB), the Biden administration's domestic spending plan.

Journalist Katherine Goldstein tweeted that the consortium's ability to lobby lawmakers showed that parents and caregivers need groups representing them on Capitol Hill as well.

Although the consortium publicly advocated for the passage of the BBB, its lobbyists said in meetings on Capitol Hill that the program would cast too wide a net as it sought to lower child care costs for families across the country, including those who send their children to for-profit chain centers.

Chad Dunkley, who co-chairs the consortium's board and runs New Horizon Academy, a chain with locations in five states, told the Times that the group "got nervous," while executive director Radha Mohan said the legislation was based on "an incomplete cost analysis" and would offer benefits to families with higher incomes than the consortium recommended.

"The idea that we should limit child care benefits only to low-income families means we will forever keep child care as a welfare program as opposed to a universal right supporting all parents and kids."

Biden's proposal, which was pushed by progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), would have limited out-of-pocket child care costs to 7% of a family's income and required centers to pay living wages to all employees, with federal and state governments providing aid to child care programs. Families making $250,000 with two children would have had their child care costs capped at $17,500 total, the Times noted as an example.

The chains, which charge upwards of $40,000 yearly per child in some parts of the country, may not have openly stated in legislative meetings that they were concerned about their profit margins, but as the Times reported, Bright Horizons wrote in its 2021 annual report that universal child care would pose a risk to the chain.

"A broad-based benefit with governmentally mandated or funded child care, such as universal preschool, could reduce the demand for early care services at our existing early education and child care centers due to the availability of lower cost care alternatives, or could place downward pressure on the tuition and fees we charge, which could adversely affect our revenues," said the company. 

KinderCare, another nationwide chain, said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document last month as it filed for its initial public offering that its "continued profitability depends on our ability to offset our increased costs through tuition increases."

Executives whose child care centers are part of the consortium donated to right-wing Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) after he refused to support the BBB last December, and met with him around the same time, calling on him to support federal child care funding targeted to lower-income families—not the vast majority of the families who can attend for-profit chains.

"The idea that we should limit child care benefits only to low-income families means we will forever keep child care as a welfare program as opposed to a universal right supporting all parents and kids," said Elliot Haspel, author of Crawling Behind: America's Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It. "It also leaves out the millions of middle-class families who are struggling."

The Times report proves, said Annie Schaeffing, director of strategic initiatives at Bank Street College, that "private equity has no place in early childhood education."

Haspel expressed hope that Democrats who pushed for the BBB will take aim in the new congressional session at the for-profit chains that worked to kill the legislation as they continue pushing for federal child care funding.

"I sincerely hope incoming Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chair Sen. Sanders holds hearings on the rise of investor-backed child care chains, their impact on parents and kids, and policies to curb their unfettered profit-seeking as we strive for a system that works for all," said Haspel.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

A joint directive issued on Nov. 9 by the country's National Health Commission and other health-related agencies, calls for the installation of "dynamically managed electronic health records and universal electronic health codes for every resident" by 2025.

In practice, this will mean that the healthcare records of every individual in mainland China will be digitized, linked to their national ID card number via a national platform, and integrated with a unified health code that can be widely shared among hospitals, clinics and, potentially, government agencies.

The news prompted an outcry on social media, sparking comparisons with a fictional surveillance system portrayed on the dystopian TV show Black Mirror.

One comment on Twitter said the system was similar to electronic tagging systems used to manage livestock, while another worried that it would give rise to a points system like the one in Black Mirror. Comments on Sina Weibo showed similar concerns.

California-based healthcare practitioner Chen Guodong said the move could violate patient confidentiality.

"If your medical information can be freely shared with others, or easily obtained by a government, this will have a massive impact on your marriage, employment and higher education prospects," Chen said.

"The content of consultations between doctors and patients, and patient information, are strictly confidential and cannot be shared with third parties," he said. "This action by the Chinese government is a total invasion of privacy."

Chinese media outlet Caixin.com quoted people close to the health ministry as saying that there was a difference between the proposed unified "health code" and the Health Code COVID-19 prevention app, which currently tracks people's movements and COVID-19 test results as part of Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy.

It will enable confidential and fully detailed healthcare information on anyone to be shared between first- and second-tier hospitals, while third-tier hospitals will gain access to "core information" on patients shared nationwide. The report didn't specify which details would be included in a person's "core information."

Discrimination and security fears

Disabled activists in China say that stringent health-check standards bar people with many disabilities and other medical conditions from getting work as teachers or other civil servants, highlighting rampant employment discrimination by governments around the country.

Rights groups have highlighted widespread discrimination against people with HIV and people with disabilities in China, including the exclusion of disabled children from schooling from an early age. 

The move has also prompted fears around data security, with so much sensitive information held electronically.

In July, a hacker forum user with the handle ChinaDan posted an offer for sale of 23 terabytes of data from the Shanghai Police Department that included sensitive personal information on 1 billion people.

ChinaDan didn't specify how they came by the data, only that it was hosted on Alibaba Cloud, but uploaded three folders containing some 750,000 database entries by way of a sample for potential buyers. 

Exiled dissident surgeon He Anquan, who currently works in New York, said the end result of the digitization program could be that people's private information is posted online for all the world to read.

"National networks carrying information like blood type, personal home address, family background and ... even DNA could be attacked by hackers ... with people's private information being exposed for all to see," He told RFA in a recent interview.

"Privacy could become a thing of the past," he said.

The Nov. 9 document also calls for the national health information platform to "promote the exchange and sharing of test results."

According to He, the move is particularly worrying given that the authorities have already used the Health Code COVID-19 app to restrict the movements of political dissidents, as well as people planning to protest the mass freezing of rural bank accounts in June. 

Online records of government tenders and contracts gathered by RFA in August 2019 showed that provincial and municipal authorities across China were buying large amounts of instruments, tools and medical supplies designed to collect DNA samples from people. 

"We are seeing the rise of high-tech authoritarianism ... particularly the use of high-tech methods to control the population by a totalitarian government," He told RFA.

"Dissidents like me used to joke that when you get out of jail in China, you just wind up in a bigger prison -- China," he said. "If that bigger prison is getting a digital upgrade, then that's pretty terrifying."

Social media concerns

Some comments under the hashtag #AllResidentsToHaveFullyFunctionalHealthCodesBy2025 on the social media platform Weibo echoed He's concerns.

User @Li_Tiezhu's_Crown commented, in an apparent reference to the Henan rural bank protesters prevented from leaving their homes by the COVID-19 Health Code app: "Given the red health codes allocated to those petitioners in Henan, I really can't believe that this electronic health code ... is really about our health."

User @Li_Zhengxi_Sissi added: "Wouldn't it sound fancier just to call it monitoring integration?" while @aro-ace commented: "Having difficulty breathing."

@There_is_a_grocery_store_in_the_mountains said they opposed the plan.

"Such tools and methods aren't necessary for normal medical treatment ... codes should make things more convenient for people, not be allowed to define them by their [medical] attributes," the user said. "They shouldn't always be thinking about how they can use such tools to define, curb and restrict people."

@Tsuruko_Namikawa's comment was blunter still: "Looks similar to the way you'd brand a pig."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sun Cheng and Wang Yun for RFA Mandarin.

The petition was signed by four organizations, the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Defend the Defenders, the Vietnam Democracy Federation and Vietnam Democracy Radio. It was sent to Erin Barclay, Senior Bureau Official for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S Department of State, who is taking part in the two-day talks in Hanoi which started on Wednesday.

The letter called on Vietnam to: “immediately release political prisoners, dissidents, leaders of civil society organizations on environmental protection; fully guarantee the right to freedom of expression; truthfully enforce the right to freedom of association, especially the rights of independent trade unions; restitute appropriated places of worship, charity facilities, and schools to religious groups; and respect the traditions and culture of ethnic minorities.”

The four NGOs said meeting those goals was consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements which Vietnam has signed. Vietnam was elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council for a second time on Oct. 11 despite objections from many international rights organizations.

“We see that after the past 25 dialogues Vietnam has not made any significant progress,” Nguyen Ba Tung, Executive Director of the California-based Vietnam Human Rights Network, told RFA Vietnamese.

“In recent months, arrests have reached a peak. The Vietnamese state abuses the Criminal Code to silence dissidents who speak out about human rights violations and social injustice.

“The US Delegation taking part in the Vietnam-US Human Rights Dialogue should demand that Hanoi release those unjustly convicted.”

Since the beginning of the year, at least 20 people have been arrested and 27 people have been sentenced to prison with lengthy sentences, mostly charged with "conducting anti-state propaganda” and "abusing democratic freedoms," Tung said.

The latest case is that of freelance journalist Le Manh Ha, who used social media to defend land rights petitioners and was sentenced to eight years in prison and three years of probation.

After sentencing activists to long prison terms authorities transfer them to prisons far from their families, in harsh climates.

Last month, human rights activist Pham Doan Trang, who has won many international awards for her writings and actions, was sent to An Phuoc Prison camp, 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from where her elderly mother and relatives live.

Trang was arrested in October 2020, just hours after the 24th Vietnam-US Human Rights Dialogue ended.

One month before this year’s Vietnam-US Human Rights Dialogue, many Protestant groups in the Central Highlands reported that they were harassed by local authorities and banned from practicing their religion.

In recent days, some activists and relatives of prisoners of conscience across Vietnam said they were being guarded by plainclothes police.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

At least 120 people were killed in two car bomb explosions outside the education ministry offices, near the busy Zobe junction in Mogadishu, according to multiple media reports. The Al-Shabaab, a militant group linked to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to media reports.

Mohamed—also known as Koonaa—a reporter and producer with the privately owned M24 Somali TV online broadcaster, died at the scene of the explosions after suffering severe head injuries, according to M24 Somali TV’s chief executive officer and founder Abdiwali Abdullahi Hussein, also known as Keytoon, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, as well as separate statements by the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) and the Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ), two local press rights groups.

Reuters photographer Feisal Omar and Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulle, director of M24 Somali TV and a contributor to the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America (VOA), also were injured at the scene of the blasts, according to a VOA report and Reuters statement emailed to CPJ. All three journalists had rushed to the scene to report on the first blast when the second bomb exploded, the SJS statement, Abdiwali, and a Reuters spokesperson said. In addition, Bile Abdisalan, a security guard at the Reuters bureau, suffered minor injuries to his leg in the explosions, the Reuters spokesperson said in the statement.

“Mohamed Isse Hassan joins a long list of Somali journalists who have lost their lives in Al-Shabaab attacks, in a country considered one of the most hostile environments for the press. Unfortunately, these attacks are often characterized by a lack of accountability for the culprits,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ sub-Saharan Africa representative. “Mohamed and the other journalists and media workers injured in the attack on October 29 deserve justice. Authorities should ensure they receive it.”

Mohamed and Abdulkadir were at the M24 Somali TV offices near the Zobe junction when the first bomb exploded around 2 p.m., Abdiwali and a VOA report said. Both rushed to the scene to cover the first blast and were hit when the second explosion went off minutes later, as ambulances and other first responders arrived, Abdiwali and other media reports said. The Reuters spokesperson said that Feisal was taking photographs “when the secondary blast took place.”

Abdulkadir lost two fingers and had shrapnel wounds in his abdomen, the VOA report said. Abdiwali said that Abdulkadir was discharged from the hospital by October 31. The Reuters spokesperson said that Feisal was “fine and recovering at home” but still needed minor surgery to remove “some debris or shrapnel” that hit him in the torso.

Mohamed, who is survived by his wife and a six-month-old son, previously worked with various media outlets in Mogadishu, including privately owned Universal Somali TV, where he was a reporter until a few months ago, according to Abdiwali and Universal Somali TV East Africa director Abdullahi Hersi Kulmiye, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Abdullahi said that Mohamed had also worked with the privately owned Somali outlets Radio Simba, Goobjoog Media Group, and Shabelle Media Network. Mohamed also published his reporting on his Facebook page using the brand Koonaa Media, according to CPJ’s review of that page.

Mohamed is the second journalist to be killed in connection to his work in Somalia this year. On September 30, state-media camera operator Ahmed Mohamed Shukur was killed in a bomb attack by Al-Shabaab. Five years ago, on October 14, 2017, journalist Ali Nur Siad was among at least 500 people killed after a truck bomb detonated at the Zobe junction. That attack was attributed to Al-Shabaab, though the group did not claim responsibility, media reports said.

In a telephone call on Tuesday evening, Somali police spokesperson Sadiq Dodishe asked CPJ to send queries via messaging app but had yet to respond to those questions by publication time. 

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

On September 19th, Atlanta became one of the latest municipalities to pass a resolution endorsing national universal health coverage. This important local action is aspirational in its urging of the United States Congress to pass the Medicare for All Act of 2021 - 2022 (H.R. 1976). However, the need for the affordable insurance this legislation would provide for every American is huge and pressing.

Corporations are about profits. We need a national single payer health insurance program. It is time to join the growing wave of support for passage of the Medicare for All Act of 2021.

Luckily, the momentum behind Medicare for All is growing as Americans increasingly see that access to adequate, affordable, and equitable healthcare is an urgent need. The passage of this resolution comes just weeks after the Georgia State Democratic Convention adopted a similar resolution in support of an improved Medicare for All national health insurance program. Since 2018, over 100 cities and counties across the country have passed resolutions in support of Medicare for All. Last October, the American Public Health Association issued a policy statement declaring that healthcare is a human right and calling for the adoption of a single-payer health system to provide universal coverage in the best, most efficient, and equitable way.

Here is why national universal health coverage is so important to me. I am a private practice physician, a mother, and a cancer survivor. As a physician, I spend countless hours fighting with insurance companies to help my patients get the care they need. I watch them struggle to pay their medical bills. And I see the negative outcomes when they decline recommended treatments because they simply cannot afford to pay. As a physician who trained and worked in private and public healthcare systems for twenty years, I regularly see the encroachment of health management corporations into medical decision-making. As a private practice physician and a small business owner with a pre-existing health condition, I struggle to find appropriate health coverage for myself and my family. 

From each vantage point—as a patient, a provider, and a small business owner—I see everyday how for-profit corporations fail to provide adequate access and coverage for vital health care services. I had to do something different. So I joined Physicians for a National Health Program and began advocating for change. 

On September 27th, the same day that I addressed the Atlanta City Council's Community Development/Human Services Committee and thanked them for passing the resolution in support of Medicare for All, I attended a rally on the steps of Grady Hospital, Atlanta's largest public hospital. Doctors were gathered there to protest Governor Brian Kemp's disastrous and stubborn refusal to expand Medicaid in Georgia, a policy that prevents access to care, results in negative health outcomes, and exacerbates a concerning trend of rural hospital closures. Georgia is one of only twelve states that has not expanded Medicaid, a provision in the Affordable Care Act that extends Medicaid coverage to almost all adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Georgia also ranks 41st in healthcare access and 43rd in healthcare outcomes. 

The action taken by Atlanta City Council in passing a resolution endorsing Medicare for All comes at a critical time when Atlanta is experiencing a monumental casualty due to the failed policy of the Georgia's Governor and its state legislature—the closure of a large city hospital.

In early September, Wellstar Health Systems, which owns and operates the Atlanta Medical Center (AMC), announced that the hospital will be closing its doors on November 1. AMC is one of two hospitals that the city of Atlanta relies on to care for the uninsured and most economically disadvantaged residents of Fulton and Dekalb Counties. Besides Grady, AMC is also the only other Level 1 trauma center in the city, providing treatment for the most severely injured. In the shadow of the impending crisis of AMC's closure, doctors from Grady addressed the public about the importance of expanding Medicaid in Georgia, a move that would insure hundreds of thousands of Georgians who live in poverty, bring revenue to the hospitals who serve them, and potentially avert more disastrous hospital closures. In the past ten years, eight rural hospitals in Georgia have closed, with deadly consequences. Now similar impacts will be felt on a large city scale within a ten-minute walk of City Hall and a short drive from the state Capitol.  

Expanding Medicaid in Georgia is one part of the solution to our healthcare dilemma. But it is not enough. We must guarantee adequate and equitable health coverage for all Americans regardless of their socioeconomic status, their zip code, or whether or not they are employed. 

The Atlanta City Council, in passing a resolution in support of Medicare for All, inspires those in other cities and counties to take similar stands for affordable healthcare. Such actions amplify the voices of Americans who lack health insurance or are dissatisfied with their health care coverage. A recent AP-NORC pollshowed that 56% of Americans are dissatisfied with America's healthcare system and only 10% of respondents said that our health care is handled well or very well. 

Perhaps the radical idea was thinking that corporations could be relied upon to provide reasonable coverage at a reasonable cost for the majority of Americans. As it turns out, that is simply not what corporations are about. Corporations are about profits. We need a national single payer health insurance program. It is time to join the growing wave of support for passage of the Medicare for All Act of 2021.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Dr. Belinda McIntosh.

This U.N. mechanism is a peer-review process that surveys the human rights performance of member states, monitoring progress from previous review cycles, and presents a list of recommendations on how a country can better fulfill its human rights obligations. It also allows civil society organizations to submit their reports and recommendations

Earlier this year, CPJ submitted joint reports with D.C.-based rights group the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), assessing the state of press freedom and journalist safety in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, ahead of the November 14 review during the Working Group’s 41^st session. 

In the last UPR cycle in 2017, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco accepted several recommendations concerning press freedom and freedom of expression. However, CPJ’s reporting and analysis show that all three countries have failed to implement these recommendations, and that press freedom violations have increased since then. 

Tunisia

Local trade union National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) joined CPJ and TIMEP’s submission on Tunisia to highlight how the state of press freedom has gravely deteriorated since 2017, especially following President Kais Saied’s July 25, 2021 dismissal of the prime minister and his freezing of parliament. 

According to the joint submission, the physical and psychological safety of journalists has deteriorated significantly. Authorities and protesters physically attacked many journalists while they covered protests in order to prevent their coverage. Many local and foreign media outlets and news organizations were also subject to raids and physical attacks by security officers, who in several cases confiscated the organizations’ broadcasting equipment and ordered their offices to close. The joint submission also highlights a significant increase in journalists arrests on charges unrelated to media laws.

In the submission, CPJ, TIMEP, and the SNJT made several recommendations about press freedom to the Tunisian government, which include releasing all detained journalists and bloggers, ceasing government interference in media content, and stopping raids of media outlets. 

Algeria

As CPJ’s joint submission indicates, journalists in Algeria have increasingly faced pretrial detention and judicial harassment, and many local and foreign news websites have been blocked in the country. Authorities have also revoked the press accreditations of many local and foreign journalists and news outlets.  

In the submission, CPJ and TIMEP made several recommendations to the Algerian government, which include releasing all imprisoned journalists and amending the penal code to prohibit the prosecution of journalists under laws not related to journalism. CPJ and TIMEP also recommended the government to unblock all blocked news sites, end registration restrictions on media outlets, and to stop revoking the press accreditations of foreign news outlets. 

Morocco

This joint submission shows how press freedom in Morocco has deteriorated significantly since the last UPR cycle in 2017. The arbitrary detentions of journalists, the expulsion of foreign journalists, and the use of censorship and surveillance tactics against journalists for their work have all increased drastically. The submission also highlights how the Moroccan government has been using trumped up sex-related charges to prosecute and imprison journalists for their work. 

CPJ and TIMEP recommended that the Moroccan government release all imprisoned journalists and prevent the weaponization of women’s issues and rights to prosecute journalists for their investigative work. The recommendations also include the criminalization of surveillance and monitoring of journalists using spyware.

Here are summaries on the submissions by TIMEP on Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. And here are links to the original submissions on Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. 

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

Whilst it’s true that change is, paradoxically, constant, dramatic shifts, life-changing developments, by their very nature, occur only rarely, at key moments. Globally, we are living through such a time of major change; a transitional time akin to that step from one age group to another, adolescence into early adulthood, for example. A moment when everything is, potentially, set to shift and evolve, when old habits and ways of living, recognized as inadequate, either fall away naturally or are rejected.

Signs that we are living through such a time have been evident for a while  – decades, longer probably, and have year on year become more and more widespread and diverse. The momentum for change, and with it resistance (which is intense) from those wedded to the status quo, appears to be reaching a point of crisis. Battle lines are exposed, delineating the choices before humanity, alternative values and modes of living that are becoming more defined, and more opposed all the time.

The political-economic arena has been the primary field of conflict and resistance, and also opportunity. This all-pervasive space encompasses most, if not all, areas of contemporary life, including education and health care, the environment, international relations, immigration, defense, etc; it shapes values and determines the direction of collective travel. Differing viewpoints have become increasingly polarized, opinions hardened. And, growing out of the vacuum created by government’s inability to meet the challenges of the time, and the uncertainty caused by clinging to systems and modes of living that are day by day being drained of life, extremism has exploded; populism, on the left and most fiercely, on the right of politics. Intolerance, prejudice and hate have accompanied this political polarization, dividing societies around the world.

Cynical politicians hungry for power have fueled and exploited these splits, inflamed divisions with the politics of tribal nationalism and intolerance. Truth has been perverted, facts questioned or disregarded; democracy, limited to begin with, has been undermined and autocratic leaders/demagogues have surfaced, or intensified their stifling grip on power.

When and how?

As points of crisis draw near in diverse, yet interconnected areas – climate/ecosystems, economic uncertainty and mass migration/displacement of persons, energy supplies and war, food security and global health threats, demands for solutions intensify.

Current socio-economic-political methodologies hold no answers, and are increasingly seen to be inadequate. Rooted in the Ideologies of Division Exploitation and Greed (Imperialism and Neo-liberalism), they are an integral part of the problem and cannot therefore respond adequately to the current challenges, which are immense. Creative solutions consistent with the emerging times are called for; compassionate alternatives rooted in social justice and freedom.

Systemic change in the economic sphere is desperately needed.  Neo-Liberalism, which dominates the global economy, is a poisonous unjust ideology that relies on unlimited, irresponsible consumption and promotes greed, exploitation and inequality. Once change in this area takes place, and a more humane unifying and just model is introduced, then development in a range of other related areas becomes possible – health care and education, the eradication of food insecurity and large scale action on the environment.

It is values that need to change first though, and among many people they are changing; systems, policies and structures will naturally follow. Central to shifting values is the idea of unity, a recognition that humanity is one, varied, diverse but whole. This is not some incense-coated pseudo-religious fluff, but a fact (spelled out many times by visionary figures throughout the ages) in nature that is sensed by people everywhere; a fact that the existing socio-economic ideology, with its emphasis on competition and selfishness, actively works against.

Unity is a primary quality of the time, as is cooperation and tolerance. From these primary Principles of Goodness a series of positive consequences, or secondary colors flows: social and environmental responsibility, the eradication of prejudice; sharing as an economic social principle; social justice and equality, brotherhood — talked about for at least two thousand years, known in the heart but expressed fleetingly — and understanding of self and others. Unity shatters tribalism and strengthens collaboration; working together encourages relationship and erodes fear of ‘the other’, which in turn dissolves tensions and creates a space in which conflict is less likely. These are the values and ideals of the time, not radical, not new, perennial values that have been long buried and are now re-surfacing, influencing thinking in all areas of society. Coloring social and environmental initiatives, empowering popular action and driving change.

Momentum is building and, despite entrenched resistance from fearful forces determined to maintain control and ensure the perpetuation of systems and attitudes that breed division and suffering, the question is no longer will there be fundamental change and the inauguration of new modes of living, but when and how.

The ‘when’ is not a fixed moment in time but a dynamic flow expanding throughout the now; the ‘how’ is a creative explosion of collective action, examples of which are all around us, in every country of the world.

Wherever voices are raised in praise of social justice there is the how and the now; when people, young and old, stand together, despite the risks, demanding freedom from suppression, that is the how and the now; it’s individuals forming groups, acting in unison, crying out for substantive environmental action; it’s the rise of Trades Unions; it’s thousands of community initiatives, large and small, throughout the world; it’s Citizens Assemblies and the fall of demagogues – some, not all; it’s the growing influence of so-called Green Politics and demands for equality in all areas.

These are the signs of the times; diverse worldwide manifestations of ‘the how’, occurring within ‘the now’. Daily they multiply and strengthen, and the forces of resistance falter; they are the seeds of evolving socio-economic-political forms; they are the promise of things to come, the forerunners of The New time, which, no matter how the forces of resistance kick and scream, cannot, and will not, be held at bay.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Graham Peebles.

Whilst it’s true that change is, paradoxically, constant, dramatic shifts, life-changing developments, by their very nature, occur only rarely, at key moments. Globally, we are living through such a time of major change; a transitional time akin to that step from one age group to another, adolescence into early adulthood, for example. A moment when everything is, potentially, set to shift and evolve, when old habits and ways of living, recognized as inadequate, either fall away naturally or are rejected.

Signs that we are living through such a time have been evident for a while  – decades, longer probably, and have year on year become more and more widespread and diverse. The momentum for change, and with it resistance (which is intense) from those wedded to the status quo, appears to be reaching a point of crisis. Battle lines are exposed, delineating the choices before humanity, alternative values and modes of living that are becoming more defined, and more opposed all the time.

The political-economic arena has been the primary field of conflict and resistance, and also opportunity. This all-pervasive space encompasses most, if not all, areas of contemporary life, including education and health care, the environment, international relations, immigration, defense, etc; it shapes values and determines the direction of collective travel. Differing viewpoints have become increasingly polarized, opinions hardened. And, growing out of the vacuum created by government’s inability to meet the challenges of the time, and the uncertainty caused by clinging to systems and modes of living that are day by day being drained of life, extremism has exploded; populism, on the left and most fiercely, on the right of politics. Intolerance, prejudice and hate have accompanied this political polarization, dividing societies around the world.

Cynical politicians hungry for power have fueled and exploited these splits, inflamed divisions with the politics of tribal nationalism and intolerance. Truth has been perverted, facts questioned or disregarded; democracy, limited to begin with, has been undermined and autocratic leaders/demagogues have surfaced, or intensified their stifling grip on power.

When and how?

As points of crisis draw near in diverse, yet interconnected areas – climate/ecosystems, economic uncertainty and mass migration/displacement of persons, energy supplies and war, food security and global health threats, demands for solutions intensify.

Current socio-economic-political methodologies hold no answers, and are increasingly seen to be inadequate. Rooted in the Ideologies of Division Exploitation and Greed (Imperialism and Neo-liberalism), they are an integral part of the problem and cannot therefore respond adequately to the current challenges, which are immense. Creative solutions consistent with the emerging times are called for; compassionate alternatives rooted in social justice and freedom.

Systemic change in the economic sphere is desperately needed.  Neo-Liberalism, which dominates the global economy, is a poisonous unjust ideology that relies on unlimited, irresponsible consumption and promotes greed, exploitation and inequality. Once change in this area takes place, and a more humane unifying and just model is introduced, then development in a range of other related areas becomes possible – health care and education, the eradication of food insecurity and large scale action on the environment.

It is values that need to change first though, and among many people they are changing; systems, policies and structures will naturally follow. Central to shifting values is the idea of unity, a recognition that humanity is one, varied, diverse but whole. This is not some incense-coated pseudo-religious fluff, but a fact (spelled out many times by visionary figures throughout the ages) in nature that is sensed by people everywhere; a fact that the existing socio-economic ideology, with its emphasis on competition and selfishness, actively works against.

Unity is a primary quality of the time, as is cooperation and tolerance. From these primary Principles of Goodness a series of positive consequences, or secondary colors flows: social and environmental responsibility, the eradication of prejudice; sharing as an economic social principle; social justice and equality, brotherhood — talked about for at least two thousand years, known in the heart but expressed fleetingly — and understanding of self and others. Unity shatters tribalism and strengthens collaboration; working together encourages relationship and erodes fear of ‘the other’, which in turn dissolves tensions and creates a space in which conflict is less likely. These are the values and ideals of the time, not radical, not new, perennial values that have been long buried and are now re-surfacing, influencing thinking in all areas of society. Coloring social and environmental initiatives, empowering popular action and driving change.

Momentum is building and, despite entrenched resistance from fearful forces determined to maintain control and ensure the perpetuation of systems and attitudes that breed division and suffering, the question is no longer will there be fundamental change and the inauguration of new modes of living, but when and how.

The ‘when’ is not a fixed moment in time but a dynamic flow expanding throughout the now; the ‘how’ is a creative explosion of collective action, examples of which are all around us, in every country of the world.

Wherever voices are raised in praise of social justice there is the how and the now; when people, young and old, stand together, despite the risks, demanding freedom from suppression, that is the how and the now; it’s individuals forming groups, acting in unison, crying out for substantive environmental action; it’s the rise of Trades Unions; it’s thousands of community initiatives, large and small, throughout the world; it’s Citizens Assemblies and the fall of demagogues – some, not all; it’s the growing influence of so-called Green Politics and demands for equality in all areas.

These are the signs of the times; diverse worldwide manifestations of ‘the how’, occurring within ‘the now’. Daily they multiply and strengthen, and the forces of resistance falter; they are the seeds of evolving socio-economic-political forms; they are the promise of things to come, the forerunners of The New time, which, no matter how the forces of resistance kick and scream, cannot, and will not, be held at bay.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Graham Peebles.

This U.N. mechanism is a peer-review process that surveys the human rights performance of member states, monitoring progress from previous review cycles, and presents a list of recommendations on how a country can better fulfill its human rights obligations. It also allows civil society organizations to submit their reports and recommendations.

Earlier this year, CPJ submitted a report assessing the state of press freedom and journalist safety in Brazil ahead of its review before the UPR Working Group, scheduled for November 14, during the Working Group’s 41st session.

Brazil accepted the two recommendations about journalists’ safety and physical integrity during its last UPR cycle in 2017. However, CPJ’s new analysis concluded that Brazil has failed to implement those recommendations, and press freedom conditions have only deteriorated since then.

As CPJ’s submission indicates, journalists in Brazil face threats, online harassment, physical violence, and civil and criminal lawsuits, often for their coverage of sensitive issues.

Impunity in cases of journalists killed remains extremely high, crimes against journalists are rarely investigated, and perpetrators often go unpunished, fueling the cycle of violence against the press, even as public officials have increasingly utilized anti-press rhetoric and attempted to limit transparency and access to information.

Criminal defamation laws are used to harass and imprison journalists, and civil lawsuits demanding content removal and imposing gag orders raise concerns about increasing censorship.

In the document, CPJ made seven recommendations about press freedom and the safety of journalists to the government of Brazil, which include establishing an effective and adequately resourced mechanism to protect at-risk journalists that is tailored to address journalists’ needs; ensuring prompt, thorough investigations into killings of journalists and that all perpetrators, including masterminds, face justice promptly; and decriminalizing slander, defamation, and injury (“crimes against honor”).

CPJ’s UPR submission on Brazil is available in English here.

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

The post Universal Tipping Points: Change is Coming appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Graham Peebles.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Chaminda Jayanetti.

The post America’s Porous Health Care “Safety Net”: Beyond Past Policy Failures To A Universal Coverage Fix appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John P. Geyman.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a law that allows all of the state's registered voters to submit their ballots by mail, rebuffing an effort by Republican lawmakers to overturn a statute they supported years earlier.

In its ruling, the court's majority declared that "we find no restriction in our constitution on the General Assembly's ability to create universal mail-in voting." The court's two Republican justices, Sallie Updyke Mundy and Kevin Brobson, dissented.

"Act 77 was passed with strong bipartisan support for good reason—making voting easier and more accessible is the right thing to do."

The decision stems from a lawsuit that Pennsylvania Republicans filed in the summer of 2021 claiming that Act 77—a 2019 law allowing no-excuse vote-by-mail in the commonwealth—ran afoul of the state constitution and enabled fraud, a narrative that the GOP attempted to advance following former President Donald Trump's lie-riddled attacks on mail-in voting during the 2020 election.

Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, applauded the court's rejection of state Republicans' argument, declaring in a statement that the ruling represents "a major victory for voting rights."

"This decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to uphold Act 77 ensures that millions of Pennsylvania voters can continue to cast their ballots safely and conveniently in the manner they choose," said Ali. "Act 77 was passed with strong bipartisan support for good reason—making voting easier and more accessible is the right thing to do."

The court's ruling came less than 100 days before the midterm elections in which Pennsylvania will feature prominently, as the state could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate next year.

John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee in the race for the state's open Senate seat, celebrated the ruling in a series of tweets and blasted the Republicans who led the lawsuit after helping pass Act 77.

"I don't know anyone who needs to hear this," Fetterman wrote, "but voting in Pennsylvania is safe, open, and secure."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The post Lack of Universal Childcare and Other Family Benefits Hurts LGBT Parents and Caregivers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julia Godfrey, Julia Yixia Cai and Shawn Fremstad.

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar argued Friday that free school meal waivers enacted early in the pandemic to forestall a surge in child hunger should be made permanent, a policy change that she characterized as a political, economic, and moral no-brainer.

"We have an opportunity to prove that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people can still deliver big things," said Omar (D-Minn.), the whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "And we can feed tens of millions of hungry kids while we do it. What's there to even discuss?"

"Three out of every four teachers say they see students regularly come to school hungry."

Late last month, the House and Senate passed compromise legislation that only extends the existing school meal waivers through the summer instead of through the coming school year, which the GOP opposed. Originally approved in mid-2020, the waivers have allowed schools to drop regulatory burdens such as income-based eligibility requirements in order to deliver free meals to as many students as possible.

In an op-ed for MinnPost on Friday, Omar—who helped negotiate the inclusion of the waivers in a sweeping coronavirus relief package—noted that "the results were a resounding success in Minnesota and across the country."

"The MEALS Act gives schools the flexibility to make changes to their meal program to ensure their ability to provide meals to students by allowing the increase of federal costs for the purpose of providing meals," Omar wrote. "Approximately 22 million kids relied on school meals before the pandemic, and it's estimated that the MEALS Act and resulting waivers helped an additional 10 million get fed. It also kept people employed preparing and delivering food for kids who need it."

"This bill was a shining example of the government working at one if its core functions—making sure the American people don't go hungry," the congresswoman added. "And it was a reminder that our country can do amazing things when our government works as intended."

But with the waiver extension set to expire in a matter of weeks, Omar is calling for a "lasting solution" that would "provide school meals free of charge to any student who wants it—as many districts have done during the pandemic."

"This would reduce burdensome paperwork requirements and make sure that no child in the wealthiest country in the world goes hungry at school. It's also overwhelmingly supported by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. That's why I have introduced a bill—along with the support of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Tina Smith and leaders like Valerie Castile—to do just that."

Known as the Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021, the legislation would make free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack available to all school children in the U.S., no matter their family's income. The bill would also completely eliminate school meal debt, which impacts children across the country.

"Supply chain issues and the rising cost of food are making the hunger crisis worse," Omar wrote Friday. "Food prices are expected to increase up to 7.5% this year, stretching already tight family budgets. Some 13 million children already faced hunger in our country before the pandemic. Three out of every four teachers say they see students regularly come to school hungry, and a majority of them regularly buy food for students out of their own pockets."

"And we know that getting nutritious meals doesn't just prevent hunger," the Minnesota Democrat added. "It has benefits for a child's physical and mental development. Studies show that students who show up hungry to class lose the ability to concentrate and have worse academic performance. This can have lifelong consequences."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

In the remote rural village of Dauphin, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, economists tried out an unusual experiment. In the 1970s, they persuaded the provincial government to give cash payments to poorer families to see if a guaranteed basic income could improve their outcomes. During the years of this “Mincome” experiment, families received a basic income of 16,000 Canadian dollars (or a top up to that amount). With 10,000 inhabitants, Dauphin was just big enough to be a good data set but not too big as to bankrupt the government.

The results were startling, including a significant drop in hospitalizations and an improvement in high school graduation rates. After four years, however, money for the experiment dried up, and this early example of universal basic income (UBI) was nearly forgotten.

Today, such UBI projects have become more commonplace. In the U.S. presidential race in 2020, Andrew Yang made his “freedom dividend” of $1,000 a month a centerpiece of his political campaign. Several pilot projects are up and running in California. In fact, at least 28 U.S. cities currently give out no-strings-attached cash on a regular basis (since the recipients are all low-income, these programs aren’t technically “universal”). In other countries, too, basic income projects have become more popular, including a new citizen’s basic income project in the Brazilian city of Maricá. Basic income programs were in place, briefly, in both Mongolia and Iran. Civil society organizations like the Latin American Network for Basic Income have pushed for change from below.

Unlike the mid-1970s, universal basic income must contend with two sets of factors: the weight of old but institutionalized social welfare systems and the demands of new priorities, particularly environmental ones.

“The old welfare systems are based on sustained economic development, on economic growth that creates jobs and fiscal resources,” points out economist Ruben Lo Vuolo, a member of the Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Políticas Públicas in Argentina, at a recent discussion of UBI sponsored by the Ecosocial Pact of the South and Global Just Transition. “They are structured based on the fact that people will have jobs and contribute over the course of their lifetimes and the state will have fiscal resources to cover them. But now the state says that it can’t keep growing and can’t generate jobs as it did before. We’re seeing less growth than in 1950s or 1970s but more inequality and more carbon emissions. So, the basis of the social-welfare system has been seriously questioned by climate change.”

This conflict between the logic of the social-welfare state and the imperative to reduce resource use means that “we have to stop thinking about a state that can repair damages and start thinking about one that prevents damages: a state that’s not so concerned about economic growth and then redistribution but redistribution itself,” Lo Vuolo continues. The social welfare state provides compensation to those who have lost their jobs, experienced a health emergency, or needed extra provisions to feed the family. Instead, a new eco-social state should be thinking of ways to prevent those negative outcomes in the first place.

Key to this challenge of redistribution, of course, is the question of mechanism. Does the state rely on the market to meet basic needs or on other methods of assessing and then fulfilling those needs? One of the chief defects of the market is its focus on short-term outcomes. “With an economy based on market preferences, it is impossible to generate an intergenerational pact that takes on climate change,” Lo Vuolo adds. “If we continue on this path, future generations won’t have a healthy environment.”

One of the chief preoccupations of a social-welfare state is to make sure that those who have sufficient resources don’t receive assistance. This has led to often complex systems of “means testing.”

Universal basic income strategies, Lo Vuolo points out, flip this approach on its head. Instead of focusing so many human resources on ensuring that the well-off do not receive benefits, the universal character of UBI guarantees that no one who needs help is left out. A progressive tax policy, meanwhile, targets sectors where wealth is concentrated to address questions of “unfair distribution” as well as to finance the universal benefits. Such a “sustainable distribution” system has the additional benefit of suppressing consumption among the wealthy even as it boosts consumption among the most vulnerable sectors.

A UBI strategy can’t work, however, if individuals have to pay for public goods like education and transportation. The reduction of a country’s carbon footprint, meanwhile, requires not only robust public systems at the national level but institutions at the global level that coordinate mitigation. However, the track record so far of compliance with global pacts to reduce carbon emissions has been dismal.

The Stockton Example

Stockton is a mid-sized city in California with a population of over 300,000 people. It is located about 85 miles east of San Francisco in the agriculture-rich Central Valley. In 2012, it also declared bankruptcy, the largest U.S. city to do so at the time. In response, the municipal government slashed public services. Unemployment spiked, and the lack of affordable housing led to a sharp increase in homelessness. One in four citizens lived below the poverty line.

In 2017, Stockton chose to participate in an experiment very similar to the one that took place in Dauphin in the 1970s. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), as its name suggests, emphasizes the choices people make and the agency they exercise in making those choices. To qualify to participate in SEED, you had to be a Stockton resident in a neighborhood that was at or below the city’s median income of about $46,000. Participants were selected randomly. One hundred and twenty-five people were given $500 a month for two years. The other participants in the program, by receiving nothing, constituted a control group.

To determine the efficacy of the experiment, researchers asked three questions: how did the additional payment affect monthly income volatility, how did that volatility influence wellbeing, and how did guaranteed income improve participants’ ability to control their future?

As SEED’s Research and Program Officer Erin Coltrera explains, the group that received the universal income had considerably less income volatility. “There is an oft-cited statistic that nearly half of US citizens would choose not to pay a $400 emergency expense with cash or cash equivalent,” she reports. “They might use debt instead. But this has long-term implications because it means that a $400 emergency will cost more over time.” With the additional $500 a month, SEED participants were more likely to be able to handle an emergency with cash.

As in Dauphin, the Stockton experiment demonstrated clear improvements in mental health. Coltrera quotes one participant: “I had panic attacks and anxiety. I had to take a pill for it. I haven’t taken that in a while. I used to have to carry pills with me all the time.”

The basic income made a particular difference for women performing unpaid care work. “The SEED money allowed them to prioritize themselves in ways they’d ignored, for instance to catch up on their medical care or to center themselves in their own narrative,” Coltrera explains.

One criticism of basic income payments is that they discourage recipients from seeking employment. The SEED project demonstrated the opposite. At the beginning of the experiment, only 28 percent of recipients had fulltime employment. One year later, that number had grown to 40 percent.

“Recipients were able to leverage the payment to improve their employment prospects,” Coltrera says. “The $500 allowed participants to reduce part-time work to finish training or coursework that then led to fulltime employment.” One recipient, for instance, had been eligible for a real estate license for a year but hadn’t been able to take the time off to complete the license. The $500 allowed the person to take the time off and complete their license, opening up employment and other economic opportunities.

The money also provided people with more choice. They could choose to stop living with family, for instance, which meant freeing up time previously spent on unpaid care work. “Once basic needs are met,” Coltrera explains, “people could describe small and meaningful pathways to authentic trust, choice, and a sense of safety.”

Critiques of UBI

One of the major criticisms of universal basic income is that it encourages “parasitism.” If people receive money with no strings attached, they will become dependent on these handouts and stop working. “There is this logic that if you’re not receiving remuneration for some activity, then you’re not doing anything,” reports Ailynn Torres, a Cuban researcher with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation based in Ecuador. As the Stockton case demonstrates, however, the payments didn’t reduce participation in the labor market. And the payments reach people who are otherwise overlooked by the social welfare system, such as those who engage in unpaid household work.

Another critique of UBI is that it’s not a good way to fight poverty compared to targeted subsidies. On the other hand, the social welfare system that provides such subsidies carries substantial administrative costs. Such as system has often fostered clientelism and bureaucracy and created systemic dependency.

A third critique, from the left, is that UBI is not anti-capitalist. “UBI is not a magic pill that will put an end to bad things in society,” Torres concedes. “But because it is universal and unconditional, it helps people without anything. It allows us to rethink different realities and explore the interdependence of rights. And what is more important than sustaining life? UBI is not utopian but a political program that has been shown to be feasible.”

A final critique involves the overall cost of UBI. “We’ve seen debate on how to finance this,” Torres continues. “Critics say, ’It’s really expensive, we can’t finance it.’ But could you make it possible by eliminating local subsidies and bundling programs together, removing administrative costs and actually increasing benefits? Really, we should turn the question around. It’s not how much UBI costs. It’s how much does it cost not to have UBI.”

Several countries in Latin America are looking into some version of UBI. Uruguay is exploring the financing of UBI through a personal wealth tax. Mexico, too, is looking at progressive tax reforms to cover a universal pension of the elderly and a basic income for children. Argentina instituted an Emergency Family Income program during the pandemic to sustain about 9 million people during the lockdown and economic downturn. According to one estimate, an extended UBI would cost 2.9 percent of Argentina’s GDP. Another estimate, for Brazil, suggests that one percent of GDP could cover the basic income for the poorest 30 percent of the population.

Still, more research is necessary to show how UBI can strengthen community networks, how it can increase access to basic services including banks, and what kind of differential impact it has on different ethnic communities. Introducing more money into Amazonian indigenous communities, where livelihoods are relatively independent of capitalist market relations and people have long fought for the recognition of collective rights, might cause more harm than good, for example. Thus, in culturally diverse countries, especially around indigenous peoples, an intercultural adaptation of UBI according to the collective decisions of recipients might be in order.

Amaia Perez Orozco, a feminist economist from Spain, believes that a UBI can be part of a package deal of socio-economic transformation. Much depends, however, on how it is financed and implemented. The challenge, she notes, is the broader context of ecological collapse, racial inequality, and the greater precarity of life under spreading mercantilization. “Can UBI play an emancipatory role in this context?” she asks.

So, for instance, does a UBI provide people with money to pay for private health insurance or is the UBI embedded in a system of national health care? Does UBI contribute to greater national debt and thus dependency on global financial markets? Is UBI boosting unsustainable consumption and making the hoarding of resources worse? Will men, provided with a basic income, increase their care work or will UBIs reinforce gender divisions and others based on race class as the wealthier continue to externalize these jobs?

On the other hand, if a UBI reduces material dependency for women, “it could open the way to new jobs, new opportunities for leisure, the option to leave violent relationships,” Ailynn Torres adds. “Women would have more opportunities to negotiate their work conditions.”

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Feffer.

Xun Sero. Photo by Tamara Pearson.

A man has made a documentary about his relationship with his mother. We were at a media conference when he first told me about it. He said his documentary was a way to start conversations about the silenced issue of violence within families and homes and the struggles women face when raising children on their own.

But Xun Sero is a Tzotzil person from Mexico’s southern Chiapas state, and he knows that when many people watch the documentary they will make it about violence within Tzotzil communities, rather than allowing it to speak to broader social issues.

Mamá premiered in Mexico last week, and at the Canadian Hot Docs festival last month. It (see the trailer, with subtitles in English here) shows Sero and his aunties talking to his mother about how she had to run away from home as a child to avoid being married off, and about how his biological, but not-present father raped her.

“Discourse about universality has always come from white men. They are ones who have the universal passport so they can call themselves citizens of the world,” he tells me in an interview. This passport, he explains, gives them easier access to the arts world. But what “makes them think they know all the different cultures?” he asks.

From the novels and art we learn about in school, through to movies and documentaries, only white men have permission to talk about universal themes. Sero argues that they believe that everything belongs to them, that they “know everything,” while original peoples apparently are limited to talking about their own identities.

“There are people who have so much power that they think they have the right to talk for everyone, to impose a single idea of universality on everyone,” Sero says.

The damage of universality

Angela Davis, speaking to a gathering of Ferguson protesters in 2015, made a similar argument. “Any critical engagement with racism requires us to understand the tyranny of the universal. For most of our history the very category ‘human’ has not embraced Black people and people of color. Its abstractness has been colored white and gendered male,” she said.

Ideologies of objectivity, universality, balance and neutrality go beyond the arts to the news, sports, work, education, museums, and most of our lives. Ultimately, they are a defensive code inscribed by the gatekeepers of power in order to maintain an unfair status quo. Anything that comes from the perspective of an oppressed group is dismissed as “political” or “niche” or “unobjective.”

And of course, filmmakers, writers, artists, and musicians who are sidelined into non-universal categories, into our class, race, gender, disability, and sexual identities, are paid much less. We are meant to be grateful for having made it vaguely close to readers and viewers, because most of our community members will not.

In the US in 2020, 74.6% of movie directors were white, and the figure has hovered at the 80 to 90% mark over the past decade. In 2017, in the US, for the hundreds of feature films that made at least US$250,000, 12% of directors were women, and 10% were Black or people of color. Here in Mexico, despite white people making up just 5% of the population, 98% of the main actors on television are white.

Sero described the creation of arts categories as being like a big cake. Those with power “decide the flavor of the cake, the size that goes to each person. And later they say to us, ‘You can join in and we’ll give you a piece of cake.’ But they don’t ask us if we want cake or what flavor we prefer. Instead, they say, ‘This is my cake and I’ll give you a little bit.”

Categories, Sero stressed, should be created by the people who make them up. But instead, they are created in the same way public policy is, from the top down, he argued.

“It’s like, they recognize what art is, but then they say, ‘Over there is Indigenous art’. Basically, looking down on it. So sometimes I do prefer to be called a filmmaker, rather than an Indigenous filmmaker. Because, then I am on the same level as everyone else,” he said, adding, “But if you really have to label what I am, do it based on my culture. My culture is Tzotzil, and I am a descendant of the Mayans. Those are my roots. It’s important to state that and to challenge this idea that the Mayans have disappeared and only exist in museums.”

Similarly in literature, there is a women’s literature category, but there is no man’s category. When women like myself write fiction, we often feature women as some of the main characters, and that is enough to meet the criteria of women’s fiction.

Men, however, often write books with no women bar the trophy female model that the violent and racist hero man wins after defeating all evil (see James Bond for what I mean). So men’s literature does exist, as do men’s documentaries, imperialist films, US-centric films and books, and upper-class content and more.

But these categories of the privileged pass as universal. Perhaps it’s time to start calling them out.

The art theory I was taught at school, for example, was actually just white-European and men’s art, with a bit of Georgia O’Keeffe for “diversity.”

Stereotypes about Mexicans

Films with decent levels of funding that have been made about Mexico, tend to feature drug smuggling and violence. In Mexican television, such criminals are often romanticized, as is domestic violence in Mexican soap operas. But there’s a reason for that.

Money, resources, and time are necessary to produce full-length films. There is a commercial risk in producing content that won’t gain traction. So while some people in Mexico do dare to make different kinds of films, “People tend to copy, or well, they use the word ‘adapt’ … films that do sell well, and that usually means Hollywood,” Sero says.

“I don’t want to make films about drug smuggling, films where there isn’t any hope,” he adds. “I am more interested in topics where the people are resisting, including resisting the drug smugglers, or mining companies.”

But also, “The drug smuggler is always brown, or the murderer or hired killer is brown and that creates a stereotype about what Mexico is.”

Sero also addressed the ‘Indigenous’ label, arguing that for him, it has been associated with racism, discrimination, and fear. “Fear that if you are in some place … and something is lost, you will be blamed for it. The first reaction people have is to blame the Indigenous person. So sorry, but for me, ‘Indigenous’ doesn’t mean native to a place. In my experience, it means robber, killer, wretched person, ungrateful, idiot… that’s what it means.”

At the same, there is a lot of inequality within Mexico. Sero described a filmmaking world where those with formal training feel and act superior to those without, and where there is a lot of competition and “putting on an appearance.” That is something that is easier for people with economic or social privileges to do.

In southern Mexico, “we are 10 or 15 years behind in technology, and that stops people giving workshops or training in such regions.”

US-based filmmaker, Michael Premo noted, “Very often in the documentary space, I’m the only person of color … If you don’t come into this world with a certain amount of social capital it can be very hard to access the gates of power.”

When asked what a better filmmaking world would be like, Sero says he’d like documentaries to be as valued as books are, to be seen as serious sources of information.

“My goal with my documentaries is to transform [society] … not just to ensure more visibility [of oppressed groups],” he says.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tamara Pearson.

This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.

An analysis of Americans' wellbeing across every county in the U.S. showed Wednesday that "economic security is out of reach for many" due to chronically low wages, the high cost of child care, and pay inequity—and calls on lawmakers to ensure the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic corrects "glaring structural failures related to economic security and family support."

The annual report by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a project created by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, revealed the wide gap between the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour—and even the highest state minimum wages of around $15 per hour—and what households actually need to make ends meet as they face rising rents, grocery bills, and other expenses.

"Across U.S. counties, the average living wage is $35.80 an hour for a household with one adult and two children," reads the 2022 County Health Rankings report. "Depending on location, the living wage dips to a minimum of $29.81 an hour and rises to a high of $65.45 an hour."

"We can expect more of the same if we do nothing. And the same is not fair."

That means that in nearly all U.S. counties, the average worker raising two children would need an average wage increase of 73% to earn a living wage.

In some counties, a raise of 229% would be needed.

"We can expect more of the same if we do nothing," Sheri Johnson, co-director of County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, toldABC News. "And the same is not fair. It's not just, and it's not necessary."

Households' struggles to afford essential expenses are being compounded by a child care crisis in virtually every county in the United States, the report found. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that households spend no more than 7% of their income on child care, but "there are no counties where child care cost for two children is at or below the 7% benchmark," according to the report.

Across all counties, on average, a family with two children spends 25% of its income on child care, with urban families facing the biggest financial burden.

For many of the lowest-wage workers earning $7.25 per hour, child care is essentially not a possible expense, as "the average cost of childcare across U.S. counties for two children is more than 90% of their annual income." And for the average person working in the child care industry, finding care for their own children "would consume more than half their average $25,460 annual income."

"We all benefit when the childcare system is healthy and well," County Health Rankings & Roadmaps tweeted. 

The report underscores the fact that President Joe Biden's domestic agenda—the Build Back Better Act, which passed in the U.S. House last year but has been obstructed in the Senate by Republicans and right-wing Democrats—contained provisions to secure a recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic that includes all Americans.

"We can ensure economic security and respect people's dignity with strategies that reduce income inequality and recognize the value of all work by paying a living wage, supplementing income, and ensuring equal pay for equal work through policies such as paid family leave, paid sick leave, universal basic income, living wage laws, Child Tax Credit expansion, and the Earned Income Tax Credit," the report said.

The expanded Child Tax Credit, which was sent to tens of millions of people every month in the second half of 2021, temporarily slashed childhood poverty by 30% before it lapsed in January following Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.Va.) refusal to include it in the Build Back Better Act. Families reported using the monthly payments of up to $300 per child to pay for child care, food, rent and mortgage payments, and other essentials.  

"As we look to recover, we have opportunities to imagine what is possible and rebuild in ways that work for everyone," County Health Rankings & Roadmaps said. "We can create fair economic systems and address past harms to ensure that we are a nation where we all thrive. Advancing a just recovery requires action."

In addition to addressing the living wage and child care crises, said the organization, the federal government can improve the wellbeing of Americans across U.S. counties by closing the gender pay gap.

"Women earn little more than 80 cents on the dollar men earn, and by comparison, the earnings for women living in rural areas and women of color remain among the lowest," the report said. "To earn the $61,807 average annual salary of a white man, women of all races and ethnicities must work several more days, if not months, into the following year. An economy that truly works for everyone includes equal pay in living wage jobs and work-family supports such as paid sick leave and paid family leave."

"Equal pay is not just a women's issue," added County Health Rankings & Roadmaps in a press statement, explaining that pay inequity has community impacts:

Building economic security is imperative for health, yet pay inequity and lost earnings due to the wage gap have dire consequences for women and their families resulting in fewer opportunities to make ends meet, let alone save for emergencies or retirement. The pay gap sheds light on the systemic undervaluing of women's contributions to the workforce and economy. Equal pay can be part of a recovery that begins to reverse these trends and center fairness and opportunity for all.

The group also called for lawmakers to address public school funding deficits that plague half of all counties in the U.S., with districts needing to spend more than $3,000 more per student annually.

Rural counties and large urban areas suffer the most from school funding deficits, which "correlate with students performing below their grade level for reading."

"Working together, we can transform public goods such as affordable and accessible childcare, quality public schools, and jobs that treat people with the dignity they deserve and the wages that will support their families," said Marjory Givens, co-director of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. "This would not only ensure a just recovery from the pandemic for families and communities today but greater economic security, better health and well-being for generations to come."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

An analysis of Americans' wellbeing across every county in the U.S. showed Wednesday that "economic security is out of reach for many" due to chronically low wages, the high cost of child care, and pay inequity—and calls on lawmakers to ensure the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic corrects "glaring structural failures related to economic security and family support."

The annual report by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a project created by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, revealed the wide gap between the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour—and even the highest state minimum wages of around $15 per hour—and what households actually need to make ends meet as they face rising rents, grocery bills, and other expenses.

"Across U.S. counties, the average living wage is $35.80 an hour for a household with one adult and two children," reads the 2022 County Health Rankings report. "Depending on location, the living wage dips to a minimum of $29.81 an hour and rises to a high of $65.45 an hour."

"We can expect more of the same if we do nothing. And the same is not fair."

That means that in nearly all U.S. counties, the average worker raising two children would need an average wage increase of 73% to earn a living wage.

In some counties, a raise of 229% would be needed.

"We can expect more of the same if we do nothing," Sheri Johnson, co-director of County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, toldABC News. "And the same is not fair. It's not just, and it's not necessary."

Households' struggles to afford essential expenses are being compounded by a child care crisis in virtually every county in the United States, the report found. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that households spend no more than 7% of their income on child care, but "there are no counties where child care cost for two children is at or below the 7% benchmark," according to the report.

Across all counties, on average, a family with two children spends 25% of its income on child care, with urban families facing the biggest financial burden.

For many of the lowest-wage workers earning $7.25 per hour, child care is essentially not a possible expense, as "the average cost of childcare across U.S. counties for two children is more than 90% of their annual income." And for the average person working in the child care industry, finding care for their own children "would consume more than half their average $25,460 annual income."

"We all benefit when the childcare system is healthy and well," County Health Rankings & Roadmaps tweeted. 

The report underscores the fact that President Joe Biden's domestic agenda—the Build Back Better Act, which passed in the U.S. House last year but has been obstructed in the Senate by Republicans and right-wing Democrats—contained provisions to secure a recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic that includes all Americans.

"We can ensure economic security and respect people's dignity with strategies that reduce income inequality and recognize the value of all work by paying a living wage, supplementing income, and ensuring equal pay for equal work through policies such as paid family leave, paid sick leave, universal basic income, living wage laws, Child Tax Credit expansion, and the Earned Income Tax Credit," the report said.

The expanded Child Tax Credit, which was sent to tens of millions of people every month in the second half of 2021, temporarily slashed childhood poverty by 30% before it lapsed in January following Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.Va.) refusal to include it in the Build Back Better Act. Families reported using the monthly payments of up to $300 per child to pay for child care, food, rent and mortgage payments, and other essentials.  

"As we look to recover, we have opportunities to imagine what is possible and rebuild in ways that work for everyone," County Health Rankings & Roadmaps said. "We can create fair economic systems and address past harms to ensure that we are a nation where we all thrive. Advancing a just recovery requires action."

In addition to addressing the living wage and child care crises, said the organization, the federal government can improve the wellbeing of Americans across U.S. counties by closing the gender pay gap.

"Women earn little more than 80 cents on the dollar men earn, and by comparison, the earnings for women living in rural areas and women of color remain among the lowest," the report said. "To earn the $61,807 average annual salary of a white man, women of all races and ethnicities must work several more days, if not months, into the following year. An economy that truly works for everyone includes equal pay in living wage jobs and work-family supports such as paid sick leave and paid family leave."

"Equal pay is not just a women's issue," added County Health Rankings & Roadmaps in a press statement, explaining that pay inequity has community impacts:

Building economic security is imperative for health, yet pay inequity and lost earnings due to the wage gap have dire consequences for women and their families resulting in fewer opportunities to make ends meet, let alone save for emergencies or retirement. The pay gap sheds light on the systemic undervaluing of women's contributions to the workforce and economy. Equal pay can be part of a recovery that begins to reverse these trends and center fairness and opportunity for all.

The group also called for lawmakers to address public school funding deficits that plague half of all counties in the U.S., with districts needing to spend more than $3,000 more per student annually.

Rural counties and large urban areas suffer the most from school funding deficits, which "correlate with students performing below their grade level for reading."

"Working together, we can transform public goods such as affordable and accessible childcare, quality public schools, and jobs that treat people with the dignity they deserve and the wages that will support their families," said Marjory Givens, co-director of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. "This would not only ensure a just recovery from the pandemic for families and communities today but greater economic security, better health and well-being for generations to come."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

The post A Call for Universal Empathy: We are the “Other” appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mark Ashwill.

The post Brazil, Amazon World: About a Universal Basic Income appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Casassas, Julie Wark, and Jean Wyllys.

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• Officials identify suspect in Colorado mass shooting that killed 10 people.
• President Joe Biden and Democrats call for assault weapons ban and tougher background checks.
• San Francisco, Marin and Santa Clara Counties relax pandemic restrictions.
• Bernie Sanders introduces bills to lower prescription drug prices, with bipartisan support.
• Oakland launches universal income program to pay 600 families $500 a month.
• President Joe Biden increases health care subsidies on 11th anniversary of Affordable Care Act.
• State lawmakers introduce bill to prosecute spousal rape as any rape charge.

Photo of suspected Boulder, Colorado shooter, from Boulder Police Department.

The post Suspect identified in Colorado deadly mass shooting; President Joe Biden calls for assault weapons ban; Oakland launches universal income program appeared first on KPFA.

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