Independent News
Fact-Check: Juan González on Trump’s “Outrageous” Lies About Panama Canal
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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Foreign policy wasn’t the main focus of President Trump’s address Tuesday night, but he did once again threaten to annex the Panama Canal. He said he already started.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it. But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. Thirty-eight thousand workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria. They died of snakebites and mosquitoes.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump Tuesday night once again talked about Panama. He talked about Panama. And again, in addressing in his Tuesday night address, I wanted to ask you, Juan, if you could talk about what he said, what he reiterated, the points that he made, as we hear that BlackRock, the corporate giant, is leading a consortium — that’s what he was referring to. BlackRock said it would lead a consortium to purchase two Panama Canal ports from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. You’ve discussed all this before, Juan. You spent time in Panama. You were there when President George H.W. Bush invaded, led troops invading Panama. Talk about the significance of what he’s saying.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, no matter how many times you repeat a lie, it still doesn’t make it true. The fact is that during the construction of the canal from 1904 to 1914, it wasn’t 38,000 people who died. It was a far smaller number of people, 5,600 people, who died. And most of those people were not Americans. They were Black West Indian laborers who were imported by the Panama Canal Company to do most of the construction. Only about 350 white Americans died in the construction of the canal. That’s about a hundred times less than what Trump is claiming. He’s trying to include in there the fact that there was a first attempt to build the canal by a French company in the 1880s where tens of thousands of workers died in that failed effort to build the canal. But also, most of those workers were West Indians, largely from Barbados. So the real bloodshed in building the Panama Canal was workers from the Caribbean islands.
And now, as you mentioned, comes the news that BlackRock, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, its CEO Larry Fink is spending $23 billion not just on the two Panama ports of CK Hutchison, but a bunch of other ports that this Hong Kong company owns around the world. And this is an example of the Panamanian government, which is a conservative government, basically currying favor with Trump, and at the same time Larry Fink and BlackStone currying favor with Trump, because they’ve been under a lot of criticism from right-wing groups because of their emphasis on socially responsible environmental investments, and they’re trying to clean up their act as far as the MAGA supporters are concerned. So, it’s really outrageous how Trump continues to repeat this lie of all the blood that Americans shed in building the Panama Canal.
“A Declaration of War Against the American People”: Ralph Nader on Trump’s Address to Congress
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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress in a highly partisan 100-minute speech, the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history. Trump defended his sweeping actions over the past six weeks.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump praised his biggest campaign donor, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who’s leading Trump’s effort to dismantle key government agencies and cut critical government services.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And to that end, I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. Thank you, Elon. He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need this. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.
AMY GOODMAN: Some Democrats laughed and pointed at Elon Musk when President Trump made this comment later in his speech.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.
AMY GOODMAN: During his speech, President Trump repeatedly attacked the trans and immigrant communities, defended his tariffs that have sent stock prices spiraling, vowed to end Russia’s war on Ukraine and threatened to take control of Greenland.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland: We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it, really, for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.
AMY GOODMAN: During Trump’s 100-minute address, Democratic lawmakers held up signs in protest reading “This is not normal,” “Save Medicaid” and “Musk steals.” One Democrat, Congressmember Al Green of Texas, was removed from the chamber for protesting the president.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Likewise, small business optimism saw its single-largest one-month gain ever recorded, a 41-point jump.
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 1: Sit down!
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 2: Order!
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions. That’s your warning. Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of decorum, and the chair is prepared to direct the sergeant-at-arms to restore order to the joint session. Mr. Green, take your seat. Take your seat, sir.
REP. AL GREEN: He has no mandate to cut Medicaid!
SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Take your seat. Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the sergeant-at-arms to restore order, remove this gentleman from the chamber.
AMY GOODMAN: That was House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called in security to take Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green out. Afterwards, Green spoke to reporters after being removed.
REP. AL GREEN: The president said he had a mandate, and I was making it clear to the president that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid. I have people who are very fearful. These are poor people, and they have only Medicaid in their lives when it comes to their healthcare. And I want him to know that his budget calls for deep cuts in Medicaid. He needs to save Medicaid, protect it. We need to raise the cap on Social Security. There’s a possibility that it’s going to be hurt. And we’ve got to protect Medicare. These are the safety net programs that people in my congressional district depend on. And this president seems to care less about them and more about the number of people that he can remove from the various programs that have been so helpful to so many people.
AMY GOODMAN: Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green.
We begin today’s show with Ralph Nader, the longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, former presidential candidate. Ralph Nader is founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper. His most recent lead article in the new issue of Capitol Hill Citizen is titled “Democratic Party: Apologize to America for ushering Trump back in.” He is also the author of the forthcoming book Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country That Works for the People.
Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, all these different programs. Ralph Nader, respond overall to President Trump’s, well, longest congressional address in modern history.
RALPH NADER: Well, it was also a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favor of the super-rich and the giant corporations. What Trump did last night was set a record for lies, delusionary fantasies, predictions of future broken promises — a rerun of his first term — boasts about progress that don’t exist. In practice, he has launched a trade war. He has launched an arms race with China and Russia. He has perpetuated and even worsened the genocidal support against the Palestinians. He never mentioned the Palestinians once. And he’s taken Biden’s genocidal policies one step further by demanding the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza.
But taking it as a whole, Amy, what we’re seeing here defies most of dictionary adjectives. What Trump and Musk and Vance and the supine Republicans are doing are installing an imperial, militaristic domestic dictatorship that is going to end up in a police state. You can see his appointments are yes people bent on suppression of civil liberties, civil rights. You can see his breakthrough, after over 120 years, of announcing conquest of Panama Canal. He’s basically said, one way or another, he’s going to take Greenland. These are not just imperial controls of countries overseas or overthrowing them; it’s actually seizing land. Now, on the Greenland thing, Greenland is a province of Denmark, which is a member of NATO. He is ready to basically conquer a part of Denmark in violation of Section 5 of NATO, at the same time that he has displayed full-throated support for a hardcore communist dictator, Vladimir Putin, who started out with the Russian version of the CIA under the Soviet Union and now has over 20 years of communist dictatorship, allied, of course, with a number of oligarchs, a kind of kleptocracy. And the Republicans are buying all this in Congress. This is complete reversal of everything that the Republicans stood for against communist dictators.
So, what we’re seeing here is a phony program of government efficiency ripping apart people’s programs. The attack on Social Security is new, complete lies about millions of people aged 110, 120, getting Social Security checks. That’s a new attack. He left Social Security alone in his first term, but now he’s going after. So, what they’re going to do is cut Medicaid and cut other social safety nets in order to pay for another tax cut for the super-rich and the corporation, throwing in no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security benefits, which will, of course, further increase the deficit and give the lie to his statement that he wants a balanced budget.
So we’re dealing with a deranged, unstable pathological liar, who’s getting away with it. And the question is: How does he get away with it, year after year? Because the Democratic Party has basically collapsed. They don’t know how to deal with a criminal recidivist, a person who has hired workers without documents and exploited them, a person who’s a bigot against immigrants, including legal immigrants who are performing totally critical tasks in home healthcare, processing poultry, meat, and half of the construction workers in Texas are undocumented workers. So, as a bully, he doesn’t go after the construction industry in Texas; he picks out individuals.
I thought the most disgraceful thing, Amy, yesterday was his use of these unfortunate people who suffered as props, holding one up after another. But they were also Trump’s crutches to cover up his contradictory behavior. So, he praises the police yesterday, but he pardoned over 600 people who attacked violently the police on January 6th and were convicted and imprisoned as a result, and he let them out of prison. I thought the most —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, I —
RALPH NADER: — the most heartrending thing was that 13-year-old child, who wanted to be a police officer when he grew up, being held up twice by his father. And he was so bewildered as to what was going on. And Trump’s use of these people was totally reprehensible and should be called out.
Now, more basically, the real inefficiencies in government, they’re ignoring, because they are kleptocrats. They’re ignoring corporate crimes on Medicaid, Medicare, tens of billions of dollars every year ripping off Medicare, ripping off government contracts, such as defense contracts. He’s ignoring hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare, including that doled out to Elon Musk — subsidies, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, you name it. And he’s ignoring the bloated military budget, which he is supporting the Republicans in actually increasing the military budget more than the generals have asked for. So, that’s the revelation —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, if I — Ralph, if I can interrupt? I just need to —
RALPH NADER: — that the Democrats need to pursue.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph, I wanted to ask you about — specifically about Medicaid and Medicare. You’ve mentioned the cuts to these safety net programs. What about Medicaid, especially the crisis in this country in long-term care? What do you see happening in this Trump administration, especially with the Republican majority in Congress?
RALPH NADER: Well, they’re going to slash — they’re going to move to slash Medicaid, which serves over 71 million people, including millions of Trump voters, who should be reconsidering their vote as the days pass, because they’re being exploited in red states, blue states, everywhere, as well. Yeah, they have to cut tens of billions of dollars a year from Medicaid to pay for the tax cut. That’s number one. Now they’re going after Social Security. Who knows what the next step will be on Medicare? They’re leaving Americans totally defenseless by slashing meat and poultry and food inspection laws, auto safety. They’re exposing people to climate violence by cutting FEMA, the rescue agency. They’re cutting forest rangers that deal with wildfires. They’re cutting protections against pandemics and epidemics by slashing and ravaging and suppressing free speech in scientific circles, like CDC and National Institutes of Health. They’re leaving the American people defenseless.
And where are the Democrats on this? I mean, look at Senator Slotkin’s response. It was a typical rerun of a feeble, weak Democratic rebuttal. She couldn’t get herself, just like the Democrats in 2024, which led to Trump’s victory — they can’t get themselves, Juan, to talk specifically and authentically about raising the minimum wage, expanding healthcare, cracking down on corporate crooks that are bleeding out the incomes of hard-pressed American workers and the poor. They can’t get themselves to talk about increasing frozen Social Security budgets for 50 years, that 200 Democrats supported raising, but Nancy Pelosi kept them, when she was speaker, from taking John Larson’s bill to the House floor. That’s why they lose. Look at her speech. It was so vague and general. They chose her because she was in the national security state. She was a former CIA. They chose her because they wanted to promote the losing version of the Democratic Party, instead of choosing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, the most popular polled politician in America today. That’s who they chose. So, as long as the Democrats monopolize the opposition and crush third-party efforts to push them into more progressive realms, the Republican, plutocratic, Wall Street, war machine declaration of war against the American people will continue. We’re heading into the most serious crisis in American history. There’s no comparison.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, we’re going to have to leave it there, but, of course, we’re going to continue to cover these issues. And I also wanted to wish you, Ralph, a happy 91st birthday. Ralph Nader —
RALPH NADER: I wish people to get the Capitol Hill Citizen, which tells people what they can really do to win democracy and justice back. So, for $5 or donation or more, if you wish, you can go to Capitol Hill Citizen and get a copy sent immediately by first-class mail, or more copies for your circle, of resisting and protesting and prevailing over this Trump dictatorship.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, four-time presidential candidate, founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper. This is Democracy Now! Coming up, more on President Trump’s speech to Congress.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Tired of Being Alone” by Al Green, not the congressman who was taken out by security from President Trump’s address to Congress last night.
Britfield Counters the Creativity Crisis
For Immediate Release
Rancho Santa Fe, CA 7/5/2023. While America is engulfed in a Creativity Crisis, the Britfield & the Lost Crown series has been countering this trend by offering fast-paced adventure novels that inspire the creative mind, promote critical thinking, encourage collaboration, and foster communication. The writing is active and the vocabulary stimulating, with family and friendship as the narrative drivers. This fresh approach not only entertains readers but educates them by weaving accurate history, geography, and culture into every exciting story. Already in thousands of schools across the nation, Britfield is redefining literature and becoming this generation’s book series.
“It is our belief that all children are gifted and have creative talents which are often dismissed or squandered, because they are not recognized or nurtured. Our schools stigmatize mistakes, censure independent thinking, and criticize individualism. Creative opportunities and programs must be introduced and fostered, because everything flows and flourishes from creativity,”
Author C. R. Stewart
Meanwhile, American Creativity Scores Are Declining: After analyzing 300,000 Torrance results of children and adults, researcher Dr. Kyung Hee Kim discovered that creativity scores have been steadily declining (just like IQ scores) since the 1990s. The scores of younger children, from kindergarten through sixth grade, show the most serious decline. While the consequences are sweeping, the critical necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed: children who were offered more creative ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, doctors, authors, diplomats, and software developers.
Since the 1990s, Schools have:
1. Killed curiosities and passions
2. Narrowed visions and minds
3. Lowered expectations
4. Stifled risk-taking
5. Destroyed collaboration
6. Killed deep thoughts and imagination
7. Forced conformity
8. Solidified hierarchy
Founded on outdated models, most current schools are promoting a “dumbed-down” curriculum where creativity is irrelevant, literacy is deplorable, history is misguided, and geography is abandoned. Instead of nurturing future leaders, our educational system is fostering mindless complacency. Conformity is preferred over ingenuity. Meanwhile, parents are aware of a concerted effort to criticize independent thinking and discourage creativity. They are in search of cultural enrichment and educational opportunities. This has opened the door to alternative options, such as homeschooling, which has grown from 5 million to over 15 million in the last three years.
Educator Roger Schank stated,
“I am horrified by what schools are doing to children. From elementary to college, educational systems drive the love of learning out of kids. They produce students who seem smart because they receive top grades and honors but are in learning’s neutral gear. Some grow up and never find their true calling. While they may become adept at working hard and memorizing facts, they never develop a passion for a subject or follow their own idiosyncratic interest in a topic. Just as alarming, these top students deny themselves the pleasure of play and don’t know how to have fun with their schoolwork.”
George Land conducted a research study to test the creativity of 1,600 children ranging from ages three to five who were enrolled in a Head Start program. The assessment worked so well that he retested the same children at age 10 and again at age 15, with the results published in his book Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today. The proportion of people who scored at the creative Genius Level:
- Among 5-year-olds: 98%
- Among 10-year-olds: 30%
- Among 15-year-olds: 12%
- Same test given to 280,000 adults (average age of 31): 2%
However, Creativity is the #1 most important skill in the world. An IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number one leadership competency of the future. According to the World Economic Forum Report, the top three skills in 2022 will be creativity, critical thinking, and complex problem solving. A 2021 LinkedIn report ranked creativity as the #1 most desired skill among hiring managers. An Adobe Survey based on Creativity and Education revealed that 85% of professionals agree creative thinking is essential in their careers, 82% of professionals wish they had more exposure to creative thinking as students, and creative applicants are preferred 5 to 1. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University reanalyzed Torrance’s data. He found that the correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
As Sir Ken Robinson said,
“We know three things about intelligence. One, it’s diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, and we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms; we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. And three, we can all agree that children have extraordinary capacities for innovation. In fact, creativity often comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.”
Our entire educational system is predicated on a questionable hierarchy that places conformity above creativity, and the consequences are that many brilliant, talented, and imaginative students never discover their gifts and therefore fail to realize their true potential. To prepare students for future challenges, education and literature must help children achieve their full potential by learning skills that foster creativity, critical thinking, and independence. The Britfield series is bridging this gap and fulfilling this need.
Lauren Hunter
Devonfield Publishing
Director of Media
[email protected]
www.Britfield.com
Republican prosecutors can subpoena phone data to hunt down 'evidence' of possible abortions
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We are about to see a new wave of anti-abortion terrorism and violence, thanks to a Supreme Court majority that believes individual rights not only ought to flip around according to the whims of each new election but that if the U.S. Constitution makes things awkward, the states can designate private-citizen bounty hunters and evade whatever else the courts might say about it.
Sen. Ron Wyden is dead right when he warns that we’re about to see a new era in which women who seek abortions or who might seek abortions are going to have their digital data hunted down. Much of the hunting will be by Republican-state prosecutors looking to convict women who cross state lines into better, less trashy states to seek abortions that are now illegal in New Gilead. But in states like Texas, it’s likely to be private anti-abortion groups gathering up that data—not just to target women seeking abortion, but as potential source of cash. The $10,000 bounty on Texas women who get abortions after six weeks turns such stalking into a potentially lucrative career.
Sen. Wyden to Gizmodo: “The simple act of searching for ‘pregnancy test’ could cause a woman to be stalked, harassed and attacked. With Texas style bounty laws, and laws being proposed in Missouri to limit people’s ability to travel to obtain abortion care, there could even be a profit motive for this outsourced persecution.”
It’s not just that Republican prosecutors can subpoena data records of pregnant women looking for, for example, evidence that they might have looked up “pregnancy test” or “abortion pills” or “my remaining civil rights.” All of those would constitute “evidence” that woman who had a miscarriage might not have “wanted” her pregnancy—thus paving the way for criminal charges. It’s happened before, despite Roe, and after Roe falls will likely become a rote fixture of red-state prosecutions.
We’re likely to to see such subpoenas become a primary way for conservative state prosecutors to “prove” that American women crossing state lines did so to obtain now-criminalized abortions. “Even a search for information about a clinic could become illegal under some state laws, or an effort to travel to a clinic with an intent to obtain an abortion,” Electronic Privacy Information Center president Alan Butler told The Washington Post.
Republican states have already been examining ways to criminalize such travel. It’s coming, and American women will find that the phones they use to look up reproductive health questions can also be used by prosecutors to hunt them down for asking the wrong questions.
Bounty hunters looking for women to target may not have those same subpoena powers—though heaven knows what the future will bring, in a theocratic state that finds its best legal wisdom from colonial era witch hunters—but they will have the power of extremely amoral data tracking companies on their side. It was revealed just days ago that data broker SafeGraph, slivers of which may be hidden on your own phone inside apps that quietly collect and sell the information they gather on you, specifically offers tracking data for phones visiting Planned Parenthood providers—including the census tracks visitors came from and returned to.
For just $160, SafeGraph has been selling that data to anyone willing to buy it. It’s a trivial investment for bounty hunters eager to cross-reference such clues to find who to next target. It’s also a valuable tool for would-be domestic terrorists, of the sort that are going to be once again emboldened by a Supreme Court nod to their beliefs that not only should abortion be banned, but that activists are justified in attacking those that think otherwise. Nobody can plausibly think far-right violence will decrease, in the bizarre landscape in which they have finally achieved victory in half the states while being rebuffed by the others. It has never happened that way. It never will.
RELATED STORIES:
Data collection company sells the information of people who visit abortion clinics
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If SCOTUS kills Roe, many states are poised to swiftly enforce abortion bans, sweeping restrictions
America doesn’t want abortion overturned, does want an expanded Supreme Court
Another data miner, Placer, tracks Planned Parenthood visitors to their homes and provides the routes they took. Among the apps mining data for Placer is popular tracking app “Life360.”
Biden reportedly caught off guard by Supreme Court leak; here's how the administration can catch up
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If the Washington Post is to be believed, we’ve got a big problem, because if the White House wasn’t prepared for the news that the Supreme Court is poised to end federal abortion rights start, they have a serious lack of understanding of the reality in which we live.
“Biden officials spent much of Tuesday panicked as they realized how few tools they had at their disposal, according to one outside adviser briefed on several meetings,” the Post reports. “While officials have spent months planning for the possibility the court would overturn the landmark ruling,” the Post reports, “the leaked document caught the White House off guard.” It shouldn’t have. A leak is unusual, yes, but the only surprise in the contents is just how bloodthirsty Justice Samuel Alito is in coming after abortion, and ultimately all the other 20th century rights the court established.
“We will be ready when any ruling is issued,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. Will they? Because they really should have seen this coming, and been prepared with some ideas by now. The fact that they pivoted to deficit reduction, of all things, as the message for Wednesday doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence that they’ll be ferocious in this fight. That they’ll be creative and that they will try everything to fix this, to tell the majority of Americans who support abortion rights that we’ve got a powerful ally in the fight.
Back in February, Shefali Luthra of The 19th News reported on the executive actions Biden can take. First, expand access to medication abortion, something the Food and Drug Administration can do. “The most significant thing the Biden administration has done is through the FDA, and the most significant things the Biden administration will be able to do going forward are through the FDA,” Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University who studies abortion, told Luthra.
The FDA has already acted to expand the availability of medication abortion. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it allowed for the pills to be prescribed virtually, via telemedicine, and provided through the mail. It also allowed online-only providers to mail the pills to patients in other states, including those with restrictive abortion laws. Those rules have been made permanent.
The two-pill regimen for medication abortion has been safely used for two decades, and now accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute. It’s approved for use up to 10 weeks, though it’s been demonstrated safe to use beyond 10 weeks, up to 20. In Great Britain, it’s used up to nearly 24 weeks.
“There is some support for the idea that states cannot ban FDA-approved medication,” Greer Donley, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, told the 19ths Luthra. “This is a novel legal argument. Maybe it would mean states cannot ban the sale of medication abortion, which would mean states must allow abortion up to 10 weeks.”
Forced birth groups are of course focusing on getting states to enact restrictions on medication abortion, and while there’s no precedent for FDA guidance to supersede state restrictions, it’s worth forcing the challenge.
The EMAA [Exanding Medication Abortion Access] Project has been having preliminary conversations with the administration, its director Kirsten Moore told the LA Times Jennifer Haberkorn. One thing they’re considering is pressing insurers to cover the drugs. “There is no obvious, one, two, three things to solve the problem,” she said. “We’re going to have to be really creative. And it may only be helpful on the margins—which may be important margins.”
Online providers of the medication are also getting creative. Aid Access, one of the sites, uses European healthcare providers and a pharmacy in India to provide the pills. It’s a relatively inexpensive option at $110, but takes up to four weeks. Another provider, PlanCPills.org has been gaming out the options for people in every state.
For instance, a patient in Texas—where abortion is banned after fetal cardiac activity is detected, or about 6 weeks of pregnancy—could – https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-09-17/is-this-legal-texans-scramble-to-get-abortions-out-of-state – drive across the border – into New Mexico and conduct a telehealth appointment with a doctor there. The pills can be shipped to a friend in New Mexico or a temporary mailbox the patient has set up in the state and forwarded to Texas. Or a patient could stay in Texas and directly buy the drugs from an online pharmacy at a cost of $200 to $500.
Another option for the federal government: federally-sponsored clinics or leases to abortion clinics on public lands. Located on federal lands, the clinics could be exempt from state laws. They could also be located on tribal lands, where tribal leaders would allow them.
“It is possible that clinics can operate on federal lands without having to follow state law. That has to be explored. The federal government needs to push the envelope,” David Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law, told Luthra. “It’s not a slam-dunk legal argument, but these are the kinds of things that need to be tried.”
Audio: McCarthy weighed 25th Amendment for Trump in private after Jan. 6
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A new audio recording of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has reportedly captured him weighing whether to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove then-President Donald Trump from the White House two days after the assault on the Capitol.
With much attention largely trained right now on the Supreme Court after the leak of a draft opinion poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, McCarthy has managed a slight reprieve from the headlines.
It was just over a week ago that a different series of audio recordings featuring the House GOP leader went public and he was heard, in his own words, telling members of his party that he was prepared to call for then-President Donald Trump’s resignation.
In those recordings, and now in this new set, McCarthy’s private agony is yet again starkly contrasted against the public support—and cover—that he has ceaselessly heaped upon Trump.
Related story: Jan. 6 committee may have another ‘invitation’ for Kevin McCarthy
The latest audio recordings—obtained by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns as a part of their book, This Too Shall Not Pass and shared with CNN—reportedly have McCarthy considering invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as he listened to an aide go over deliberations then underway by House Democrats.
When the aide said that the 25th Amendment would “not exactly” be an “elegant solution” to removing Trump, McCarthy is reportedly heard interrupting as he attempts to get a sense of his options.
The process of invoking the 25th Amendment is one not taken lightly and would require majority approval from members of Trump’s Cabinet as well as from the vice president.
“That takes too long,” McCarthy said after an aide walked him through the steps. “And it could go back to the House, right?”
Indeed, it wasn’t an easy prospect.
Trump would not only have to submit a letter overruling the Cabinet and Pence, but a two-thirds majority would have to be achieved in the House and Senate to overrule Trump.
“So, it’s kind of an armful,” the aide said.
On Jan. 7, 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on the president’s allies to divorce themselves from Trump after he loosed his mob on them, Capitol Hill staff, and police.
“While there are only 13 days left, any day could be a horror show,” Pelosi said at a press conference where she called for the 25th Amendment to be put in motion.
Publicly, McCarthy would not budge.
The House voted 232-197 to approve a resolution that would activate the amendment on Jan. 13. McCarthy called for censure instead of impeachment through the 25th Amendment. Then, from the floor of the House, McCarthy denounced Trump.
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” McCarthy said.
During the Jan. 8 call, the House GOP leader lamented that impeachment could divide the nation more. He worried it might also inspire new conflicts. He also told the aide he wanted to have Trump and Biden meet before the inauguration.
It would help with a smooth transition, he said.
In another moment in the recording after discussing a sit-down with Biden where they could discuss ways to publicly smooth tensions over the transition, McCarthy can be heard saying that “he’s trying to do it not from the basis of Republicans.”
But rather, “of a basis of, hey, it’s not healthy for the nation” to continue with such uncertainty.
Yet within the scant week that passed from the time McCarthy said Trump bore some responsibility for the attack and the impeachment vote, McCarthy switched gears again.
He didn’t believe Trump “provoked” the mob, he said on Jan. 21.
Not if people “listened to what [Trump] said at the rally,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy met with Trump at the 45th president’s property in Mar-a-Lago, Florida a week after Biden was inaugurated. Once he was back in Washington, the House leader issued a statement saying Trump had “committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022.”
They had founded a “united conservative movement,” he said.
Don't look now, but Stacey Abrams is mowing down Gov. Kemp's financial lead
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Things are looking pretty good in the Georgia governor’s race.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Democratic powerhouse Stacey Abrams, even with a late start entering the race, is nipping at the heels of Gov. Brian Kemp when it comes to campaign contributions.
Between February and April, Abrams raised $11.7 million, collecting contributions from over 187,000 donors, the AJC reports. And at the end of the reporting period, she claimed over $8 million in the bank.
But, just as the state enters midterms, and after a leaked draft of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to The Washington Post, the Abrams camp temporarily paused fundraising, and instead began raising money for pro-choice groups in the state—The Feminist Women’s Health Center, SisterSong, ARC Southeast, Planned Parenthood Southeast, and others.
RELATED STORY: Stacey Abrams turns tables on Gov. Kemp, files suit to use law he signed for himself in her favor
“This moment demands action, so I will be blunt: The abomination of that leaked opinion is coming to find every one of us,” Abrams wrote in a campaign email. “Women in Georgia and across this country. LGBTQ+ and disabled people. And particularly those of color or low-income. This is a terrifying time for our nation.”
According to the Associated Press, Kemp has reported $10.7 million in cash on hand, down from $12.7 million as of Jan. 31. Kemp’s had to spend big in the battle against Sen. David Perdue and his other Republican rivals. Abrams has spent over $9 million in TV, radio, and digital ads in the last five months, AJC reports.
In late April, a federal judge ruled in favor of Abrams to block Georgians First, Kemp’s leadership committee, from raising unlimited money for him until he became the official GOP nominee on May 24. The rule applies equally to Abrams; until the primary is over she is unable to raise money from her leadership committee.
Perdue hasn’t released his financial records, but according to AJC, his last report ended with an underwhelming $1 million in the bank, despite backing from former President Trump.
Meanwhile, in the Sen. Raphael Warnock battle against the assumed GOP nominee and COVID-spray salesman, Herschel Walker in November, in mid-April, the AJC reported that Warnock broke records as he collected $13.6 million in the first quarter of 2022. Walker ended 2021 with around $5 million in the bank.
Border Patrol has not been counting all migrants who've died along the border, watchdog says
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Border Patrol agents have not been counting the total number of migrants who’ve died attempting to cross the harsh southern borderlands, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. Some immigrant rights advocates have estimated that as many as 10,000 migrants have died from exposure and other elements within the last two decades, a number significantly higher than what border officials have stated. The watchdog report confirms the fears of many: they just haven’t been counting them.
“Border Patrol has not collected and recorded, or reported to Congress, complete data on migrant deaths, or disclosed associated data limitations,” the office said. The Tucson sector highlighted in the report is representative of the border agency’s overall negligence.
RELATED STORY: Border Patrol policies kill hundreds of migrants each year—and they were designed to
“Border Patrol sector officials from the four sectors we contacted told us that they coordinate with external entities—such as medical examiners—when remains are discovered,” the report said. But investigators said that a collaborative effort between the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office and humanitarian organization Humane Borders, Inc. recorded higher numbers than border officials in the region.
While investigators highlight the implementation of the Missing Migrant Program in 2017 “to help rescue migrants in distress and reduce migrant deaths along the southwest border,” they note the agency “does not have a plan to evaluate the program overall.” But actions by border agents indicate that while there’s a program to aid distressed immigrants in name, the action has been continued harassment.
Take No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization with one goal: To prevent the agonizing deaths of migrants in the desert, where temperatures commonly rise into the triple digits. But the group has been repeatedly harassed by border agents throughout multiple administrations, most recently last summer. The year prior, the same tactical unit that harassed anti-police violence protesters in Portland helped raid No More Deaths’ humanitarian aid station.
This escalation began when the organization released shocking footage of grinning border agents destroying jugs of water left for migrants in the desert. Humanitarian workers had said containers were being routinely tampered with by human hands. While racist border vigilante extremists have eagerly confessed to some of the destruction, human rights groups had suspected Border Patrol as well. The footage proved them right.
“The practice of destruction of and interference with aid is not the deviant behavior of a few rogue border patrol agents, it is a systemic feature of enforcement practices in the borderlands,” No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos said in the report. Warning: The following footage is disturbing.
It is a fact that harsh immigration policies have helped led to this tragic death toll. The common misconception is that stricter policies make a more secure border, but deterrence policies beginning in the mid-1990s have only killed migrants, by knowingly pushing them into more and more dangerous terrain. “Of course, the U.S. government knew that Prevention Through Deterrence would send people to their deaths,” researcher John Washington told Rewire’s Tina Vasquez in 2016.
“If you look at the strategic plan for Prevention Through Deterrence, it is clearly stated that they were going to use the landscape as an ally,” Washington continued in the report. “Everything that’s outlined implies greater suffering. These are people in charge of the Southwest border, of course they knew that walking for five days in these conditions would kill people.”
Earlier we noted Border Patrol’s Missing Migrant Program, which is supposed to aid migrants in crisis. Vasquez reported last year that advocates have led their own initiative, with a similar goal of aiding missing migrants. But she said that when advocates have fielded urgent calls to border officials, they have frequently gone ignored.
“In 63% of all distress calls referred to Border Patrol by crisis line volunteers, the agency did not conduct any confirmed search or rescue mobilization whatsoever—this includes 40% of cases where Border Patrol directly refused to take any measures in response to a life-or-death emergency.”
Count Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum Title 42 among failed border policies, experts have said. The policy, which may or may not end at the end of this month depending on a GOP-led lawsuit, has only resulted in higher apprehensions at the border. “That is because under Title 42, individuals who are expelled to Mexico within hours after apprehension can simply try again a second or third time in hopes of getting through.” And sometimes through ways that may cost them their lives.
RELATED STORIES: ‘Ongoing pattern of harassment and surveillance’: CBP is still tormenting humanitarian volunteers
BORTAC unit that terrorized Portland just helped raid a humanitarian medical camp at border
Border Patrol agents are destroying lifesaving jugs of water left for migrants in the desert
'It’s wild': Black nurse sues hospital after she was targeted with unjust criminal charges
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A Black nurse is suing a hospital about 15 miles east of Denver in the city of Aurora after she says she was discriminated against and targeted with a manslaughter charge for doing her job and even going above and beyond what was required of her. DonQuenick Joppy named the Medical Center of Aurora (TMCA); HealthONE, which owns the medical center; and employees at the center, Katie Weihe and Bonnie Andrews, in a lawsuit filed April 22.
Ultimately, the charges Joppy faced in connection with the death of a 94-year-old patient in 2019—“manslaughter, negligent death of an at-risk person and neglect of an at-risk”—were dropped by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office “in the interest of justice,” according to a motion The Denver Post obtained. “It’s wild,” Joppy said in an interview the newspaper cited. “My life has been turned upside down … I never killed anyone. I’m a great nurse.”
RELATED STORY: Don’t forget Elijah McClain: Forced into chokehold, injected for looking ‘sketchy.’ He is dead now
Spelled out in Joppy’s complaint:
1. During her employment with TMCA Ms. Joppy, a Black nurse, was subjected to verbal and nonverbal slights or microagressions designed to marginalize, segregate and undermine her based on stereotypical and harmful views of Black professionals.
2. TMCA unlawfully denied Ms. Joppy training and transfer opportunities, refused to investigate her complaints of race discrimination, placed her on an unwarranted Performance Improvement Plan (“PIP”), isolated her from colleagues, then ultimately terminated her employment because of her race and because she engaged in protected activity.
3. In a final blow to Ms. Joppy, in an effort to have her professional nursing license revoked and end her career, TMCA, Andrews and Weihe, in a “take no prisoners” approach, maliciously caused felony manslaughter charges to be brought against Ms. Joppy for the death of a patient known to have died from natural causes.
Joppy was terminated on June 4, 2019 after working for the hospital for two years and receiving an Excellence Award from the American Heart Association for performing CPR and saving a patient’s life her first year on the job. She also received a positive performance review for her work from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018, according to the suit.
“In spite of the positive performance review, patient care comments and other awards and accolades, Ms. Joppy’s treatment by the overwhelmingly non-Black management in the ICU was racially biased and on many occasions the Charge Nurses would publicly and openly yell at Ms. Joppy undermining her in a humiliating and demeaning manner,” Joppy’s attorney stated in the suit. “None of the non-Black nurses were treated in this manner.”
In the incident that led to Joppy’s termination, she was told to make room in an understaffed intensive care unit for a critically ill patient dying in the hospital’s emergency room, according to the suit. Joppy hadn’t cared for the patient before but she was assigned as his nurse before her shift’s end at 7 AM, her attorney spelled out in the suit.
According to the complaint, when the doctor ordered Joppy verbally to prepare the patient for “versed and morphine” and to assume “end of life” measures, Joppy contacted the respiratory therapist on duty to carry out the doctor’s order.
When the therapist arrived, he told Joppy he was busy and would give her directions for turning off the ventilator, which she followed, according to the suit. The therapist returned later to disconnect the patient’s ventilator, and he died of “septic shock due to pneumonia and bowel infarction; acute renal failure,” according to the death certificate cited in the lawsuit.
A supervising nurse who, according to the suit, showed animosity to Joppy in the past questioned how she responded in the incident, sparking the hospital’s investigation. It ultimately determined that it was “standard practice for nurses to ensure orders are being followed as received and entered” and “no order was placed into the chart until after the patient had deceased.”
The hospital also claimed Joppy should have waited for the respiratory therapist to disconnect the ventilator, and the medical center even cited as grounds for her termination, “staying after her assigned shift continuing to provide care to the patient unnecessarily”—a common practice of nurses, according to the suit.
Rachel Robinson, a spokesperson for the medical center, tried to dismiss Joppy’s allegations in a statement The Denver Post obtained on Tuesday.
“The lawsuit that has been filed against The Medical Center of Aurora is without merit and is a tactic by a disgruntled former colleague,” she said in the statement.
Jennifer Robinson, Joppy’s attorney, told The Denver Post Joppy has struggled to find stable housing and ceased work as a nurse, although her license is active.
“I took this case on because I thought it was particularly egregious that they would do this to someone’s life,” Robinson said. “She’s pretty much homeless now and hasn’t recovered since all of this happened. Who is going to hire a nurse who has manslaughter charges against her, even if they are dropped? It’s just not cool to treat people this way.”
One million
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In the standard image displayed at the top of a Daily Kos story, on an average browser, there are fewer than 500,000 pixels. The image used for this story contains exactly 1 million pixels, but you’ll have to open it in another page if you want to see them all. And of course, even then you can’t see them all, not really. They’re just a sea of sameness. Just a mass of dark where there could be light. Just points that show nothing where there could be something.
Like the one million people missing from the United States at this moment due to COVID-19.
There is really no way to show you what that loss looks like. No doubt there are, right at this moment, people making a valiant effort to do so. Somewhere shoes or cups or caps or some other items of everyday life are being arranged carefully on a field. Somewhere signs are being made with a scale and resolution that can genuinely provide some sense of what this number looks like when measured in human beings. Those efforts are, of course, symbolic, but that doesn’t mean they are worthless. Done well, such efforts can deliver a profundity and a physicality that the words “one million” simply don’t deliver.
This is a number so large that it falls into that the same well as those we use when describing the universe. These dinosaur fossils are 65 million years old. This galaxy is 10 million light years away. We nod along when told such things, but we don’t grasp them. Not really. Just like we can’t begin to grasp what it means to have one million people absent from the life of the nation. One million voices lost to the conversation. One million … one million.
Listen to Mark Sumner talk about the pandemic on Daily Kos’ The Brief
This doesn’t seem the time to review the awful decisions that brought us here. Everyone is far too aware of the lies, the distortion, and the sheer indifference. The downplaying of the threat. The false promises of a miracle cure. The long, deliberate effort to undermine the advice of those who saw what was coming.
Instead, try another form of memorial. Spend one minute and imagine it was you. If you’re young, imagine what impact your loss would have to your parents, your siblings, your friends, your coworkers. If you’re older, imagine your absence in the lives of your children or what it would mean to your partner. Take one minute and imagine a you-shaped hole, not just in the events of today, but every day to come. Forever.
Then multiply that by one million.