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Live from COP29: Climate Justice Activists Demand Action as Trump’s Return Looms Over U.N. Summit
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This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting live from the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, which has entered its second and final week. Despite the pledge from countries around the world at last year’s COP28 in Dubai, the burning of coal, oil and gas continued to rise this year. 2024 is also set to follow 2023 as the hottest year on record, this according to the World Meteorological Organization. This year’s climate summit comes amidst high uncertainty for the future of climate negotiations, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement again.
Despite strict regulations, protests have been taking place here at the COP as climate activists from around the world try to get their voices heard. In fact, a number of journalists and climate activists in Azerbaijan have been arrested in the last year in the lead-up to COP. We’ll be talking about that later in the broadcast with Human Rights Watch.
But first, on Saturday, Democracy Now! was here when hundreds of climate justice activists from around the world occupied a plenary room to protest the lack of progress on climate negotiations and then came out for a silent protest in the corridor, where Democracy Now! caught up with them.
SYDNEY MISHEL MALES MUENALA: Hi. My name is Sydney Males Muenala. I’m from Ecuador. I am Indigenous woman from the community Kichwa Otavalo. So, we are here because we need to reclaim all of the violation of the human rights, especially from the Indigenous people. So, we are here, like young people, young Indigenous women, because we need to defend our territories and demand demining the climate crisis, because you have the transnationally in our territory, and this is like the violence for our bodies, our community, our territory, our water.
JULIANA MELISA ASPRILLA CABEZAS: My name is Juliana Asprilla. I’m from Colombia and an Afro-descendant woman. And I’m here because I am trying to enhance my voice to talk about our people, our communities and why climate change is needed to be treated urgently. We need the money. We need it now.
KARINA LESTER: My name’s Karina Lester. I’m from Australia, and I’m a second-generation survivor of British nuclear tests that happened in Australia in 1953, but the program continued through the ’60s, as well. So, I’ve come here to be part of this event to just send a strong message around nuclear and the impacts it’s having on Indigenous peoples in Australia and also around the globe, as well, so here to, you know, voice our concerns, because our government is also thinking of nuclear power plants, as well. So we’re very concerned about that as Indigenous peoples, because it’ll impact on First Nations peoples in Australia.
RENÉE FELTZ: Would you share some of the impact it had?
KARINA LESTER: Yeah. Many people had passed, but many people have quite sick illnesses, as well, from the British nuclear testing program that happened in the ’50s and ’60s. My father was blinded by those British nuclear tests that happened on the 15th of October, 1953, and so it took something away from him. And we, as the next generation, live with this and carry that tragic story of what happened to his people, how his people were harmed by the fallout, and how people still continue to suffer today with autoimmune diseases, with chest infections, with skin rashes on their skin. There’s many other, like, infant mortality concerns within our communities, as well. And we’re very remote in Australia, and those locations were very remote. And so, we’re quite concerned about our people, but also our environment, because our country wears the scars of those British nuclear tests today.
THABO SIBEKO: Thabo Sibeko from Earthlife Africa in South Africa. So, we are here for a protest. Number one is to raise awareness to the whole global society that more fossil fuel must be kicked out of Africa. More finance should be allocated for sustainable projects. Finance must actually be allocated to all the African regions that has been — their environment has been destroyed as a result of fossil fuel extractivist projects. We are protesting here because we have discovered that there’s more fossil fuel lobbyists attending the COP29, which means the voices of the voiceless will still be suppressed. So, and therefore, we felt that it is proper for us to combine and join forces to protest, you know, to do a silent protest and also a peaceful protest to raise our awareness, to amplify our voices.
NADIA HADAD: My name is Nadia Hadad. I’m from the European Disability Forum. And the purpose of us being here is to reclaim the rights of persons with disabilities, because mostly we have 1.9 billion of persons with disabilities around the world, and the majority of them is living in the South. There’s been one on every six persons has a disability, and yet we are not recognized. We are not part of the consultancy of persons with disabilities. We are not there under — when they’re taking decisions.
So we are those who are really left behind between the most vulnerable roles, while we are the most impacted. For example, whenever there is a disaster, the first people — only starting with information, the information given is not accessible. For example, deaf people, people who are blind, people who are deaf-blind, people with intellectual disability, so they even don’t get the information. The alarm, they don’t hear it. When there is something, an emission, a special request, people who doesn’t understand easily or people with social circle problems do not know where it is, so there is still no — so, we are reclaiming, for example, a fast-tracking mechanism so they could detect them very fast.
When there was a rescue, for example, there were floods in Germany. We are not speaking about the South. There were floods in Germany. Those who stayed behind were all — all of them were wheelchair users. Ten of them just kept drowning in the water, because when the firemen arrived to rescue them, they didn’t have adequate materials to rescue them.
So, whenever something happens, persons with disabilities are always those the most impacted. They can’t run away. They can’t understand. They can’t hear. And they are not considered to be rescued first, because priority, takes too much time, so there is a kind of triage, even in disasters.
And that’s why we are here. We want equality. We want them beforehand to prepare. And if something happens, then to be sure that if we’re going to build better, build back better, then it should be accessible and affordable for all of us.
ANA CAROLINA DOS SANTOS DIAS: I’m Carolina Santos. I’m from Brazil. I’m an activist, climate and environmental social activist, from Brazil.
RENÉE FELTZ: Brazil is hosting the next COP.
ANA CAROLINA DOS SANTOS DIAS: Yes, in my city, Belém. So, we are kind of doing some preparations for that here. The main thing this year is climate financing. So, we find really important that especially people from the countries of the Global South are present and have a voice. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to say anything, by the — you know, the regulations and stuff. But we are trying to make noise as well as we can, trying to get our message across as well as we can. So, we’re here to demand justice for the Global South. We’re here to demand climate financing for adaptation and mitigation for the climate — for the Global South, especially the countries that have suffered the most with massive climate events.
AKRAM AL-KHALILI: My name is Akram, and I’m here with the Palestinian delegation. And one of the issues that we’re discussing is a global energy embargo.
So, there was an action, demonstration here in this quite large hall in Baku. I think we’re actually under a football stadium. The action was a cross-constituency action to raise awareness about the anger that many people feel at the fact that these COP negotiations are increasingly disconnected from reality. And the issue that we were raising, alongside many others, was this question of the fueling of genocide. The same fossil fuel companies that profit from the destruction of the environment are also profiting from the genocide being committed against the people of Palestine, particularly people in Gaza. For example, the jet fuel used in U.S. aircraft is shipped from the United States. Other fuel is shipped from here, from Azerbaijan, through the BTC pipeline, through Turkey, and then shipped to Israel. All of this is part and parcel of the Israeli war machine.
And we’ve now had a year of seeing the most horrifying scenes on our television screens. No one in the world is under — is in any doubt that what we’re witnessing is a genocide. It took very many months for world leaders to say that they were willing to accept a ceasefire. And now this language of calling for a ceasefire has become totally and utterly meaningless.
What we want is not empty words. It’s action. And we particularly expect that from the nations in the world that claim to support the people of Palestine. Amongst the foremost groups — amongst the foremost nations sending energy to Israel are South Africa, who initiated the ICJ case; Turkey, which speaks regularly for the people of Palestine and yet allows 50% of Israel’s oil to flow through its territory; and Brazil, where 9% of Israel’s oil comes from.
What we’re saying is that we need to follow the example of Colombia, who took the decision in August to stop selling coal to Israel, because the Genocide Convention obliges them not to sell any weapons or dual-use products, products that can be used in the conduct of war, which will aid and abet the committing of a genocide. Colombia took that decision relatively quickly, relatively straightforwardly. And there’s no reason why other nations cannot make that same decision. It’s not enough to pretend to support the people of Palestine, to make grand claims. Now, a year on into this genocide, people are judged by their actions, not their words. And any of these countries could take and follow the example of Colombia in imposing an energy embargo, and that would have an enormous impact directly on the ability of Israel to conduct the genocide, but, long term, on its ability to continue its settler-colonial expansionist project.
AMY GOODMAN: Voices of protesters Saturday here at the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. Special thanks to Democracy Now!‘s Renée Feltz and Tey-Marie Astudillo. In a minute, we’ll speak with one of those voices, who will join us in person, Asad Rehman of War on Want, about the state of the climate talks. And we’ll get an update on the state of human rights here in Azerbaijan. We’ll be joined — well, here in Baku, a number of journalists, human rights and climate activists have been arrested in the lead-up to the COP. Stay with us.
Headlines for November 18, 2024
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In a major change of U.S. policy, President Biden has given Ukraine the green light to begin striking inside Russia with U.S.-supplied long-range missiles. The decision comes just two months before Donald Trump takes office and as North Korean troops have begun supporting Russia on the battlefield.
The New York Times reports Biden’s own aides were divided on the decision, with some fearing this could lead to Russia retaliating against the U.S. Earlier today, the Kremlin accused the Biden administration of adding “oil to the fire.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke on Sunday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky: “Today there’s lots of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions. But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves. They certainly will. Glory to Ukraine.”
Over the weekend, Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s power grid, resulting in major blackouts. In the city of Sumy, a Russian missile hit a residential building, killing 11 people, including two children.
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
Louisiana Republicans push abortion bill doing exactly what national Republicans deny wanting to do
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.