Independent News

This post was originally published on this site

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● NC Redistricting: North Carolina’s Republican-run legislature passed new congressional and legislative maps on Thursday, meaning they are now law because redistricting plans do not require the governor’s approval under state law. All three are extreme GOP gerrymanders designed to lock the party into power for years to come, despite the state’s perennial tossup status.

With North Carolina gaining a seat due to redistricting, the congressional map would create 10 safely red districts and just three that would be safely blue, with one swing seat currently held by a Democrat that’s been trending hard to the GOP. By comparison, the map used in last year’s elections—which Republicans had to repeatedly redraw thanks to intervention by the courts—sent eight Republicans and five Democrats to D.C.

Note that the map has been entirely renumbered, so we’ve put together our best assessment of where each current incumbent might seek re-election at this link, while statistics for past elections can be found on Dave’s Redistricting App. Below are some of our key take-aways:

• GOP lawmakers sought to pack as many Democrats as possible into just three ultra-Democratic districts based in Charlotte (the 9th) and the region known as the Research Triangle (the 5th in Raleigh and the 6th in Durham/Chapel Hill). By doing so, they’ve ensured that nearly all of the surrounding districts will remain safely Republican.
• By contrast, they cracked the blue cities of the Piedmont Triad into four separate districts that sprawl across the state into unrelated rural areas, even though Republicans united the Piedmont in a single district after a state court blocked their prior map as an illegal partisan gerrymander in 2019.
• This includes splitting Democratic Rep. Kathy Manning’s home county of Guilford between three districts, stranding her in a dark-red 11th District with GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx. This region’s cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point in particular have a large Black population that was previously united in Manning’s district but is now split four ways under the new map.
• Republicans also chopped up the Sandhills, a politically swingy region that includes Fayetteville and rural counties to its west and south along the state’s border with South Carolina that have large Black and Native populations (particularly the Lumbee tribe). The area, which was split between two districts under the previous lines, is now divided between three, all of which are majority white and Republican.
• The lone competitive seat would be the 2nd, which is home to Rep. G.K. Butterfield, an African American Democrat. The district, which takes in a heavily Black stretch of North Carolina’s rural north as well as some Raleigh exurbs, would have voted 51-48 for Joe Biden, compared to Biden’s 54-45 margin in Butterfield’s current district, the 1st. But the trendlines here have been very unfavorable for Democrats, and Butterfield could very well lose in a tough midterm environment.
• Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s seat (now numbered the 14th) would move a little to the left, though it would still have gone for Donald Trump by a 53-45 margin, compared to 55-43 previously. It would have gone for Republican Dan Forest by a narrower 50-48 margin in last year’s race for governor, but few North Carolina Democrats in recent years have enjoyed the electoral success that Gov. Roy Cooper has.
• Given the double-bunking of Manning and Foxx, it’s difficult to say which district qualifies as North Carolina’s “new” seat, but both the 4th and 13th would be open, solidly red seats. The 7th will be open as well, though were GOP Rep. Ted Budd not running for the Senate, that’s where he’d likely seek re-election.

No state has seen more litigation over redistricting in the past decade than North Carolina, and that’s not going to change: A new lawsuit has already been filed in state court over the legislative maps. The chief attack on maps centers on the fact that Republicans say they ignored racial data in drawing their lines, in contravention of the Voting Rights Act, with Republicans baselessly claiming that the VRA no longer applies. Democrats may also find success in once again challenging the map on the grounds that it engages in impermissible levels of partisan gerrymandering, a practice that state courts ruled violates the state constitution’s guarantee of free and fair elections in 2019.

Campaign Action

P.S. Why can’t North Carolina governors veto redistricting plans? It turns out that until 1997, they couldn’t veto anything at all! This state of affairs, however, rankled Republicans, who would occasionally win the governorship even though Democrats always held the legislature. That finally changed after Republicans took the state House in 1994 and, together with Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt, pressed Democratic lawmakers to support a gubernatorial veto.

Democrats relented, but they demanded a carve-out for redistricting—likely figuring they’d regain their lock on the legislature even if the governorship would still sometimes fall into Republican hands. A 1996 amendment to add veto power to the state constitution passed by an overwhelming 3-1 margin.

Democrats, however, misjudged badly: While they retook the state House in 1998, Republicans narrowly won several state Supreme Court races that year and in 2000 heading into redistricting. The court then struck down Democrats’ legislative gerrymanders before the 2002 elections, resulting in relatively nonpartisan maps that helped Republicans capture both chambers of the legislature in 2010, giving them total control over the remapping process despite the fact that Democrats held the governor’s office during both this redistricting cycle and the last one. (However, Democrats now hold a 4-3 majority on the court).

Redistricting

● AL Redistricting: Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has signed Alabama’s new congressional and legislative maps, a day after lawmakers in the GOP-run legislature gave them their final approval. The congressional plan preserves the state’s current delegation—which sends six Republicans and one Democrat to Congress—by leaving in place just a single Black district, the 7th. Alabama could, however, easily create a second district where Black voters would be able to elect their preferred candidates, given that African Americans make up nearly two-sevenths of the state’s population, but Republicans have steadfastly refused to. Two lawsuits have already been filed on this issue.

● DE Redistricting: Democratic Gov. John Carney has signed Delaware’s new legislative maps, just a day after they were passed by lawmakers. Democrats currently control both the state House and Senate and will almost certainly remain in charge in this solidly blue state that voted for native son Joe Biden 59-40 last year.

● NH Redistricting: New Hampshire Republicans have released a draft congressional map that, as they’ve been promising since they re-took control of state government last year, gerrymanders the state’s two House seats to make the 1st District considerably redder.

New Hampshire’s congressional boundaries have changed remarkably little in the 140 years since the state dropped from three districts to two ahead of the 1882 elections, but the GOP’s plan would impose a dramatically redrawn gerrymander that would shift the 1st from a seat that supported Joe Biden 52-46 to one that backed Donald Trump about 50-48. (The 2nd would become heavily contorted and correspondingly bluer.) The end-goal is to oust sophomore Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas—either at the ballot box, or by convincing him not to seek re-election.

Governors

● MA-Gov: Charlie Baker has been playing a game of “Will he or won’t he?” all year long, and the game’s not about to end: Asked once again this week whether he’ll seek a third term next year, Massachusetts’ Republican governor would only say, “We’ll get back to you guys soon on this, I promise.” NBC Boston’s Katie Lannan points out that when Baker formally kicked off his first (and so far only) re-election bid in 2017, he did so on Nov. 28 of that year, but he bristled when asked whether he might follow a comparable timeline this fall, saying, “I don’t understand why you’re in such a big hurry for me to make a decision about this.”

● NE-Gov: Former Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, who previously said he’d “take most of the rest of the summer and the fall” to decide whether he wants to seek his old job, has now pushed his timetable off further, saying he won’t make up his mind until “probably early January.”

House

● MT-02: Former state Rep. Tom Winter, who’d reportedly been considering a bid, said this week that he’ll run for Montana’s new 2nd Congressional District. Last year, Winter campaigned for what was then the state’s lone, at-large House seat but was defeated in the primary by 2018 nominee Kathleen Williams in a 89-11 landslide. The contours of Montana’s congressional map have yet to be finalized, but both Democrats and Republicans on the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission have proposed lines that would divide the state into an eastern district and a western one. The commission must decide on a final map by Nov. 14.

● TX-35: Austin City Councilman Greg Casar announced on Thursday that he’ll run in the Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, an extremely gerrymandered seat that gathers in as many Democratic voters as possible by linking Austin and San Antonio via a thin rail that runs along Interstate 35. Casar is the first Democrat to kick off a campaign, but several other notable candidates are eyeing the race. The 35th is open because Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who represents its current iteration, recently said he’d run in the new Austin-based 37th District, which Republicans created to serve as a Democratic vote-sink.

● TX-37: Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, who hadn’t ruled out a bid for Texas’ new 37th District, says she’ll run for re-election to the legislature instead. So far, the only person running for this safely blue seat in Austin is Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who currently represents the 35th.

Legislatures

● NJ State Senate: Conservative Democrat Steve Sweeney, who has served as president of New Jersey’s Senate since 2010, has lost in a major upset to Republican Edward Durr, a truck driver who reported spending a total of $153 on his campaign. The AP called the race on Thursday morning for Durr, who won by a 52-48 margin. Sweeney, however, has yet to concede, saying he wants to wait until all votes are counted.

Despite the loss, many Democrats—and progressive activists in particular—will be happy to see Sweeney gone, particularly since the party retained control of both chambers of the legislature in Tuesday’s elections. With two races uncalled, Democrats have won 23 seats and Republicans 15 in the Senate, while each party leads in one more district apiece. If those leads hold, that would represent a minimal change from the 25-15 advantage Democrats enjoyed heading into the election. The Assembly remains safely in Democratic hands as well, though with a somewhat reduced majority.

Sweeney has long opposed many progressive priorities, earning the ire of teachers’ unions and repeatedly crossing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. But the most salient factor in Sweeney’s defeat is probably that he’s the lone Democratic senator to sit in a district that Donald Trump carried. Trump’s 50-48 margin in the 3rd District was, in fact, quite similar to Durr’s.

But while Sweeney’s collapse may have come as a shock, it’s no surprise that Durr has a history of bigoted postings online—which seem to have only emerged after Election Day. Given the lean of his district, though, none of that may matter to his political future.

Mayors

● Atlanta, GA Mayor: Former Mayor Kasim Reed conceded in his comeback bid to once again run Atlanta on Thursday, falling just short of the second slot for the Nov. 30 runoff. City Council President Felicia Moore finished first in Tuesday’s officially nonpartisan primary with 41%, while City Councilman Andre Dickens surprisingly edged out Reed 23.0% to 22.4% for the crucial second-place spot, a margin of just over 600 votes. In a statement acknowledging his loss, Reed did not endorse either candidate.

Obituaries

● Former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, who in 2000 became the first woman elected to serve as governor of Delaware, has died at the age of 86. Minner was a legislative staffer when she first won a seat in the state House in 1974 as a local version of that year’s “Watergate babies”—reform-minded Democrats elected in the wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation. She later rose to the state Senate, then in 1992 was tapped by Rep. Tom Carper as his running-mate during his successful campaign for governor and served as lieutenant governor for eight years.

Minner sought the top job herself when Carper faced term limits in 2000, easily winning the race to succeed her old boss. (That same year, Carper was elected to the Senate.) Her final contest was by far the closest of her career, a 51-46 win over Republican Bill Lee in 2004.

This post was originally published on this site

It’s not looking too good for the U.S. leading the world on the climate front. President Biden announced some measures at the recent COP26 climate conference but not what he hoped to unveil. The centerpiece of the climate portion of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda has been gutted.

. . . All thanks to one Democratic senator who has made millions in the coal business. West Virginia would reap much more benefit from the Biden agenda than from propping up an industry that has been dying for years. Unfortunately for the planet and countless species on it, Senator Joe Manchin made around $500,000 from the coal business just last year.

U.S. climate leadership around the world and legislation at home is being blocked by one compromised senator from West Virginia. At this point, it looks like the fate of the globe rests in the hands of one selfish coal fiend from a town with a population of 375 people.

Be sure to also visit me over on Patreon, where you can support my work, see behind-the-scenes videos and get prints!

This post was originally published on this site

EJ Dionne/WaPo:

Democrats have only themselves to blame

There was only one good thing for Democrats in Tuesday’s elections: A defeat so comprehensive and disastrous does not leave room for excuse-making, blame-shifting or evasion.

President Biden and his party can respond with urgency, or they will surrender the country to a Republican Party still infected by Trumpism.

Tory Gavito and Adam Jentleson/NY Times:

Republicans Are Going to Use Dog Whistles. Democrats Can’t Just Ignore Them.

Before Tuesday night, conventional wisdom held that racially coded attacks could well spur higher white turnout but that those gains would be offset by losses among minority voters. Mr. Youngkin proved this assumption false. He significantly outperformed other Republicans among white voters, especially women: In 2020, Joe Biden beat Mr. Trump among white women in Virginia by 50 percent to 49 percent, but according to exit polls, Mr. Youngkin beat Mr. McAuliffe among them by 57 percent to 43 percent. At the same time, Mr. Youngkin suffered no major drop-off among minority voters — if anything, he appeared to slightly outperform expectations.

This should terrify Democrats. With our democracy on the line, we have to forge an effective counterattack on race while rethinking the false choice between mobilizing base voters or persuading swing voters.

These results support the ‘folks are fed up with incumbents’ hypothesis.

Noah Lanard/Mother Jones:

New York Cabbies’ Hunger Strike Ends With a Huge Victory

Mayor de Blasio agreed to slash drivers’ crippling debts.

In a course reversal, de Blasio has agreed to have the city serve as a backstop for the debt past administrations loaded onto drivers. That will allow the cabbies, many of whom still owe more than $500,000, to reduce their debts to $170,000 at most. Their loan payments will also be capped at about $1,100 per month. So far, the agreement covers drivers who owe money to Marblegate, which became the largest holder of medallion loans after the bubble burst.

Ronald Brownstein/Atlantic:

What Democrats Need to Realize Before 2022

And how the president’s party fell victim to history

The Republican victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race and the unexpectedly close result in New Jersey’s—both states Biden won comfortably last year—don’t guarantee a midterm wipeout for Democrats in 2022. Rather, the sweeping Republican advance in both states more likely previews the problems Democrats will have next November if the political environment doesn’t improve for Biden.

Huffpost:

Brad Raffensperger Refused Trump’s Attempt To Steal Georgia. Now He’s Doomed.

Raffensperger’s primary campaign, against a promoter of Trump’s lies, offers a view of the GOP’s anti-democratic future.

Brad Raffensperger believes Republicans can win elections by promoting an “uplifting vision for the country.” The Georgia secretary of state is a national name because he pushed back on former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, and refused Trump’s repeated attempts to “find” votes to overturn the results.

Brad Raffensperger is also politically doomed.

He is seeking reelection in Georgia, where a crowded field of primary candidates have lined up to dethrone a man now considered public enemy No. 1 by adherents of the MAGA movement. Almost nobody thinks he can win.

“He’s dead in the water,” Jay Williams, a Georgia GOP consultant, told HuffPost.

Zachary D Carter/Atlantic:

The Democratic Unraveling Began With Schools

Republican victories in Virginia show how COVID-19 has fundamentally changed American politics.

The unraveling began at the schools. COVID-19 has been terrible for everyone, and it has been especially hard on parents. Unpredictable school closures didn’t just screw up parents’ work schedules; they drove millions of parents, including 3 million women, out of the workforce altogether. Remote learning doesn’t work well for most kids and has been accompanied by rising levels of depression and anxiety among students. From April to October last year, the nationwide share of doctor visits that were related to mental health spiked 24 percent for kids ages 5 to 11, and 31 percent for kids ages 12 to 17. Existing disparities in learning got worse, with the biggest hits coming to kids with disabilities, kids from low-income families, and kids from Black and Latino families—all demographics that Democrats expect to do well with at the ballot box.

Most students in Northern Virginia public schools went almost a full year without in-person schooling, and both teachers and teachers’ unions pretty consistently supported keeping the schools closed in the name of public health. Whether these decisions were ultimately reasonable is hard to measure—but the governor was largely absent on school policy at a time when a lot of parents were really angry.

Greg Sargent/WaPo:

Why did the Democratic coalition fracture so quickly?

“We’re going to see an army of mini-Youngkins in 2022 running the parental control playbook in attempt to tap into anxiety over local schools,” Leopold told me. “Voters are anxious, including over schools — and every Democratic candidate needs a plan to address that.”

In truth, all these factors probably played some role. But I confess to being taken by surprise at how quickly the Democratic coalition frayed, only one year after coming together against Trump.

All of which suggests two very unsettling conclusions.

The first is that Republicans appear to be reaping the positive consequences of the deep polarization along educational lines unleashed by Trump while evading the negative ones.

…

Which leads to another point. If this result does signal a Democratic loss of the House and possibly the Senate in 2022 — and GOP strength in the New Jersey gubernatorial race also underscores this — we may be staring at the third time a Democratic president had a window of only two years to clean up a major mess left behind by Republicans.

Very interesting thread, you can also see it here.

This post was originally published on this site

In the news today: Proving again that even participating in an orchestrated attempt to topple constitutional government isn’t enough to sour Republican voters on you, eight Republicans who attended Trump’s January 6 rally to nullify his election loss won elections last Tuesday. You sure can pick ’em, Republicans.

Elsewhere, yet another political scandal grows in Florida as the powers-that-be insist that university professors are not allowed to give expert testimony that conflicts with the views of Florida’s Republican-run government—at least, not if they want to get paid. And the U.S. military is nearing full vaccination for all service members, just a few months after a Biden order directed them to do so—and without the sort of widespread refusals that anti-vaccine theorists vowed would result from the mandate.

Here’s some of what you may have missed:

• Eight GOP candidates who were present at Jan. 6 insurrection won their elections on Tuesday

• Muzzling of three Florida professors over anti-voting testimony explodes into a political battle

• U.S. military close to universal vaccination as actual vaccine hesitancy again proves ephemeral

• New York welcomes five new members to city council, marking highest AAPI representation yet

• What are voters most dissatisfied with? Civiqs asked, and here’s their top 10 list of concerns

Community Spotlight:

• Trickle-Down Necronomics

• The political realignment that conjoined religion, racists, and the GOP…

• So what happens when your community illegalizes you?

Also trending from the community:

• Some things I need to get off my chest

• “Youngkin cucked Trump!” A conversation with a swing voter in Virginia

This post was originally published on this site

No matter how worthless a white person’s opinion is, the media will eventually seek it out. On a recent episode of CBS News Originals’ Reverb series, the network sent a reporter to find out what the fuck is up with critical race theory.

Because we white folk are apparently the snowflakiest hominids in the history of bipedalism, the media feel compelled to take our pulse from time to time (i.e., always). “Let’s go to another crappy, colon-maiming diner and ask people which stupid reason for supporting Donald Trump they’re trotting out today! ‘He’s a businessman and gets things done’? ‘He doesn’t talk down to me’?” Yeah, there’s a reason for that: It’s because he can’t.

As you reflect on the serial depredations of critical race theory—which currently upsets more conservative white people than actual racism—I implore you not to look into this vacuous woman’s eyes. You will either see through time to the heat death of the universe, or feel overwhelmed by an unslakable thirst for pumpkin spice lattes and Sam’s Club slurpin’ mayonnaise. To paraphrase the great Nigel Tufnel: “How much more white could she be? And the answer is none. None more white.”

But what is it about this phony bugbear that has so many people riled up? You have to see what CBS News found to believe it.

This clip is from The Trials of Critical Race Theory, a deep dive into critical race theory and the febrile persecution fantasies of the deludenoids who are alarmed by it. Even though, you know, it’s taught in basically no public elementary schools anywhere. In the clip, reporter Adam Yamaguchi interviews Moms for Liberty Williamson County (TN) Chair Robin Steenman, who is apparently determined to keep (white) kids from learning about racism until after they’ve heard their uncle casually use the N-word about 400 times during Thanksgiving Day football broadcasts.

Partial transcript!

STEENMAN: “Martin Luther King and the March on Washington, a story that should be told. It’s an example of how the curriculum chooses to teach the history is you’ve got this photo of the fireman spraying the Black children. And it’s a different voice is exercised, and it goes through three points of view …”

YAMAGUCHI: “The first point of view that you have highlighted here, the issue is this is violence and it’s just not appropriate for second graders?”

STEENMAN: “Right.”

YAMAGUCHI: “And the second POV you have highlighted, ‘We have to protect our citizens.’ Our white citizens, that is. What’s the issue there?”

STEENMAN: “Well, it’s highlighting racism, you know, that a police officer would discriminate based on skin color. Most kids would have no idea that a police officer could or would do that. Then you’re teaching that this policeman is and has no problem with violence against children.”

YAMAGUCHI: “So is this an objection based on age appropriateness?”

STEENMAN: “Yes.”

YAMAGUCHI: “So could a sixth grader read this?”

STEENMAN: “I’m not sure where the line is but, yeah, an older child absolutely could.”

YAMAGUCHI: “So this is highlighted.”

STEENMAN: “Yeah, they took issue with that because it’s saying Black and white people are still not treated equally. ‘There’s been no slavery for a long time, but does that mean they’re treated equally? No.’ And we feel that that’s too heavy for a second grader.”

YAMAGUCHI: “And we don’t want them to …”

STEENMAN: “I don’t want them to see racism yet, to engage in it, to learn racism. I mean, they can learn history, but let’s not teach racism.”

Okay, that’s all pretty absurd, but here’s the bit that jumped out at me like a coked-up spider monkey: “Well, it’s highlighting racism, you know, that a police officer would discriminate based on skin color. Most kids would have no idea that a police officer could or would do that.”

Uh-huh. You know who does want their kids to learn about police discrimination based on skin color? Any Black parent who would like their kid to live past the age of 10. But God forbid we let children know about the history of racism in our country. Those firehoses were real. Those traumatizing photos are genuine. And those experiences—awful as they were—were nothing compared to actual slavery. 

Is that too “heavy” for a second-grader? Well, it’s better than teaching them that genocidal maniac Christopher Columbus was a hero, because that’s an egregious lie, and lies make the baby Jesus cry.

And, hey, news flash! Black people and white people still aren’t treated equally. That’s just obvious. Teaching kids that undeniable fact isn’t teaching them how to be “racist.” It’s teaching them perspective and compassion, and perhaps how to do better with intention.

I fear for our future if people are so delicate they can’t even accept self-evident truths about our country’s history.

This is also a great point:

Yeah, me neither. Why is that, you think?

Oh, and this, too:

Listen, I grew up in a pretty racist town in Wisconsin. Sadly, it was fairly representative of other Wisconsin towns, and I can only assume, based on further observation, that it was fairly typical of other predominantly white small towns in America. There’s no age that’s “too young” to teach kids about racism. They’re already learning it—only the lessons they’re getting at home and on the playground are decidedly not worth learning.

If we don’t teach them about Jim Crow, Bull Connor, and the Middle Passage when they’re young, they’ll already be well on their way to internalizing racist attitudes before they can absorb more responsible lessons.

And then we all lose—all people alike.

Oh, hey there! To celebrate the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s defenestration, three of Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s e-books are available for the super-low price of 99 cents each. Get Goodbye, Asshat, Dear F*cking Moron, and Dear Pr*sident A**clown now as part of this Amazon Countdown deal. Look back on Trump’s awful reign of error—and laugh!

This post was originally published on this site

by Lakshmi Gandhi

This story was originally published at Prism.

Last week, activists and organizers from Amazon’s Staten Island distribution center traveled to their regional National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) office to deliver the signatures needed to formally request a vote to form a union. Shortly after the signatures were delivered, Natalie Monarrez noticed an instant change in the moods of her coworkers.

“The people that want the union are really happy for us,” said Monarrez, one of the employees organizing for a union. “The people who are still unsure about it, I think are still in shock that we actually got to the point after six months of being able to file [the paperwork].”

The independent Amazon Labor Union was first created by former and current Staten Island-based Amazon employees in April. Employees have been working for months to collect the signed union cards necessary to call for a union vote by the NLRB. Unlike other efforts by Amazon workers to collectively organize, the New York union is an independent union in that it is not affiliated with a larger, more established organization.

Working at JFK8, a warehouse on Staten Island that serves as the only fulfillment center for all of New York City, is exhausting work, employees say, that requires them to be constantly on their feet as they create the thousands of packages that depart the warehouse each day. Speed and timing are also two of the biggest markers when it comes to employment with the company: Workers are evaluated on how many items or units they process per hour and the speed it takes a worker to process one item. Workers and union proponents say the constant pressure to work faster is a major factor when it comes to workers getting injured on the job.

Seth Goldstein, a labor lawyer working pro bono with the union organizers, says he has often heard concerns from Amazon warehouse workers about working conditions and their fears of getting injured on the job.

“There have been constant worker safety issues, OSHA violations, and issues about people not being able to go to the bathroom” at Amazon warehouses across the country, he said. “And that was before the pandemic. After the pandemic [started], those issues didn’t go away, they became much worse.”

Despite the rigors of the job, wages at JFK8 for hourly workers are about $18-$19 an hour, according to job advertisements and data posted on aggregated careers websites like Glassdoor. While that is above New York City’s minimum wage, workers say it is not enough to afford the region’s cost of living, especially for those with families to support. Amazon warehouse workers at JFK8 are overwhelmingly people of color. Internal documents from 2019 obtained by The New York Times revealed that 60% of the Staten Island workforce was either Black or Latino. The workforce at JFK8 is also sharply divided by race when it comes to those on the associate level and those in management. That same Times piece notes that managers at the Staten Island distribution center were 70% white or Asian. If the union vote passes, the Amazon Labor Union will be the company’s first-ever union and the first time the notoriously anti-union company would have to collectively bargain with employees over wages and other benefits.

Monarrez, 52, has been working for Amazon for four years as an associate, first at a distribution center in New Jersey and now at JFK8. As she has talked to coworkers about the benefits of a union and the ways collective organizing could improve working conditions at one of the country’s busiest distribution centers, she observed that those against or hesitant about a union almost always had the same major concerns.

“A lot of them are really intimidated by Jeff Bezos,” she said, adding that many employees are concerned about being terminated if the push to unionize succeeds. “So many of them have families to take care of and because the economy is what it is. It’s not as simple as it was a few decades ago to get a job and then to keep that job for a long time.”

The Amazon workers on Staten Island are aware of what happened when their counterparts in Bessemer, Alabama, called for a union vote in April. The Alabama-based workers voted strongly against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union after months of anti-union messaging from the retail behemoth. CNBC reported that Amazon’s union-busting tactics in Alabama included text messages about the harms of unionizing, fliers in bathrooms and other common areas about how expensive union dues are, and meetings with workers during their shifts that featured PowerPoint presentations meant to quell pro-union sentiment. Monarrez says many of those same tactics, particularly messaging about union dues and fliers in common areas, have been utilized at JFK8 for months.

“It’s just ridiculous. It’s basically fear tactics and intimidation and a lot of misinformation and lies,” she said.

In public statements, Amazon has maintained that unionizing is not in the best interest of their workers. A spokesperson for the company told The New York Times on Oct. 25 that the company was “skeptical that a sufficient number of legitimate employee signatures has been secured to warrant an election,” despite the fact that representatives for the NLRB determined that at least 30% of the workers were represented in the signatures collected.

But many pro-union workers believe the instability of working at an Amazon Fulfillment Center along with the often dangerous working conditions will push many workers based in Staten Island to support the union.

The working conditions at JFK8 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City were actually a key factor in the recent push for unionization. Former Assistant Manager Christian Smalls was so concerned that Amazon was not doing enough to protect workers from the coronavirus that he led a walkout at the Staten Island fulfillment center in March 2020. He was fired from the company that same day.

Since his dismissal, Smalls has been a key organizer on behalf of the potential new Amazon union and currently serves as its president.

“We know the ins and outs of the company. A lot of the lead organizers have been around Amazon for three-plus years—some of them even four, five, six, or seven years,” Smalls told Jacobin about the decision to form an independent union. “They’re all seasoned Amazon workers. They’re veterans. They have a lot of influence in the building.”

Goldstein compared the organizing by Smalls and other workers against Amazon to the Biblical story of David and Goliath, and also notes that they are part of a growing push of workers pushing for better working conditions.

“These Amazon workers are also tech workers. They’re not software developers or engineers, but they are tech workers,” Goldstein said. “Amazon, like other tech companies, was experiencing a lot of labor unrest before the pandemic, but after the pandemic I think that it became more substantial, especially with worker safety issues.”

Experts say the unionization push in Staten Island needs to be viewed as part of the larger push for safer working conditions and better pay and benefits at warehouses, factories, and farms across the country in the wake of the pandemic.

“There is a national mood shift where more and more workers are participating in strikes and other labor actions,” said Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Labor Center. “It is in this environment that there’s a lot of discontent among Amazon workers. Regardless of what happens with this Staten Island union campaign, we can anticipate that there will be many more organizing attempts at Amazon facilities across the country.”

Lakshmi Gandhi is a reporter, editor, and social media manager based in New York City. She is currently a freelance journalist who specializes in literature, identity, and pop culture. 

Prism is a BIPOC-led non-profit news outlet that centers the people, places, and issues currently underreported by national media. We’re committed to producing the kind of journalism that treats Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and other invisibilized groups as the experts on our own lived experiences, our resilience, and our fights for justice. Sign up for our email list to get our stories in your inbox, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

This post was originally published on this site

Hey, how are you?

I know Tuesday night might have been kinda rough.

To say that Election Day 2021 didn’t turn out the way Democrats and progressives hoped is … a bit of an understatement.

Are you confused? Bummed? Scared? Ambivalent? Numb? Apathetic? In a glass case of emotion?

Well, no matter where you are right now, I’ve got something for you.

Read on!

As an erudite consumer of this missive, you’re likely already aware that Republicans won all three of Virginia’s statewide constitutional offices on Tuesday, and Democrats lost their majority in the House of Delegates.

Campaign Action

A 50-50 tie in the House is unlikely, but still not totally out of reach for Democrats.

Provisional ballots and ballots postmarked by/on E-day delivered before noon on Friday start getting counted tomorrow afternoon.

In 2020, this resulted in about 120,000 additional votes counted statewide.

Obviously this isn’t how it works, but if that number were to hold this year and were divided among all 100 House seats, that would be 1,200 more votes in each district.

And with control of the House dependent on the final outcome in a handful of races with a margin of just a couple hundred votes, these as-yet-uncounted-but-properly-cast-and-extremely-legal ballots will determine whether Republicans take an outright majority (the chamber makeup as of this writing is 48 D/52 R) or whether we end up with a 50-50 tie.

Cutting a seven-seat loss to a five-seat loss is no mean feat, and while I’ll certainly be following closely, I’m not getting my hopes up. (In fact, my money at this point is on a 49-51 chamber, which is exactly where Democrats were just two years ago.)

But what if Democrats do end up holding two seats and the House convenes in January as a tied chamber?

So glad you asked!

If Democrats and Republicans are at parity in the 100-seat House, Virginia’s code and constitution provide no guidance or mechanism for breaking ties.

… unlike the state Senate, where a 20-20 tie (on everything outside of budget legislation) is broken by the lieutenant governor, who also presides over the chamber. (More on Virginia’s incoming LG in a bit.)

This scenario would be not entirely without precedent (and you can read more about the weedy history of it here, if you’re so inclined), so while there are few hard and fast rules governing the situation, we have a pretty good idea of how it might be resolved.

History suggests that one of the following scenarios will come to pass:

1. Democrats try every tactic and trick in the book to delay seating one of the new Republican members until they can elect a Dem as speaker. Republicans will howl in righteous outrage, and both parties will enter a power-sharing agreement similar to a template from … 1998.
2. Democrats and Republicans somehow agree to elect a compromise House speaker, whose power will likely be constrained by specific rules, and they’ll then enter into a power-sharing agreement.
3. ANARCHY

Okay, scenario 3 isn’t really in the cards, but the point remains that there’s no way to know with any certainty how this situation is going to shake out.

Anyway, you’re probably not here for election results, but it’s worth noting that Democrats failed to flip a single GOP-held seat (though Biden won a handful held by Republicans just a year ago).

Meanwhile, Republicans flipped at least five Dem-held seats, possibly as many as seven.

The past couple of days have seen a lot of teeth-gnashing and garment-rending (… figuratively, I think), which is understandable—losing the power conferred by holding a legislative chamber majority sucks, and doubly so when you know you’ve also lost a check on the agenda of the incoming Republican governor.

I think folks expected it from me, too—after all, I’m a native Virginian, and I got my start in state politics in the Virginia Democratic Caucus.

Nah.

Politics is increasingly a business of short memories and shorter attention spans, but honestly, one doesn’t have to cast back especially far to recall a time when Democrats were exponentially worse off in Virginia.

I mean, it was a mere four years ago that Dems in the commonwealth entered Election Day with just 34 House members out of 100.

But, okay, Virginia also had a Democratic governor back then.

So let’s cast back just a bit further.

It’s November 2009. Virginia House Democrats just lost five seats in a landslide election that also elected Republican Bob McDonnell governor, and they roll into the next legislative session with just 39 members.

Now that was an awful feeling.

And that wasn’t even Virginia House Dems’ nadir! That was back in 2001, when they won just 31 seats out of 100. (But at least Virginia had also just elected Mark Warner as its first Democratic governor in eight years.)

Anyway, my point is, I’m actually way more used to disappointing Virginia legislative election results than positive ones.

But the takeaway here is this: Perspective.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, it’s scary.

And I’m definitely already fretting about which rights and protections Democrats spent the past two years expanding and strengthening will get gutted by GOP executive orders.

But we’ve been here before.

We’ll be here again.

Because at least this election hopefully finally put to bed the garbage Beltway trope that “Virginia is a blue state now” that emerged after Barack Obama won the commonwealth a second time in his 2012 reelection.

Anyone who’s paid attention to Virginia state politics for more than a couple of years and/or has actually spent time outside of Northern Virginia knows that, while the commonwealth may have become reliably blue in statewide federal elections, it merely purpled in down-ballot races.

Now hopefully everyone else will catch on.

Maybe you’re wondering how this happened. How did Democrats lose five or six or seven seats in a single night?

That’s still shaking out. Everyone who’s claiming they know what happened at this point is full of crap.

But a keen observer can already point to a few things that definitely factored in:

Early, aggressive spending. The Republican State Leadership Committee started running TV ads in some of the seats the GOP flipped way back in August.

National committee investment: According to the RSLC, the RNC made a “historic investment” into digital ads, texting, and direct mail in “key districts.”

If the DNC invested in Virginia legislative races this year, I would love for someone to respond and correct the record. But I know of no such investment, and the current occupant of the White House and the standard bearer for the Democratic Party didn’t even bother to make endorsements until just two weeks prior to the election.

(The DLCC, ever doing yeoman’s work, pumped over $2.3 million into these races, plus staff time and resources, training, and more.)

And, of course, the national political climate—though I’ll die on the hill of it not being dispositive in state legislative races—definitely created a headwind for Democratic candidates.

But that’s quite enough history. Time to look forward.

While the House of Delegates was the only Virginia chamber on the ballot this year, it’s definitely time to worry about the state Senate.

Yes, Democrats still have majority control (21 D/19 R).

But that’s a very slim majority.

And three wrinkles are coming into play in the Senate.

Their names are Winsome Sears, Chap Petersen, and Joe Morrissey.

Winsome Sears made history this week by becoming Virginia’s first woman (and first Black woman and woman of color) lieutenant governor.

Overdue and cool by any measure.

But Sears is … not cool.

See, I’m so old that I remember her brief stint in the House of Delegates in the early aughts.

And back then, she was already a right-wing extremist who supported … some unfortunate legislation.

She tried to make protecting children from abuse more difficult.

She supported a “stand your ground” measure before it was cool.

And she signed on to myriad bills designed to block women from obtaining abortions.

More recently, Sears revealed herself to be a Trump acolyte (she served as national chair of Black Americans to Re-elect the President just last year).

She’s stridently against reproductive rights (still), opposes gun safety laws, and supports anti-public school policies like vouchers and so-called “school choice.”

She’s on record as wanting to roll back the voting rights expansions implemented by Democrats—the ones that she didn’t seem to mind as she won her election on Tuesday.

Anyway, Sears will now be leading the Senate and breaking ties.

And why are we worried about ties in a 21 D/19 R Senate?

Sens. Chap Petersen and Joe Morrissey.

First, Chap.

Annoying, but generally speaking, merely an occasional thorn in the side of his fellow Democrats.

He’s certainly not the only Dem in the Senate with a contrarian streak, but he definitely stands out for the frequency with which he breaks with the party—and how loudly he tends to do it (grandstanding speeches, op-eds in major state newspapers nowhere near his actual district, that kind of thing). Chap has also demonstrated a willingness to trade his votes for key Democratic priorities for concessions in other areas, and just this year, he broke with the party more than any other member.

But Joe Morrissey.

Ugh.

Depending on how long you’ve been reading this missive, you may or may not have encountered a previous rant against this extremely not good human who somehow keeps making his way back to the legislature.

Maybe you’re unfamiliar with “Fightin’ Joe” (his nickname, not mine), and you’re wondering why this is bad.

Well, a close vote contingent on support from Joe Morrissey should absolutely stress you out.

He’s a chaos Muppet who seems to delight in wreaking havoc.

He’s loyal only to himself, and he regularly demonstrates that loyalty—his own party be damned.

It gives someone who clearly believes the rules don’t apply to him the chance to destabilize state government if the mood strikes him.

And if you think this a harsh characterization of Joe Morrissey, then … well, you don’t know Joe.

I’ve described his litany misdeeds in this space before, and if you really want to read it all, welp, it’s all right here.

With receipts.

Also, he’s definitely not a pro-choice lawmaker, which will absolutely be an issue he votes on in the next couple of years.

Sigh

This post was originally published on this site

One of the first Muslims to be elected to public office in Virginia has come under attack after right-wing media outlets chose to target her and create false narratives around her work.  Elected in 2019, Buta Biberaj unseated a Republican incumbent for Loudoun County’s commonwealth attorney position. As gubernatorial elections neared in Virginia, conservative media outlets used a former sexual assault case involving a Loudoun County school to spread disinformation about Biberaj and others.

According to the American Independent Foundation, the false accusations boosted by Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin accused Biberaj of attempting to cover up the sexual assault by silencing the father of the victim by having him arrested and pocketing money from investor George Soros. As a result of these conservative lies, Biberaj has received death threats on her personal cell, home, and office numbers.

Callers have left threatening messages like: “We’re coming for you, bitch,” “You don’t have to watch your back, we’re going to come at you from the front,” and, “You deserve everything you’re going to get.”

“Those individuals are highlighting the fact that I’m a woman, I’m of the Muslim faith, I’m … an immigrant,” Biberaj told the American Independent Foundation. “We’ve had threats and comments and harsh communication from white supremacist groups. So you see that and know that this is intentionally done to rile people up in that realm.”

But individual people are not the only ones threatening Biberaj; hate groups like VDARE are campaigning against her as well. VDARE published an article under the headline “White Father Arrested In Loudoun Protesting Daughter’s Rape In School Bathroom By ‘Teen’ In Skirt. Muslim Immigrant Prosecutor Buta Biberaj Wants To Jail FATHER,” on Oct. 11. According to the American Independent Foundation, the following day the organization shared the article in a tweet that called Biberaj a “Soros-backed immigrant Muslim prosecutor who is trying to jail a white father.” Six days later, the VDARE account replied to a tweet from the Youngkin campaign about ties between Biberaj and Soros and said that she was “an Albanian Muslim immigrant from Montenegro.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center references VDARE as “anti-immigration hate website” that “regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites.”

Right-wing media outlets including Fox News and the Daily Wire used the Loudoun County sexual assault case as justification of why trans people should not use bathrooms that match their gender identity. They claimed that cisgender males would masquerade as trans females to assault girls in bathrooms and locker rooms and used this case to argue for “bathroom predator” myths.

While the boy charged in the case was reportedly wearing a skirt at the time of the assault, Biberaj said, he did not identify as transgender during the trial, and the assault took place after the girl had invited him to meet her in the bathroom. He then ”exceeded the permission and consent of the girl, which is what made it sexual assault,” she said.

A judge ruled against the boy on Oct. 26 in his first of two cases of sexual assault in the county.

Right-wing media outlets then claimed that the victim’s father was also arrested because Biberaj wanted to silence him even though reports found the father was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after a fight broke out at a school board meeting in June.

In an alleged “fact check,” the Republican Standard wrote on Oct. 27 that Biberaj “must have understood why Smith, who attended a Loudoun County School Board meeting on June 22 looking for answers, would’ve gotten upset after the district superintendent said the student suspected in his daughter’s assault didn’t exist. And yet, she appeared in court personally to push for jail time, a fine and anger management classes.”

Conservative outlets have continued to highlight her immigrant background, referring to her as not American as they make statements saying an immigrant prosecutor arrested an “American who complained about daughter’s rape.”

As the right-wing media lies spread, threats against Biberaj increased. When she brought them to the Virginia attorney general’s office, the Virginia State Police, and the FBI, she was advised to reevaluate the way she lives her life in order to protect her safety.

“The narrative just keeps changing to fit what the goal is … If you look at everything that’s out there, we knew nothing about the May 28 incident until July 9,” Biberaj said. “So all those narratives are intentional disinformation.”

She added the fact that Republican gubernatorial candidate Youngkin is spreading these lies is even more disheartening. Youngkin has not only called for Biberaj’s resignation but demanded a state and federal investigation into the Loudoun County School Board.

“The most frustrating thing is, we look to our leaders to create healthy communities. When individuals take incidents like this which are harmful, hurtful, as well as traumatic to families, and you’re going to take that and let that be your rally cry, just to promote something, then that means your political interests are greater than your people interests,” Biberaj said. “And, that to me, is not a sign of good leader[ship], because once this election is done, I don’t think Mr. Youngkin or any of the candidates may be in our day-to-day lives here in Loudoun County. But these families are still living here. The hurt that they’re causing will still reside here.”

“That’s not leadership,” she added.

According to Loudoun Now, investigations are being conducted in regards to the threats.

“The Virginia State Police is in receipt of the threats and has forwarded them to our Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management Team, as is done with any email of an alarming/threatening nature that is received by an elected/public official. No arrest or charges have been placed at this time,” a statement from the State Police said.

This post was originally published on this site

After her forceful presentation at the United Nations on Sept. 24, previously covered in Caribbean Matters, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has made global and social media headlines again. This time, it’s for the fiery speech she delivered at the opening session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow on Nov. 1.

Mottley represents a small Caribbean island country with a population of approximately 288,300. One of the oldest Caribbean colonies of Great Britain, Barbados will soon be a nation without Queen Elizabeth as head of state, effective Nov. 30.

Given the global crisis of climate change and the particular perils facing citizens of island nations, as well as other smaller countries with limited resources that are populated by mostly people of color, it seems fitting that a Black woman is well on her way to becoming an international face and voice for those people who have been exploited for centuries by colonial powers.

Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.

While many of us have been pushing back against the negatives of social media giants, it’s undeniable that only a few short years ago, the general public would never have been exposed to the voice of someone like PM Mottley. Most Americans’ knowledge of Barbados is limited to its existence as a Caribbean vacation location. Additionally, few international speeches—unless given by leaders of European nations or Russia—make U.S. headlines; one Caribbean nation that is the exception to this rule is Cuba.

Yet thanks to Twitter and Facebook, Mottley has captured the attention of people beyond those individuals who are immersed in global politics or Caribbean studies. 

In case you missed it, here is her speech in full, with a transcript posted below.

The full transcript is worth a read.

Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

The pandemic has taught us that national solutions to global problems do not work.

We come to Glasgow with global ambition to save our people and to save our planet. But we now find three gaps. On mitigation, climate pledges or NDCs – without more, we will leave the world on a pathway to 2.7 degrees, and with more, we are still likely to get to 2 degrees.

These commitments made by some are based on technologies yet to be developed, and this is at best reckless and at worst dangerous.

On finance, we are $20 billion short of the $100 billion. And this commitment even then, might only be met in 2023.

On adaptation, adaptation finance remains only at 25%; not the 50-50 split that was promised, nor needed, given the warming that is already taking place on this Earth. Climate finance to frontline small island developing states, declined by 25% in 2019.

Failure to provide the critical finance and that of loss and damage is measured in my friends, in lives and livelihoods in our communities. This is immoral and it is unjust.

If Glasgow is to deliver on the promises of Paris, it must close these three gaps.

So, I ask to you, what must we say to our people living on the frontline in the Caribbean, in Africa, Latin America, in the Pacific, when both ambition and regrettably some of the needed faces at Glasgow are not present?

What excuse should we give for the failure in the words of that Caribbean icon Eddy Grant, “will they mourn us on the frontline?”.

When will we, as world leaders across the world, address the pressing issues that are truly causing our people angst and worry, whether it is climate or whether it is vaccines?

Simply put, when will leaders lead?

Our people are watching and our people are taking note. And are we really going to leave Scotland without the resolve and the ambition that is sorely needed to save lives and to save our planet?

How many more voices and how many more pictures of people must we see on these screens without being able to move? Or are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cries of humanity?

I have been saying to Barbadians for many years that many hands make light work. Today we need the correct mix of voices, ambition and action.

Do some leaders in this world believe that they can survive and thrive on their own? Have they not learned from the pandemic? Can there be peace and prosperity if one third of the world literally prospers and the other two thirds of the world live under siege and face calamitous threats to our wellbeing?

What the world needs now, my friends, is that which is within the ambit of less than 200 persons who are willing and prepared to lead. Leaders must not fail those who elected them to lead.

And I say to you, there is a sword that can cut down this Gordian knot, and it has been wielded before. The central banks of the wealthiest countries engaged in $25 trillion of quantitative easing in the last 13 years. $25 trillion! Of that, $9 trillion was in the last 18 months to fight the pandemic.

Had we used that $25 trillion to purchase bonds to finance the energy transition or the transition of how we eat or how we move ourselves in transport, we would now today be reaching that 1.5 degrees limit that is so vital to us.

I say to you today in Glasgow that an annual increase in the SDRs of $500 billion a year for 20 years, put in a trust to finance the transition, is the real gap Secretary-General that we need to close, not the $50 billion being proposed for adaptation. And if $500 billion sounds big to you, guess what? It is just 2% of the $25 trillion. This is the sort we need to wield.

Our excitement one hour into this event is far less than it was six months ago leading up to this event.

Can we with those voices and these speeches from Sir David and others, find it within ourselves to get the resolve to bring Glasgow back on track? Or do we leave today believing that it was a failure before it starts?

Our world, my friends, stands at a fork in the road; one no less significant than when the United Nations was formed in 1945. But then, the majority of our countries here did not exist. We exist now. The difference is we want to exist 100 years from now. And if our existence is to mean anything, then we must act in the interests of all of our people who are depending on us.

And if we don’t, we will allow the path of greed and selfishness to sow the seeds of our common destruction.

The leaders of today, not 2030, not 2050, must make this choice.

It is in our hands and our people and our planet need it more than ever.

We can work with who is ready to go, because the train is ready to leave and those who are not yet ready, we need to continue to ring-circle and to remind them that their people, not our people, but their citizens need them to get on board as soon as possible.

Code Red. Code Red to the G7 countries, code red, code red to the G20.

Earth the COP. That’s what it said. Earth to COP. For those who have eyes to see, for those who have ears to listen and for those who have a heart to feel, 1.5 is what we need to survive. 2 degrees, yes S-G, is a death sentence for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, for the people of the Maldives, for the people of Dominica and Fiji, for the people of Kenya and Mozambique, and yes, for the people of Samoa and Barbados.

We do not want that dreaded death sentence and we have come here today to say, “try harder, try harder,” because our people, the climate army, the world, the planet needs our actions now, not next year, not in the next decade.

Thank you.

In Mottley’s speech to the United Nations in September, many headlines zoomed in on the fact that she quoted reggae icon Bob Marley. In her COP26 speech, Mottley referenced “Living on the Frontline,” a 1979 reggae hit by Eddy Grant, a Guyanese–British singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who is currently suing Donald Trump for a copyright violation.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Mottley may have referenced Grant’s music in her speech to throw some shade on this peculiar situation, which has been covered in both Caribbean and U.S. media.

Climate change is clearly at the top of Mottley’s agenda, both globally and back home. The Jamaica Observer reported on her remarks at a handover ceremony of the RSS Maritime Security Strategy Project on Oct. 25; the paper noted that she warned Caribbean nations that they must “prepare for the possibility of a climate change event that could cause mass migration and displacement in the region.”

“2017 was that year that showed us the possibility of what could happen with the impact on Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda in particular with those successive hurricanes that hit us,” Mottley said adding that, “the coastal and inland flooding due to intensified storm surges have also continued to be a problem for too many of our other countries. Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname may not be hit by hurricanes but they are hit by floods.”

Mottley told the hybrid ceremony that the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre CCCCC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reports that a one-metre rise in sea level can displace approximately 110,000 people in Caricom member states.

Mottley is also known for her cool and competence in interviews with the media, most recently in this interaction with a BBC interviewer about civil rights and members of the LGBTQ community.

Join me in the comment section below for more Mottley, and for a round-up of other Caribbean news and events

Read the first installment of Caribbean Matters here, and last week’s entry on the Garifuna/Garinagu people here.