First They Came For My Appliances: We Are Here For the Refrigerator Freedom Act
Okay all you naysayers whining shambolic House GOPers aren't doing their job just 'cause they're blocking border solutions, ignoring infrastructure, enabling Ukrainian deaths and barely keeping the government afloat: Listen up. Boldly showcasing their astute priorities, they will fight Monday to liberate your dishwashers, dryers, fridges and other home gizmos from a Marxist "avalanche" of new "Libby Boogyman" rules aimed at keeping the planet from vaporizing into air, and c'mon who cares about that?!
Ever-steadfast in upholding their tradition of chasing fictional ills - Mike 'Election Chicanery' Johnson is now vowing to require proof of citizenship to prevent (brown-skinned) non-citizens from voting even though it's already illegal, also "not a thing" - the GOP-led House Rules Committee meets Monday to discuss six bills to prep them for final votes on the House floor. The six bills are the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act, the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Affordable Air Conditioning Act, the Clothes Dryer Reliability Act, the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act and the Refrigerator Freedom Act. Yes. They are real. They're in response to a number of Biden regulations or proposals aimed at addressing climate change, part of a $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act that seeks to lower costs, reduce energy use, cut pollutants and move to more green-energy practices.
To Republicans, however, they're aimed at letting tyrants "control everything Americans are able to do on a day-to-day basis," part of an insidious plot to allow "others" to come for their stuff, their choices and their God-given rights, evidently including the right to get a back-alley abortion with a coat hanger. (One sage: "REPUBLICANS: 'Keep gubmint OUT of our toasters and dish washers!' ALSO REPUBLICANS: 'We need surveillance cameras inside every cha-cha so we can keep an eye on what women are doing!'") Thus did Arizona's Rep. Debbie Lesko, declaring she is "proud (to) stand on the side of choice for American consumers," devise the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act to prohibit "federal bureaucrats" from issuing an aforementioned "avalanche" of new energy standards "not technologically feasible and economically justified."
In March, Iowa's Rep.Mariannette Miller-Meeks echoed her, introducing and eventually passing theRefrigerator Freedom Act to prohibit the same offenses - now "not cost-effective or technologically feasible" - because Biden has "done nothing but implement outrageous regulations" that only limit choice, increase prices, disenfranchise toilets and blenders, and move us toward dictatorship. MAGA-ites, of course, applaud these red-meat efforts to rescue heat pumps, gas stoves, washing machines, showers and air fryers from domination. "Finally, following American and not Globalist priorities," said one. "I am sick and tired of the government telling us what we can and cannot buy and use." And after 11 GOP-run states sued over some of the changes, a judge dismissed the rules as "arbitrary and capricious."
That could also apply to a House focused on fighting to be able to buy a $7 toaster even if, okay, so it may burn your house down but FREEDUMB! Of course, confronting issues like national security or infrastructure require actual, unflashy, conciliatory, negotiating, attention-to-detail legislative work, and they're barely able to co-exist with their colleagues, never mind opponents, and anyway it's probably about time for another two-week recess, so let's go with hair dryers and ceiling fans. Along with the petty stupidity is the economic irony: Most appliances are made in China, so they're protecting Chinese companies from U.S. regulations, and for things made here, they're ensuring big business can be left alone to make over-priced, planet-killing, deliberately-soon-obsolete crap. Your tax dollars at work!
Predictably, the cognitive dissonance drew its share of mockery, with Digby noting, "We all know the GOP likes to focus on kitchen table issues, but this is ridiculous." Others argued that, "Insurrectionists are now GOP Congresspersons" and that, thanks in part to such diversionary tomfoolery, "The GOP has Ukrainian blood on their hands." "First they came for my appliances," one intoned. "I was not an appliance, so I said nothing." Another suggested a key addition to the GOP agenda: a "Stop Wasting Our Time on Meaningless Legislation Act." There were also triumphant stories of deliverance born of the GOP's hard and noble work. "In honor of the Refrigerator Freedom Act, I just opened my front door and set my newly liberated Frigidaire free," one reported. "Needless to say, it's running."
Youth Coalition Presses Biden to Declare Climate Emergency Ahead of Earth Day
Ahead of Earth Day on April 22, youth organizers across the United States are planning protests in hundreds of communities to demand that President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency and take other action to tackle the fossil fuel-driven crisis.
"President Biden promised to be a climate president. Ahead of the 2024 election, young people are mobilizing to hold him accountable to that promise," reads a joint statement put out by the coalition composed of Campus Climate Network, Fridays for Future USA, and the Sunrise Movement.
While they are focused on the president in power, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump—a Big Oil ally whose plans for the planet if he returns to office are to "drill, baby, drill"—offers no hope for the groups' demands.
Biden has won praise for some climate progress during his first term, particularly his recent pause on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. However, the Democrat has also come under fire for supporting the Willow oil project and Mountain Valley Pipeline, continuing fossil fuel lease sales, and skipping last year's United Nations summit.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration approved the construction of Houston-based Enterprise Product Partners' Sea Port Oil Terminal off the Texas Gulf Coast.
Sunrise called the move "very disappointing," and pointed out on social media that the project is set to "be the largest oil export terminal in the U.S."
"It threatens lives, just so Big Oil can profit big exporting abroad," the movement added. "This is a dangerous mark of Big Oil's power in politics."
Despite marks of progress on climate, the groups lamented that "U.S. oil and gas production has surged to record highs" under the Biden administration.
They also acknowledged previous protests, including one by Sunrise in February that led to arrests at Biden's campaign headquarters.
"As the election approaches, young people are mobilizing to demand President Biden take bold action to protect young peoples' futures," they said. "That begins with declaring a climate emergency that meaningfully addresses fossil fuels, creates millions of good-paying union jobs, and helps us prepare for incessant climate disasters."
Last year—the hottest in human history—Biden claimed that "practically speaking," he had already declared a national climate emergency. The People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition responded that he "should follow through on his rhetoric and immediately declare a national emergency that would unlock new executive powers to speed up the deployment of clean energy and halt fossil fuel expansion."
As the Center for Biological Diversity has laid out, if Biden declared an emergency, under various federal laws he could then halt crude oil exports; stop oil and gas drilling in the outer continental shelf; restrict international trade and private investment in fossil fuels; grow domestic manufacturing for clean energy and transportation to speed the nationwide transition off fossil fuels; and build resilient and distributed renewable energy systems in climate-vulnerable communities.
To renew pressure on the president, Fridays for Future USA is planning a Day of Climate Action—part of a global strike next Friday, April 19. Organizers said that "in New York City alone, thousands of students will walk out of their classes and march from Foley Square in Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Borough Hall."
On Earth Day itself—April 22—Campus Climate Network is organizing actions at over 100 campuses calling on colleges and universities to "become true environmental justice leaders and cut ties with the fossil fuel industry."
Meanwhile, the Sunrise Movement plans to lead dozens of Earth Day teach-ins at congressional offices and other locations to urge members of Congress to demand a formal declaration.
Sunrise is also part of another coalition—with Gen-Z for Change, March for Our Lives, and United We Dream Action—that is pushing the president to embrace a broader youth agenda that addresses not only the climate emergency but also gun violence, immigrants' rights, and the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
"In 2020, young people sent Biden to the White House. In 2024, how many young people turn out for Biden will determine if we stave off a second Trump presidency," the group's political director, Michele Weindling, said last month. "Right now, young people are shouting for what we need from Biden to mobilize our generation this November."
'Let Them Eat GDP Reports': 44 Million Americans Are Food Insecure
A U.S. anti-hunger group marked April Fools' Day on Monday with a snarky statement suggesting that hungry Americans "can eat positive economic statistics about the soaring stock market or the growing gross domestic product."
"Let them eat GDP reports," Hunger Free America declared of the 44 million Americans—including 13 million children—who live in food insecure households, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
GDP is the market value of all the finished goods and services produced in a country over a certain time period. Critics have long argued against using it as the premier indicator of how a nation is doing.
"The old school way of the elites fighting hunger was to say, 'let them eat cake,'" said Hunger Free America CEO Joel Berg. "But the more modern approach is to say, 'let them eat a report of the nation's growing GDP, although the report offers empty calories.'"
"By focusing mostly on economic statistics that benefit mostly the wealthy—like stock indexes—the nation's political and media elites blithely overlook that hard evidence that the economy is still structurally unsound for large swaths of the public, and then those same elites are flummoxed as to why the public tells pollsters they are still not satisfied with the economy," Berg explained.
"The country's impoverished multitudes can now get all they can eat—assuming they can digest paper report pages."
"But the good news is that, none of that matters now, because truckloads of positive economic reports are being shipped to food banks, soup kitchens, and food pantries nationwide, and the country's impoverished multitudes can now get all they can eat—assuming they can digest paper report pages and cardboard report covers, and don't mind a bit of poisonous ink," he quipped.
While inflation has eased in the United States over the past two years in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, corporations have engaged in price gouging that has kept costs high for Americans, everywhere from gas pumps to grocery stores to fast food restaurants.
"It's one thing for corporations to pass reasonable increased costs to consumers. It's another for them to line their coffers by exploiting Americans who are just trying to get by," the Groundwork Collaborative's Liz Pancotti said in January, as the group released a related report. "It's time to rein in corporate price gouging—or families will continue to pay the price."
Data released last month by the Federal Reserve shows that the top 1% of Americans are the richest they have ever been, with a collective $44.6 trillion in wealth, a record largely driven by the stock market. President Joe Biden and some progressive Democratic lawmakers recently renewed calls for wealth taxes, but such proposals are not expected to pass the divided Congress.
Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and has been so since 2009. Although state policymakers have taken action to raise pay for some or all workers, national legislation to boost wages also has not been able to get through Congress.
House Dems, GOP Team Up to Expand Warrantless Spying on Americans
The U.S. House on Friday passed legislation to expand a major mass spying authority after voting down a bipartisan push to attach a search warrant requirement to the
heavily abused surveillance law.
The bill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years passed by a vote of 273-147, with 59 Democrats and 88 Republicans voting no. More Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans.
With Section 702 set to expire next Friday, the legislation now heads to the U.S. Senate.
"Despite a litany of abuse—improper snooping on protesters, lawmakers, thousands of campaign donors, and journalists—the House today wrote the FBI and intelligence agencies a blank check to keep misusing FISA Section 702," said Jake Laperruque, deputy director on surveillance at the Center for Democracy & Technology.
"This bill's only 'reform' to U.S. person queries is simply codifying agency rules that have already proven grossly inadequate at stopping abuse of FISA 702," Laperruque added. "If this bill becomes law, in two years Congress will be back debating this same issue, no doubt with even more examples of law enforcement abusing the backdoor search loophole to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans."
"The FBI has invaded the privacy of members of Congress, a state court judge who reported civil rights violations by a local police chief, Black Lives Matter protesters, and more."
The measure's final House passage came after a handful of closely watched amendment votes.
One amendment led by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus would have required U.S. intelligence agencies to obtain a search warrant before surveilling Americans' communications under Section 702, which allows the federal government to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country without a warrant.
Americans who communicate with people overseas regularly have their correspondence—including emails, texts, and phone calls— hoovered up by U.S. intelligence agencies under Section 702.
The Biden White House aggressively opposed the warrant requirement, trotting about familiar talking points claiming the amendment would endanger U.S. national security. Attorney General Merrick Garland and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan both called members of Congress personally to pressure them to vote against the protection demanded by civil liberties advocates.
The amendment vote closed with a 212-212 tie, meaning it failed.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, accused the White House and House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) of "truly shameless misrepresentations" of the amendment.
"Opponents branded the notion that the government should need a warrant to read Americans' communications—the core of the Fourth Amendment and the guiding principle for searching Americans’ private correspondence for more than 200 years—as 'extreme,'" Goitein wrote on social media.
Turner claimed requiring a warrant to collect Americans' communications would allow the Chinese Communist Party, Hezbollah, and Hamas to "fully recruit in the United States."
"Many members who tanked this vote have long histories of voting for this specific privacy protection, including former Speaker Pelosi, Representative Lieu, and Representative Neguse," Demand Progress policy director Sean Vitka said in a statement. "They did so alongside a smear campaign by the House Intelligence Committee, led by Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Himes, which was defined by deceptive statements and outright lies. All eyes now turn to the Senate, but Americans will not forget this stab in the back by the House."
In a floor speech ahead of Friday's vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the chair of the CPC and a leading supporter of the Biggs amendment—said that "every single day, the FBI conducts an average of 500 warrantless searches of Americans' private communications, resulting in over 278,000 searches in one year alone."
"The FBI has invaded the privacy of members of Congress, a state court judge who reported civil rights violations by a local police chief, Black Lives Matter protesters, and more," Jayapal continued. "We cannot pass this bill without additional protections."
Jayapal was among the 59 Democrats who voted no on final passage.
Privacy is a constitutional right — and warrantless searches of U.S. persons violate that right. It’s that simple.
The House must pass my amendment to close the warrantless search loophole and protect Americans’ privacy rights. pic.twitter.com/AmqEeLr025
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) April 12, 2024
After voting down the warrant requirement, the House approved an amendment led by Turner that the Brennan Center warned would force "U.S. businesses to serve as surrogate spies."
"This amendment would enable the largest expansion of surveillance on U.S. soil since the Patriot Act," the group said. "Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of 'electronic communications service provider,' it would allow the government to force ordinary U.S. businesses to assist the government in conducting Section 702 surveillance."
"Although the amendment exempts hotels, libraries, restaurants, and a handful of other types of establishments," the Brennan Center added, "an enormous range of businesses could still be conscripted into service, including grocery stores, department stores, hardware stores, laundromats, barber shops, fitness centers, and countless other locations Americans frequent—even the offices in which they work."
The House also
passed an amendment that would allow U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct suspicionless searches of immigrants' communications without a warrant.
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said in a statement that "by expanding the government's surveillance powers without adding a warrant requirement that would protect Americans, the House has voted to allow the intelligence agencies to violate the civil rights and liberties of Americans for years to come."
"The Senate must add a warrant requirement and rein in this out-of-control government spying," said Hamadanchy.
'Weasel Words': Julian Assange's Wife Slams US Assurances to UK
The wife of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sharply criticized "assurances" the U.S. government made as the U.K. High Court considers allowing the 52-year-old Australian's extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison.
The U.S. document states that if extradited, "Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," though it points out that "a decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. courts."
"A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange," the document adds, noting that he has not been charged with any offense for which that is a possible punishment. It comes after the U.K. court ruled last month that the Biden administration had until Tuesday to confirm that he wouldn't face the death penalty and if it did not, he could continue appealing his extradition.
Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
"Instead, the U.S. has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can 'seek to raise' the First Amendment if extradited," she added. "The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
The U.K. court's next hearing is scheduled for May 20. Last week, reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country's Parliament to drop the extradition effort and charges. He said that "we're considering it."
So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified documents including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Since British authorities dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—where he lived with political asylum for seven years—he has been jailed in the city's Belmarsh Prison.
The WikiLeaks founder's wife, with whom he has two children, was not alone in condemning the U.S. assurances on Tuesday.
"This 'assurance' should make journalists even more worried about how the Assange prosecution could impact press freedom in the U.S. and globally. The U.K. should grant Assange's appeal and refuse to extradite him," said the Freedom of the Press Foundation. "The U.S. doesn't disclaim the ability to argue that the First Amendment doesn't apply to Assange because of his nationality or other reasons, or for a court to rule against a First Amendment challenge to his prosecution."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, similarly said that "no one who cares about press freedom should take any comfort at all from the United States' assurance that Assange will be permitted to 'rely upon' the First Amendment."
"If the prosecution goes forward, the U.S. government will be trying to persuade American courts that the First Amendment poses no bar to the prosecution of a publisher under the Espionage Act," Jaffer warned. "And if the government is successful, no journalist will ever again be able to publish U.S. government secrets without risking her liberty."
"So the government's First Amendment assurances aren't responsive at all to the concerns that press freedom advocates have been raising," he concluded. "This case poses essentially the same threat to press freedom today as it did yesterday."
20 Years Later, Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Get Their Day in Court
Two decades after they were tortured by U.S. military contractors at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, three Iraqi victims are finally getting their day in court Monday as a federal court in Virginia takes up a case they brought during the George W. Bush administration.
The case being heard in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Al Shimari v. CACI, was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute—which allows non-U.S. citizens to sue for human rights abuses committed abroad—by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of three Iraqis. The men suffered torture directed and perpetrated by employees of CACI, a Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm hired in 2003 by the Bush administration as translators and interrogators in Iraq during the illegal U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
"This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court."
Plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili accuse CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes including torture at Abu Ghraib, where the men suffered broken bones, electric shocks, sexual abuse, extreme temperatures, and death threats at the hands of their U.S. interrogators.
"This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court. But they are the lucky few," Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Monday. "For the hundreds of other survivors still suffering from past abuses, their chances of justice remain slim."
"The U.S. government should do the right thing: Take responsibility for their abuses, offer an apology, and open an avenue to redress that has been denied them for too many years," Sanbar added.
U.S. military investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Iraqi prisoners and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.
A May 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba concluded that the majority of Abu Ghraib prisoners—the Red Cross said 70-90%— were innocent. In addition to thousands of men and boys, some women and girls were also jailed there as bargaining chips meant to induce wanted insurgents to surrender. Some of them said they were raped or sexually abused by their American captors; lesser-known Abu Ghraib photos show women being forced to expose their private parts. Some female detainees were reportedly murdered by their own relatives in so-called "honor killings" after their release.
Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.
Bush's successor, former President Barack Obama, promised to investigate—and if warranted, to prosecute—the Bush-era officials responsible for the torture that had become synonymous with the War on Terror. Instead, the Obama administration protected them from prosecution.
In 2013, L3 Technologies agreed to pay $5.28 million to 71 former Abu Ghraib detainees who were subjected to sexual assault and humiliation, rape threats, electrical shocks, mock executions, brutal beatings, and other abuse.
The following year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling prohibiting Abu Ghraib torture victims from suing U.S. companies implicated in their abuse. But the court later reversed itself, finding the case had sufficient ties to the United States to be heard in an American court. The suit was later dismissed under the political question doctrine, which prevents courts from ruling on issues determined to be essentially political.
However, in 2016, a 4th Circuit panel ruled that "the political question doctrine does not shield from judicial review intentional acts by a government contractor that were unlawful at the time they were committed," allowing the Iraqis' case to proceed.
"This is a historic trial that we hope will deliver some measure of justice and healing for what President Bush rightly deemed disgraceful conduct that dishonored the United States and its values," CCR senior attorney Katherine Gallagher toldThe Guardian on Monday.
"In many ways, this case may be seen as setting a precedent for holding contractors accountable for human rights violations should they happen in other contexts, too," she added.
CACI—which denies any wrongdoing—has tried to get the case dismissed 20 times. The company still lands millions of dollars worth of U.S. government contracts. In February, Fortuneincluded the firm on its "World's Most Admired Companies" list for the seventh straight year.
'A Big, Big Deal': Chattanooga Volkswagen Workers Begin Voting in Key Union Election
"Looking back, you could see this being the first domino in something that changes the entire South," said one labor journalist.
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee began voting Wednesday on whether to join the United Auto Workers, a closely watched election seen as a critical test for the emboldened union's ability to organize in the U.S. South.
The election kicked off a month after workers at the Chattanooga plant filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) formally requesting an election to join the UAW, which secured record-breaking contracts at the Big Three U.S. automakers last year after a historic six-week strike.
Following the hard-fought contract victories, the UAW launched what's been described as the largest union organizing drive in modern U.S. history, targeting nonunion car manufacturers such as Tesla, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
The Chattanooga election marks the third time in a decade that the UAW has tried to organize the Volkswagen plant, which currently has around 4,300 workers. Voting concludes on Friday.
"This election is a big, big deal—probably the most important union election that this country has seen in years," labor journalist Hamilton Nolan said in a Democracy Now! appearance on Wednesday. "Looking back, you could see this being the first domino in something that changes the entire South."
About 4,000 Volkswagen workers in Tennessee are voting on whether to unionize with the United Auto Workers. Labor journalist @hamiltonnolan says it's the most important union vote in years and could be the "first domino" in a wider push to organize the auto industry in the South. pic.twitter.com/RWFnO5KznI
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) April 17, 2024
Chattanooga workers voiced confidence that this election will be different than 2014 and 2019, when Volkswagen employees voted against joining the UAW by narrow margins.
"We're going to win," Lisa Elliott, a quality control worker at Volkswagen, toldThe Guardian's Steven Greenhouse. "We have the momentum. I know this will be a historic event."
In addition to the Chattanooga effort, the UAW is trying to organize Mercedes-Benz workers in Vance, Alabama. Earlier this month, a supermajority of Mercedes workers in Vance submitted a petition to the NLRB requesting an election to join the UAW.
UAW's organizing efforts have drawn national attention—and ire from anti-union politicians, including the Republican governors of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and other states in the U.S. South.
Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University, told Greenhouse that "a victory at Volkswagen would make a victory at Mercedes much more likely."
"Victories at both Volkswagen and Mercedes would be nothing less than an earthquake," McCartin added. "This would be the biggest breakthrough in private-sector organizing in decades. It would mean that the anti-union citadel [in the South] that has repulsed effort after organizing effort has been breached."
University of California, Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken echoed that assessment in an interview with The New York Times.
"It would be a revolution for the UAW and for the auto industry," Shaiken said of a UAW win. "It would break the glass ceiling for unions in the South, and would mean more purchasing power for working-class people in that region."
Montanans Launch Push to Get Abortion Rights on November Ballot
"With 2024 shaping up to be the biggest year ever for abortion on the ballot, it is critical that Montanans can make their voices heard on this issue."
As abortion continues to dominate this year's state and federal political contests, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights on Tuesday launched a signature collection drive to get a citizen-initiated state constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
Since the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court reversedRoe v. Wade with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization nearly two years ago, Republican state lawmakers have ramped up efforts to further restrict abortion care—and voters, including residents of red states, have responded by protecting reproductive freedom when weighing in on related ballot measures.
With little hope that the divided Congress will restore nationwide abortion rights, ballot initiatives for the 2024 cycle are ongoing in various states, from Arizona and Florida to Montana, where "a yes vote on Ballot Issue #14 will keep the government out of our personal lives," as the Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights website states.
"This is an exciting opportunity to secure our rights for generations to come. Now is the time to ensure power remains in the hands of the people of Montana, so everyone has the freedom to prevent, continue, or end a pregnancy should they choose," the site adds. "Politicians have no business controlling our bodies and our futures."
After a legal battle with Republican state Attorney General Austin Knudsen, the ballot language is:
CI-128 would amend the Montana Constitution to expressly provide a right to make and carry out decisions about one's own pregnancy, including the right to abortion. It would prohibit the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability. It would also prohibit the government from denying or burdening access to an abortion when a treating healthcare professional determines it is medically indicated to protect the pregnant patient's life or health. CI-128 prevents the government from penalizing patients, healthcare providers, or anyone who assists someone in exercising their right to make and carry out voluntary decisions about their pregnancy.
Montana currently allows abortion care up until fetal viability. In response to a legal challenge from Planned Parenthood of Montana (PPMT), a trial judge in February struck down three laws passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature in 2021: a 20-week ban, restrictions on medication abortions, and a rule that providers must offer patients an ultrasound.
"We are relieved that Montanans will no longer live with the threat of these harmful restrictions taking effect. But make no mistake, our fight continues," PPMT president and CEO Martha Fuller said at the time. "For years anti-abortion politicians at all levels of government have made banning abortion their number one priority, despite the current protection held in our state constitution."
"During the 2023 Montana legislative session, an onslaught of anti-abortion bills was introduced, passed, and signed into law, and PPMT is working hard to beat back these attacks and more," Fuller continued. "We will never stop working to ensure that all Montanans and those who are forced to travel here for care can access the care they need."
In addition to Planned Parenthood, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights is a campaign by the ACLU of Montana, the Fairness Project, and Forward Montana. The coalition now needs to collect 60,000 signatures by June 21.
"Anti-abortion extremists have tried to interfere in Montanans' personal healthcare choices again and again. That's totally unacceptable—Montanans deserve to make their own decisions about reproductive care, not have politicians decide for them," the Fairness Project executive director Kelly Hall said Tuesday.
"The Fairness Project is proud and excited to be supporting Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights in their campaign to pass CI-128, especially at a time when abortion rights are under attack," Hall added. "With 2024 shaping up to be the biggest year ever for abortion on the ballot, it is critical that Montanans can make their voices heard on this issue."
Spain Widens Push for EU Countries to Recognize Palestinian State
A majority of U.N. member states recognize Palestinian statehood, but the U.S. and most E.U. countries lag behind.
In his latest stop on a tour of several European countries aimed at gathering support for recognizing a Palestinian state, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joined his Slovenian counterpart on Tuesday in calling to make the diplomatic move to help secure an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestine is already recognized as a state by the vast majority of United Nations members—139 out of 193 countries—and by a handful of European nations, but the European Union as a whole, the United States, and the United Kingdom are among those that have long refused to recognize statehood.
At a joint press conference with Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Al Jazeera reported Wednesday that Sánchez aims to formally recognize Palestinian statehood by July, even if he does not secure enough support from other E.U. countries.
"The time has come for the international community to once and for all recognize the state of Palestine," Sánchez said in November. "It is something that many E.U. countries believe we have to do jointly, but if this is not the case, Spain will adopt its own decision."
Sánchez has also met with leaders in Ireland, Malta, and Norway in recent weeks.
Jonas Gahr Støre, prime minister of Norway—which is not an E.U. member—said last week that his government "stands ready" to join "like-minded countries" in recognizing Palestinian statehood.
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said after meeting with Sánchez last Friday that formal recognition "is coming much closer and we would like to move together in doing so."
"The people of Palestine have long sought the dignity of their own country and sovereignty—a home that like Ireland and Spain can take its place amongst the nations of the Earth," Harris added.
Ireland's Green Party said Monday that the full recognition of Palestine by European countries would help to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 33,899 people since October and has so far starved more than two dozen children to death by blocking the vast majority of humanitarian aid for months.
Al Jazeerareported Wednesday that Belgium—which has called for economic sanctions on Israel over its bombardment of Gaza—is likely to join Spain's push after June, when the country no longer holds the E.U. presidency.
The push from Spain comes as the U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote on whether to admit Palestine as a full member of the U.N., which the Spanish prime minister said would be supported by the governments he's met with.
Palestinian representatives announced earlier this month that they would revive their application for membership, which the U.S. has vetoed in previous votes.
"We are seeking admission. That is our natural and legal right," said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N. Palestine has held observer status in the U.N. since 2012.
The League of Arab States on Tuesday expressed its "unwavering support" of the Palestinians' new application.
"Membership in the United Nations is a crucial step in the right direction towards a just and lasting resolution of the Palestinian question in line with international law and relevant U.N. resolutions," said the group of 22 countries.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters this month that full U.N. membership for Palestine "should be done through direct negotiations through the parties," while Israeli U.N. ambassador Gilad Erdan said the fact that the application is being considered is "a victory for genocidal terror."
The Arab League urged U.N. members "not to obstruct this critical initiative."