A Guy Named Me: The More You See It, The More Incredible It Is
So the sick kingpin of "Red America's fever dreams" is still here - jabbering, menacing, unraveling, "weak and desperate" and hazardous to our health. Lately, he's busy going to court, misspelling "Biden," likening himself to Jesus, paying Nazi tribute to "the J6 hostages," claiming migrants aren't people, and in an ungodly new grift - "Happy Holy Week!" - hawking God-Bless-the-USA Bibles to "make America pray again." By all means pray. But advice from the wreckage: "Don't look away."
As if the staggering transgressions now coming due - rape, lies, defamation, theft, decades of fraud, a deadly insurrection to overthrow the democracy he was ostensibly leading - aren't enough to showcase his overweening shamelessness, even at feckin' golf, new revelations still churn up from the ugly past. The first public testimony about the tattered final days of his so-called presidency reveal a White House that had "let down all guardrails," grasping at frenzied, bonkers conspiracy theories - “smart thermostats" manipulated voting machines! - as he struggled to cling to power. And his campaign's baffling decision to go with the apocalyptic strategy of asking, "ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?" - thus recalling a once-in-a-century pandemic that cost a million American lives, many unnecessarily - has given Biden the chance to attack his "predecessor's" grievous crimes against science, reason and competence. "Remember when he said, 'inject bleach’?” Biden said at a recent fundraiser. "Think I’m making this up?”
The tottering party he's wrangled into submission, meanwhile, has "stepped on rake after rake" in the effort by James Comer and House Republicans to impeach Biden, or find any trace of his supposed corruption. After many thousands of pages of (fruitless) records and testimony, the hearings have become so renowned for their "cosmic ineptitude" the White House responded to the latest with a succinct "LOL," face-palm emoji and, "Call it a day, pal"; one Democrat suggested it dug up more evidence to impeach Trump a third time than anything on Biden. Some sordid witnesses spoke from prison; the most astounding testimony came from former Giuliani crony Lev Parnas, of Zelensky-phone-call-fame, who asserted, "I have never wavered from saying there was no evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine - because there truly was none." He added everyone who said there was knew there wasn't, and that the bogus info was "spread by the Kremlin." In nearly a year of traveling the globe in search of evidence, "I found precisely zero proof of the Bidens’ criminality."
A do-nothing, right-tilting GOP has floundered in most other endeavors. Running short on funds being rapidly shoveled into her father-in-law's legal messes, the party led by personal trainer and Nepotism Chair Lara Trump just ditched its already paltry efforts to recruit minority, largely Latino voters, evidently sticking with the persuasive tagline," Make the RNC White and Rich Again." Its new entrants are high-end, Jewish Space-Laser freaks like Hitler-quoting, Christian nationalist Mark Robinson, North Carolina's GOP nominee for governor, and to run that state's schools, or nascent "socialism centers," QAnon's anti-Satan Michele Morrow, who once urged "Death to all traitors" with an image of Obama in the electric chair. And as their 91-felony-laden leader implausibly preps to return to power, his former cranks, crooks and "best people" - Stone, Miller, Manafort, Lewandowski - are scurrying out from their caves and cells to join him. Two hold-outs: Pence and Dick Cheney, who says "there has never been (a) greater threat to our republic," except maybe him.
Lately he's mostly in court or playing golf or seething online, but he hasheld two recent "rallies," in Ohio then Georgia. They were not pretty. As he sputtered and gabbled and lied through increasingly brutish, unintelligible speeches - "We have becrumb a nation," "our president Barack Hussein Obama," "Joe Biden's dissss...ervice speech" - the awful spectacle makes it "almost impossible to believe he exists," writes Anthony Citrano. "It's as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it up in an old hot dog skin, and taught it to make noises with its face." Nancy Pelosi is more succinct: "You wouldn’t allow him in your house, much less the White House." It's not even word salad; it's word mush. He can't pronounce "bite" or "largest." He says, "They released Hillary Clinton who used bleach bit and Bill took it out in his socks." If he's not elected "it's gonna be a bloodbath." Migrants are "animals...saying 'I'm going to use your kitchen'...They're not people." On his call with Zelensky, Dems "were taped and they got caught." Nope. A complete fabrication.
Because "the next bottomless pit is always just around the corner," he's now also channeling Goebbels et al, opening rallies by honoring "the horribly and unfairly treated Jan. 6 hostages" with a booming rendition of "Justice For All," a mutilated national anthem that celebrates the thugs who committed violence in his name. In this, writes Will Bunch, Trump alarmingly replicates "The Horst Wessel Song," the tribute to a young brownshirt and martyr killed in 1923's Munich beer hall putsch that became a Nazi Party anthem saluting those who "offer (themselves) up as a sacrifice" for the greater fascist good. Leni Riefenstahl'sTriumph of the Will, which glorifies Hitler's massive Nuremberg rally, opens with the Wessel song as a swastika-adorned plane swoops in carrying the beloved Führer. The propaganda value of that not-so-long-ago song and rally, enshrining and ritualizing victimhood, makes a through, scary line to the Jan. 6 Chorus and Trump's repulsive embrace of it. The message of both: Violent insurrection is patriotism, so stand by.
In Georgia, more of the same: J6 Chous, frenzied lies, much slurring, goat milk ads, America a drug-infested, crime-ridden abyss where "they're weaponizing law enforcement (against) Joe Biden's top and only political appointment (sic) - a guy named me." The wind blew down the teleprompters, so it was mostly gibberish: "Our great member of center of stage, and then I got angry because I said, no, I want to be in the center, those guys don't come close, so we had to have a different number, it didn't have to be 10, it had to be 9 or 11, it had to be something...Pundits say the attacks on me will be violent, they say, uhhh, they say...Biden said it, he said, you know what their whole plan is? It was just released the other day, their whole plan is to go after Trump in every way possible...And another 6 million dollars that they got for hostages from us...and 10 billion dollars for electricity to Iraq...and all comploymants (sic) of... an incompetent...Cognitively impaired? Heh, you'll know when I'm cognitively impaired....You'll be the first ones to know....."
The New Yorker's Susan Glasser wrote a piece titled, "I Listened to Trump's Rambling, Unhinged, Vituperative Georgia Rally, and So Should You." She argues too many of us ignore the "insane oration" and "flamboyant new set of untruths" from a candidate "whose greatest political success has been to acclimate a large swath of the population to his ever more dangerous alternate reality." Contrasting Biden's SOTU critiques of Trump's "offenses to American democracy," she noted Trump's nearly 5 dozen Biden references were epithets - stupid, weak, stutter - of "a puerile bully" with too many grievances and enemies to count attacking a guy alternately portrayed as "a drooling incompetent (and) a corrupt criminal mastermind" whose hellish reign has given us "rampaging migrants" and an economy “collapsing into a cesspool of ruin." Our "simple, apocalyptic choice": Doomsday with Biden, or "liberation from these tyrants and villains" with him. Bonkers bullshit, all. See it for yourself, however queasily, she advises: "Watch his speeches. Share it widely. Don’t look away."
This week, he was again in court, still ranting and whining - "I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG! HOAX! WITCH HUNT!" - even as he got a WTF break when his $464 million bond for fraud got trimmed to $175 million. He babbled briefly to the press: "You can't have an election in the middle of a political season...We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after Tuesday already... We''ll bring crime back to law and order." Online: "The cheese is sliding off his cracker at an ever-increasing rate." It was so bad Biden responded to the wheezy gobbledegook:"Trump is weak and desperate, both as a man and a candidate." Facing off against the shell of an crazed and loathsome con man, Biden has reportedly long been "preparing for every insane scenario that anyone could think of" in the upcoming election - crafting a legal and political "superstructure," partnering with a vast network of attorneys to conduct "doomsday-style" war games," drafting emergency pleadings and legal motions for swing states and otherwise exploring "a range of authoritarian possibilities."
For now, Trump keeps grifting. In "some truly bizarre stock market shenanigans," he managed to merge his "dorky little fake Twitter clone" Truth Social with a "gloriously sketchy" Digital World Acquisition Corp and list a new-born DJT stock on Nasdaq - with a "mind-bogglingly nonsensical" story of why it's not New York Stock Exchange - for over $6 billion, despiteTruth Social's "microscopic" revenue of $3.5 million while losing $49 million. The Wall Street Journalreported the stock has soared not thanks to institutions trading it - they're not - but to MAGA cultists who argue "This is a Truth Movement" and "are absolutely hellbent on handing Donald Trump all their money." Just as logically do they liken to Jesus a thrice-married, multi-philandering crook, rapist and slum landlord charged with decades of fraud: one fan wrote, "It's ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you...We love you." Maybe that's what sent him scurrying, also this very week, to hawk his obscene God Bless the USA Bible to "make America pray again."
Which he does, of course, so often and so devoutly. Who can forget the time in June 2020, after the police murder of George Floyd, when Trump boldly marched out of the White House, across a LaFayette Square beset by more godly police beating the crap out of peaceful protesters for racial justice, and posed for the cameras outside historic St John’s Church, lifting into the righteous air a sacred Bible, upside down. A reporter asked, "Is that your Bible?” He responded, "It's a Bible." Lordy and hallelujah. Never mind that, in Trump's teeny hands, the Bible is a PR tool to help him lie and cheat. That hateful, racist cult members with no use for Jesus' woke "welcoming the stranger" rubbish welcome, instead, his mocking of poor, brown, homeless or stuttering people. That self-described evangelicals rarely go to church but go on TV, like MAGA preacher Lance Wallnau, to compare "leftists" to the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg: "I don't think it's people anymore - you're dealing with demons. So just remember this, Christian: You're gonna listen to demons talking through people."
Happily, it's just plain, God-fearing, migrant-hating, money-grubbing people like Trump and his "very good friend" Lee Greenwood who have now recycled a 9/11 commemorative Bible from 2021 into a cheesy, profane, nationalist screed, dubbed the God Bless the USA Bible, for a quick 60 bucks a shot. "Happy Holy Week!" Trump wrote Tuesday while urging people to buy his latest hustle "for your heart, for your soul." Citing yet another "very sad thing going on in our country," he claimed "Christians are under siege (but) we're gonna get it turned around" by peddling these crappy Bibles with a wildly inappropriate American flag on its cover and, inside, the equally jingoist "Founding Father (sic) documents" - the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance and chorus to Greenwood's tinny, mawkish "patriotic anthem," God Bless The USA. "Easy-to-read, large print and (suspiciously) slim design, this Bible invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time (in) an easy reading experience," says the website. "The perfect gift! Order now!"
For any skeptics - cynics, really - among you, the website also clarifies that money from purchases of God's and Lee Greenwood's word will not go to Trump's presidential campaign, or presumably his current, 91-count, very expensive legal issues, though it "uses Donald J. Trump's name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC," which was established by a former Trump aide and a Trump-linked lawyer in Palm Beach, and its address is Trump International Golf Club, and it also made Trump digital training cards and those preposterous fake gold sneakers, but otherwise, nope, no money will go to Trump. The website's FAQs also generously addresses another sticky issue: "What if my Bible has sticky pages?" "No worries," it says. "This is very common with new Bibles that have gold gilding around the edges of the paper. For your convenience, we have provided links to a Youtube video that does a wonderful job of explaining how to break your new Bible in." And don't forget: It's "the perfect gift for family members, friends, special occassions (sic) and much more!"
Sadly, the new Bible has been criticized in some misanthropic liberal circles as "utterly craven and debased." This response is confounding, given what is clearly Trump's long, deep, devout engagement with and knowledge of scriptural teachings as seen in multiple videos and speeches. To wit: "There are so many things, so many things you can learn from the Bible," he has said. "Actually, it's an incredible book. There are so many things you can learn from it." While he says "the Bible is the most special thing," he remains understandably reluctant to name favorite verses: "I wouldn't want to get into it, because that's very personal, the Bible means a lot to me." However, he will name a favorite author - Tom Wolfe - though there's some confusion whether he has or hasn't read Bonfire of the Vanities. Still, he definitely knows "an eye for an eye," and having to choose between the Old or New Testament he'd pick, "Probably...equal." "I just think the whole Bible is an incredible..." he says. "The Bible, the more you see it, the more incredible it is." Can we get an Amen?
"But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away." - Psalm 37:20, New King James Version
US-China Electric Vehicle Dispute Shows Old Trade Rules Imperil Climate Action
As the Chinese government on Tuesday formally challenged what it termed "discriminatory" U.S. electric vehicle subsidies, climate action advocates warned that antiquated trade policies and international bickering must not be allowed to hamper the urgently needed green energy transition.
"Immediate climate action must take priority over compliance with outdated trade rules that were inked long before governments worldwide began taking the climate crisis seriously," said Trade Justice Education Fund executive director Arthur Stamoulis in response to the move by Beijing.
Melinda St. Louis, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, agreed that "the climate crisis is too urgent for the U.S. or any country to allow outdated trade rules—written long before governments were taking climate change seriously—to distract us from enacting bold climate policies."
"Existing trade rules need to be rewritten so that trade pacts can become tools for helping the world advance towards a clean, just, and sustainable economy—but we don't have time to wait."
China—which has heavily subsidized its own electric vehicle industry—on Tuesday filed a complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO), taking aim at rules for EV tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a sweeping package signed by President Joe Biden in 2022.
"Under the pretext of 'responding to climate change' and 'environmental protection,' the U.S. has formulated discriminatory policies through its Inflation Reduction Act regarding new energy vehicles, excluding products from China and other WTO members from subsidies," said a Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson, according to a translation by the South China Morning Post.
"Such exclusions distort fair competition, disrupt global industrial and supply chains, and violate WTO principles such as national treatment and most-favored-nation treatment," added the spokesperson. "We urge the U.S. to abide by WTO rules, respect the development trend of the global new energy vehicle industry, and rectify its discriminatory policies."
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that "we are carefully reviewing the consultation request" and called out the People's Republic of China for using "unfair, nonmarket policies and practices to undermine fair competition and pursue the dominance of the PRC's manufacturers both in the PRC and in global markets."
Tai also praised "President Biden's leadership," represented by the passage of the IRA, which she described as "a groundbreaking tool for the United States to seriously address the global climate crisis and invest in U.S. economic competitiveness." She said the U.S. would "continue to pursue major new investments in clean energy technology, from solar and wind to batteries and electric vehicles and beyond."
The Associated Pressreported Tuesday that "the real-world impact of the case is uncertain. If the United States loses and appeals the ruling, China's case likely would go nowhere. That is because the WTO's Appellate Body, its supreme court, hasn't functioned since late 2019, when the U.S. blocked the appointment of new judges to the panel."
St. Louis said that "China's threatened trade attack against climate provisions in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act is another example of why the U.S. and other nations should begin working with one another towards an immediate moratorium on the use of trade challenges against clean energy transition and other climate measures."
"We've been warning since before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act that antiquated WTO rules would threaten our ability to realize the green transition," she noted. "Prominent labor, environmental, and consumer groups have urged the U.S. government to boldly implement the IRA as intended despite trade pact attacks—and to make a commitment not to use such trade rules to challenge other countries' climate policies."
Stamoulis pointed out that "governments worldwide are wasting considerable amounts of time and political capital attempting to squeeze potential climate measures into compliance with outdated trade and investment rules."
"Ultimately, existing trade rules need to be rewritten so that trade pacts can become tools for helping the world advance towards a clean, just, and sustainable economy—but we don't have time to wait," he continued. "A 'climate peace clause' that brings an immediate end to the ongoing trade attacks against climate measures is a necessary interim step towards helping governments transition to clean energy on the rapid timeline that is required to head off the worse possible impacts of climate change."
"A moratorium on the use of international trade agreements to challenge climate policies would: (1) help governments safeguard existing climate mitigation and transition measures by protecting them from trade challenge; (2) create the space for governments to adopt the bolder climate policies that justice and science demand without fear or threat of new trade challenges; and (3) incentivize and offer countries time to work together and resolve the underlying tensions between current trade law and the imperative for climate action," he explained.
St. Louis also called for implementing a climate peace clause to "temporarily halt cases like this one so countries can prioritize the green transition and revise the WTO rules currently creating unnecessary hurdles."
"We must move forward with IRA implementation and work to enact even bolder policies to transform our economy for a clean energy future, and support other countries that do the same," she asserted.
China's WTO complaint comes on the heels of the hottest year in human history—which concluded with a United Nations climate summit that scientists called a "tragedy for the planet" because the conference's final agreement didn't demand a phaseout of fossil fuels that are driving global heating.
Soaring temperatures have continued this year, with European Union scientists recently announcing that last month was the warmest February on record. Carlo Buentempo, director of the E.U.'s Copernicus Climate Change Service, stressed that "the climate responds to the actual concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so, unless we manage to stabilize those, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences."
'Dirty Dozen' Guide Shows 95% of These Fruits and Veggies Tested Positive for Pesticides
The latest edition of an annual consumer's guide published Wednesday reveals that almost three-fourths of non-organic fruits and vegetables sampled contained traces of toxic pesticides while the "dirty dozen"—including strawberries and spinach—tested at levels closer to 95%.
Scientists with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) document in their new report, "2024 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides In Produce," that four out of five of the most frequently detected pesticides found on the twelve most-contaminated produce items were fungicides that could have serious health impacts.
"There's data to suggest that these fungicides can disrupt the hormone function in our body," EWG senior scientist Alexa Friedman told Common Dreams, adding that the chemicals had "been linked to things like worse health outcomes" and "impacts on the male reproductive system."
"We recommend using the Shopper's Guide as a way to prioritize which fruits and vegetables to buy organic to reduce your pesticide exposure."
The four fungicides detected on the Dirty Dozen produce were fludioxonil, pyraclostrobin, boscalid, and pyrimethanil. Two of these—fludioxonil and pyrimethanil—were also found in the highest concentrations of any pesticide detected.
The annual Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists are based on a review of Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration data. This year, EWG looked at results from 47,510 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables.
2024's Dirty Dozen list is similar to previous years, with strawberries, spinach, and a trio of hearty greens—kale, collard greens, and mustard greens—once again taking the top three spots. The full list is as follows:
- Strawberries
- Spinach
- Kale, collard, and mustard greens
- Grapes
- Peaches
- Pears
- Nectarines
- Apples
- Bell and hot peppers
- Cherries
- Blueberries
- Green beans
The four fungicides were found on the fruits and vegetables for which new data was available this year—blueberries, green beans, peaches, and pears—for some of them at high levels.
"One reason we might see fungicides in high concentrations compared to other types of pesticides are that fungicides are often sprayed on the produce later in the process," Friedman said.
Farmers frequently apply fungicides after harvest to protect crops from mildew or mold on the way to the grocery store.
Beyond fungicides, testing also turned up the neonicotinoids acetamiprid and imidacloprid, which harm bees and other pollinators and have been associated with damage to the development of children's nervous systems.
Testing also revealed the pyrethroid insecticides cypermethrin and bifenthrin. While there are fewer studies on these pesticides, existing research suggests they may also harm children's brains. More than 1 in 10 pear samples tested positive for diphenylamine, which is currently banned in the European Union over cancer concerns.
Most of the pesticides detected on the Dirty Dozen are legal, but one exception is acephate, an organophosphate insecticide that is essentially prohibited for use on green beans but is still found on them. One sample tested positive for levels 500 times the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) legal limit.
In total, EWG found that nearly 75% of non-organic fruits and vegetables tested were contaminated with pesticides. However, nearly 65% of the conventional items on the Clean Fifteen list were pesticide free. This year's Clean Fifteen are:
- Sweet corn
- Avocados
- Pineapple
- Onions
- Papaya
- Sweet peas
- Asparagus
- Honeydew melon
- Kiwi
- Cabbage
- Watermelon
- Mushrooms
- Mango
- Sweet potatoes
- Carrots
The Shopper's Guide is primarily geared toward helping consumers make informed choices as they choose between conventional and organic items, which may be more expensive or harder to find.
"We always recommend that people consume as many fruits and veggies as possible, whether they're organic or conventional," Friedman said.
But for people concerned about consuming pesticides, she added, EWG recommends "using the Shopper's Guide as a way to prioritize which fruits and vegetables to buy organic to reduce your pesticide exposure."
EWG recommends prioritizing organic versions of Dirty Dozen items.
As a whole, the EWG advocates for policymakers and regulators to do more to understand the real risks posed by pesticides and protect people from them.
"We still feel that there needs to be more studies that really focus on the health effects of these pesticides, specifically the pesticides that we found in high detection this year, so that we can better understand how these might impact health for susceptible populations, particularly for children," Friedman said.
She added that while many of the pesticides detected in tests were at or below legal limits set by the EPA, "legal doesn't always mean that they're safe for everyone."
In a 2020 study, for example, EWG researchers found that for nearly 90% of common pesticides the EPA had failed to apply an extra margin of safety for children when setting limits, even though it is required to do so under the Food Quality Protection Act.
Currently, the EPA has a chance to improve regulations as it rewrites a ban on chlorpyrifos on food, which was overturned by a court on a technicality. It is also reviewing whether or not the pesticide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate (DCPA) can be used safely after it acknowledged the "significant risks" it posed to human health.
EWG is also raising the alarm about a slate of new rules that some lawmakers may try to attach to the 2023 Farm Bill or other important legislation. These proposed laws, such as the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act and the EATS Act, would prevent states or localities from setting additional regulations on pesticides. In September 2023, EWG joined with 184 other environmental groups in sending a letter to the House and Senate opposing such measures, which the groups argue take "decision-making out of the hands of those most impacted by pesticide use."
"States and localities are often in a much better position than the EPA to quickly assess risks, consider emerging evidence, and to make decisions to protect their unique local environments and communities including schools and childcare facilities, from toxic pesticides," the letter states. "Undermining that authority would hamstring critical local efforts to address cancer and other human health risks, threats to water resources, and harms to pollinators and other wildlife."
Joe Lieberman, Iraq War Cheerleader and Killer of Public Option, Dead at 82
While current and former officials across the U.S. political spectrum shared praise for and fond memories of former Sen. Joe Lieberman in response to news of his death on Wednesday, critics highlighted how some of his key positions led to the deaths of many others.
Lieberman's family said the 82-year-old died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital after a fall at his home in the Bronx. He served in the Connecticut Senate, as the state's attorney general, and in the U.S. Senate—initially as a Democrat and eventually as an Independent. He was also Democratic former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
"Up until the very end, Joe Lieberman enjoyed the high-quality, government-financed healthcare that he worked diligently to deny the rest of us. That's his legacy," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare.
As Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
explained, "Joe Lieberman led the effort to ensure the Affordable Care Act did not include a public option or a reduction in the Medicare eligibility age to 55."
Noting that Lieberman also lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq—which was used to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion—Gunnels asked, "How many people unnecessarily died as a result?"
He was far from alone in highlighting the two defining positions.
The Lever's David Sirota declared, "RIP Joe Lieberman, Iraq War cheerleader who led the fight to make sure Medicare was not extended to millions of Americans who desperately needed the kind of healthcare coverage he enjoyed in the Senate."
The Debt Collective said on social media that "Joe Lieberman killed so many people when he killed the public option. Not to mention all the people he killed by cheerleading every war and every lie that led to war. A truly horrible person with a shameful legacy."
Journalist Jon Schwarz pointed out that Lieberman continued to lie about the WMDs long after the claims were debunked.
FormerMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that Lieberman declined an opportunity to apologize for the disastrous war, sharing a clip from his on-camera interview with the ex-senator in 2021.
And please don\u2019t give me this \u2018don\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u2019 stuff - 1) I\u2019m not speaking ill, I\u2019m stating facts, and 2) public figures are public figures, and their obits reflect their legacies and so we should be honest in our accounts of their legacies. Not offensive but honest— (@)
"We lost a giant today. I often disagreed with Joe Lieberman but he was always honorable in the way he called for American troops to murder people abroad so he could get his jollies," said Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project in a series of sarcastic social media posts.
"Joe Lieberman balanced his love of other people fighting in immoral wars with a commitment to preventing Americans from getting healthcare," Stoller added. "Even after his Senate career, he showed his strong democratic values by lobbying for Chinese telecom firms. We will miss this man."
Former US Lawmaker Finally Enjoys Social Policies He Fought for—In Europe
A former U.S. lawmaker who spent nearly half a century fighting for a nation that would have universal healthcare coverage and less gun violence is finally living in such a place—but he had to retire and move to Europe to find it.
In recent interviews with Roll Call and The Washington Post, former Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott, who also served in the Washington state Legislature, discussed life in France and the threat of former GOP President Donald Trump, who is set to face Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
"It was like I walked through an invisible door," McDermott told the Post's Elizabeth Becker about going to France. "Now I saw and felt what it's like to live in a community where everyone can go to the doctor. Where children aren't massacred by gun violence. It changes everything."
McDermott visited Civrac-en-Médoc in 2017, the same year he retired from Congress, and quickly bought a stone cottage. The 87-year-old keeps a residence in Seattle and remains an American—he is a member of Democrats Abroad and plans to vote for Biden. However, he largely lives in the rural French village, where he "doesn't need to lock his doors at night" and "loves that kids in the neighborhood don't worry about gun violence," as Roll Call's Ariel Cohen reported Wednesday.
"I spent 16 years in the Washington state Legislature trying to get single-payer healthcare. Then I spent nearly 30 years in Congress trying to get single-payer. Then I came to France and in three months I had single-payer. Was that mind-blowing? You bet."
France—which requires a psychological test for a gun license—has a population of about 68 million and each year sees 3.23 firearm-related deaths per 100,000 people, according to World Population Review. The United States, home to over 333 million, has 10.84 gun deaths per 100,000 people and mass shootings are on the rise.
During his decades on Capitol Hill, McDermott, a psychiatrist, supported stricter U.S. gun laws and nationwide universal healthcare. While progressives including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) continue the battle for Medicare for All in Congress, McDermott is experiencing France's full coverage system, which was built over seven decades.
"The system covers most costs for hospital, physician, and long-term care, as well as prescription drugs; patients are responsible for coinsurance, copayments, and balance bills for physician charges that exceed covered fees," according to the Commonwealth Fund. "The insurance system is funded primarily by payroll taxes (paid by employers and employees), a national income tax, and tax levies on certain industries and products."
McDermott told Cohen "I spent 16 years in the Washington state Legislature trying to get single-payer healthcare. Then I spent nearly 30 years in Congress trying to get single-payer. Then I came to France and in three months I had single-payer. Was that mind-blowing? You bet."
As Cohen detailed:
When he arrived in France, he needed to fill a few prescriptions but didn't have a French primary care doctor. The pharmacist looked at his empty pill bottles and refilled them, no questions asked. When McDermott finally got a French physician, he received a brand-new CPAP machine at no cost. A month later, someone came to make sure it was working properly.
"Coming to France is like a drink of cold water," he says. "Once you've had this experience, it's easy to see all the ways in the U.S. you're getting screwed—well, not screwed per se, but definitely overcharged."
McDermott's first electoral win was tied to healthcare—specifically, his support for abortion rights. He was elected to the Washington House of Representatives in November 1970, the same election in which the state's voters legalized abortion, three years before the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court's right-wing majority—including three Trump appointees—overturned Roe, sparking a fresh wave of forced pregnancy bills across the nation. Meanwhile, the French Parliament earlier this month enshired abortion rights in France's constitution.
"The whole country stood up and said, 'Up your ass, we're not going your way, America,'" McDermott said of the French vote. "People have realized America is not the place you want to be on everything."
While U.S. legislators in over 20 states have imposed new restrictions on reproductive healthcare since the fall of Roe, Trump—who's now signaling his support for Christian nationalism by hawking $60 patriotic-themed Bibles—and many congressional Republicans are pushing for a 15-week federal abortion ban and various other far-right policies.
From France, Becker noted, McDermott keeps tabs on U.S. politics, conversing with friends and politicians, sending money to campaigns, and warning people against a Trump win in November.
According to the former war correspondent:
In private conversations with McDermott, they wonder how to gauge the seriousness of Trump's increasingly dire threats to the country's democratic underpinnings and, potentially, to them and their families. "I get calls from my friends now who say they are scared to do what I did but are scared to stay."
He tells them: "If you can afford it, buy a second home in France, or Spain, or Portugal, wherever… a second home that could become a safe house."
Still, McDermott has some hope for his home country's future, telling Cohen: "I still vote, I still got my house in Seattle. Just because I don't live there doesn't mean I've given up on the United States."
ICJ Issues New Order in Genocide Case as Another Gaza Child Starves to Death
Citing "the worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation," the International Court of Justice on Thursday ordered Israel to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into the embattled enclave and reiterated an earlier directive to prevent genocidal acts.
The ICJ's new provisional order—which passed by a vote of 15-1, with Israeli Ad-Hoc Judge Aharon Barak dissenting—states that Israel must take "all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians throughout Gaza."
This includes "food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene, and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care."
The Hague-based court also ordered Israel to ensure "with immediate effect that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group" under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The court's directive is a response to a March 6 request by South Africa, which filed the genocide case against Israel last December. On January 26, the tribunal issued a provisional ruling that found Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordering the country to prevent genocidal acts.
A final ruling in the case could take years. ICJ rules permit the court to "revoke or modify any decision concerning provisional measures if, in its opinion, some change in the situation justifies such revocation or modification."
Critics accuse Israel of ignoring the January 26 order. South Africa said its March 6 request for modification was prompted by "horrific deaths from starvation of Palestinian children, including babies, brought about by Israel's deliberate acts and omissions" including "concerted attempts" since January 26 to ensure the defunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) "and Israel's attacks on starving Palestinians seeking to access what extremely limited humanitarian assistance Israel permits into Northern Gaza."
The new ICJ order notes that "Israel rejects 'in the strongest terms' South Africa's claims that incidents of starvation in Gaza are a direct result of its deliberate acts and omissions."
However, the court found that "exceptionally grave" recent developments, including "at least 31 people, including 27 children, having already died of malnutrition and dehydration... constitute a change in the situation."
Underscoring the severity of the crisis, a 5-year-old boy,
identified by Al Jazeera as Mohammed Naeem al-Najar, died of malnutrition Thursday at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
This, as Israel is blocking UNRWA aid convoys from entering the northern part of the besieged strip.
The U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war, a move enabled by a U.S. abstention.
More than 30 nations, as well as the the Arab League, African Union, and other international organizations, have joined South Africa's ICJ suit. On Wednesday, Ireland said it would intervene in the case after observing "blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale" by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Palestinian and international officials say that since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel, Israeli bombs and bullets have killed at least 32,552 Palestinians—most of them women and children—while wounding nearly 75,000 others. At least 7,000 more Palestinians are missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Approximately 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced.
Working Families Party Urges New York Voters to 'Leave It Blank' for Gaza
The state party's co-directors encouraged Democrats to "use their voice at the ballot box to send a clear message to President Biden that he must correct course on the war on Gaza."
As the death toll from Israel's war on the Gaza Strip hit at least 32,623 on Friday, the New York Working Families Party endorsed the "Leave It Blank" campaign, which encourages Democratic voters to cast a blank ballot in the state presidential primary next Tuesday to increase pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to end the bloodshed.
Since January, when New Hampshire residents critical of U.S. complicity in Israel's genocidal assault wrote "cease-fire" on their Democratic ballots, voters across the country have used the primary process to stage similar protests. In Michigan, home to many Muslims and Arab Americans, over 100,000 people voted "uncommitted" last month.
"Instead of disconnecting from democracy, what we need to be doing is leaning into our democracy."
"Many New Yorkers are struggling with the question of whether to show up for Tuesday's presidential primary. We're urging voters to use their voice at the ballot box to send a clear message to President Biden that he must correct course on the war on Gaza," said New York Working Families Party co-directors Ana María Archila and Jasmine Gripper in a statement.
"With the general election seven months away, voters can make a strategic appeal to President Biden to listen to the overwhelming majority of voters who support a permanent cease-fire, the safe return of hostages, and emergency humanitarian aid," they added.
Biden is expected to face Republican former President Donald Trump in November. Although the Democratic president called for Israel to end the "indiscriminate bombing" of civilians in Gaza, his administration has also continued to arm Israeli forces—sending fighter jets and 2,000-pound bombs that can take out an entire city block.
"The war in Gaza has really splintered the Democratic coalition that is urgently needed to defeat Trump and his right-wing extremist agenda," Archila toldGothamist. "And it has created a very serious moral dilemma for voters across the country."
According to Gothamist:
Archila said she viewed the blank vote campaign as something that would engage and unify Democrats at a moment when they lack enthusiasm.
"Instead of disconnecting from democracy, what we need to be doing is leaning into our democracy," she said. "And we know that voters who show up in the primary are more likely to show up in a general election."
Archila and Gripper's party joins a growing number of groups supporting the campaign. They include IfNotNow NYC, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, MPOWER Action: Muslim Grassroots Movement, Peace Action New York State, Sunrise Movement NYC, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, and multiple chapters of Democratic Socialists of America.
Members of some groups backing the "Leave It Blank" initiative were among those who staged a protest at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Thursday as Biden was joined by former Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton for a fundraiser. Jay Saper of JVP said that "we will continue to raise our voices of dissent until Palestinians are free."
At least eight elected officials have also backed the call: state Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-25); state Reps. Zohran Mamdani (D-36), Marcela Mitaynes (D-51), and Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-57); and New York City Council Members Alexa Avilés (D-38), Tiffany Cabán (D-22), Shahana Hanif (D-39), and Sandy Nurse (D-37).
"This is our best chance to make clear that Democrats in New York will not accept the taxpayer-funded killing of innocent civilians."
"I urge all New Yorkers who want a cease-fire to join me in casting a blank ballot in the presidential primary on April 2nd," Hanif said in a statement Friday. "Our taxes are being used to fuel the death of Palestinians. This is a simple way we can join the national effort to encourage the president to listen to his base before it's too late."
The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and Biden has sought $14.3 billion more since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, which led to Israeli forces bombing and blockading the Palestinian enclave for more than six months.
The Leave It Blank campaign "is an opportunity to register our collective outrage over the Biden administration's continued policy of disregard for human life in the Gaza Strip," said Avilés. "The presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party must know that its members stand with Palestine."
Noting that "Blank ballots will be counted," Mamdani declared that "this is our best chance to make clear that Democrats in New York will not accept the taxpayer-funded killing of innocent civilians."
In addition to New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin have votes scheduled for Tuesday. The Nation on Friday published a guide for how to continue the "uncommitted" momentum in the remaining Democratic primaries and caucuses in U.S. states and territories.
AIPAC-Funded Challenger to Jamaal Bowman Has a Very Narrow Definition of Genocide
"Latimer should try listening to survivors and descendants of genocide—from Native communities here to Rwanda to Bosnia to Cambodia to Jews," said one advocacy group.
Jewish progressives on Friday condemned comments by Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who was recruited by the pro-Israel lobby to challenge progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, and who was quoted as saying genocide is defined only as one notorious method that was used by Nazis to kill Jewish people during the Holocaust.
"Genocide is when you create gas chambers and you force people into them to kill them," Latimer said in a recent interview, according to Gothamist. "You cannot put that on an equal equivalent with the military action [in Gaza]."
Latimer's comments came as the death toll in Gaza, which Israel has been bombarding since October, reached at least 32,623 people. At least 17 children are among those who have died of starvation so far, as a near-total blockade of humanitarian aid imposed by Israel has pushed parts of northern Gaza into a famine, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative.
The United Nations' top expert on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories is among those who have documented numerous statements by high-level Israeli officials demonstrating genocidal intent, and said in a report this week that "the overwhelming nature and scale" of Israel's assault shows the country is trying to "physically destroy Palestinians as a group." The International Court of Justice said in January that South Africa's claim that Israel is committing a genocide is "plausible."
Latimer's comments amount to "straight-up genocide denial (using some of the dumbest logic I've seen in a while)," said Naftali Ehrenkranz, digital director for youth-led advocacy group Get Free.
The Jewish-led Palestinian rights group IfNotNow said Latimer had erased with his comments not only "the millions of victims and survivors of genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, [and] Bosnia," but also 2 million Jewish people who were killed in mass shootings during the Holocaust, up to 1 million who died of starvation and disease in ghettos and concentration camps, and at least 250,000 who were killed in other acts of violence by the Nazi regime.
Roughly 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, around 1.8 million non-Jewish Polish people, and as many as 500,000 Romani people were also among those who were killed via various methods during the Holocaust.
"The Genocide Convention was created to describe and prevent the intentional destruction of a group of people. Atrocities too awful to fathom," said Jewish Voice for Peace. "To say otherwise denies the horrors of genocide inflicted upon peoples across the world."
Bowman is one of four members of Congress from New York who have demanded a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, and he has condemned Israel's U.S.-backed military action as an unfolding genocide.
The Intercept reported in February that 42% of Latimer's campaign contributions had come from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), with the pro-Zionist lobbying group donating more than $600,000 to the effort to unseat Bowman.
Latimer "has repeatedly called his opponent's calls unrealistic and out of step with the party," Gothamist reported on Friday, but a poll released late last month by Data for Progress found that 77% of Democratic voters support a permanent cease-fire.
Green Groups Secure Deal to Clean Up Coal-Polluted West Virginia Streams
"This is a monumental step forward in our ongoing fight to protect West Virginia's precious wildlife and natural resources," said one campaigner.
The Sierra Club announced on Friday that it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to address pollution in West Virginia streams that originates from coal mining in the state.
The agreement specifically focuses on what's called ionic toxicity pollution, which is created in the mining process. The pollution that enters the freshwater streams increases their salinity, which kills the aquatic life in them. The Sierra Club is joined by the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy in the agreement.
The EPA will now be creating limits—called total maximum daily loads (TMDLs)—for how much of this pollution can enter "11 high-priority West Virginia streams."
"This is a monumental step forward in our ongoing fight to protect West Virginia's precious wildlife and natural resources," said Sierra Club West Virginia chapter director Honey May. "By holding the coal industry accountable and ensuring the development of TMDLs, we are safeguarding the habitat of countless aquatic species and preserving the ecological integrity of our streams."
❗Today, Sierra Club, @OurWVRivers, and @WVHC secured a historic settlement to restore West Virginia streams harmed by coal mining pollution.
Read our statement on this important win for clean water and healthy communities ⬇️https://t.co/1uzMieP8eT pic.twitter.com/d0ERJ9sgGV
— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) March 29, 2024
The Sierra Club says this deal—which has been years in the making—will help restore important West Virginia streams and means the EPA will finally be fulfilling its obligations under the Clean Water Act.
West Virginia is one of the top coal producing states in the country, and it has faced serious problems with pollution from the state's many coal mines for decades. The coal mining industry has also long been able to avoid having to pay to clean up the pollution it causes.
"For far too long, West Virginia has failed to meet its obligations to protect our waters from coal mining pollution, willfully allowing the health of thousands of stream miles to continue to decline," said West Virginia Rivers Coalition interim executive director Autumn Crowe. "We are encouraged that this agreement will finally begin to get our damaged streams the help they deserve."




















