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Because things right about now can always get weirder, it turns out the Florida U.S. Attorney handling the case of the latest sick white guy inspired by hateful GOP lies about pet-eating Haitians to go hiding in the bushes to take down Trump with an AR-15 is one Markenzy Lapointe - the first Haitian-born American lawyer, and first black guy, to serve as a U.S. Attorney. We love the smell of irony and karma in the morning.
The alleged "assassination attempt," though the perp didn't fire any shots, took place at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course a couple of days after both lying authoritarian scumbags on the GOP presidential ticket re-iterated their claims that "illegal aliens" from Haiti are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, which is def speaking truth to power and house-pets except it's all racist fiction. The migrants are here legally, and no pets have been harmed or consumed in the making of this absurd campaign lie.
That hasn't stopped the two white boys with shit for brains from doubling down on what Vance already conceded on TV is a tall ugly tale, which has now seen Haitians being terrorized, schools receiving at least 33 bomb threats and Springfield officials having to evacuate schools, cancel "CultureFest" and close multiple city offices. After Vance admitted to "creating" his own furry lies, he tried also charging that immigrants are spreading HIV and TB too. Nope. More faux hillbilly lies - about his own constituents, yet.
#OHNoYouDont, said the Ohio-based Red, Wine, and Blue that's organized against the hate and fear. They've now been joined by Lapointe, Haitian-born U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and lead prosecutor of Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon after a Secret Service guy spotted his gun in the bushes where he'd waited 12 hours to claim his 15 minutes of tawdry fame, hopefully taking a moment to thank Trump for revoking gun restrictions for people with mental illness.
Lapointe, 55, was born in Port-au-Prince. He came to the U.S. as a 16-year-old who spoke no English with his mother, a street vendor with no formal education and four other kids; they all shared a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Liberty City. Lapointe worked through high school and skipped his graduation to begin boot camp after signing up for the Marines. A reservist, he was called up to serve in the Gulf War - "I felt a tremendous debt to America (as) an immigrant" - before earning finance and law degrees at Florida State.
Lapointe was nominated by Biden in 2022 and has worked with Jack Smith on the classified documents case; he calls his journey "surreal" and "blessed." Trump might not agree on the blessed part, but he's already fundraising on the latest alleged effort to get rid of him, charging, "There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us." We can relate. For now, we can also savor the fact of a Haitian immigrant whose job is both to protect and prosecute him. One sage: "Sweet like justice, Karma is a queen."
A coalition of climate campaigners on Tuesday published a proposal "for how the U.S. can play a bigger role in tackling the global climate emergency."
Described as "a civil society model document for the U.S. climate action pledge submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" under the landmark Paris agreement, the Fair Share Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a "comprehensive plan for the United States to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance climate action in an equitable way both domestically and internationally."
Russell Armstrong, international policy liaison at the U.S. Climate Action Network, a member of the coalition, explained that "the Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe."
The plan sets targets for the U.S. to slash domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2035 from 2005 levels, in line with "scientific standards and universally accepted global justice principles."
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at coalition member Oil Change International, said: "The U.S. has a long way to go to become the climate leader the world needs. It's the largest producer of oil and gas in human history, and it plans to expand fossil fuels far beyond what's compatible with a livable climate."
"The Fair Share NDC shows what the U.S. must do to change course, starting with an equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and paying its fair share to the countries dealing with the consequences of U.S. extraction," she added.
The proposal is centered on a phased approach to ending all fossil fuel production, with coal to be eliminated by the end of the decade and oil and gas by 2031. The plan also proposes the development of "robust public transportation infrastructure and transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030."
"This transition will also be fair, funded, feminist, and equitable," the report states. "A funded fossil fuel phaseout means that wealthy Global North countries commit to paying their fair share for fossil fuel phaseout in their own countries and in the Global South. A feminist fossil fuel phaseout means a gender-just energy transition from an extractive, fossil-fueled economy to a regenerative, care-based economy that sustains life and well-being for all."
According to Oil Change International:
The U.S.' historic emissions are so large that the U.S. cannot mitigate enough emissions domestically to fulfill its "fair share" of responsibility for the climate crisis. It must also provide Global South countries annually with $106 billion in mitigation funding and $340 billion worth of adaptation and loss and damage funding by 2030. To mobilize money on such a scale, the U.S. can redirect funding for fossil fuel subsidies and military weaponry, and make wealthy elites and big polluters pay for the damages they've already caused. Finally, changing global rules on debt, taxes, trade, and technology will also significantly expand the fiscal space Global South countries have to finance their own transitions, lowering the overall bill.
The report warns that the U.S. must commit "to avoiding dangerous distractions and unproven technological solutions, such as
forest offsets; carbon market mechanisms; carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, enhanced oil recovery, and other false solutions that act as dangerous distractions to only delay phasing out of fossil fuel production."
Tuesday is False Solutions Day during the Global Week of Action for Climate Finance and a Fossil-Free Future, which runs from September 13-20 and focuses on pressuring Global North governments to "stop making empty promises" and "cease pandering to corporations to perpetuate fossil fuels."
Basav Sen, climate policy director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a member of the coalition, said in a statement that "the U.S. is the world's largest oil and gas producer and largest cumulative greenhouse gas emitter."
"It's time the U.S. took responsibility for its outsized role in causing the climate crisis," Sen added. "The Fair Share NDC is a pathway for the U.S. to actually become the climate leader it claims to be, both internationally and at home."
Thousands of autoworkers protested in Brussels on Monday following recent news that Audi, a subsidiary of the German automaker Volkswagen, would phase out production at its plant there, which is expected to mean layoffs for its roughly 3,000 employees by the end of 2025.
The phase-out announcement led to a labor dispute that's shuttered the plant for the last two weeks, with some employees forming an encampment protest outside. The plant is expected to resume operations on Tuesday even though the core issues underlying the labor dispute, which some unions have characterized as a lockout by management, haven't been resolved.
Between 5,500 and 11,000 demonstrators marched toward the European Parliament on Monday, bringing "chaos" to Brussels, where public transport was largely shut down. Unions not directly affected by the Audi plant's likely closure participated in solidarity.
"Their anger is very legitimate, very understandable, especially since Audi is not very clear on its plans," Bernard Clerfayt, a local employment minister, told AFP.
Charlie Le Paige of Belgium's worker's party, Parti du Travail de Belgique, wrote on social media that there were "lots and lots of people in the streets of Brussels in support of Audi workers and subcontractors."
Le Paige said that the company was treating employees as disposable while distributing huge amounts of money to shareholders, and declared that "workers are not adjustment variables!"
Beaucoup beaucoup de monde dans les rues de Bruxelles en soutien aux travailleurs et aux sous-traitants d'#Audi 🔥 Le groupe VW-Audi a distribué près de 12 milliards de dividendes l'année passée, les travailleurs ne sont pas des variables ajustement! pic.twitter.com/aUEgbCNZsl
— Charlie Le Paige (@charlielepaige) September 16, 2024
The state-of-the-art Audi plant in southern Brussels produces the Q8 e-Tron, an electric sport utility vehicle. Audi received about 27 million euros ($30 million) in public funding to retrain workers when it converted to electric vehicle production.
Audi announced in July that it was considering discontinuing production of the commercially unsuccessful Q8 e-Tron and closing the Brussels plant, and said earlier this month that it still hadn't found an alternative vehicle that it could produce there.
The following day, September 4, the plant's workers "downed tools" and set up protest camps on the premises, according to World Socialist Web Site.
On September 6, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, a leading U.S. unionist, visited the plant in solidarity with the workers there.
About 1,500 Audi workers at the plant face the prospect of layoffs as early as next month, another 1,100 by May, and the remainder by the end of 2025. There are also many hundreds of subcontractor workers that would be impacted by a closure, unions have said.
Last week, workers took about 200 car keys from vehicles at the plant as an act of protest, prompting warnings of legal action by the company. The workers later returned the keys to try to facilitate discussions with management.
The plant's likely closure is seen as part of E.V. failures at Volkswagen and European carmakers more generally, prompting calls for the European Union to invest in and protect the industry. Audi reportedly plans to make the successor to the Q8 e-Tron in Mexico.
Many of the demonstrators on Monday spoke harshly about E.U. policy.
"We also want to send a strong signal to European authorities, which are making things difficult for Belgian industry, but also for European industry," Patrick Van Belle, a leading union official at Audi Brussels, told Reuters, in explaining the reasons for Monday's demonstration. "The manufacturing industry is mainly migrating away from our countries."
Volkswagen's layoffs may in fact extend beyond Belgium. The company made the surprising announcement earlier this month that it may shutter factories in Germany, drawing fierce opposition from unions there. The closures would be the first in Germany in the company's 87-year history.
Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi last week issued a report, commissioned by the E.U., calling for stronger industrial policy and a degree of trade protectionism, including in the auto industry, which is struggling to compete with heavily subsidized Chinese vehicles. Draghi, hardly considered a radical political thinker, drew criticism from neoliberal institutions for the proposals.
Local police said about 5,500 people attended the demonstration on Monday while unions put the figure at 11,000.
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Update (6:18 pm):
The FBI said on Sunday that it was "investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination” of former U.S. President Donald Trump after members of the Secret Service fired shots at an individual who appeared to place the muzzle of a rifle over the perimeter of where Trump was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump wrote in a fundraising email that he was "SAFE AND WELL" following the incident.
Several public figures issued statements condemning political violence.
Minnesota Gov. and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz wrote on social media that he and his wife Gwen were "glad to hear that Donald Trump is safe."
"Violence has no place in our country. It's not who we are as a nation," Walz wrote.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said: "I am relieved that President Trump and those that were with him are safe. This is a deeply concerning time for our country, and I pray we can prevent this kind of violence and find ways to heal the divisions."
Earlier:
Former U.S. President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is "safe" after gunshots were fired "in his vicinity," the Trump campaign announced on Sunday.
Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that Secret Service agents opened fire after they saw an individual appear to lift the muzzle of their rifle through the barrier surrounding Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida while he was playing. The suspect then fled in an SUV and was later apprehended by local law enforcement. An AK-style rifle was later found on the grounds of the golf course.
The Secret Service said that the incident took place around 2 pm Eastern Time.
Steven Cheung, the Trump Campaign's communications director, said there were "no further details at this time."
The incident comes a month and two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt while speaking at a rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
"I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe," U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump in the 2024 presidential election, wrote on social media. "Violence has no place in America."
The White House said in a statement that it was "relieved" the Trump was safe.
On the eve of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about "stemming the tide of hate crimes" nationwide, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Monday commended the panel's chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, for "hosting this groundbreaking yet overdue" event.
Discrimination against Jews and Muslims has significantly increased in the United States since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and the U.S.-backed Israeli retaliation on the Gaza Strip, which critics worldwide call genocide. In May, Durbin (D-Ill.) vowed to hold a hearing "in response to the ongoing and persistent rise in antisemitism and other forms of bigotry across the country."
The committee announced last week that it had scheduled a Capitol Hill hearing for 10:00 am Tuesday to "examine how we can better protect Jewish, Arab, and Muslim Americans, and other vulnerable communities from bigoted attacks."
Durbin—who has faced calls from Republican committee members to hold a hearing focused on "the civil rights violations of Jewish students" and "the proliferation of terrorist ideology"—said at the time that "hate crimes are a threat to justice everywhere. Sadly, no community is immune from violent acts of hate. Congress cannot turn a blind eye to it."
"We must stand united against hate in all its forms and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of all Americans, regardless of their race, faith, or national origin."
Omar (D-Minn.) expressed gratitude for Durbin's broader event, saying Monday that "this vital hearing is a crucial step in addressing the alarming rise of hate crimes across our nation, particularly those targeting Muslim, Jewish, and Palestinian Americans."
"I'm glad this committee hearing will address the rise in hate felt by thousands across the country, I hope this hearing serves as a catalyst for meaningful action," she continued. "We must stand united against hate in all its forms and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of all Americans, regardless of their race, faith, or national origin."
Omar is an outspoken opponent of Israel's assault on Gaza and U.S. support for it. She fled war in Somalia as a child and is one of only a few Muslim members of Congress—and while in office, she has endured intense racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and death threats. Some of the hate has come from fellow federal lawmakers.
Her praise for the hearing came amid reports that some Republicans and Jewish groups are unhappy with Democrats' witnesses: Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry and Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.
Notably, when Stern was with the American Jewish Committee, he helped craft the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. He has since accused right-wing groups of "weaponizing" it in their efforts to conflate criticism of Israeli government policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry.
Describing both Berry and Stern as "at odds with Jewish communal leaders," Jewish Insider reported:
In his opening statement to the committee, obtained by Jewish Insider ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Stern will testify that "advocating for genocide against anyone of course should be robustly condemned; but the mere expression of such ideas (whether intended as such or heard as such) should be countered, not as a matter for discipline."
Stern will also say that it is a good thing that David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, did not face any disciplinary action when he spread Nazi propaganda on Louisiana State University's campus as a student in 1968. "This would have allowed him to claim the status of martyr, and changed the subject to his right to speech as opposed to the content of his hate," Stern will say.
"Berry's written testimony focuses primarily on hate crimes data and reporting, and federal enforcement of hate crimes laws," according to Jewish Insider. The outlet added that the Republican witness Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, "is set to express support for the IHRA definition."
In response to Jewish Insider editor in chief Josh Kraushaar's social media post sharing the report, Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss said, "Translation: testimony from Ken Stern and Maya Berry, who are both widely respected authorities on these issues, makes it harder to use this hearing as part of the campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian activism."
While this will be the first Senate hearing on hate crimes since last October, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has held multiple, mostly focusing on campus anti-genocide protests. Critics have argued that the lower chamber's events have pushed university administrators to enable violent law enforcement crackdowns on students demonstrating against Israel's assault on Gaza.
Update: The death toll from Wednesday's attacks has risen to at least 20, with more than 450 others injured, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Earlier: A day after an Israeli attack caused thousands of pagers to explode across Lebanon, killing a dozen people including children and wounding over 2,800 others, new explosions of battery-powered devices killed at least nine more people and injured upward of 300 others around the Middle Eastern country, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Multiple Lebanese and international media outlets reported that targets of Wednesday's attacks included people attending funerals of those killed by the previous day's explosions.
"Anyone who has a device, take out the battery now! Turn off your phones, switch it to airplane mode," Hezbollah security members commanded mourners at one funeral in a Beirut suburb, according to The Washington Post.
While the source of Wednesday's blasts—which reportedly targeted smartphones, car radios, walkie-talkies, solar power components, and other devices—was not immediately clear, several media outlets confirmed that the previous day's attacks were carried out by Israeli military and intelligence operatives targeting members of the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah.
Among the reported victims of the pager attacks were two children— Fatima Abdullah, a 9-year-old girl; and Bilal Kanj, an 11-year-old boy.
The device explosions came amid ongoing Hezbollah attacks on Israel with rockets, armed drones, and other projectiles that have killed dozens of people, including Druze children playing soccer in the illegally occupied Golan Heights in Syria.
Hezbollah vowed Wednesday that Israel would suffer a "difficult reckoning" in response to the device attacks. The group is allied with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and led the October 7 attack on Israel. Israel's ongoing retaliation—for which it is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice—has left more than 146,000 Palestinians dead, injured, or missing.
Numerous observers including experts on international law said the Israeli device attacks fit the legal definition of terrorism.
Pointing to video footage of a pager detonating in a crowded market, Heidi Matthews, an associate professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, wrote that "each explosion constitutes an indiscriminate attack," and that "under these circumstances, this is an act of terror."
In a Wednesday briefing, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned against the weaponization of civilian objects.
"What has happened is particularly serious, not only because of the number of victims that it caused, but because of the indications that exist that this was triggered, I would say, in advance of a normal way to trigger these things, because there was a risk of this being discovered," Guterres said.
"This event confirms that there is a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon, and everything must be done to avoid that escalation," he added.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter condemned what she called Israel's "brutal escalation of violence."
"Silence is not an option," she added. "An international investigation is called for. The bloodshed must end."
"It's time for our universities to become real climate leaders," said one organizer, "and cut ties with the fossil fuel industry once and for all."
Students at universities and colleges across the U.S. have long demanded that their schools cut ties with the fossil fuel industry as planetary heating has increasingly been linked to extreme weather and pollution-causing emissions have continued.
New findings released by student researchers with the Campus Climate Network on Wednesday, said the organization, "add more detail and evidence to what these students have already been campaigning for—fossil fuel funding has no place in universities' climate research."
The students spoke at a virtual press conference titled "Big Oil's Stain on Our Universities," presenting research compiled in six reports regarding fossil fuel industry ties at Columbia University, Princeton University, Cornell University, American University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of California San Diego.
The six institutions have collectively received more than $108 million in direct funding to the fossil fuel industry, published more than 1,500 academic articles and papers funded by oil giants, and count 10 people affiliated with the industry among the members of their university governance boards, according to the research—which follows the first-ever literature review of investigations into Big Oil's links to higher education, published in the peer-reviewed journal WIREs Climate Change earlier this month.
Columbia and Princeton were by far the biggest recipients of fossil fuel money, accepting more than $43 million each from companies and their foundations.
Sunrise Columbia, the Sunrise Movement's chapter at the university, published a report presented at Wednesday's press conference, detailing how Hess Corporation—an oil and gas company acquired by Chevron—was the largest fossil fuel donor to the prestigious university. The company contributed more than $15 million to Columbia from 2005-24.
Koch Family Foundations, "which have spent hundreds of millions to finance groups promoting climate denial," and liquefied natural gas (LNG) firm Cheniere Energy were also major contributors.
Fossil fuel money at Columbia has gone toward funding the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), the School of International and Public Affairs, and the university's Climate School—which "powers innovative research in the science, consequences, and human dimensions of climate change."
"CGEP, the Climate School, and Columbia repeatedly claim to produce unbiased, reputable research to advance climate solutions. Many of our findings directly contradict these missions."
The Climate School has received $741,967 from fossil fuel giants since it was established in 2020.
"CGEP, the Climate School, and Columbia repeatedly claim to produce unbiased, reputable research to advance climate solutions," reads the report. "Many of our findings directly contradict these missions—from Columbia being named explicitly by a BP [vice president] as essential for their outreach and influence to being specifically mentioned as a producer of biased research, Columbia has fallen short," said Sunrise Columbia.
At Princeton, student researchers wrote that the university "legitimizes and financially supports the fossil fuel industry," continuing to invest "approximately $700 million in privately held fossil fuel companies without justification," even after divesting its endowment of fossil fuel holdings worth $1 billion.
The report notes that the school's New Jersey campus "has not been spared" from extreme weather that's growing more frequent as the planet gets hotter and scientists warn that limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C is getting less likely.
"Last summer, our campus was shrouded by smoke from incinerated Quebecois pine trees, smoke that turned the sky a burning orange. Outdoor workers on and off campus were hit hardest," wrote the students. "Floods nearby destroyed transport infrastructure and made it harder for our community members to come to campus to work or to learn. Scorching temperatures at the start of each fall semester make it difficult to think."
But while students, faculty, and staff have suffered the effects of fossil fuel extraction, major fossil fuel companies including BP, Exxon, Shell, and TotalEnergies have spent more than $43 million on research at Princeton, funding papers containing "explicit applications for continued or expanded fossil fuel use."
At the virtual press conference on Wednesday, Campus Climate Network research manager Maddie Young said the articles detailed in the six reports focus primarily on methods for fossil fuel extraction, methods and "benefits" of "false solutions" like carbon capture, and extending and upholding "the social license of the fossil fuel industry to operate."
"So these might be articles that are connected to healthcare or health research and promote the image of corporate social responsibility connected to the fossil fuel industry," said Young, "and allow them to continue to leverage these relationships to universities and to greenwash their own image and present themselves as socially responsible."
The student researchers recommended that Princeton prohibit all research funding from the industry and complete divestment from all oil, gas, and coal companies, as well as cut ties with Petrotiger, a fossil fuel company that Princeton "appears to own," having earned nearly $140 million in the last 10 years in investment income and direct contributions.
"These recommendations are all within Princeton's power to achieve," said the student researchers. "The university must act upon these items with the urgency the climate crisis demands."
Young, who is also a student organizer at American University, said the student-authored reports are "only the beginning—we have a strong, national student movement that will continue to expose and cut the ties with Big Oil."
“It's time for our universities to become real climate leaders," said Young, "and cut ties with the fossil fuel industry once and for all."
"As long as House Republicans continue pushing Project 2025 funding bills, they will continue pushing our nation towards a government shutdown," said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a GOP resolution that would have punted a fight over government funding until after the next president takes office and pushed through a noxious voter suppression measure backed by Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The final vote was 202-220, with 14 Republicans joining nearly every member of the House Democratic caucus in voting against the legislation. GOP opponents of the bill included far-right lawmakers who want to slash spending.
Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Don Davis (D-N.C.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) broke with their party and backed the Republican continuing resolution, which would have largely extended government funding at current levels into March.
With Trump's backing, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) agreed to attach to the continuing resolution the SAVE Act, legislation purportedly aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting—which is already illegal. Voting rights advocates have condemned the SAVE Act as an "unnecessary and dangerous" bill that would "make it harder for voters of color and naturalized citizens to register to vote."
"Instead of working with Democrats to fund the government, House Republicans tied themselves into knots trying to give Trump what he wants."
House Democrats said Wednesday that the failure of the GOP continuing resolution was an inevitable consequence of the party's decision to push extremist spending bills instead of working on a bipartisan solution to government funding.
The government will shut down on October 1 unless Congress acts. Johnson said leading up to Wednesday's vote that there is "no Plan B."
"Once again, the House Republican majority has failed at its most basic tasks while trying to force Trump's extreme and unpopular Project 2025 agenda on the American people," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. "Everyone in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, knew this ill-conceived continuing resolution was destined to fail. Why we spent a week and a half considering a partisan bill, just days from a government shutdown, is beyond comprehension."
"We have seven legislative days to keep the government open," she continued. "The time to begin negotiations on a continuing resolution that can gain the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate was last week—but right now will suffice, if Republicans are willing to meet us at the table and actually govern."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said late Wednesday that "as long as House Republicans continue pushing Project 2025 funding bills, they will continue pushing our nation towards a government shutdown."
"Trump said he'd 'shut down the government in a heartbeat' to push his Project 2025 agenda—and instead of working with Democrats to fund the government, House Republicans tied themselves into knots trying to give Trump what he wants," said Boyle. "Just as they've done for the last two years, House Republicans have proven they're more interested in imposing Trump's dangerous agenda than lifting a finger to help middle-class families and keep our government open. American families deserve better than this extreme bill and they deserve better than House Republicans."
Democratic lawmakers are reportedly expected to propose a clean three-month extension of government funding to avert a shutdown and buy time to negotiate a longer-term deal on government spending.
Ahead of Wednesday's vote, DeLauro warned that House Republicans believe delaying the government funding fight until March 2025 would give them "more leverage to force their unpopular cuts to services that American families depend on to make ends meet."
"This bill is an admission that a House Republican majority cannot govern," said DeLauro. "They would rather gamble on an intervening election than attempt to complete their work on time."
"Because we believe that housing is a human right, like food or healthcare, we believe that more Americans deserve the option of social housing."
"It's becoming nearly impossible for working-class people to buy and keep a roof over their heads. Congress must respond with a plan that matches the scale of this crisis."
That's according to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who on Wednesday introduced the Homes Act in a New York Times opinion piece and an event with supporters of the proposal on Capitol Hill.
"Because we believe that housing is a human right, like food or healthcare, we believe that more Americans deserve the option of social housing," the pair wrote in the Times. "That's why we're introducing the Homes Act, a plan to establish a new, federally backed development authority to finance and build homes in big cities and small towns across America. These homes would be built to last by union workers and then turned over to entities that agree to manage them for permanent affordability: public and tribal housing authorities, cooperatives, tenant unions, community land trusts, nonprofits, and local governments."
"Our housing development authority wouldn't be focused on maximizing profit or returns to shareholders," the congresswomen continued. "Rent would be capped at 25% of a household's adjusted annual gross income. Homes would be set aside for lower-income families in mixed-income buildings and communities. And every home would be built to modern, efficient standards, which would cut residents' utility costs. Renters wouldn't have to worry about the prospect of a big corporation buying up the building and evicting everyone. Some could even come together to purchase their buildings outright."
In addition to establishing the new authority under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the bill would repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which prevents the use of federal money for building new public homes. Under the new plan, construction would be funded by congressional spending and Treasury-backed loans.
"In New York, the average worker would need to clock in 104 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment," Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. "This country is staring down a full-blown housing crisis. A crisis where affordable housing is slipping out of reach."
"This bill would create more than 500,000 jobs and create 1.25 million affordable housing units," she noted, declaring that "everyone deserves a place to call home."
It's not just New York City where lower-wage people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Smith pointed out that "more than 90% of workers cannot afford a modest one-bedroom apartment. Americans across the country are bidding for homes against the wealthiest financial firms and they're losing."
"We have a severe housing crisis," she stressed. "The private market cannot meet this moment on its own. The Homes Act meets peoples' needs through social housing."
As Jacobin's Samuel Stein wrote Wednesday:
The housing system sketched out in the Homes Act looks nothing like what we are used to in the United States. Though we have an important social housing legacy, we have never normalized decommodification as the cornerstone of our housing system.
Introducing legislation like the Homes Act does not accomplish that goal in and of itself, but it offers us a concrete depiction of what that transition could look like. It also highlights the severe disjuncture between what our housing and urban planning system does right now—promote private profits in real estate while minimizing the public provision of housing—and what we need it to do.
The goal of legislation like this is not to pass it immediately, since no sober person would expect the current U.S. Congress to line up in support. Nor is the goal to supplant the messy work of organizing with the schematic and technical language of legislation. Instead, the point is to inspire organizing: to show that the status quo is not the only way our housing could operate, to give tenant organizations a concrete and affirmative vision to build toward, and to offer socialist candidates for office a platform to run on.
The bill to create a social housing authority—introduced less than two months out from the U.S. general election—is backed by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and its affiliates from across the country.
"Working families are being forced to make sacrifices in order to pay the skyrocketing cost of keeping a roof over their heads, while corporate landlords and Wall Street executives are getting even richer," said CPD co-executive directors Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper. "This legislation provides a clear alternative to for-profit housing. It creates a framework to make community-owned, permanently affordable green social housing a reality."
Advocates from both sponsors' states also spoke out in favor of the bill.
"In Greater Minnesota, counties and towns don't have staff to build affordable housing projects, financing is another huge issue. We don’t have as many philanthropic organizations or financial institutions as urban areas," explained Noah Hobbs, policy director at One Roof Community Housing in Duluth. "This bill is the first real investment we've had in years. We're incredibly proud to endorse this legislation."
Aisha Hernandez, secretary of the Coalition to Save Affordable Housing at Co-op City in the Bronx, said that "cooperative housing gave me the ability to co-own my home. A few years ago, my neighbors and I came together to ensure our housing stays affordable, that our management is working in the interest of homeowners and prevent any corporate takeover of Co-op City."
"We are co-owners, not at the whims of corporate landlords," Hernandez added. "I want my fellow Americans to have the same access to housing that co-op has afforded me. This bill has the ability to do that. So let's get it done."