SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Opinion
Climate
Economy
Politics
Rights & Justice
War & Peace
U.S Attorney  Markenzy Lapointe speaks at news conference
Further

Surreal: U.S. Attorney In Charge of Trump Almost Shooting Is Haitian-American and We Are Here For It

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."

SEE ALL
Loss and Damage protest
News

New Report Lays Out How US Can Address Its 'Fair Share' of the Climate Crisis

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."

SEE ALL
autoworkers demonstrating
News

Thousands of Autoworkers Protest in Brussels Amid Likely Audi Layoffs

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!"

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.

SEE ALL
Trump on a golf course.
News

Trump 'Safe' After Shots Fired Near to Him on Golf Course

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.

SEE ALL
Amber Nicole Thurman with her son
News

Georgia Woman's Death Marks First Confirmed Case of Fatal Post-Roe Abortion Denial

Reproductive rights advocates have warned for years that abortion bans and restrictions like those now in place in 22 U.S. states would kill pregnant people, and have been dismissed as "hyperbolic" by right-wing lawmakers and activists.

On Monday, new reporting shed light for the first time on the case of one woman whose "preventable" death was the result of an abortion ban—and as ProPublica reported, "there are almost certainly others."

The outlet reported on the story of Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28-year-old mother of a six-year-old son in Georgia, who realized she was pregnant in July 2022—weeks after the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and just as the state's six-week abortion ban was going into effect.

Thurman had just passed the six-week mark in her pregnancy as the ban took effect on July 20, with "exceptions" that Republicans claimed would allow doctors to provide care to pregnant people who were facing life-threatening complications.

Unable to get an abortion in her home state, the medical assistant, who was planning to attend nursing school and had recently been able to move out of her family's home into an apartment with her son, scheduled a dilation and curettage (D&C)—a surgical abortion procedure—at a clinic in North Carolina, about four hours away. Scheduling the appointment required taking the day off work, finding childcare, and borrowing a relative's car.

Thurman hit heavy traffic on the way to the clinic and missed her appointment; with abortion bans going into effect across the Southeast, the facility was overwhelmed with out-of-state patients and was unable to schedule another D&C for her.

Instead, she was prescribed the abortion pills misoprostol and mifepristone, and took the first pill before heading back home with plans to take the second in Georgia.

After taking the second pill, however, Thurman experienced a rare complication, with some of the fetal tissue remaining in her uterus.

Before Georgia's abortion ban went into effect, she would have been able to obtain a D&C, with doctors removing the remaining tissue—a fairly routine procedure, and part of the standard care for a miscarriage.

As ProPublica reported, the year after the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, affirming that abortion care was a constitutional right in the U.S., the new availability of D&Cs for abortion and miscarriages slashed the maternal mortality rate for women of color by up to 40%.

But when Thurman arrived at Piedmont Henry Hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Stockbridge—having experienced increasing pain and heavy bleeding before vomiting blood and fainting—she encountered a medical team that delayed providing her the standard care for roughly 20 hours.

ProPublica noted that the "supposed lifesaving exceptions" in Georgia's six-week abortion ban prohibit doctors from using medical instruments "with the purpose of terminating a pregnancy," and specify that procedures such as a D&C can only be used if fetal tissue needs to be removed due to a "spontaneous abortion"—the medical term for a miscarriage.

Thurman had told the doctors that she had had a medication abortion, which Republican state lawmakers hadn't included in the exceptions—suggesting she shouldn't be provided care since she'd chosen to terminate her pregnancy. Violating the law could result in prosecution and a prison sentence of up to a decade for a doctor.

The morning after Thurman arrived at the hospital at around 9:30 pm on August 18, 2022, with an ultrasound showing fetal tissue remaining in Thurman's body, a doctor diagnosed "acute severe sepsis," but it was still hours before the staff provided care to remove the tissue.

According to ProPublica:

By 5:14 a.m., Thurman was breathing rapidly and at risk of bleeding out, according to her vital signs. Even five liters of IV fluid had not moved her blood pressure out of the danger zone. Doctors escalated the antibiotics.

[...]

At 6:45 a.m., Thurman’s blood pressure continued to dip, and she was taken to the intensive care unit.

At 7:14 a.m., doctors discussed initiating a D&C. But it still didn’t happen. Two hours later, lab work indicated her organs were failing, according to experts who read her vital signs.

At 12:05 p.m., more than 17 hours after Thurman had arrived, a doctor who specializes in intensive care notified the OB-GYN that her condition was deteriorating.

Thurman was finally taken to an operating room at 2 p.m.

By then, the situation was so dire that doctors started with open abdominal surgery. They found that her bowel needed to be removed, but it was too risky to operate because not enough blood was flowing to the area—a possible complication from the blood pressure medication, an expert explained to ProPublica. The OB performed the D&C but immediately continued with a hysterectomy.

During surgery, Thurman's heart stopped.

The state's maternal mortality review board, which includes 10 physicians, determined that the hospital's decision to delay providing care for nearly an entire day had a "large" impact on Thurman's "preventable" death.

ProPublica identified one other Georgia woman whose death was caused by delayed abortion care resulting from the state's ban, and plans to report on her story in the coming days.

"This is what abortion bans do," said writer and activist Jessica Valenti.

At The New York Times, columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote that "it was only a matter of time" before Americans would learn that an abortion ban had killed a pregnant person.

"The shattering fallout from abortion prohibition was entirely predictable for anyone who has paid attention to such bans in other countries," Goldberg wrote, citing the 2012 case in Ireland of Savita Halappanavar, who died of septicemia after doctors refused to treat her for a miscarriage because her fetus still had a heartbeat.

"In Ireland, the name Savita became a rallying cry" that led voters to overwhelmingly approve a referendum making abortion legal, wrote Goldberg. "The name Amber should be one here."

On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, addressed Thurman's story, saying her death is "exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down."

"This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school," said Harris. "Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again... And now women are dying. These are the consequences of [Republican candidate] Donald Trump's actions."

A spokesperson for Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's office dismissed the medical board's finding that Thurman's death could have been prevented if not for the state's abortion ban, telling ProPublica that the law allows doctors to provide care in medical emergencies and calling the outlet's reporting a "fear-mongering campaign."

But Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of progressive advocacy group Indivisible, said Thurman death "was not a tragic mistake."

"It is the logical outcome of the Georgia abortion ban working exactly as intended," said Greenberg, "by horrifically punishing women who try to access abortion care."

SEE ALL
Sen. Bernie Sanders
News

Sanders Leads New Senate Effort to Stop Flow of US Arms to Israel

Demanding that the Biden administration follow the lead of several close U.S. allies in recent months, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday announced his intention to take action on the Senate floor to stop the flow of American weapons to Israel.

The Vermont independent said in a statement that he plans to file Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD) regarding the sale of offensive weapons to the Middle Eastern country, which for nearly a year has bombarded civilian infrastructure and blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, killing more than 41,000 Palestinians and pushing the enclave into famine.

The JRD is the only congressional mechanism that can prevent weapons sales from moving forward, and after months of demanding the Biden administration end military support for Israel, Sanders said that "Congress must act to save lives, uphold U.S. and international law, and stand up for U.S. interests."

HuffPost journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported that other lawmakers, including Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are involved in the JRD effort, "a key factor in how much support this can get" before a vote, which would "most likely" take place in November.

After a Hamas-led attack last October, said Sanders on Wednesday, Israel did not "have the right to wage an all-out war against the Palestinian people, which is what Prime Minister Netanyahu's extremist government has done."

"As a result of Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid into Gaza, many thousands of children there face malnutrition and even starvation," said the senator. "Sadly, and illegally, much of the carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment. Providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would violate U.S. and international law."

Sanders noted that continuing to export weapons to Israel—like the $20 billion in arms sales that President Joe Biden approved in August—would violate U.S. laws including the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), as U.S. weapons have been directly linked to attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Palestinian civilians.

As Amnesty International reported in April, the IDF used U.S. bombs and other weapons in several attacks, including four strikes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children last December and January.

Sanders noted that other weapons included in the August arms sales approval—Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), totaling $262 million; and 120mm tank rounds, totaling $774.1 million—were "particularly concerning, given their indiscriminate use in Gaza."

The senator cited an Israeli JDAM strike on October 31, 2023 in Jabalia, which killed at least 126 civilians, including 69 children. He also pointed to the 120mm tank rounds used by the IDF in Gaza City on January 29, 2024 in an attack that killed six-year-old Hind Rajab and two paramedics.

"There is extensive evidence that these systems are being used in violation of U.S. and international law," said Sanders, citing the administration's own report pursuant to National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20), which stated that "it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm."

"In light of this reality," said Sanders, "it is inappropriate to move ahead with these sales."

The senator noted that U.S. allies including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands are among those that have restricted weapons sales to Israel, with officials citing the risk that the transfers could make their governments complicit in violations of international law.

"The sales would reward Netanyahu's extremist government, even as it continues to cause massive destruction in Gaza, undermine the prospects of a cease-fire deal that would secure the release of the hostages, and advance its effort to illegally annex the West Bank," said Sanders. "We must end our complicity in Israel's illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering."

James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, applauded Sanders' plan to file the JRD, calling it a "critically important step to block $20 billion in U.S. arms to Israel."

"Genocide in Gaza, annexation in the West Bank, and expansion of the war in Lebanon will continue as long as Israel's impunity continues," said Zogby. "We must act now."

SEE ALL