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Corbyn's 'Political Earthquake'
WASHINGTON
Longtime British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn this weekend won the leadership of the Labour Party with 60 percent in a field of four candidates.
In his address before the Labour Party, Corbyn said: "Let us be a force for change in the world, a force for humanity in the world, a force for peace in the world and a force that recognizes we cannot go on like this with grotesque levels of global insecurity, grotesque threats to our environment all around the world without the rich and powerful governments stepping up to the plate to make sure our world becomes safer and better. And those people don't end up in poverty, in refugee camps, wasting their lives away when they could be contributing so much to the good of all of us on this planet. We are one world, let that message go out today from this conference center here in London." [Video and transcript]
Just after his victory address before the Labour Party, Corbyn spoke at a rally for refugees: "We need to have a thought as to why people end up in such desperate situations. I've been in parliament a long time and I've seen many decisions taken. And in moments of clamor and moments of fervor, decisions are made -- go here, invade there, bomb there, do this, do that. It's the easy situation, the media build it up, there's lots of military advice, there's lots of apparently simple and easy solutions. ... The refugees move on and on, and there are whole generations of refugees around the world that are victims of various wars." [Video and transcript]
JAMES PAUL, [in NYC], james.paul.nyc at gmail.com Author of Syria Unmasked, Paul was executive director of Global Policy Forum, a think tank that monitors the UN, for nearly 20 years. He was also a longtime editor of the Oxford Companion to Politics of the World and executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project.
Paul was just on an accuracy.org news release titled "Regime Change Refugees," in which he states: "The migrants coming to Europe are mostly fleeting conflicts. The data on origins make that clear. The migrants are coming primarily from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Pakistan in the Middle East, and to a lesser extent from Eritrea, Somalia and Nigeria in Africa. These are all countries with vicious conflicts -- conflicts that (with the exception of Nigeria) began with Western military intervention, direct or indirect and continued to be fueled by intervention In Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia the intervention was very direct. In Syria, Pakistan and Eritrea, it has been less direct but very clear nonetheless.
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As reported by The Guardian, 66 victims of Typhoon Rai, a 2021 storm that killed more than 400 people and left millions more displaced, filed a lawsuit in the United Kingdom on Wednesday demanding that Shell provide them with financial compensation for their losses.
The Guardian noted that this is the first-ever civil complaint "to directly link polluting companies to deaths and personal injuries that have already happened in the Global South," as most other lawsuits against fossil fuel companies have been focused on potential future risks.
In the US earlier this year, a woman named Misti Leon sued several fossil fuel giants, arguing they were liable for the death of her mother, who died in an extreme heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021.
The attorneys representing the victims in the Philippines case have invited Shell to respond to their allegations, and said they will file the case with the UK High Court by the end of the year if the two parties do not come to an agreement.
The lawsuit centers on Philippine laws stating that citizens have the right to a healthy environment, and it cites leaked internal documents from Shell that suggest it possessed full knowledge about the negative impact its activities are having on the climate.
Greg Lascelles, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the fact that Shell continued to aggressively expand its fossil fuel extraction operations "knowing the harm they would cause, coupled with deliberately misinforming the public, can be considered acting contrary to certain provisions of Filipino law."
A spokesperson for Shell told The Guardian that it is not fair to blame their company exclusively for the global climate emergency.
"The suggestion that Shell had unique knowledge about climate change is simply not true," they said. "The issue of climate change and how to tackle it has been part of public discussion and scientific research for decades."
One 1988 document from Shell cautioned that "by the time the global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilize the situation," while another projected that "catastrophic weather events" could eventually trigger lawsuits against governments and oil companies.
"After all, two successive [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports since 1995 have reinforced the human connection to climate change," wrote Shell scenario planners.
Although the lawsuit against Shell is the first to directly link fossil fuel companies to recent climate disasters in the Global South, Climate Home Newsnoted in a Thursday report that many legal experts believe that a ruling earlier this year from a court in Germany "confirmed that climate science can establish legal liability for damage caused by emissions."
Specifically, the court this past May found that companies can be held liable for climate damages, although it dismissed a specific claim from a Peruvian farmer who had sued German energy company RWE for allegedly putting his home at risk of floods due to melting glaciers.
As The Guardianreported at the time, the court ruled that polluters "must bear the costs in proportion to their share of... emissions" if they fail to take "preventative measures" to reduce environmental destruction.
The Missouri Republican introduced a bill to protect SNAP benefits during the government shutdown after supporting a budget package that contains the largest food aid cuts in US history.
"The Republicans, evidently, don't care whether they have either," Warren added.
Hawley's statement on the new legislation did not mention his support for President Donald Trump's signature budget package, which included the largest SNAP cuts in US history, affecting millions across the nation—including many children.
The looming SNAP benefit cuts due to the government shutdown are set to compound the impacts of food aid cuts from the Trump-GOP budget law. The Trump administration is currently pressuring states to swiftly implement the law's draconian SNAP changes, including more expansive work requirements.
Hawley's new bill, titled the Keep SNAP Funded Act, marks the second time this year that the Missouri Republican has come to the defense of a program that he has helped attack. Just two weeks after helping pass the Trump-GOP budget package, which contains around $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade, Hawley unveiled legislation aimed at repealing some of those cuts.
The bill went nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate.
It's unclear whether Hawley's SNAP legislation will suffer the same fate. The Republican senator said if GOP leaders don't agree to bring it up for a vote, he intends to try to pass it via unanimous consent.
Dozens of states have said they have begun sending out notices informing SNAP recipients that they won't receive benefits next month if the shutdown continues, and food pantries across the nation are preparing for a surge in demand.
Legislation like Hawley's isn't necessary to ensure that SNAP recipients continue receiving at least partial benefits as the shutdown drags on, experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) stressed earlier this week.
"Nearly two-thirds of the funds needed for a full month of benefits are available in SNAP's contingency fund and must be used when regular funding for SNAP runs short," wrote CBPP's Dottie Rosenbaum and Katie Bergh. "The administration must release those funds immediately as SNAP law requires, to ensure that families can put food on the table next month."
As of this writing, the Trump administration has made no indication it plans to release those funds.
In addition to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said the senator, "you've got a lot of great young people right now in the Progressive Caucus in the House... And that gives me a lot of optimism about our political future."
Despite the Trump administration's increasing assaults on immigrant communities, the political left, and the rule of law, US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday said he is optimistic "about our political future" when he looks at progressive leaders including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In excerpts of the latest episode of "The Axios Show" by the news outlet Axios, which is set to be released in full on Friday, Sanders (I-Vt.) weighed in on the recent news that Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is considering a presidential run in 2028.
When host Alex Thompson asked him whether Ocasio-Cortez would be a "formidable" candidate, Sanders replied, "I think she would."
He added that a number of other Democratic elected officials would also be good candidates, and said the congresswoman's future political moves are "her decision to make." Ocasio-Cortez has also been named as a potential challenger to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2026.
Sanders spoke about Ocasio-Cortez's ability to connect with voters she meets in person.
"I've been out on the streets with her, people come up, and how she responds to people is so incredibly genuine and open," he said. "It's just something that's a gift that she has. It's a quality that she has, she's a great speaker out there."
While progressive electoral successes like Ocasio-Cortez's have often been dismissed by centrist Democrats and Republicans who claim left-wing candidates don't have appeal outside of deep-blue urban areas like New York City, the congresswoman—who's often called by her nickname, AOC—has received warm receptions in conservative, rural parts of the country, including when speaking to crowds of thousands with Sanders on his Fighting Oligarchy Tour this year.
"She comes from the working class, she was a kid who was cleaning houses with her mother," he said. "She knows what it's like not to have any money and she’s going out, fighting for working families all over this country."
"I do want to say, it's not just Alexandria," he said. "You've got a lot of great young people right now in the Progressive Caucus in the House...I mean literally dozens... And that gives me a lot of optimism about our political future."
Sanders also spoke about Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is running a campaign focused on lifting up the working class in the primary against multiple candidates, including Gov. Janet Mills, as the party aims to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Platner has been the subject of controversy in recent days over deleted Reddit posts he wrote in the past and a tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol—one that he got while serving in the military and that didn't prevent him from being approved to reenlist. He announced Wednesday that he had gotten the tattoo covered with another image, before continuing his campaign with a town hall where he spoke to hundreds of Maine voters.
When Thompson asked Sanders about Platner's controversies, he answered that he is "not overly impressed by a squad of media running around saying, 'What do you think about the tattoo on Graham Platner's chest?'"
"Between you and me, there might be one or two more important issues," he said before speaking about the progressive oyster farmer's impressive campaign rallies and the "dark period" he went through in the past.
"He went through some very difficult experiences in the military," said Sanders. "Seeing his friends killed... He went to the VA and by the way, he says they rebuilt his life. He went into a dark period in his life. I suspect that Graham Platner is not the only American to have gone through a dark period."
📺 EXCLUSIVE: On the latest episode of The Axios Show, @SenSanders defends Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, saying there might be "one or two more important issues" than the Marine veteran's tattoos.
"The guy that I saw up on the stage in Portland, Maine, rather a brilliant guy," said the senator. "Really a strong fighter for the working class, very articulate, very smart and what he said is, 'Yeah, I went through a dark period and said stupid things. I am not the person that I was back then.'"
"And I think as a nation," he added, "especially given the fact that we have a president who was convicted of 34 felonies, maybe we have to do a little bit of forgiveness."
