July, 28 2017, 04:45pm EDT
Nurses Challenge Rep. Blake Farenthold to Duel of Healthcare Facts Sunday, July 30
“On behalf of Texas patients, we challenge Rep. Farenthold to step outside and settle this healthcare debate Medicare-for-All style,” say nurses
WASHINGTON
The registered nurses of Corpus Christi are challenging Texas 27th congressional district Rep. Blake Farenthold to step outside (of his office) and take part in a duel of healthcare facts this Sunday at 3 p.m., National Nurses United/National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNU/NNOC) announced today.
Rep. Farenthold recently reacted to several Republican women senators' no vote on the GOP healthcare bill by saying their opposition would have caused him to "step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style" had they been south Texas men. Early Friday morning, the GOP bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was defeated in the Senate.
"If Rep. Farenthold wants a duel, given the suffering we see every day in this broken healthcare system, nurses will be at his office Sunday for a duel of critical thinking," said NNU/NNOC member Sylvia Higgins, RN. "Currently, 4.3 million Texans are uninsured, and an additional 2.5 million Texans would have lost coverage under the dangerous GOP bill. Now that the GOP bill is effectively dead, any politician who truly represents the people would internalize the real facts about healthcare and begin advocating for a single-payer Medicare-for-All healthcare system--because that's what our patients deserve."
What: Nurses Challenge Rep. Farenthold to Duel (of Healthcare Facts)
When: Sunday, July 30, 3 p.m.
Where: 101 N Shoreline Blvd #300, Corpus Christi, TX 78401
Nurses will be joined on Sunday by the Corpus Christi American Federation of Teachers, the Progressive Center of Corpus Christi, and other community groups. The "duel" will feature NNU/NNOC member Cynthia Martinez, RN walking 10 paces and then turning around to hit Farenthold (present or not) with the facts, including:
- 29 million Americans are currently uninsured and millions more are underinsured. The GOP healthcare bill would have resulted in 23 million additional uninsured patients.
- In Rep. Farenthold's district alone (Texas 27th district), 62,700 additional people would have lost coverage by 2026 under the GOP healthcare bill.
- In Rep. Farenthold's district alone, 10 percent of children are already uninsured--a number nurses say would be unconscionable to purposely increase by voting yes on dangerous healthcare legislation.
- 60 percent of Americans say they believe it is the government's job to ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage.
- The support for single payer/Medicare for All is growing, and Rep. Farenthold needs to listen to the will of the people and start advocating for guaranteed healthcare as a human right.
"As a mother/baby nurse, I care for the entire community, from all walks of life," said Martinez. "We see the effects of our broken healthcare system when women come in with limited or no prenatal care, either because they don't have insurance or because they can't afford their copays and deductibles. When mothers have underlying medical conditions that could have been treated with preventative care, it not only threatens the health of the mother, but it also makes babies very sick."
"We need single payer/Medicare for All, and we need Rep. Farenthold to advocate for it. He works for us, and he is supposed to be doing what is best for the community. If we were to mandate for our elected officials to have the same healthcare coverage as every other citizen of this nation, would he want what the GOP healthcare bill had proposed for himself and his family? If the answer is no, it's not what he should want for the American people."
Nurses say rather than blaming women senators for the failure of this legislation, elected officials like Rep. Farenthold should understand that the legislation failed because it is simply not what the people want.
"Many of us nurses are also women, and we are capable, strong, and intelligent," said Martinez. "We call on Rep. Farenthold to come out Sunday and really listen to the nurses who are on the front lines of this healthcare crisis every day. We know what will truly protect our patients, and it's Medicare for all."
National Nurses United is the largest union of registered nurses in the country, with over 150,000 members nationwide.
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
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Wyden Says Spying Bill Would Force Americans to Become an 'Agent for Big Brother'
"If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy," said Sen. Ron Wyden.
Apr 17, 2024
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to speak out against a chilling mass surveillance bill that lawmakers are working to rush through the upper chamber and send to President Joe Biden's desk by the end of the week.
The measure in question would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years and massively expand the federal government's warrantless surveillance power by requiring a wide range of businesses and individuals to cooperate with spying efforts.
"If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy," said Wyden (Ore.), referring to an amendment that was tacked on to the legislation by the U.S. House last week with bipartisan support. "That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a Wi-Fi router, a phone, or a computer. So think for a moment about the millions of Americans who work in buildings and offices in which communications are stored or pass through."
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Wyden's remarks came after the Senate narrowly approved a motion Tuesday to proceed to the FISA reauthorization bill ahead of Section 702's expiration at the end of the week. The Oregon senator, an outspoken privacy advocate, was among the seven members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the procedural motion.
Despite its grave implications for civil liberties, the bill has drawn relatively little vocal opposition in the Senate. A final vote could come as soon as Thursday.
Titled Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), the legislation passed the Republican-controlled House last week after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have added a search warrant requirement to Section 702.
The authority allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country, but it has been abused extensively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency to collect the communications of American lawmakers, activists, journalists, and others without a warrant.
Privacy advocates warn RISAA would dramatically expand the scope of Section 702 by broadening the kinds of individuals and businesses required to participate in government spying. A key provision of the bill would mandate cooperation from "electronic communications service providers" such as Google, Verizon, and AT&T as well as "any other service provider who has access to equipment that is being or may be used" to transmit or store electronic communications.
That would mean U.S. intelligence agencies could, without a warrant, compel gyms, grocery stores, barber shops, and other businesses to hand over communications data.
"In the face of the pervasive past misuse of Section 702, the last thing Americans need is a large expansion of government surveillance," Caitlin Vogus, deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian on Tuesday. "The Senate should reject the House bill and refuse to reauthorize Section 702 without a warrant requirement. Lawmakers must demand reforms to put a stop to unjustified government spying on Americans."
Wyden said during his floor speech Tuesday that some of his colleagues "say they aren't worried about President Biden abusing these authorities."
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More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
"We write to express our deep concern regarding the U.S. Department of State's recent comments regarding assurances from the Israeli government, under National Security Memorandum (NSM) 20, that the Israeli government is using U.S.-origin weapons in full compliance with relevant U.S. and international law and is not restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Cabinet members.
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The legislators noted Israeli attacks on aid convoys, workers, and recipients—like the February 29 "
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While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26
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The lawmakers' letter came amid reports of fresh Israeli atrocities, including a drone strike on a playground in the Maghazi refugee camp in northern Gaza that killed at least 11 children. Eyewitnesses described a "horrific scene of children torn apart."
While Biden has called out Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza—much of it carried out using U.S.-supplied warplanes and munitions including 2,000-pound bombs that can level whole city blocks—his administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel, has repeatedly sidestepped Congress to fast-track emergency armed aid, and is seeking to provide the key ally with billions of dollars in addition weaponry atop the nearly $4 billion it gets annually from Washington.
This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules— prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who was criticized earlier in the war for not calling for a cease-fire—stood beside a photo of a starving Gazan girl while declaring "no more money for" the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his "war machine."
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"The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism."
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The wife of jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sharply criticized "assurances" the U.S. government made as the U.K. High Court considers allowing the 52-year-old Australian's extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison.
The U.S. document states that if extradited, "Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States," though it points out that "a decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. courts."
"A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange," the document adds, noting that he has not been charged with any offense for which that is a possible punishment. It comes after the U.K. court ruled last month that the Biden administration had until Tuesday to confirm that he wouldn't face the death penalty and if it did not, he could continue appealing his extradition.
Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
"Instead, the U.S. has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can 'seek to raise' the First Amendment if extradited," she added. "The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family's extreme distress about his future—his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in U.S. prison for publishing award-winning journalism. The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
The U.K. court's next hearing is scheduled for May 20. Last week, reporters asked U.S. President Joe Biden about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country's Parliament to drop the extradition effort and charges. He said that "we're considering it."
So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified documents including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Since British authorities dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—where he lived with political asylum for seven years—he has been jailed in the city's Belmarsh Prison.
The WikiLeaks founder's wife, with whom he has two children, was not alone in condemning the U.S. assurances on Tuesday.
"This 'assurance' should make journalists even more worried about how the Assange prosecution could impact press freedom in the U.S. and globally. The U.K. should grant Assange's appeal and refuse to extradite him," said the Freedom of the Press Foundation. "The U.S. doesn't disclaim the ability to argue that the First Amendment doesn't apply to Assange because of his nationality or other reasons, or for a court to rule against a First Amendment challenge to his prosecution."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, similarly said that "no one who cares about press freedom should take any comfort at all from the United States' assurance that Assange will be permitted to 'rely upon' the First Amendment."
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