September, 30 2020, 12:00am EDT
President Trump Must Condemn White Supremacy and Racist Violence
Last night, President Donald Trump failed to condemn white supremacist groups and instead told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." In response, Amnesty International USA's End Gun Violence Campaign Manager, Ernest Coverson, released the following statement:
WASHINGTON
Last night, President Donald Trump failed to condemn white supremacist groups and instead told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." In response, Amnesty International USA's End Gun Violence Campaign Manager, Ernest Coverson, released the following statement:
"Last night, President Trump blew yet another dog whistle to the Proud Boys, a group the FBI has deemed an 'extremist organization.' While disappointing and horrifying, this isn't surprising: President Trump has traded in bigotry since day one, putting ordinary people at greater risk of violence and harassment by white supremacists.
"The continued failure of President Trump to denounce racial and ethnic hatred has only emboldened those who wish to normalize discrimination. We have seen how white supremacy, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ sentiment are being used to further discrimination against already marginalized communities. The failure to hold accountable those who commit, encourage, or turn a blind eye to this hateful rhetoric only worsens the problem.
"With a system that allows virtually unfettered access to guns, the president's rhetoric becomes that much more dangerous and potentially violent. Just weeks ago in Kenosha, Wisconsin, we saw the tragic results of what happens when authorities fail to ensure the safety of those targeted by the hateful ideology of white supremacy. The right to protest should not be used as license to intimidate, harass and harm others."
Amnesty International USA will be closely monitoring over the course of the next four weeks and beyond to keep an eye out for protests and incidents of violence, likely to be spurred by the kind of rhetoric heard from President Trump. Threatening peaceful protesters and urging intimidation against the right to express one's political opinion is unconscionable, and will not be tolerated.
This statement is available at: https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/president-trump-must-condemn-white-supremacy-and-racist-violence
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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13% of 2020 Swing State Biden Voters Won't Be in 2024 Because of Gaza: Polls
The figure comes as part of a new set of polls that show former President Donald Trump narrowly leading Biden in 5 out of 6 crucial battleground states.
May 13, 2024
Approximately 13% of poll respondents in six swing states who voted for U.S. President Joe Biden in 2020 but would not vote for him again said that his foreign policy or Israel's war on Gaza were the most important issues determining their vote.
The figure comes as part of a new set of polls released Monday from The New York Times, Siena College, and The Philadelphia Inquirer that show former President Donald Trump narrowly leading Biden in 5 out of 6 crucial battleground states.
"We have warned that this would happen for months, and the Democratic Party didn't give a damn," author and organizer Daniel Denvir wrote on social media in response to the news.
The polls showed Trump leading Biden with registered voters by three percentage points in Pennsylvania, seven in Arizona and Michigan, 10 in Georgia, and a full 12 in Nevada. Only in Wisconsin did Biden edge ahead by two points. Biden won all of these states in 2020, but he could still win in 2024 if he secures Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and does not lose any other states he previously won. The results were slightly different for likely voters, with Trump narrowly leading in every state except for Michigan.
One voter the pollsters spoke to was 30-year-old Gerard Willingham, a Georgia web administrator who voted for Biden in 2020 but said he would vote for a third party candidate in 2024 because of Biden's response to Israel's war on Gaza.
"I think it's made quite a bit of difference in that it made me more heavily than in the past push toward voting for a third party, even if I feel that the candidates almost 100% won't win," Willingham said. "It's starting to reach into my moral conscience, I guess."
"Biden seems to get the blame for the war in Gaza. For the high cost of living, too."
The polling comes after Biden has spent the last seven months providing military, financial, and moral support for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it wages a ground and air assault on Gaza that the International Court of Justice ruled could plausibly be a genocide. Only last week did Biden threaten to withhold certain weapons from Israel if it launches a full ground assault on Rafah, but several observers pointed out that Israel's incursions into Rafah so far should already qualify. Further, the poll was conducted from April 28 to May 9, so many respondents would have given their answers before Biden's May 8 remarks.
Palestinian rights and progressive activists have spent the primary season trying to persuade Biden to switch course on Gaza, launching "uncommitted" campaigns that won two delegates to the Democratic National Convention in the key swing state of Michigan. The poll provides further evidence that Biden's support for Israel's war is a real electoral liability.
"There is a cottage industry of political columnists who have said for months that these voters don't exist, only live in Brooklyn and Berkeley and on Twitter, TikTok, etc.," said Hamid Bendaas, communications director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. "To the extent that Biden and his advisers are buying into it, they are costing him the election."
Gaza isn't the only—or even the primary—issue threatening Biden's reflection bid. A quarter of voters consider the economy and cost of living as their most important issues, and more than half of all voters rated the economy as "poor." Further, Biden actually lost more support overall from conservative and moderate Democrats.
Responding to the poll results, journalist Frank Bruni said that Biden needed to "wake up."
While Democratic Party insiders seem to believe that there is no way voters could ultimately prefer Trump's anti-abortion stance and authoritarian leanings, Bruni warned against "complacency."
He pointed out that Democratic senators in Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Nevada did continue to poll ahead of their Republican opponents, suggesting that the problem is less with the Democratic Party overall than with Biden himself.
"Biden seems to get the blame for the war in Gaza. For the high cost of living, too," Bruni wrote.
"Regarding the economy, he has a story to tell—infrastructure investment, the CHIPS Act, low unemployment—and must tell it better, with an eye not on his liberal base, but on the minorities and young people who are drifting away from him," he advised. "That's the moral of the latest numbers: Take no voter for granted. And there's not a second to waste."
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UN Secretary-General Calls for Probe After Staffer Killed in Gaza
One U.N. staff member was killed and another was injured after an attack on their "clearly marked" vehicle.
May 13, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday reiterated his demand for a cease-fire in Gaza as he called for a full investigation into an attack on a "clearly marked" U.N. vehicle which killed one staff member and injured another in Rafah.
The U.N. did not identify the victims, but said the staff member who was killed worked for the U.N. Department of Safety and Security (DSS) and was the body's first international worker to be killed in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the enclave in October.
"The secretary-general condemns all attacks on U.N. personnel and calls for a full investigation," said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for Guterres. "He sends his condolences to the family of the fallen staff member. With the conflict in Gaza continuing to take a heavy toll—not only on civilians, but also on humanitarian workers—the secretary-general reiterates his urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and for the release of all hostages."
Approximately 190 U.N. workers have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its attack. Until Monday all had been Palestinian nationals and most had worked for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has provided aid and public services to Gaza since 1948 and is a top employer in the enclave.
"Humanitarian workers must be protected," said Guterres on social media.
The DSS employees had been traveling to European Hospital in Rafah, where about 1 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced since October. About 300,000 people have fled the city in the past week amid Israel's long-feared invasion.
The attack on the U.N. vehicle comes weeks after Israel struck another clearly marked humanitarian convoy, killing seven international aid workers with the U.S. group World Central Kitchen.
Israel has also attacked humanitarian aid operations, firing on civilians who gathered around a convoy to get food as starvation took hold of the enclave due to the Israeli blockade on nearly all relief deliveries, and killing at least one U.N. worker at a food distribution center in Rafah in March.
Israel and its defenders in the Biden administration have repeatedly claimed the Israel Defense Forces are taking steps to prevent civilian deaths, even as the death toll has surged past 35,000. In October, as the IDF began its assault in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said publicly that he had "released all the restraints" on the military.
Author and Middle East policy expert Assal Rad asserted Monday that "you don't kill 190 U.N. staff, repeatedly kill aid workers in clearly marked vehicles, kill an unprecedented number of journalists, doctors, and medics, tens of thousands of civilians, and more than 14,000 children on 'accident.'"
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'We're Gonna Win': Alabama Mercedes Workers Begin UAW Vote
A victory in the Southern state, said one organizer, "would show workers across all different industries that they can stand up together and fight for more."
May 13, 2024
From Monday through Friday, around 5,200 employees of Mercedes-Benz in Alabama will vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers—which has set its sights on the U.S. South after contract wins at the industry's "Big Three" in Michigan last year.
While Republican leaders in the state, including Gov. Kay Ivey, and at least one worker have publicly attacked the unionization effort, multiple Mercedes employees have signaled their support for the UAW going into this week's voting at an assembly facility in Vance and battery plant in Woodstock.
"I've watched our company not keep up with the times," Mercedes worker Brett Garrard recently told the Detroit Free Press. "We pray for fair wages, comparative wages inside the auto industry. Benefits packages have suffered throughout the years. My wife, herself, has stage four cancer. I'd like to see something implemented to maybe help our situation."
David Johnston, who works at the Woodstock plant, has also cited medical concerns, tellingForbes that "I'm always in a medical hospital. I'm always sick. I need better healthcare. Plus, when I retire I'm not going to have any insurance until Medicare kicks in."
Johnston is optimistic about the vote in Alabama. He pointed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Volkswagen plant employees last month overwhelmingly voted to join the UAW.
"I mean, hands down. I think we're gonna win. We're gonna win. Hopefully by a lot," he said. "It seems like it's gonna be a slam dunk just like Volkswagen. Everybody's excited."
Haeden Wright, a senior organizer for Jobs to Move America, toldAL.com that a win in Alamaba "would show workers across all different industries that they can stand up together and fight for more."
In comments to The Guardian, Mercedes employee Rick Webster similarly framed this week's vote as part of a larger battle.
"It's time for Alabama workers to stand up and unite not just at Mercedes, but at Hyundai, Honda, and Toyota. It's time for everybody to stand up and have a voice and we need to end the Alabama discount," he said, using an organizer term to highlight how workers in the state have subpar wages and benefits compared to their peers elsewhere in the country.
Webster also called out Mercedes' efforts to convince workers in Alabama not to vote in favor of joining the UAW—which has filed multiple union-busting complaints against the company with the National Labor Relations Board.
"It is a daily barrage of text messages, emails, and there's an app we have for work for every kind of announcement you can think of and we're getting two to three notifications daily. Every day before the shift, we have to sit in the team room and watch anti-union videos," he explained. "It's just been a constant barrage. Everybody is just sick and tired of it."
Johnston toldNPR that "the entire message in those meetings is Vote no, vote no, vote no. We don't think you need to do this. This is not what you want."
A company spokesperson has told multiple news outlets that Mercedes-Benz U.S. International "fully respects our team members' choice whether to unionize and we look forward to participating in the election process to ensure every team member has a chance to cast their own secret-ballot vote, as well as having access to the information necessary to make an informed choice."
The United Auto Workers webpage on the Alabama effort includes information about who is eligible to vote, how to participate, and workers' rights as well as the UAW's responses to some of opponents' allegations against the union.
"Right now, Mercedes is doing whatever they can to discourage us. But voting yes for our union is a game-changer," the UAW webpage says. "Once we vote yes, the company is legally required to sit down with us as equals to bargain a contract. Just like VW, Mercedes has negotiated union contracts with workers all around the world. We can win our union, our union contract, and our fair share right here in Alabama."
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