March, 03 2021, 11:00pm EDT
AFT President Randi Weingarten Applauds Passage of H.R. 1, the For the People Act
Statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the House of Representatives' passage of H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, a bill to restore the rights of working people, limit the power of the corrupt and expand voting rights:
WASHINGTON
Statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the House of Representatives' passage of H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, a bill to restore the rights of working people, limit the power of the corrupt and expand voting rights:
"During the 2020 election, Americans had to fight just to have their votes counted. Across the country, numerous voters waited in line for hours to cast their ballots. Rampant voter suppression of the historically marginalized, systematic gerrymandering, and special interest money all worked overtime to stifle the voices of people who only hoped to participate in their democracy. Add to that the unchecked chaos and division that has seeped into our political system and left government mistrust at an all-time high, and you have the recipe for a democracy in disrepair.
"Thankfully, with this bill, the 117th Congress has made repairing our democracy its priority. H.R. 1 ensures fairness in our electoral process, expands voting access and the rights of working people, and limits corporate power and corruptive influence in government. It's time for every family and every community in this country to have a fair shot, a voice at work, a voice in their democracy and an opportunity to thrive.
"H.R. 1 lays the groundwork for that. It addresses the very real threats to the foundation of our democracy by strengthening the government's ethics laws, imposing important restrictions on campaign finance regulations, and expanding voting rights so all Americans can have a voice at the ballot box. It is one huge step toward ensuring the soul of our democracy remains intact and restoring power to those it belongs to--the people. With the passage of this legislation, the House of Representatives is responding to the will of the people, who voted in record numbers for representatives, senators and a president who believe our democracy works best when every vote is counted and every voice is heard. We hope the Senate will follow their lead."
The American Federation of Teachers is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do. The American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was founded in 1916 and today represents 1.6 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates nationwide.
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'Leaving the US Behind,' 50+ Nations Gather in Colombia to 'Phase Out Fossil Fuels'
"Word on the street is NO fossil fuel lobbyists at the Santa Marta, Colombia 'Transition Away' conference," said one climate journalist.
Apr 24, 2026
Representatives of more than 50 countries on Friday kicked off the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Colombia, a hopeful summit that comes amid a worsening global climate crisis and fossil fuel-producing nations' efforts to block a clean energy transition.
Organizers of the conference—which is taking place in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta and is co-hosted by the Netherlands—said participants aim to "initiate a concrete process through which a coalition of committed countries, subnational governments, and relevant stakeholders can identify and advance enabling pathways to implement a progressive transition away from fossil fuels, creating sustainable societies and economies."
"This process will be informed by the experience and perspectives of national and subnational governments, academia, Indigenous peoples, peoples of African descent, peasants, civil society, workers, the private sector, and other key actors at different stages of the transition," the organizers added.
The conference comes amid widespread disappointment and frustration over what climate defenders called a "shamefully weak" draft text—called the Multirão Decision—produced at last November's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Brazil. The final document removed all mentions of fossil fuels amid pressure from oil and gas-producing nations like the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and the presence of a record number of industry lobbyists.
“When multilateral processes move slowly, concrete alliances of the willing can take us a long way," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week at the 17th Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Hesse state, where high-level representatives from around 40 countries discussed "concrete steps towards overcoming the climate crisis."
I've worked on #climate and fossil fuels for almost 30 years and the Santa Marta Conference is definitely one of the most hopeful things I've seen. Finally some governments are exploring solutions that meet the scale of the crisis. Good explainer 🧵👇
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— Patrick Reinsborough ❌👑 (@giantwhispers.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 7:57 AM
The Santa Marta conference, which will run through April 29, will focus on three main areas:
- Overcoming economic dependence on fossil fuels;
- Transforming energy supply and demand; and
- Advancing international cooperation and climate diplomacy.
Major fossil fuel producers including Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, and the United Kingdom are among the 54 nations represented in Santa Marta.
Notably absent from the conference are some of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters, including the United States, China, Russia, India, and Japan. Their absence is fine with Colombian Environmental Minister Irene Vélez Torres, who told The Guardian that “this is not the space for them."
"We are not going to have boycotters or climate denialists at the table,” Vélez said.
Also missing by design are the legions of lobbyists who increasingly swarm COP conferences.
Word on the street is NO fossil fuel lobbyists at the Santa Marta, Colombia 'Transition Away' conference. But it does have some of the best climate scientists in the world for an advisory panel.
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— Bob Berwyn (@bberwyn.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 11:15 AM
Former Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who heads the World Wildlife Fund's global climate division, said in a statement that "changing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels isn’t a slow problem with a slow solution: We need a rapid, global shift to renewable power, smarter grids, and efficiency, so emissions fall fast and stay down."
"And we need a ‘coalition of the willing’ to show us the way," he added. "Santa Marta is an inflection point and an opportunity that we should not miss.”
The absence of the United States surprised no one, given the Trump administration and Republicans' promotion of oil, gas, and coal. Big Oil invested $445 million during the 2024 election cycle in efforts to elect Trump and other Republicans and promote fossil fuel-friendly policies.
Trump, who ran on a “drill, baby, drill” energy policy, has signed a series of executive orders aimed at boosting fossil fuel production, including by declaring a fake “energy emergency” in a push to fast-track permit approvals. He also tapped former fossil fuel executives to head the Department of Energy and Interior Department, which have pursued a policy of opening up more public lands and waters for fossil fuel development.
At the same time, the Trump administration dropped out of the Paris climate agreement for the second time and moved to roll back the modest climate progress achieved under former President Joe Biden.
Melinda Lewis—who directs the Global Trade Watch program at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen—is attending the Santa Marta conference, where she is working to dismantle the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system. The enforced mechanism empowers multinational corporations to sue governments before panels of corporate attorneys and has been denounced by opponents—especially those in the Global South—as a novel form of colonialism.
"While it is tragic that the United States government is failing to meet this critical moment for climate action, we are encouraged that the rest of the world has recognized that it’s high time to take bold action to remove the arcane ISDS extra-legal instrument buried in trade and investment treaties that has been used as a cudgel by fossil fuel and extractive industries to stymie government actions that might reduce their profits," Lewis said on Friday.
As Canadian researcher Joseph Bouchard recently wrote in a Common Dreams opinion piece, "Colombia is especially exposed" to ISDS harm, as "the country has 129 oil and gas projects covered by ISDS provisions, leaving it vulnerable to a wave of potential claims as it pursues its energy transition."
Lewis noted that Colombia's government, led by leftist President Gustavo Petro, "recently announced its intention to renounce its treaties that include ISDS as part of the full package of needed action to usher in a clean energy transition."
Indigenous leaders said more must be done to ensure a just transition.
“We are very concerned. We talk about a just transition, but in practice it is not true,” Oswaldo Muca, General Coordinator of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon, told Inter Press Service. “Mining continues. Extraction continues. Deforestation continues. The territories and Indigenous peoples continue suffering this problem, and it is becoming more serious every day."
Muca added that benefits from resource extraction "do not reach Indigenous territories, but they destroy the territory and leave the damage."
On Friday, more than 250 legal experts from around the world asserted that "phasing out fossil fuels is not a political choice—it is a legal obligation."
The jurists noted in an open letter that "the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously confirmed that every state must use all means at its disposal to prevent significant harm to the climate system, including by avoiding the principal activities driving it: fossil fuel production and use."
The letter's signers include former Irish President Mary Robinson and Julian Aguon, an Indigenous human rights lawyer from Guam who played a key role in winning the ICJ climate case.
"The phaseout of fossil fuels is not just scientifically necessary to prevent catastrophic and irreversible harm to the climate system, all peoples, and ecosystems; it is legally required," they wrote. "It is also socially, economically, and environmentally beneficial for present and future generations."
Ultimately, countries participating in the Santa Marta conference will draw their own individual roadmaps with the help of scientists and other experts.
“If we think about it," said Vélez, "the conference is that turning point where, collectively, we decide to be on the right side of history."
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TMZ Confronts Hegseth Over Whether He's on a 'Power Trip' When Ordering 'Extreme Level of Violence'
"I’ve never seen the corporate media hacks even dream of having the courage to ask something like this," said one journalist.
Apr 24, 2026
At the latest press briefing at the Pentagon on Friday, in addition to issuing his latest threat to journalists who publish classified information obtained from sources, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth peppered his comments with the violent rhetoric that's become commonplace in his public remarks.
The US military will "shoot and kill" if Iranian boats are found trying to disrupt passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed following the extension of a ceasefire this week, said Hegseth.
He added, "We will shoot to destroy, no hesitation, just like the drug boats in the Caribbean"—a reference to strikes that have killed at least 180 people the US has accused of trafficking drugs, in an operation that has been widely condemned as one of extrajudicial killings or murder.
"The War Department stands ready for what comes next, locked and loaded," said the secretary, who has also denigrated what he refers to as "stupid" rules of engagement meant to protect civilians. "We'll use up to and including lethal force if necessary."
Amid Hegseth's escalating efforts to control the media's coverage of his department, including the Pentagon's firing on Thursday of the ombudsman of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes and his demand that journalists agree to a policy prohibiting coverage that the department has not approved, an outlet that's new to Capitol Hill made its way into the press briefing room Friday—and asked the top military official a question that hadn't previously come up about the deadly attacks he's ordered in recent months.
“I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places," said Jacob Wasserman of the celebrity news outlet TMZ, which has recently expanded its political coverage by opening an office in the nation's capital. "And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you’re on a power trip?"
WATCH: @TMZ’s first question at a Pentagon briefing...@jacob_wass: “I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people in places. And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an… pic.twitter.com/94IHsMHP1D
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2026
Hegseth appeared perplexed before smirking and dismissing the query as "a very TMZ question." He quickly denied that a "power trip" plays into his decisions to strike targets in places including Iran, where at least 3,375 people have been killed in US-Israeli strikes, including at least 200 children; the Caribbean Ocean and Pacific Ocean, where the boat bombing campaign is continuing; and Ecuador, where US troops launched a joint campaign with the nation's military last month, targeting suspected drug traffickers on land.
He said his "only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy," before adding some more of the violent rhetoric Wasserman had alluded to about bringing "maximum violence to the enemy."
Some scoffed at Wasserman's question, but others, including Drop Site News journalist Julian Andreone, applauded the reporter for publicly suggesting and confronting Hegseth about the possibility that he enjoys ordering US troops to kill people in foreign countries, including many civilians, in operations that legal experts say violate international law.
"I’ve never seen the corporate media hacks even dream of having the courage to ask something like this, yet they continue to shove the fancy name of their organization in everybody’s faces while looking down their noses at TMZ," said Andreone.
Wasserman's colleague, Charlie Cotton, followed up with a question about whether Hegseth, who has claimed the Department of Defense has been renamed the Department of War—although congressional approval would be needed for such a change—would consider again rechristening the agency as the Department of Peace, "since that's what we're all after."
The question prompted Hegseth, moments after demanding "maximum violence," to remark that "the one institution that should win the Nobel Peace Prize every single year is the United States military, because we are the guarantor of the safety and security, not just of our country, but of a lot of people in this world."
TMZ's first appearance in the briefing room and its arrival in Washington, DC come at a time when the corporate media's coverage of the Iran war and other military operations has been compared to the drumbeating tone in the national press ahead of the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in 2003, and as some have called for more adversarial coverage of the White House and the political establishment.
The outlet, which is more accustomed to publishing celebrity gossip, spent recent weeks publishing photos of federal lawmakers vacationing during the partial government shutdown, with TMZ founder Harvey Levin interviewing one Transportation Security Administration worker who had been reporting to work for weeks without pay on the company's weekday show, "TMZ Live."
Levin urged viewers to who saw members of Congress on vacation during the shutdown to "take a picture and send it to us at TMZ. We will post that picture on our website, on our social media, and we will put it on our television shows. We want to show what they are doing at your expense.”
Levin told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month that TMZ's presence in Washington will “sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious."
The headline the outlet chose for its brief write-up of Wasserman's question to Hegseth on Friday was, "TMZ DC to Pete Hegseth: Do You Get Off on Dropping Bombs???"
Journalist Krystal Ball of the online news show "Breaking Points" said that if Wasserman's question to Hegseth was a "'TMZ question,' I’m excited to see more of what TMZ will bring to the table."
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Maine Gov. Mills Ripped for Veto of Landmark AI Data Center Moratorium
One critic said Mills “demonstrated a shocking disconnect with the people of Maine, their elected legislators, and a large and growing national movement against the reckless explosion of this highly problematic industry.”
Apr 24, 2026
Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is facing criticism from lawmakers and environmental groups after vetoing a bill that would have enacted the nation's first statewide moratorium on artificial intelligence data centers.
The bill, LD 307, which passed both chambers of Maine's Legislature with bipartisan support earlier this month, would have stopped state and local governments from issuing permits for data centers with electric loads of 20 megawatts or more until November 2027, giving the state time to study their effects.
Mills opted to veto the bill after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have carved out an exception for a proposed data center project in the town of Jay.
“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates," Mills wrote to the Legislature on Friday. "But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region."
While there has not been much organized opposition to the Jay project, proposals in other towns, like Lewiston and Wiscasset, have been met with furious resistance from locals who fear sharp rises in utility costs.
The moratorium's sponsor, Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-48), said that by vetoing the bill, Mills was “resisting the will of a majority of Maine people."
“While a veto might protect the proposed data center project in Jay, it poses significant potential consequences for all ratepayers, our electric grid, our environment, and our shared energy future,” she told the Portland Press Herald. “This decision is simply wrong.”
Maureen Drouin, the executive director for Maine Conservation Voters, said that Mills had "sided with large-scale data center developers over safeguards for Maine people and the environment, leaving communities at risk to higher energy prices and more pollution."
"Across the country, the development of large-scale data centers has far outpaced the ability of policy and lawmakers to properly regulate them and establish sensible protections," she continued. "Maine had a chance to push pause and establish the right regulatory framework to protect its people, their wallets, and the environment from polluting, resource-hungry data centers."
Mitch Jones, the managing director of litigation for Food & Water Watch, which has backed proposals in several other states—including New York, Pennsylvania, California, and Michigan—agreed that Mills' veto "demonstrated a shocking disconnect with the people of Maine, their elected legislators, and a large and growing national movement against the reckless explosion of this highly problematic industry."
"Mainers and people across the country are becoming increasingly fed up with the skyrocketing electricity rates, false jobs promises, and harmful industrialization of small-town communities that hyperscale data centers bring wherever they land," he said.
Mills' veto comes as she is running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican US Sen. Susan Collins for her seat in November. The establishment-backed governor is facing increasingly long odds amid the insurgent progressive candidacy of the former Marine-turned-oyster farmer Graham Platner, who leads by wide margins in recent polls.
A leaked Zoom meeting last month showed that Mills was lambasted by voters over her decisions to veto other popular bills that would have strengthened gun control laws, protected tribal sovereignty, allowed farmworkers to unionize, and lowered prescription drug prices.
“It is no wonder that Janet Mills’s political career seems to be limping to a feeble conclusion," Jones said following her veto of the data center bill Friday. "The Maine Legislature must now do what Mills won’t: stand up for the best interests of Mainers and their communities, and override this foolish veto immediately.”
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