On Tuesday May 6th, JVP Action brought nine students from Columbia University to meet with members of Congress to speak about their experiences as Jewish students who have been steadfastly committed to advocating for the safety and freedom of the Palestinian people. The students warned members of Congress that the Trump regime is using false allegations of antisemitism to crack down on dissent, and called for elected officials to do more to protect student activists from the Trump administration’s authoritarian attacks, and to call for the release of non-citizen student activists being targeted for deportation including their classmate Mahmoud Khalil who is currently a political prisoner in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.

“I’m here asking my representatives to call for the release of my friend Mahmoud Khalil and to put real pressure on the Trump regime. I cannot stand to see the Trump administration smear Mahmoud as an antisemite when it could not be further than the truth,” said Shay Orentlicher, Jewish Junior at Columbia.

For the past 1.5 years, Columbia University and its student protests have remained in the public eye, yet very few Jewish student activists have been able to tell their stories. On May 6, a little over one year since the launch of the student encampment movement, these students traveled to Congress to tell their elected officials what it’s like being a Jewish student who supports Palestinian rights in an increasingly repressive campus environment. These students told members of Congress about the beautiful multicultural connection and grief that has been core to their activism on campus.

“This Passover we held a beautiful seder with not only our fellow Jewish students but also our community members in the broader anti-war movement at Columbia. Rooted in our tradition of remembrance and liberation, we came together to tell the story of Passover and offered a heartfelt prayer for Mahmoud’s freedom” said Carly Shaffer, a Jewish graduate student in SIPA and friend of Mahmoud Khalil's.

The students felt it was especially important to make their voices heard prior to today’s House Committee on Education & the Workforce hearing in which far-right members of Congress will once again operate under the guise of caring about antisemitism in order to attack the right to political dissent and free speech.

“The Trump Regime is using false allegations of antisemitism to disappear our friends, punish student protestors, and dismantle higher education. What we are seeing has nothing to do with keeping Jews safe, and everything to do with crushing dissent. Thousands of Jews on campuses across the country have spoken out in solidarity with the people of Gaza and we will not be silent.” said Tallie Beckwith-Cohen, a Jewish senior at Barnard College.

“The far-right does not care about Jewish safety. Trump and his allies in Congress are platforming neo-Nazis and Christian Nationalists, all while pretending to care about antisemitism in order to take a hatchet to our communities and most basic freedoms. This is intended to silence the Palestinian rights movement, sow chaos, and sharpen authoritarian tools that will then be used to dismantle civil liberties and democracy itself.” said Beth Miller, Political Director of JVPA.

In one of many egregious examples of its absurd claims, in a letter to Haverford College ahead of the House Committee’s hearing tomorrow, the Committee’s Republican leadership refers to an academic talk given by Rabbi Dr. Rebecca Alpert about the history of Jewishness and anti-Zionism as an example of “antisemitism”. Rabbi Dr. Rebecca Alpert is not only a Rabbi, but also a scholar of Jewish history who was invited to speak on campus because of her expertise.

“My ancestors fled fascism and taught me to fight supremacy and fascism wherever it occurs. I am seeing rising fascism here as the Trump regime lies and targets non citizens, human rights activists, and everyone who challenges their authoritarian agenda. I refuse to be silent because I know that it was silence that allowed the persecution of my ancestors in Europe.” said Sarah Boris, who is a Senior studying English and Jewish studies at Columbia University.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The coalition warns Congress that cutting funding for public broadcasting would irreparably harm Americans’ access to independent, reliable, non-commercial local news and critical emergency information—particularly in rural communities. The group emphasizes that public media remains a vital source of trusted journalism for millions of Americans at minimal cost and calls on Congress to reject the White House’s proposed cuts.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Photograph Source: Genet (Diskussion) – CC BY-SA 4.0

Tax policy experts and lawmakers have long circled 2025 as a year to prepare for. What makes it so significant?

For one thing, Federal COVID money to states is expiring, straining state budgets at the same time the economy is starting to weaken. For another, Republicans in Congress are working to increase and extend President Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations — while cutting trillions from health care, housing, and education programs for everyone else. And it all up and you get a fiscal tsunami.

While major tax policy changes are being made and discussed in Congress, this is also happening in the states.

None of these efforts have an isolated impact. What’s happening in Washington, DC and state capitals will affect your families — especially in rural communities. And people everywhere are going to feel it in their pocketbooks if our legislators cave and shift more taxes from the rich to the rest of us.

But that’s not how it has to happen. Several Western states have taken significant steps toward fairer, progressive tax policies aimed at funding essential public services, with great results for people in rural areas and beyond. These states can serve as a model for others.

In 2021, Washington State enacted a capital gains tax on the sale of high-end stocks and bonds by the state’s wealthiest residents. It was designed to address the state’s historically regressive tax system, which disproportionately burdened low- and middle-income earners.

In its first two years, the tax generated $1.3 billion, funding critical services such as child care and education. And the number of millionaire households actually went up, despite some threats about wealthy people leaving the state (fact check: False!).

Aside from Washington, Oregon and my home state of New Mexico have also raised taxes on the wealthiest residents in order to invest in programs that support families and communities in the state.

New Mexico lawmakers have made their tax system significantly more progressive in recent years by increasing credits for low-income families with children (significantly reducing child poverty in the process) and raising revenue from the richest residents, high-end investors, and the oil and gas industry.

In November, voters in California and Colorado also approved tax increases to pay for early childhood care and education. Hawaii, Nevada, and Washington are also actively considering progressive new tax and revenue measures.

Unfortunately, along with the federal government, other states are trending in the opposite direction, negatively impacting regular people in those places.

A comprehensive look at state taxes by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that in the past 25 years, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah, have all reduced income tax rates for the wealthiest residents and corporations.

When politicians cater their tax systems to the wealthiest 1 percent, there are serious repercussions. And these efforts are unpopular — the vast majority of Americans believe that we shouldn’t cut taxes for the wealthy just to turn around and put public schools and our neighbors’ health care coverage at risk due to a resulting lack of revenue.

State tax policy disproportionately affects people in small towns because rural communities are usually the first to be forced to close schools, pull back public safety, and cut programs for seniors when those tax cuts lead to revenue loss.

So this year, the choice for state leaders is clear: replicate their own version of what the president and congressional Republicans are proposing — possibly gutting schools, fire prevention, rural health care centers, and food programs that benefit school kids and local farmers — or adopt more progressive tax policies to pay for investments, infrastructure, and resources people need to power their communities.

The decision is a no-brainer. So once your own taxes are filed, check to see if your state is pursuing tax policies that favor the wealthy or making a tax code that puts families, schools, and local communities first.

The post As Congress Prepares a “Fiscal Tsunami.” State’s Can Protect Themselves appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Amber Wallin.

A leaked “working paper” on New Caledonia’s future political status is causing concern on the local stage and has prompted a “clarification” from the French government’s Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls.

Details of the document, which was supposed to remain confidential, have been widely circulated online over the past few days.

Valls said earlier the confidentiality of the document was supposed to ensure expected results of ongoing talks would not be jeopardised.

• READ MORE: French minister wraps up key talks in New Caledonia, returning late March
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

However, following the leak, Valls said in a release on Friday that, for the time being, it was nothing more than a “working paper”.

The document results from earlier rounds of talks when Valls was in Nouméa during his previous trips in February and March 2025.

Valls is due to return to New Caledonia on April 29 for another round of talks and possibly “negotiations” and more political talks are ongoing behind closed doors.

He has denied that it can be regarded as a “unilateral proposal” from Paris.

The latest roundtable session was on Friday, April 11, held remotely via a video conference between Valls in Paris and all political stakeholders (both pro-France and pro-independence parties) in Nouméa.

All tendencies across the political spectrum have reaffirmed their strong and sometimes “non-negotiable” respective stances.

Parties opposed to independence, who regard New Caledonia as being part of France, have consistently maintained that the results of the latest three referendums on self-determination — held in 2018, 2020 and 2021 — should be respected. They reject the notion of independence.

The last referendum in December 2021 was, however, largely boycotted by the pro-independence movement and indigenous Kanak voters.

On the pro-independence side, the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS, dominated by the Union Calédonienne) is announcing a “convention” on April 26 — just three days before Valls’s return — to decide on whether it should now fully engage in negotiations proper.

In a news conference last week, the FLNKS was critical of the French-suggested approach, saying it would only commit if they “see the benefits” and that the document was “patronising”.

Two other pro-independence parties — the PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and the UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) — have distanced themselves from the FLNKS, which they see as too radical under Union Calédonienne’s influence and dominance) and hold a more moderate view.

PALIKA held a general meeting late last week to reaffirm that, while they too were regarding the path to sovereignty as their paramount goal, they were already committed to participating in future “negotiations” since “all topics have been taken into account” (in the working document).

They are favour an “independence association” pathway.

Carefully chosen words
In his release on Friday, Valls said the main pillars of future negotiations were articulated around the themes of:

• “democracy and the rule of law”, a “decolonisation process”, the right to self-determination, a future “fundamental law” that would seal New Caledonia’s future status (and would then, if locally approved, be ratified by French Parliament and later included in the French Constitution);
• the powers of New Caledonia’s three provinces (including on tax and revenue collection matters); and
• a future New Caledonia citizenship (and its conditions of eligibility) with the associated definition of who meets the requirements to vote at local elections.

Citizenship
On acquiring New Caledonia citizenship, a consensus seems to emerge on the minimum time of residence: it would be “10 to 15” years with other criteria such as an “exam” to ascertain the candidate’s knowledge and respect of cultural “values and specificities”.

Every person born in New Caledonia, children and spouses of qualified citizens, would also automatically qualify for New Caledonia’s citizenship.

Power-sharing
On power-sharing, the draft also touches on the “sovereign” powers (international relations, defence, law and order, justice, currency) which would remain within the French realm, but in a stronger association for New Caledonia.

All other powers, regarded as “non-sovereign”, would remain under direct control of New Caledonia as they have already been transferred, gradually, to New Caledonia, over the past 27 years, under the Nouméa Accord.

New Caledonia would also be consulted on all negotiations related to the Pacific islands region and would get representation at European Union level.

Local diplomats would also be trained under France’s Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Under the Nouméa Accord, the training process was already initiated more than 10 years ago with New Caledonian representatives appointed and hosted at French embassies in the region — Fiji, New Zealand, Australia.

A local “strategic committee” would also be set up on defence matters.

However, despite long-time FLNKS demands, this would not allow for a seat at the United Nations.

In terms of currency, the present French Pacific Francs (CFP, XPF) would be abolished for a new currency that would remain pegged to the Euro, provided France’s other two Pacific territories (French Polynesia, Wallis-and-Futuna — which are also using the CFP) agree.

Reinforced provincial powers
A new proposal, in terms of reinforced provincial powers, would be to grant each of New Caledonia’s three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands) the capacity — currently held by New Caledonia’s government — to generate and collect its own taxes.

Each province would then re-distribute their collected tax revenues to the central government and municipalities.

This is also reported to be a sensitive point during the talks, since about 80 percent of New Caledonia’s wealth is located in the Southern Province, which also generates more than 90 percent of all of New Caledonia’s tax revenues.

This is perceived as a concession to pro-France parties, which are calling for an “internal federation” model for New Caledonia, a prospect strongly opposed by pro-independence parties who are denouncing what they liken to some kind of “partition” for the French Pacific dependency.

In the currently discussed project, the representation at the Congress (Parliament) of New Caledonia would be revised among the three provinces to better reflect their respective weight according to demographic changes.

The representation would be re-assessed and possibly modified after each population census.

Under the proposed text, New Caledonia’s government would remain based on the notion of “collegiality”.

Future referendum — no more just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to independence
The current working paper, on the right to self-determination, suggests that any future referendum on self-determination no longer has a specified deadline, but should take place after a “stabilisation and reconstruction” phase.

It would no longer ask the binary question of “yes” or “no” to independence and full sovereignty, but rather seek the approval of a “comprehensive project”.

To activate a referendum, the approval of at least three fifths of New Caledonia’s 54-seat Congress would be needed.

The Congress’s current makeup, almost equally split in two between pro-France and pro-independence parties, this 3/5th threshold could only be found if there is a consensual vote beyond party lines.

Some of the FLNKS’s earlier demands, like having its president Christian Téin (elected in absentia in August 2024 ) part of the talks, now seem to have been dropped.

Téin was arrested in June 2024 for alleged involvement in the May 2024 insurrectional riots that caused 14 dead (including two French gendarmes), hundreds of injured, thousands of jobless and the destruction of several hundred businesses for a total estimated damage of 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.3 billion).

Four days after his arrest, Téin was transferred from New Caledonia to mainland France.

Although he is still remanded in custody pending his trial (for alleged involvement in organised criminal-related acts), his case was recently transferred from the jurisdiction of judges in Nouméa to mainland France magistrates.

Union Calédonienne president and pro-independence front man Emmanuel Tjibaou told public broadcaster NC la 1ère yesterday he was in regular contact with Téin from his jail in Mulhouse (northeastern France).

Another recent development that could also be perceived as a concession to the FLNKS is that last week, France announced the replacement of French High commissioner Louis Le Franc, France’s representative and man in charge in Nouméa during last year’s riots.

‘We are facing a decisive moment’, says Valls
Valls said he remained hopeful that despite “all positions remaining at present still far from each other . . . evolutions are still possible”.

“I reaffirm the (French) State’s full commitment to pursue this approach, in the spirit of the Matignon and Nouméa Accords (signed respectively in 1988 and 1998) to build together a united, appeased and prosperous New Caledonia,” Valls concluded.

“We are facing a decisive moment for the future of New Caledonia, which is confronted with a particularly grave economic and social situation. Civil peace remains fragile.”

The much sought-after agreement, which has been at the centre of political talks since they resumed in early 2025 after a three-year hiatus, is supposed to replace the Nouméa Accord from 1998.

The 1998 pact, which outlines the notion of gradual transfer of sovereign powers from France to new Caledonia, but also the notion of “common destiny”, stipulates that after three referendums on self-determination resulting in a majority of “no”, then the political partners are to meet and “discuss the situation thus created”.

Determination, anxiety and hope
On all sides of the political landscape, ahead of any outcome for the crucial talks, the current atmosphere is a mix of determination, anxiety and hope, with a touch of disillusionment.

The pro-independence movement’s Emmanuel Tjibaou has to manage a sometimes radical base.

He told NC la 1ère that the main objective remained “the path to sovereignty”.

Within the pro-France camp, there is also defiance towards Vall’s approach and expected results.

Among their ranks, one lingering angst, founded or not, is to see an agreement being concluded that would not respond to their expectations of New Caledonia remaining part of France.

This worst-case scenario, in their view, would bring back sad memories of Algeria’s pre-independence process decades ago.

On 4 June 1958, in the midst of its war against Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN), French President General De Gaulle, while on a visit to Algiers, shouted a resounding “Je vous ai compris!” (“I have understood you”) to a crowd of cheering pro-France and French Algerians who were convinced at the time that their voice had been heard in favour of French Algeria.

On 19 March 1962, after years of a bloody war, the Evian Accords were signed, paving the way for Algeria’s independence on July 3.

“I had to take precautions, I had to proceed progressively and this is how we made it”, De Gaulle explained to the French daily Le Monde in 1966.

In the meantime, in an atmosphere of fear and violence, an estimated 700,000 French citizens from Algeria were “repatriated” by boat to mainland France.

As an alternative posed to French nationals at the time, FLN’s slogan was “la valise ou le cercueil” (“the suitcase or the coffin”).

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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Just a week into President Donald Trump’s second term, Rep. Adriano Espaillat began to see reports of Puerto Ricans and others being questioned and arrested by immigration agents.

So Espaillat, a New York Democrat, did what members of Congress often do: He wrote to the administration and demanded answers. That was more than 10 weeks ago. Espaillat has not received a response.

His experience appears to be common.

At least a dozen members of Congress, all Democrats, have written to the Trump administration with pointed questions about constituents and other citizens whom immigration agents have questioned, detained and even held at gunpoint. In one letter, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demanded a list of every citizen detained during the new administration.

None has received an answer.

“What we are clearly seeing is that with this administration, they are not responding to congressional inquiries,” said Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, a New Mexico Democrat.

Leger Fernández and others wrote to Trump and the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 28 after receiving complaints from constituents and tribal nations that federal agents were pressing tribal citizens in New Mexico for their immigration status, raising concerns about racial profiling.

The congresswoman and others say the lack of response is part of a broader pattern in which the administration has been moving to sideline Congress and its constitutional power to investigate the executive branch.

“That is a big concern on a level beyond what ICE is doing,” Leger Fernández said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of DHS. “This administration does not seem to recognize the power and authority and responsibility” of Congress.

Norman Ornstein, a longtime congressional observer at the American Enterprise Institute, said prior administrations’ lack of responsiveness has frustrated lawmakers too. But he’s never seen one so thoroughly brush off Congress.

“What’s clear now is that the message from Donald Trump and his minions is: ‘You don’t have to respond to these people, whether they are ours or not,’” Ornstein said, referring to Republicans and Democrats. “That’s not usual. Nothing about this is usual.”

A White House spokesperson denied that the administration has been circumventing Congress or its oversight. “Passage of the continuing resolution that kept our government open and commonsense legislation like the Laken Riley Act are indicative of how closely the Trump administration is working with Congress,” said Kush Desai in a statement.

The White House did not answer questions about the letters. DHS also did not respond to ProPublica’s questions.

Last month, ProPublica detailed how Americans have been caught in the administration’s dragnet. Such mistakes have been made by many administrations over decades. The government often has not taken steps to reduce errors, such as updating its files when agents confirm somebody’s citizenship. But experts and advocates have warned that Trump’s aggressive immigration goals — including arrest quotas for enforcement agents — make it more likely that citizens will get caught up.

ICE and its sister agency, Customs and Border Protection, said in earlier statements to ProPublica that agents are allowed to ask for citizens’ identification. The agencies did not provide explanations for their actions in most of the cases ProPublica asked about.

Answers were also hard to come by during Trump’s first term, even when Democrats controlled the House and had more power over hearings.

At a House hearing in 2019 about family separation, lawmakers pressed then-Border Patrol Chief Brian Hastings about another issue: the three-week detention of a Dallas-born high school student and citizen, who was only released after The Dallas Morning News reported what happened.

Hastings said the student never claimed to be a citizen during his detention — though the newspaper reported that the agency’s own paperwork noted the opposite. Hastings also declined to give any broader accounting of how often the agency had held Americans. “I don’t have information about specific cases,” he said. (Hastings did not respond to requests for comment.)

Espaillat, the New York representative, has been in office for eight years. He said he frequently raised immigration questions and concerns during the Biden administration too, and got responses.

Republicans complained about the opposite experience during the Biden administration. They said the administration was unresponsive to Congress’ questions on immigration, forcing lawmakers to subpoena officials for answers. (The administration dismissed the moves as “political posturing.”)

Espaillat said he’s not surprised the Trump administration has been silent. “They probably don’t have a good answer.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Nicole Foy.

• Nov. 21, 2024: The CFPB finalizes a rule enabling the agency to proactively supervise digital payment apps
• Nov. 27, 2024: Musk tweets “Delete CFPB”
• Jan. 28, 2025: X CEO announces that X Money will debut with a partnership with Visa
• Feb. 7, 2025: Musk’s DOGE staffers enter the CFPB and kick off an effort to shut it down
• March 5, 2025: The Senate votes to revoke the CFPB’s digital payments rule
• April 9, 2025: The House of Representatives votes to revoke the rule

Musk is now on a glide path to launch X Money this year without the watchdog agency to ensure that he follows federal rules mandating data security standards, disputes for fraudulent payments, consumer protections against debanking and more. And through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Musk now has access to sensitive information about competitors in the digital payments space like Cash App, PayPal and Venmo that have been investigated by the CFPB, potentially giving X Money an unfair business advantage. Demand Progress has been a strong supporter of the CFPB’s efforts to supervise digital payment platforms.

The following is a statement from Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress:

“Elon Musk orchestrated a plan to rip off consumers with impunity when he tweeted ‘Delete CFPB’ and Congress just rubber-stamped it. Today’s shameful vote means that X, an app already swarming with bots and scammers, will be able to connect to your bank account and allow fraudsters to take your money without accountability. Thanks to the CFPB’s supervision, $120 million was refunded to consumers who were scammed through Cash App. That kind of policing will be significantly harder now that Congress has voted to strip the CFPB of its ability to proactively watch over payment apps. And thanks to DOGE’s intrusions into the CFPB’s databases, Musk now has access to sensitive financial data from companies investigated by the agency, including virtually all would-be competitors to X Money in the digital payments space.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

I know how it feels to be hungry and homeless.

That’s why after work, I drive around town and pick up leftover food from restaurants, schools, grocery stores, and special events. My fellow volunteers and I set up in a big parking lot in our downtown to make this food available to anyone who shows up — no questions asked.

And it’s why other volunteers and I also work to find empty housing units that have fallen into disrepair because the landlords can’t afford the upkeep. We raise money and give them grants so they can bring the units up to code for use as low-income housing rentals.

I’m proud to do this work. But it’s no substitute for fair, living wages and a reliable public safety net. The minimum wage in my town is $12 — well below the $21 per hour the National Low Income Housing Coalition has calculated is necessary to afford a market rate two-bedroom rental locally.

Let’s say you’re lucky enough to get housing at that wage. Do you then spend all your money on rent and skip nutritious meals for your family? Or do you skip health care and medication? If you have a paycheck and a roof over your head, you might not qualify for food assistance, even if you don’t make enough to make ends meet.

I work, volunteer, take care of my child, and I’m fortunate enough to have housing. But I still need to rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as “food stamps” — for my family.

My daughter has epilepsy, and thankfully I was able to get her onto Social Security Disability Insurance. However, she needs not only costly medication but also frequent neurological supervision and a device that helps to stop her seizures. There’s no neurologist in our town who can treat her, so we have to travel and lodge hours away for it.

The expense is enormous, and that’s not even getting into expensive medications for my own heart problems and autoimmune disorders. Thankfully, we qualify for Medicaid. Otherwise, treatment would be out of reach.

But what does it say about our policy priorities when we need to say, “I’m disabled, taking care of my disabled daughter, I work, and I help feed my community, and yet I need assistance affording meals for my family?” These are the realities that a good society plans for so we can all thrive, no matter what obstacles life throws our way.

The programs our tax dollars pay for so families like mine can get help when we need it must be more robust. Programs like SSDI shouldn’t be so inaccessible. Food, housing, and health care shouldn’t be so expensive — and wages shouldn’t be so low that these basic necessities are unaffordable.

And when we need help, the bar for our income shouldn’t be so low that we must be nearly destitute, without any savings or emergency cushion, to qualify.

Is Congress working on any of this? Unfortunately, no. Instead, they’re doing the opposite right now.

In fact, the GOP budget proposal would slash $880 billion from Medicaid and $230 billion from food assistance. They’re also cutting government agencies that assist with affordable housing, transportation, safety, veterans, and children with disabilities.

Why? Because they need to find at least $4.5 trillion to give even more tax cuts to the wealthiest and largest corporations. They are reaching into my very shallow pockets, into my daughter’s life-saving medical care, and into the mouths of those who come to my food table in that parking lot.

They’re stealing from us to give to the rich, perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty that keeps people homeless and hungry.

I don’t think that’s fair. Do you? We all deserve better.

The post Congress is Taking From the Poor to Give to the Rich appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jocelyn Smith.

Photograph Source: U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Yesenia Rosas – Public Domain

Let me begin by telling the American people something they already know, and that is, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, we now have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to buy elections and to influence major pieces of legislation. That, I think, is not a secret to the American people.

The post Why Congress Should Block Offensive Weapons Sales to Israel appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bernie Sanders.

From the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, Ronny Jackson, a Republican member of Congress from Texas, has joined him in taking steps to punish and intimidate news outlets that have covered Trump and his administration unfavorably. We’re documenting Jackson’s efforts in this regularly updated report.

Read about how Trump’s appointees and allies in Congress are striving to chill reporting, revoke funding, censor critical coverage and more here.

This article was first published on April 3, 2025.

March 27, 2025 | Representative introduces bill to strip NPR, PBS of government funding

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March 27, 2025 | Representative introduces bill to strip NPR, PBS of government funding

Rep. Ronny Jackson introduced a bill to the U.S. House of Representatives on March 27, 2025, to eliminate all direct and indirect government funding for NPR and PBS, the latest Congressional move attacking the public broadcasters.

Executives for NPR and PBS testified March 26 before a government oversight subcommittee hearing titled “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS accountable.”

In her closing remarks, Subcommittee Chair Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that the body intended to call for the dissolution of the government-backed Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides around 1% of the budget for NPR and 16% for PBS.

According to a previously unreported 2011 analysis published April 1 by The New York Times, the defunding of CPB would cause nearly 200 NPR member stations to close. The effect on PBS and member stations would be even more dire, the newspaper said.

The day after the hearing, Jackson — joined by Greene and others — introduced his bill to eliminate taxpayer funding for what he referred to as “the partisan broadcasting outlets” NPR and PBS.

“For decades, radical Democrats have funneled taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS under the guise of ‘serving the public,’ despite both organizations abandoning their founding missions to provide non-biased content and instead promoting the same radical-left propaganda as any other fake news outlet,” Jackson said in a statement. “If these organizations want to push partisan agendas, they do not deserve another dime of federal support.”

Jackson sponsored similar legislation in 2023 and 2024 that failed to make it out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

According to CPB, the majority of the approximately $500 million it is appropriated each year is distributed to local public media stations. Funding for the nonprofit corporation was extended March 14, with the House and Senate approving $535 million for 2027.

“Public media in the United States is a highly efficient public-private partnership that delivers a strong return on the taxpayers’ investment,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement at the time. “With the support of Congress and the American people, CPB will continue to prioritize educational content and resources for families, provide essential local reporting and public safety information, and pursue technology advancements that enhance public media’s connection with audiences across multiple platforms.”

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This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/04/03/rep-ronny-jackson-targets-press-as-member-of-congress/feed/ 0 523520 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/04/01/cpj-partners-urge-congress-to-protect-usagm-affiliated-journalists-from-deportation/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/04/01/cpj-partners-urge-congress-to-protect-usagm-affiliated-journalists-from-deportation/#respond Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:35:21 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=467878 The Committee to Protect Journalists joined PEN America and other partner organizations in a joint letter Tuesday urging Congress to take immediate action to protect journalists affiliated with the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) outlets — such as Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — from the risk of deportation.

USAGM-affiliated journalists face serious threats, imprisonment, and persecution in their home countries due to their reporting on politically sensitive issues. The situation has been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s move to dismantle USAGM and by delays in immigration processing. The letter calls on Congress to press the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to prevent deportations and to secure the legal status of these journalists. Protecting them, the letter emphasizes, is a moral obligation and a vital stand for press freedom and democratic values.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/04/01/cpj-partners-urge-congress-to-protect-usagm-affiliated-journalists-from-deportation/feed/ 0 522972 https://grist.org/energy/congress-is-searching-for-trillions-of-dollars-in-cuts-will-the-oil-industrys-tax-breaks-skate-by/ https://grist.org/energy/congress-is-searching-for-trillions-of-dollars-in-cuts-will-the-oil-industrys-tax-breaks-skate-by/#respond Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000 https://grist.org/?p=661941 If the only things certain in life are death and taxes, you might say corporate lobbyists spend much of their time trying to avoid at least one of the two. Few industries understand this better than oil and gas, which has benefited for at least a century from some tax rules that save them billions of dollars in payments annually.

The world’s nations have agreed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies globally. The Biden administration pledged to axe them domestically. Still, they persist.

Now, with Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration determined to enact $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and desperately looking for revenue and spending cuts to pay for them, some environmental advocacy groups are highlighting the tax benefits that flow to one of the world’s most profitable industries, which the Biden administration estimated at $110 billion over the decade ending in 2034.

The oil and gas industry, meanwhile, is playing both offense and defense, trying to maintain the benefits it has while working to enact at least one new one, which would shield some oil companies from a tax enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

One of the biggest sources of new revenue from the IRA was a corporate alternative minimum tax, which was meant to prevent companies that reported large profits to investors from using loopholes to pay little to no taxes.

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The minimum tax applies to all industries. For oil and gas, it has hit some of the large independent drillers in particular (as opposed to the “integrated” majors like ExxonMobil and Chevron). The money involved is significant: According to a new analysis by United to End Polluter Handouts, a coalition of environmental and progressive groups, at least three companies—EOG Resources, APA Corp. and Ovintiv—reported paying nearly $200 million collectively to the Treasury under the minimum tax since it was enacted in 2022. 

U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) has introduced a bill that would change the calculus by allowing oil companies to deduct some of their largest expenses against the minimum tax.

Lankford’s bill is included as a priority in the policy blueprint of the American Exploration & Production Council, which represents large independent oil and gas companies. 

Lukas Shankar-Ross, an author of the new minimum-tax analysis and deputy director of the climate and energy justice program at Friends of the Earth, pointed out that the Lankford bill would either deepen deficits or force more cuts to programs like Medicaid or other assistance for low-income Americans.

“I think it is as shameful a thing for me to imagine as is possible now,” Shankar-Ross said.

The oil and gas sector is the top industry contributor to Lankford’s campaigns in recent years, giving more than $546,000 since 2019, according to OpenSecrets. 

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A spokesperson for Lankford said, “Promoting American energy independence is a reversal of the Biden Administration’s policies. Strong domestic energy production makes us less reliant on adversaries, and empowering oil and gas producers makes the United States stronger. Nobody is looking at cutting Medicaid benefits in order to pay for tax cuts, but fraud, waste, and abuse in the program should be examined.”

When it comes to the largest oil and gas companies, however, their focus might be elsewhere. When the American Petroleum Institute issued its five-point policy roadmap for the Trump administration and Congress in November, it highlighted a need to maintain what it called “crucial international tax provisions.”

Just one of those provisions, the so-called dual capacity taxpayer rule, is expected to save oil and gas companies $71.5 billion over a decade, according to Biden administration estimates.

Broadly speaking, federal tax law allows corporations to credit taxes they pay to foreign governments on overseas income against their U.S. tax bills, to avoid being taxed twice. The dual capacity taxpayer rule allows oil companies wide latitude in defining what exactly constitutes a tax payment, with the result being that they can count royalties and other payments as taxes, said Zorka Milin, policy director at the Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency Coalition, which works to combat harmful impacts of illicit finance.

In fact, in some cases U.S. oil and gas companies might pay more in taxes and other payments to foreign governments than they do to the United States.

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Exxon paid billions in overseas royalties alone in 2023, including $1.8 billion to the United Arab Emirates, $1 billion to the Canadian province Alberta and $761 million to Nigeria. Chevron paid about $2 billion in royalties to foreign governments. 

Milin said it is unclear how much of these royalty payments Exxon, Chevron and other oil companies might have claimed as credits against their U.S. taxes, but it could run into the billions of dollars annually.

“They make huge payments to governments around the world, including to some in some pretty shady places, and what is adding insult to injury is a lot of those payments are used to offset payments they pay here in the U.S.,” Milin said. “That’s one way in which our tax code is subsidizing these companies to go abroad and drill, baby, drill, but not domestically.”

Exxon, Chevron and the American Petroleum Institute did not respond to requests for comment.

Alex Muresianu, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, which supports pro-growth tax policies, said many of the oil industry-specific tax rules do not qualify as subsidies. Several of the rules, such as one that allows oil companies to deduct their drilling costs upfront, rather than over a well’s productive life, put the industry on an equal footing with other sectors, he argued. Oil companies often have high costs upfront that generate returns over many years, which can put them at a tax disadvantage with other industries, Muresianu said.

When it comes to royalties, these payments to mineral owners are generally tax deductible. But the dual capacity taxpayer rule offers a far better deal by turning them into a credit, an important distinction. Say Company A earned $100 million in profits, paid $5 million in royalties and paid the full 21 percent corporate income tax. Taking the royalty payments as a credit rather than a deduction would save it nearly $4 million. (Remember, U.S. tax laws are complex, so limitations might apply.)

Milin argued that Congress ought to look at the foreign tax breaks, especially as they are searching for more revenue, because these benefits effectively subsidize oil companies to drill overseas.

“When we have a more explicitly America First international economic policy on trade, on other issues, I think they are likely to look at the ways in which the tax code as it stands is inconsistent with that,” Milin said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Congress is searching for trillions of dollars in cuts. Will the oil industry’s tax breaks skate by? on Mar 30, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News.

]]> https://grist.org/energy/congress-is-searching-for-trillions-of-dollars-in-cuts-will-the-oil-industrys-tax-breaks-skate-by/feed/ 0 522559 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/26/tce-is-linked-to-heart-defects-in-babies-cancer-and-parkinsons-republicans-in-congress-want-to-reverse-a-ban-on-it/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/26/tce-is-linked-to-heart-defects-in-babies-cancer-and-parkinsons-republicans-in-congress-want-to-reverse-a-ban-on-it/#respond Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000 https://www.propublica.org/article/tce-ban-cancer-parkinsons-trump-republicans by Sharon Lerner and Lisa Song

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Although it was too late for him to benefit, Daniel Kinel felt relieved in December when the Environmental Protection Agency finally banned TCE. The compound, which has been used for dry cleaning, manufacturing and degreasing machines, can cause cancer, organ damage and a potentially fatal heart defect in babies, according to independent studies and the EPA. It has also been shown to greatly increase people’s chances of developing Parkinson’s disease.

Kinel and three of his colleagues were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. They all worked in a law office in Rochester, New York, that sat next to a dry cleaner that had dumped TCE into the soil. Kinel was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative condition at age 43, after working there for seven years. His three colleagues have since died. At least 15 of the firm’s partners developed cancers related to TCE.

“It felt good that we were finally getting rid of this terrible chemical,” said Kinel, whose symptoms now make it impossible to type, write or work as a lawyer. “My children and grandchildren would be protected.”

But his feeling of solace has been short-lived.

The ban has been challenged on multiple fronts since President Donald Trump assumed office for a second time in January. Republicans in the Senate and House introduced resolutions to repeal the ban, which was vulnerable to being overturned through the Congressional Review Act because it was issued shortly before the inauguration. Meanwhile, companies and trade groups have sued to stop the ban in court. A Trump executive order delayed the implementation of the ban until March 21. And last week, the EPA asked a federal appeals court to further delay the ban until the end of May.

TCE, short for trichloroethylene, is one of five toxic substances for which full or partial bans put in place by the EPA under President Joe Biden are now under threat. The Trump administration told the courts that it wants to review all five bans to determine whether they should be rolled back. Those banned substances include a deadly paint stripper called methylene chloride; PCE, a solvent that’s similar to TCE; carbon tetrachloride, which is used as a cleaning fluid; and the cancer-causing mineral asbestos. David Fotouhi, the lawyer Trump nominated to be second-in-command of the agency, tried to overturn the asbestos ban in October, when he was serving as an attorney for a group of car companies. The EPA classifies all of the recently banned chemicals as either carcinogenic or probably carcinogenic to humans.

But the EPA’s ban on TCE is in greater peril than the rest because it has yet to take effect. The prohibition on the chemical was to begin this year for all consumer uses and many industrial and commercial uses. The EPA allowed a more gradual phasing out for more than a dozen industrial uses, such as for some aerospace and defense applications. In those cases, the Biden EPA required employers to provide health protections for workers who come into contact with TCE. The Trump EPA’s recent petition to the federal appeals court to extend the ban’s delay would also mean that employers would not be required to implement the new health protections for workers.

Delaying the ban means that people will continue to be exposed to the chemical, which causes liver cancer, kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as well as holes in infants’ hearts that can be fatal. While safer alternatives now exist for many of its uses, TCE has seeped into the drinking water of more than 17 million people in the U.S., according to data compiled by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. Dangerous plumes of TCE have been identified in Woburn, Massachusetts; Wichita, Kansas; and Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base in North Carolina, where hundreds of service members developed Parkinson’s disease and cancer. There is another TCE plume on Long Island in New York, in the district abutting the one that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin represented in Congress.

The idea that people will still be exposed to TCE infuriates Jerry Ensminger. This chemical “needs to go away,” said the retired Marine Corps master sergeant who’s an outspoken advocate for military families exposed to TCE. Ensminger’s daughter Janey died from leukemia when she was 9; Ensminger said Janey was conceived at Camp Lejeune and the family lived there during most of the pregnancy’s first trimester, then returned when she was 6. Ensminger recalled seeing workers on the base dip truck engines into vast metal vats of TCE in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Scientists began raising concerns about the toxicity of TCE almost a century ago. The EPA’s work on the chemical proceeded slowly. In 1987, it deemed TCE a “probable human carcinogen.” In 2001, a draft EPA assessment found the chemical to be more toxic than previously thought and highly likely to cause cancer. The conclusion came under attack from some industry and government scientists. The Department of Defense, which is responsible for hundreds of TCE-contaminated sites, criticized the report as based on “junk science.” Two reviews by panels of independent scientists, however, found the assessment was sound. Still, the EPA didn’t begin drafting stricter regulations on TCE until the end of President Barack Obama’s administration.

Those efforts were dealt a blow during Trump’s first term when the EPA weakened a report on TCE’s effects on fetal heart abnormalities and stopped work on the new regulations. Nancy Beck, who before joining the first Trump administration had been a high-level lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, presided over the EPA’s chemical program when it pulled back from the TCE ban and, more broadly, retreated from rules that the chemical industry saw as burdensome.

After returning to the private sector, Beck was recently named the principal deputy assistant administrator in the EPA’s office of chemical safety and pollution prevention. She did not respond to requests for comment.

Her appointment has left environmentalists despairing over the fate of the long-awaited TCE ban.

“The same industry lobbyist who was in charge of EPA’s chemical program before is in charge of it again,” said Daniel Rosenberg, director of federal toxics policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “When she was there the first time, she moved heaven and earth to weaken the evaluation of the chemical and downplay the hazard TCE posed to people’s health. That appears to be where this is headed again.”

More than 100 groups representing public health, environment and community interests recently sent a letter to Zeldin urging him to reinstate the TCE ban. Referencing Zeldin’s proclaimed interest in clean water for every American, the letter noted that the EPA estimated its rule would produce $20 million in health benefits from reduced cancer rates and said that “delaying implementation of these rules will lead to preventable death, disease and incapacitation and increase medical costs and hardships to families and communities.” This week, environmental and labor groups filed a court brief opposing the EPA’s efforts to delay implementation of the TCE ban.

The EPA did not respond to questions about the TCE ban. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who introduced the resolution to repeal the TCE ban in the Senate, and Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, and Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn., who introduced a resolution for its repeal in the House, also did not respond to inquiries from ProPublica. A spokesperson from the American Chemistry Council referred ProPublica to its press release from December, which acknowledged that the EPA had included “important adjustments” in the TCE ban to provide flexibility to affected industries.

In a press release about his bid to repeal the ban, Kennedy said that the “Biden administration waged war against America’s chemical producers,” and he urged Congress to “move quickly to take off the handcuffs that President Biden placed on Louisiana and U.S. businesses.” In the same release, Harshbarger described the TCE ban as “one of many examples of the Biden Administration’s overregulation.”

In a hearing about chemical regulation in the House in January, Harshbarger said that a company in her district, Microporous, which makes membranes used in lithium-ion batteries, is facing an “existential threat” from the TCE ban. The ban made an exception for the use of TCE for this purpose, allowing the battery industry to continue using it until 2044. Microporous, which has challenged the ban in court, did not respond to a question about why it needed 20 years to find a suitable replacement for TCE.

Since Trump’s inauguration, the EPA has been touting its efforts to roll back environmental protections. Earlier this month, the agency announced the “most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,” listing 31 rules it planned to step away from, related to oil and gas, air pollution and greenhouse gases. The agency celebrated the announcement with a 6,500-word press release that included praise from 61 industry leaders, CEOs and Republican politicians.

Still, some who have been focused on TCE were surprised that the Trump administration was delaying and reconsidering the recent ban. “I thought it was a done deal,” said Dr. Sara Whittingham, a retired United States Air Force flight surgeon who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 46. When she heard that the rule might be repealed, she was aghast. “What the heck, how can nobody care about this?” she said. “This should be a nonpartisan issue.”

Whittingham believes her disease may stem from the two years she spent as an aircraft maintenance officer at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, from 1996 to 1998. Her office was above a shop where workers used TCE to clean engine parts.

Last week, Whittingham teamed up with two friends, both Air Force graduates who were diagnosed with Parkinson’s as women in their 40s, to urge people to pressure Congress to drop the resolutions.

“We signed up to go fight for our country,” she said, but now the attitude seems to be, “‘We don’t care about your health, you’ve already signed on the dotted line.’ It’s a kind of a kick in the face.”

Before being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Whittingham had hoped that her children would follow her career path. But recently she discouraged her daughter, who is a senior in high school, from joining the military. The health risks, she said, were too high.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sharon Lerner and Lisa Song.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/26/tce-is-linked-to-heart-defects-in-babies-cancer-and-parkinsons-republicans-in-congress-want-to-reverse-a-ban-on-it/feed/ 0 521602 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/25/over-120-organizations-urge-congress-to-protect-epas-scientific-research-arm/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/25/over-120-organizations-urge-congress-to-protect-epas-scientific-research-arm/#respond Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:27:57 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/over-120-organizations-urge-congress-to-protect-epas-scientific-research-arm he Union of Concerned Scientists, Earthjustice, and 121 other organizations sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to support the office and to oppose two bills that would prevent EPA from relying on scientific health assessments produced by the office's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). If you are tracking these issues and would like more context on how closing the EPA’s scientific research arm would harm public health and the environment, please see the letter and a blog post published today by UCS President Gretchen Goldman, who previously served in the White House and as DOT's climate change research and technology director.

If you would like to speak with UCS president and blog writer Gretchen Goldman or issue area expert Darya Minovi, please contact UCS communications officer Lana Cohen via lcohen@ucs.org or (646) 410-1462. To speak with experts at Earthjustice, please contact Alejandro Davila at adavila@earthjustice.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/25/over-120-organizations-urge-congress-to-protect-epas-scientific-research-arm/feed/ 0 521420 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/18/new-analysis-congress-considering-creating-an-unprecedented-tax-shelter-to-steer-billions-to-private-k-12-school-vouchers-and-wealthy-individuals/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/18/new-analysis-congress-considering-creating-an-unprecedented-tax-shelter-to-steer-billions-to-private-k-12-school-vouchers-and-wealthy-individuals/#respond Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:10:35 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/new-analysis-congress-considering-creating-an-unprecedented-tax-shelter-to-steer-billions-to-private-k-12-school-vouchers-and-wealthy-individuals A bill introduced in Congress would create an unprecedented 100% tax credit for donations to nonprofits that give out private K-12 school vouchers and create a lucrative tax shelter that would further enrich some of America’s wealthiest individuals. If passed, the Educational Choice for Children Act of 2025 (ECCA) would cost $136.3 billion in revenue over the next decade, according to an analysis released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

“This is indefensible tax policy, and wasteful to the core,” said Carl Davis, research director at ITEP and author of the report. “If this bill were enacted, opportunists would flock to use this profitable tax shelter regardless of whether they had any actual interest in supporting private K-12 school vouchers. That’s the inevitable result of the government agreeing to pay out $136 billion in tax cuts in return for $126 billion of contributions to voucher funds. This is an egregious attempt to harness wealthy families’ interest in tax avoidance and personal profit as a means of driving interest in a cause that remains unpopular with the public.”

Other key findings:

• The 100% tax credit under this bill is a sharp departure from how the federal government treats most types of contributions to nonprofits. Typically, people contributing to nonprofits that support wounded veterans, survivors of domestic violence, victims of natural disasters, or other nonprofit endeavors receive, at most, a tax deduction valued at 37% of their contribution.
• Of the $136.3 billion in lost revenue over the next decade, $134 billion would be federal revenue and $2.3 billion would be spread across the states. The analysis has state-by-state numbers to show the local impact. California stands to lose the most over the decade ($877 million), followed by New York ($431 million), Massachusetts ($146 million), New Jersey ($103 million), and Illinois ($79 million).
• The money would flow from the public to three main groups of beneficiaries: private schools would receive 85% ($115.7 billion), voucher-bundling organizations would receive 7% ($10.1 billion), and wealthy donors would receive 8% ($10.5 billion) as personal profit.
• The personal profit element is enabled by the legislation allowing donors to give corporate stock and avoid capital gains taxes. ECCA’s supporters appear to be counting on this tax shelter as a means of driving donor interest in the program among wealthy investors.
• The nation’s wealthiest families would enjoy substantial tax avoidance opportunities under ECCA. For example, if ECCA had been in effect a few years ago, voucher-proponents Betsy DeVos and Jeffrey Yass would likely have claimed annual tax credits of $11.2 million and $130 million per year, respectively. Capital gains tax avoidance would have come on top of these tax credits and could be expected to result in roughly $1.4 million of annual profit for DeVos and $13.3 million of annual profit for Yass.

The Educational Choice for Children Act of 2025 has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 833 and in the U.S. Senate as S. 292. In the House it is sponsored by Rep. Adrian Smith and is currently co-sponsored by 51 Republican members of the House. In the Senate it is sponsored by Sen. Bill Cassidy and is currently co-sponsored by 32 Republican Senators. During the last Congress, the legislation was advanced out of the House Ways & Means Committee on a party-line vote; lawmakers on that committee also explicitly voted against an amendment that would have stripped the tax shelter provision from the bill.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/18/new-analysis-congress-considering-creating-an-unprecedented-tax-shelter-to-steer-billions-to-private-k-12-school-vouchers-and-wealthy-individuals/feed/ 0 519877 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/16/reward-to-dictators-cpj-stands-with-thousands-of-journalists-harmed-by-trumps-dismantling-of-voa-radio-free-outlets/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/16/reward-to-dictators-cpj-stands-with-thousands-of-journalists-harmed-by-trumps-dismantling-of-voa-radio-free-outlets/#respond Sun, 16 Mar 2025 17:42:16 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=463955 The Committee to Protect Journalists stands in support of thousands of journalists and millions of citizens around the world impacted by President Donald Trump’s dismantling Voice of America’s (VOA) staff and termination of funding to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA).

CPJ condemns a Trump executive order issued Friday that resulted in more than 1,300 employees being put on leave at VOA alone, and contract terminations at Radio Free outlets that would effectively end operations, and access to independent news for millions of citizens around the world, creating, as RFA President and CEO Bay Fang put it, “a reward to dictators and despots.”

In reiterating its call for congressional leaders to restore support for the parent funder of these outlets, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), CPJ emphasized the dire consequences of Trump’s action for many journalists.

“This suffocation of independent media is already putting the lives of journalists – who have often withstood enormous challenges to bring news to millions living in censored countries – in grave danger,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “It is really dystopian that the U.S. administration is now posing an existential threat to these historical organizations. We express our solidarity with the journalists put on administrative leave and urge congressional leaders to restore USAGM before irreparable harm is done.”

USAGM, an independent agency chartered by Congress, funds VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. The networks reach an estimated 427 million people.

CPJ research shows that journalists for USAGM networks often put themselves at risk by reporting in highly censored countries and frequently face retribution for their reporting.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/16/reward-to-dictators-cpj-stands-with-thousands-of-journalists-harmed-by-trumps-dismantling-of-voa-radio-free-outlets/feed/ 0 519431 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/15/cpj-urges-us-congress-to-stop-trump-from-gutting-voa-parent-other-agencies/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/15/cpj-urges-us-congress-to-stop-trump-from-gutting-voa-parent-other-agencies/#respond Sat, 15 Mar 2025 15:40:56 +0000 https://cpj.org/?p=463835 Washington, D.C., March 15, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges United States congressional leaders to protect the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) after President Trump signed an executive order on Friday aimed at dismantling the parent of Voice of America and six other federal agencies.

“It is outrageous that the White House is seeking to gut the Congress-funded agency supporting independent journalism that challenges narratives of authoritarian regimes around the world,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “We call on congressional leaders to protect this critical agency, which provides uncensored news in countries where the press is restricted.”

In addition to Voice of America (VOA), USAGM funds Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia. VOA recorded weekly global audiences of more than 350 million in 2023, and RFE/RL reaches more than 47 million people in 23 countries every week. The agency operated with a budget of more than $886 million in 2024 and employed more than 3,500 people. USAGM also subsidizes annual training for hundreds of media professionals around the world. 

CPJ’s research shows that journalists for VOA and RFE/RL often put themselves at risk by reporting in highly censored or dangerous countries.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/15/cpj-urges-us-congress-to-stop-trump-from-gutting-voa-parent-other-agencies/feed/ 0 519309 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/chinas-top-5-takeaways-from-the-national-peoples-congress-radio-free-asia-rfa-china/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/chinas-top-5-takeaways-from-the-national-peoples-congress-radio-free-asia-rfa-china/#respond Wed, 12 Mar 2025 20:58:30 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=998d7182d9f3c7bf699b99fcba202f6b
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/chinas-top-5-takeaways-from-the-national-peoples-congress-radio-free-asia-rfa-china/feed/ 0 518522 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/chinas-top-5-takeaways-from-the-national-peoples-congress-radio-free-asia-rfa/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/chinas-top-5-takeaways-from-the-national-peoples-congress-radio-free-asia-rfa/#respond Wed, 12 Mar 2025 20:24:30 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=0dc9b03b78f923991b86643e648f1a9e
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/12/chinas-top-5-takeaways-from-the-national-peoples-congress-radio-free-asia-rfa/feed/ 0 518493 https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/11/china-npc-economic-growth-fiscal-stimulus-tariffs-taiwan/ https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/11/china-npc-economic-growth-fiscal-stimulus-tariffs-taiwan/#respond Tue, 11 Mar 2025 18:48:03 +0000 https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/11/china-npc-economic-growth-fiscal-stimulus-tariffs-taiwan/ China’s 10-day National People Congress ended in Beijing on Tuesday amid sweeping promises from the country’s leaders to boost economic growth, support AI and to take control over democratic Taiwan.

Delegates also shed light on Beijing’s intentions for Tibet and revealed for the first time that U.S. sanctions on companies in Xinjiang using Uyghur forced labor are hurting business.

Here are five takeaways:

China aims to spur consumer spending amid looming trade war with US

In his March 5 work report, Premier Li Qiang pledged to boost domestic consumption as the driving force for economic growth, which he set at 5% for the coming year -- a target experts say is highly questionable and likely concocted for political reasons.

For years, exports have driven China’s growth. But leaders have tried to shift the focus to consumer spending after three years of COVID-19 restrictions and a slew of U.S. tariffs prompted manufacturers to move away from China and spooked foreign investors. And now President Donald Trump has imposed additional tariffs on Chinese exports to America.

To shore up the economy, the government plans to boost fiscal spending by 1.2 trillion yuan (US$165 billion) to 29.7 trillion yuan (US$4.16 billion), Li said -- but gave few details of how that money would be spent.

He also pledged to implement “an appropriately accommodative monetary policy” in the coming year.

“The impact of this National People’s Congress on the Chinese people is that their economy is now moving from strength to weakness, and this weakness will be long term,” social economist Ji Rong told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

(Pedro Pardo/AFP)

One proposal discussed by delegates to the 10-day National People’s Congress in Beijing was shortening the working week to four-and-a-half days to give people more leisure time.

The government will also further cut the personal income tax rate in a bid to boost purchasing power among middle- and low-earners.

An economic commentator who gave only the surname Hong for fear of reprisals said changes to the working week could prove effective, but that Li’s work report contained few other practical measures.

AI and high-tech seen as key sources of growth

Li Qiang also vowed to “unleash the creativity of the digital economy,” particularly through the use of AI.

“We will support the extensive application of large-scale AI models and vigorously develop new-generation intelligent terminals and smart manufacturing equipment, including intelligent connected new-energy vehicles, AI-enabled phones and computers, and intelligent robots,” he told delegates.

(Wang Zhao/AFP)

Li was speaking weeks after China’s launched its DeepSeek AI model, in what some called a “Sputnik moment” for the country.

Li also promised increased funding for AI, biomanufacturing, quantum technology and 6G, without giving further details.

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But experts said China will continue to be hampered by U.S. export and high-tech bans, including for cutting-edge semiconductors.

China’s increasingly powerful AI surveillance systems use facial recognition and combine data streams to create sophisticated “city brains” that can track events in real time, and are increasingly being exported around the world, according to a recent report.

The technology is also raising concerns about its use to treat patients by medical professionals, as well as to aid cheating in competitions (in Chinese).

Tibetan officials vow to expand ideological education and Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism

The Tibet Autonomous Region delegation vowed to strengthen efforts to fight “separatism” and prioritize “long-term stability” by expanding ideological education, as well as accelerate the Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism, which they said was key to “changing the face of Tibet.”

The delegates emphasized their commitment to ideological education guided by the “Three Consciousnesses,” a phrase used in Chinese propaganda to refer to national -- or Han Chinese -- consciousness, civic duties and the rule of law.

(Greg Baker/AFP)

“I believe this kind of education is highly effective,” said Karma Tseten, deputy head of the delegation and Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR. “Despite its value, it is constantly smeared and disrupted by the Dalai Lama and his group. But we will not be swayed.”

The rhetoric was a clear sign, experts said, that Beijing intends to continue to impose its repressive policies in Tibet under the guise of maintaining stability and combating separatism.

“Regardless of what policies China implements in Tibet, their stated goal of ‘maintaining stability’ fundamentally reveals that Tibetans do not trust the Chinese government,” Dawa Tsering, director at the Tibet Policy Institute, told Radio Free Asia.

Delegates said at a media briefing on Thursday that more than 90 percent of community leaders in Tibet now had basic knowledge of Mandarin.

They also emphasized that they will continue to focus on promoting in Tibet what China calls the “four major events” -– border security, environment, stability and economic and social development.

Top official from Uyghur region admits US sanctions are hurting businesses

During the congress, the Chinese government acknowledged for the first time that U.S. sanctions over the use of Uyghur forced labor have affected more than 100 companies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region, or XUAR, proving that international sanctions do have bite.

Ma Xingrui, the XUAR party secretary, told delegates that “the United States, relying on fabricated evidence, has imposed sanctions on Xinjiang businesses based on allegations of genocide and forced labor, affected more than 144 companies,“ according to the China Daily.

Sanctions “over accusations of ‘forced labor’ have become one of the biggest challenges in the region’s development,” Ma said during a panel discussion Friday at the NPC, according to the report.

While Ma didn’t elaborate on which companies were affected, this marks the first time the region’s highest party official admitted the sanctions were hurting businesses.

The United States and nearly a dozen Western parliaments have accused China of committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the 13 million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples living in Xinjiang.

In 2021, the U.S. government has passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans U.S. companies from doing business with Chinese businesses judged to be using Uyghur forced labor. Since then, some 144 companies have been blacklisted.

These sanctions are undermining the economic development of Xinjiang, which is a chief way that Beijing “wants to extend the legitimacy of its rule,” said Raymond Kuo, a China expert at Rand Corporation, a Washington think tank.

“Ultimately, the economic benefits that come from [Beijing’s] rule are going to be the key thing to increase the legitimacy of its rule as well as win over the population,” he said. “Western sanctions inhibit that.”

The sanctions are “particularly politically important for Xinjiang,” Kuo added. “They’re clearly having some impact, right?”

China to boost military spending by 7.2%

China is increasing its 2025 defense budget by 7.2% to US$246 billion amid growing rivalry with the United States and tensions over Taiwan, marking the fourth consecutive year of more than 7% growth in defense spending.

Li said Beijing would continue to “resolutely oppose separatist activities” in democratic Taiwan, as well as what he termed “external interference.”

China has ramped up military activities around Taiwan, conducting frequent air and naval incursions into the island’s air defense identification zone and staging large-scale drills near its waters. Beijing views Taiwan as an inseparable part of its territory and insists on eventual unification, by force if necessary.

(Pedro Pardo/AFP)

Yet Li also vowed a soft power charm offensive to push for what Beijing calls “peaceful unification.”

“We will improve institutions and policies for promoting economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation across the Taiwan Strait and advance integrated cross-Strait development,” he said. “We will firmly advance the cause of China’s unification.”

Military expert Pang Xinhua said China’s neighbors in the region are also worried about escalating military tensions.

“As China increases its military activities in the South China Sea, East China Sea and other regions, neighboring countries may worry about rising regional tensions leading to an escalating arms race,” Pang told RFA Mandarin.

“That could in turn lead to an escalation of the situation in the Taiwan Strait, as China’s continued strengthening of its military capabilities is interpreted as pressure on Taiwan,” he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin, Yitong Wu and Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.

]]> https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/11/china-npc-economic-growth-fiscal-stimulus-tariffs-taiwan/feed/ 0 518134 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/rep-al-green-on-decorum-and-why-he-disrupted-trumps-speech-to-congress/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/rep-al-green-on-decorum-and-why-he-disrupted-trumps-speech-to-congress/#respond Fri, 07 Mar 2025 20:00:10 +0000 http://www.radiofree.org/?guid=265a1b087cb28403e970b248d3cc034e
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/rep-al-green-on-decorum-and-why-he-disrupted-trumps-speech-to-congress/feed/ 0 517332 https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/07/china-npc-christians-raid-protestant-church/ https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/07/china-npc-christians-raid-protestant-church/#respond Fri, 07 Mar 2025 18:29:25 +0000 https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/07/china-npc-christians-raid-protestant-church/ Chinese authorities raided a Protestant “house church” in the eastern province of Anhui amid a nationwide security clampdown during the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing, according to a U.S.-based rights group and local Christians.

Police and local officials raided the Xinyi Village Church in Anhui’s Huainan city, detaining nine members including pastor Zhao Hongliang, the Christian rights group China Aid reported on March 5.

Four men including Zhao are now being held under “criminal detention,” while the remaining five were released on bail, the group said.

Local officials from the neighborhood committee and the bureau of religious affairs have taken control of the church premises, which police continue to harass its congregation, the report said.

The church is a member of the ruling Communist Party’s Three-Self Patriotic Association of approved organizations, but had refused to comply with official demands, according to China Aid (in Chinese).

Nationwide crackdown

Under President Xi Jinping, officials have engaged in a nationwide crackdown on Muslim, Christian and Tibetan Buddhist religious activities and venues since 2017.

Protestant churches are allowed to function if they are part of the government-backed Three-Self Patriotic Association. The three “selfs” refer to self-governance, self-support and self-propagation –- essentially rejecting any foreign influence –- and the “patriotic” refers to loyalty to the Chinese government.

China has many unauthorized “house churches” across the country, which are frequently raided by authorities, and some “Three-Self” churches have also been targeted at times, too.

A Protestant pastor surnamed Chen who is familiar with the Anhui case said the move was part of heightened security measures during the National People’s Congress in Beijing.

“The parliamentary sessions started on March 5, so controls are much tighter,” Chen said. “Things are pretty strict with churches ... with the state security police frequently harassing them and issuing warnings.”

(China Aid Coordination)

According to a Feb. 26 directive from Huainan’s Panji district religious affairs bureau, the government have assigned officials to a task force to manage Xinyi Village Church, as part of a move to “strengthen the standardized management of religious sites.”

“They will enter the church to carry out relevant work until the church’s internal management is on track,” the notice said.

It threatened severe punishment for Christians who violated laws and regulations, saying, “Christian believers must participate in normal religious activities within the scope permitted by the constitution, laws, and regulations, in accordance with Christian doctrines and canons.”

“Violations of laws and regulations will be severely punished in accordance with the law and regulations,” the notice warned.

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Repeated calls to the Panji district government, its Tianji sub-district office and the district ethnic and religious affairs bureau rang unanswered during office hours on Friday.

A church in every village

A Protestant pastor at a “house church” in Huainan who gave only the surname Zhou for fear of reprisals said the area has a high proportion of Christians, with a church in every village.

“The local government may be looking to win approval [from higher up],” Zhou said. “Whenever a new leader takes office, he will crack down on churches.”

The Xinyi Village Church raid came after police in the southwestern region of Guangxi raided a house church in Baise city, taking away nine members including children, ChinaAid reported.

While most were released, three church members -- Qin Tao, Cui Tiande, and Chen Shaofeng -- have yet to be released, it said.

A pastor from Guangdong’s Jiangmen city who gave only the surname Sun for fear of reprisals said there have been reports of similar raids across China in recent weeks, particularly targeting Christians who bring their children to church events.

“Churches in Henan, Anhui, Shenzhen and other inland areas have been threatened and intimidated,” Sun said. “[The authorities are] saying that they shouldn’t allow minors to attend gathering, or that these are illegal gatherings.”

A house church member from the southwestern province of Yunnan who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA Mandarin that authorities in Shangri-La have imposed a limit of eight people per gathering on churches in the area.

“No adults can’t gather in groups of more than seven or eight,” the person said. “The have installed surveillance cameras at their front doors.”

“There are also surveillance cameras in the church, but we don’t go there now.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

]]> https://rfa.org/english/china/2025/03/07/china-npc-christians-raid-protestant-church/feed/ 0 517318 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/over-250000-americans-urge-congress-to-begin-impeachment-proceedsing-against-president-trump/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/over-250000-americans-urge-congress-to-begin-impeachment-proceedsing-against-president-trump/#respond Fri, 07 Mar 2025 17:23:17 +0000 https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/over-250000-americans-urge-congress-to-begin-impeachment-proceedsing-against-president-trump Impeach Trump Again, a nonpartisan campaign led by Free Speech For People, announced today that they have collected over 250,000 petition signatures in support of an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump. The announcement comes on the heels of Rep. Al Green’s recent House floor speech that he would bring articles of impeachment against the president.

“The Constitution has a remedy for a corrupt, lawless president: impeachment,” says John Bonifaz, President of Free Speech For People. “Donald Trump has already committed multiple abuses of power since assuming the Oval Office again, and he must be held accountable. More than 250,000 people across the country have now joined this call for impeachment proceedings against Trump. We urge all Americans who still believe in the Constitution and our democracy to join us at this critical moment in our nation's history. And, we urge Members of Congress to follow the mandate of their oath of office, stand with Congressman Al Green, and invoke the power of the Impeachment Clause to address the direct and serious threat Donald Trump poses to our Republic.”

Launched on Inauguration Day, the campaign has documented multiple abuses of power President Trump has already committed, including: planning the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza; abusing his power to seek retributions against perceived adversaries; co-opting and dismantling independent government oversight; unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s powers; receiving foreign and domestic emoluments; depriving citizens of their birthright citizenship; corruptly dismissing criminal charges against Eric Adams; abusing the pardon power; abusing the emergency power; blocking efforts to secure U.S. elections; unconstitutionally usurping local and state authority; and engaging in unlawful, corrupt practices during the 2024 presidential election campaign.

“We applaud Congressman Al Green for demanding that the US Congress hold Donald Trump accountable through the impeachment process for his dangerous abuses of power,” says Courtney Hostetler, Free Speech For People’s Legal Director. “As Trump repeatedly undermines our democracy and ignores the Constitution, we will continue to call on Congress to fulfill its duty by investigating and, if necessary, removing this corrupt executive from office.”

For more information on the campaign, please visit impeachtrumpagain.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/over-250000-americans-urge-congress-to-begin-impeachment-proceedsing-against-president-trump/feed/ 0 517353 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/trump-has-declared-war-against-the-american-people-says-ralph-nader/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/trump-has-declared-war-against-the-american-people-says-ralph-nader/#respond Fri, 07 Mar 2025 07:36:01 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=111747 Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress in a highly partisan 100-minute speech, the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history on Wednesday.

Trump defended his sweeping actions over the past six weeks.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump praised his biggest campaign donor, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who’s leading Trump’s effort to dismantle key government agencies and cut critical government services.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And to that end, I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps.

Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. Thank you, Elon. He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need this. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

AMY GOODMAN: Some Democrats laughed and pointed at Elon Musk when President Trump made this comment later in his speech.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.

AMY GOODMAN: During his speech, President Trump repeatedly attacked the trans and immigrant communities, defended his tariffs that have sent stock prices spiraling, vowed to end Russia’s war on Ukraine and threatened to take control of Greenland.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland: We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it.

But we need it, really, for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.

‘A declaration of war against the American people.’  Video: Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: During Trump’s 100-minute address, Democratic lawmakers held up signs in protest reading “This is not normal,” “Save Medicaid” and “Musk steals.”

One Democrat, Congressmember Al Green of Texas, was removed from the chamber for protesting against the President.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Likewise, small business optimism saw its single-largest one-month gain ever recorded, a 41-point jump.

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 1: Sit down!

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEMBER 2: Order!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions. That’s your warning. Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of decorum, and the chair is prepared to direct the sergeant-at-arms to restore order to the joint session.

Mr Green, take your seat. Take your seat, sir.

DEMOCRAT CONGRESS MEMBER AL GREEN: He has no mandate to cut Medicaid!

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: Take your seat. Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the sergeant-at-arms to restore order, remove this gentleman from the chamber.

AMY GOODMAN: That was House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called in security to take Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green out. Afterwards, Green spoke to reporters after being removed.

DEMOCRAT CONGRESS MEMBER AL GREEN: The President said he had a mandate, and I was making it clear to the President that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid.

I have people who are very fearful. These are poor people, and they have only Medicaid in their lives when it comes to their healthcare. And I want him to know that his budget calls for deep cuts in Medicaid.

He needs to save Medicaid, protect it. We need to raise the cap on Social Security. There’s a possibility that it’s going to be hurt. And we’ve got to protect Medicare.

These are the safety net programmes that people in my congressional district depend on. And this President seems to care less about them and more about the number of people that he can remove from the various programmes that have been so helpful to so many people.

AMY GOODMAN: Texas Democratic Congressmember Al Green.

We begin today’s show with Ralph Nader, the longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, former presidential candidate. Ralph Nader is founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper. His most recent lead article in the new issue of Capitol Hill Citizen is titled “Democratic Party: Apologise to America for ushering Trump back in.”

He is also the author of the forthcoming book Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country That Works for the People.

Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, all these different programmes. Ralph Nader, respond overall to President Trump’s, well, longest congressional address in modern history.

RALPH NADER: Well, it was also a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favour of the super-rich and the giant corporations. What Trump did last night was set a record for lies, delusionary fantasies, predictions of future broken promises — a rerun of his first term — boasts about progress that don’t exist.

In practice, he has launched a trade war. He has launched an arms race with China and Russia. He has perpetuated and even worsened the genocidal support against the Palestinians. He never mentioned the Palestinians once.

And he’s taken Biden’s genocidal policies one step further by demanding the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza.

But taking it as a whole, Amy, what we’re seeing here defies most of dictionary adjectives. What Trump and Musk and Vance and the supine Republicans are doing are installing an imperial, militaristic domestic dictatorship that is going to end up in a police state.

You can see his appointments are yes people bent on suppression of civil liberties, civil rights. You can see his breakthrough, after over 120 years, of announcing conquest of Panama Canal.

He’s basically said, one way or another, he’s going to take Greenland. These are not just imperial controls of countries overseas or overthrowing them; it’s actually seizing land.

Now, on the Greenland thing, Greenland is a province of Denmark, which is a member of NATO. He is ready to basically conquer a part of Denmark in violation of Section 5 of NATO, at the same time that he has displayed full-throated support for a hardcore communist dictator, Vladimir Putin, who started out with the Russian version of the CIA under the Soviet Union and now has over 20 years of communist dictatorship, allied, of course, with a number of oligarchs, a kind of kleptocracy.

And the Republicans are buying all this in Congress. This is complete reversal of everything that the Republicans stood for against communist dictators.

So, what we’re seeing here is a phony programme of government efficiency ripping apart people’s programmes. The attack on Social Security is new, complete lies about millions of people aged 110, 120, getting Social Security cheques.

That’s a new attack. He left Social Security alone in his first term, but now he’s going after [it]. So, what they’re going to do is cut Medicaid and cut other social safety nets in order to pay for another tax cut for the super-rich and the corporation, throwing in no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security benefits, which will, of course, further increase the deficit and give the lie to his statement that he wants a balanced budget.

So we’re dealing with a deranged, unstable pathological liar, who’s getting away with it. And the question is: How does he get away with it, year after year? Because the Democratic Party has basically collapsed.

Courts Just Say No to Trump’s Authoritarian Power Grabs https://t.co/wUZspBh6RQ

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) March 6, 2025

They don’t know how to deal with a criminal recidivist, a person who has hired workers without documents and exploited them, a person who’s a bigot against immigrants, including legal immigrants who are performing totally critical tasks in home healthcare, processing poultry, meat, and half of the construction workers in Texas are undocumented workers.

So, as a bully, he doesn’t go after the construction industry in Texas; he picks out individuals.

I thought the most disgraceful thing, Amy, yesterday was his use of these unfortunate people who suffered as props, holding one up after another. But they were also Trump’s crutches to cover up his contradictory behavior.

So, he praised the police yesterday, but he pardoned over 600 people who attacked violently the police [in the attack on the Capitol] on 6 January 2021 and were convicted and imprisoned as a result, and he let them out of prison. I thought the most —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, I —

RALPH NADER: — the most heartrending thing was that 13-year-old child, who wanted to be a police officer when he grew up, being held up twice by his father. And he was so bewildered as to what was going on. And Trump’s use of these people was totally reprehensible and should be called out.

Now, more basically, the real inefficiencies in government, they’re ignoring, because they are kleptocrats. They’re ignoring corporate crimes on Medicaid, Medicare, tens of billions of dollars every year ripping off Medicare, ripping off government contracts, such as defence contracts.

He’s ignoring hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare, including that doled out to Elon Musk — subsidies, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, you name it. And he’s ignoring the bloated military budget, which he is supporting the Republicans in actually increasing the military budget more than the generals have asked for. So, that’s the revelation —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph? Ralph, if I — Ralph, if I can interrupt? I just need to —

RALPH NADER: — that the Democrats need to pursue.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Ralph, I wanted to ask you about — specifically about Medicaid and Medicare. You’ve mentioned the cuts to these safety net programmes. What about Medicaid, especially the crisis in this country in long-term care? What do you see happening in this Trump administration, especially with the Republican majority in Congress?

RALPH NADER: Well, they’re going to slash — they’re going to move to slash Medicaid, which serves over 71 million people, including millions of Trump voters, who should be reconsidering their vote as the days pass, because they’re being exploited in red states, blue states, everywhere, as well.

Yeah, they have to cut tens of billions of dollars a year from Medicaid to pay for the tax cut. That’s number one. Now they’re going after Social Security. Who knows what the next step will be on Medicare? They’re leaving Americans totally defenceless by slashing meat and poultry and food inspection laws, auto safety.

They’re exposing people to climate violence by cutting FEMA, the rescue agency. They’re cutting forest rangers that deal with wildfires. They’re cutting protections against pandemics and epidemics by slashing and ravaging and suppressing free speech in scientific circles, like CDC and National Institutes of Health.

They’re leaving the American people defenseless.

And where are the Democrats on this? I mean, look at Senator Slotkin’s response. It was a typical rerun of a feeble, weak Democratic rebuttal. She couldn’t get herself, just like the Democrats in 2024, which led to Trump’s victory — they can’t get themselves, Juan, to talk specifically and authentically about raising the minimum wage, expanding healthcare, cracking down on corporate crooks that are bleeding out the incomes of hard-pressed American workers and the poor.

They can’t get themselves to talk about increasing frozen Social Security budgets for 50 years, that 200 Democrats supported raising, but Nancy Pelosi kept them, when she was Speaker, from taking John Larson’s bill to the House floor.

That’s why they lose. Look at her speech. It was so vague and general. They chose her because she was in the national security state. She was a former CIA. They chose her because they wanted to promote the losing version of the Democratic Party, instead of choosing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, the most popular polled politician in America today.

That’s who they chose. So, as long as the Democrats monopolise the opposition and crush third-party efforts to push them into more progressive realms, the Republican, plutocratic, Wall Street, war machine declaration of war against the American people will continue.

We’re heading into the most serious crisis in American history. There’s no comparison.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, we’re going to have to leave it there, but, of course, we’re going to continue to cover these issues. And I also wanted to wish you, Ralph, a happy 91st birthday. Ralph Nader —

RALPH NADER: I wish people to get the Capitol Hill Citizen, which tells people what they can really do to win democracy and justice back. So, for $5 or donation or more, if you wish, you can go to Capitol Hill Citizen and get a copy sent immediately by first-class mail, or more copies for your circle, of resisting and protesting and prevailing over this Trump dictatorship.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, four-time presidential candidate, founder of the Capitol Hill Citizen newspaper. This is Democracy Now!

The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence. Republished by Asia Pacific Report under Creative Commons.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

]]> https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/07/trump-has-declared-war-against-the-american-people-says-ralph-nader/feed/ 0 517133 https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/06/trump-returns-power-to-declare-war-to-congress/ https://www.radiofree.org/2025/03/06/trump-returns-power-to-declare-war-to-congress/#respond Thu, 06 Mar 2025 05:30:29 +0000 https://www.counterpunch.org/?p=356473 I almost never agree with Mr. Trump. However, having wasted a life as a lawyer trying to resurrect the Constitution of “limited, specifically enumerated powers” and checks and balances to avoid tyranny, I found myself reading his February 19, 2025, executive order proclaiming that, “ending Federal overreach and restoring the constitutional separation of powers is More

The post Trump Returns Power to Declare War to Congress? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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Image by PS.

I almost never agree with Mr. Trump. However, having wasted a life as a lawyer trying to resurrect the Constitution of “limited, specifically enumerated powers” and checks and balances to avoid tyranny, I found myself reading his February 19, 2025, executive order proclaiming that, “ending Federal overreach and restoring the constitutional separation of powers is a priority of my Administration,” with hope and amazement.

The order directs all federal agencies in coordination with the DOGE teams embedded within them to spend the next 60 days combing through their regulations to identify any that may be unconstitutional.

Sadly, the most critical overreach destroying separation of powers was not mentioned. Let me explain.

The authors of the Constitution had lived under the government of England where the King was not only commander in chief of the Armies of the Empire, but could declare war as well. History, a favorite subject of the authors of the Constitution, was studied to see where England and other nations went off the rails and degenerated from legitimate government into tyranny and they found a single error repeated over and over again. What was it?

When one person could declare a war and then become Commander of the Armies to fight the war, in every case that person often declared a war not because the nation was actually threatened, but because taxes and regulations had become so irritating to the people that they were getting restless and demanding reform and possibly revolution. So the Big Head Man, King, Emperor, Chief, whatever, would drum up a boogie man foreign enemy, use fear to inflame the people and divert their attention from the domestic over taxation and government abuse, and use war to manipulate patriotism to stay in power. This trick had been used over and over in history across the world.

So the Constitution created separation of powers especially in matters of war. The Congress alone can declare war: see: Article I, section 8, clause 11. The authors debated this and concluded history made the people safer if their representatives had to reach a consensus decision that war was necessary and proper. This, it was argued, prevented plunging the nation into an unnecessary war started by some single madman, or a wannabe King, or tyrant seeking to use war to benefit his own power grab as had occurred so many times in history.

Okay, you don’t trust me on this, I understand, because you have grown up in an America where Congress had long ago abandoned its duty to be the sole entity to declare war and instead delegated it to our Nuclear Dictator. Perhaps then you will listen to Abe Lincoln in 1848, responding to a challenger claiming the President could declare war without Congress, on the matter:

“The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our president where kings have always stood.” (–Abraham Lincoln, 1848)

Fear of the USSR (remember them?) overwhelmed Americans and enabled the Congress to give the President the power to declare nuclear war in the 1947 National Security Act. Just one dude, with his “nuclear football,” can launch the entire US nuclear arsenal! Enough bombs to pretty much wipe out humankind, launched in violation of the Constitution. This transformed the President into a Nuclear Dictator.

Rather than renouncing that unconstitutional delegation of power by Congress destroying separation of powers, every President since Harry S. Truman has accepted that violation of the Constitution, or supreme law, they swore to uphold. Accepting this illegal power seems to violate the Presidential oath of office which requires the President to defend the Constitution. Accepting this power pretty much destroyed the heart and soul of the Constitution, and made every subsequent president an outlaw in any rational view.

I call on President Trump to renounce this most odious violation of separation of powers. I urge him to issue an Executive Order to restore the heart and soul of the Constitution. Declare to all the world, only the Congress can declare war and as President bound by his oath before god to defend the Constitution, he repudiates the Nuclear Dictatorship and orders all US military branches to refuse to follow an order to launch nuclear weapons unless Congress has declared war.

And, if the President does not do so, then the Congress, the Courts and the people must strip him of that usurpation. The greatest unconstitutional overreach destroying separation of powers is the Presidential usurpation of the power to declare war. Can we start by reversing that?

The post Trump Returns Power to Declare War to Congress? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kary Love.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

President Donald Trump delivered the longest presidential address to a joint session of Congress in modern history Tuesday night, laying out his vision for the next four years as he defended his many executive actions to dismantle large portions of the federal government. For an hour and 40 minutes, Trump repeatedly lied and exaggerated his accomplishments and his opponents’ failures, deploying racist and dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, LGBTQ people and his critics. Trump heaped praise on billionaire Elon Musk and his efforts to slash entire government agencies. The speech was “a declaration of war against the American people, including Trump voters, in favor of the super-rich and the giant corporations,” says Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

In an article published in the ideological party journal Qiushi on Monday -- two days before the congress opens -- Xi warned of the “many risks and hidden dangers” facing China’s economy, before alluding to the threats of further U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

“At present, the adverse effects of changes in the external environment have deepened, and our country’s economy still faces many difficulties and challenges,” Xi wrote in the piece.

U.S. President Donald Trump last month imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports in retaliation for what he said was Beijing’s refusal to stop the outflow of precursors for the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Beijing then introduced a 15% retaliatory tariff on certain U.S. energy exports to China. Last week, Trump warned he would ramp that rate up a further 10% on March 4. As a presidential candidate last year, Trump vowed tariffs of “more than” 60% on Chinese imports.

(Reuters)

Beijing is now “studying and formulating countermeasures” in the event that those tariffs go ahead, the party-backed Global Times newspaper cited an anonymous source as saying on Monday.

“The countermeasures will likely include both tariffs and a series of non-tariff measures, and U.S. agricultural and food products will most likely be listed,” the paper quoted the source as saying.

China’s economic troubles

While they mull countermeasures, though, officials in Beijing have maintained they would prefer to forget about tariffs altogether.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press briefing on Monday that there are “no winners” in a tariff war.

“The U.S. attempt to politicize and weaponize trade and economic issues, levy tariff hikes on Chinese imports under the pretext of fentanyl and create blocks to its normal trade, investment and economic cooperation with China will only harm its own economic interests and international credibility,” Lin said.

China is ready to engage in “dialogue and consultation on the basis of equality and mutual respect,” Lin added.

“In the meanwhile, we will take all measures necessary to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests,” he said.

(Jim Waton/AFP)

The pending trade war comes at a time of economic stress in China.

Since the start of the U.S.-China trade war under the first Trump administration, Xi has appealed for restructuring to replace exports with domestic consumption as the main driver of growth.

But three years of zero-COVID restrictions and a slew of U.S. tariffs and restrictions has prompted many manufacturers to relocate away from China and spooked foreign investors.

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Meanwhile, widespread unemployment and a burst real estate bubble has made life much harder for ordinary Chinese.

Those concerns were reiterated in Xi’s article, which pulled heavily from China’s Central Economic Work Conference in December.

“We must face up to difficulties, strengthen our confidence and strive to transform positive factors from all aspects into development results,” Xi wrote, adding that expanded domestic demand isn’t just a quick fix but “a strategic move.”

Growth figures questioned

Struggling Chinese exporters told RFA Mandarin that the new tariffs proposed by Trump will further harm their businesses.

The head of an electronics factory in Shenzhen who gave only the surname Ge for fear of reprisals said that the value of her company’s exports to the United States has been slashed in half since last October, and that tariffs will make things worse.

“Some taxes are paid by U.S. importers, which pushes up prices,” she said. “U.S. importers usually pass on the costs of tariffs to consumers, making our goods more expensive.”

Ge has cut the number of employees from 17 to just seven, while the sales team has been slashed from 10 to four.

“Chinese exports may lose market share to competitors in Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries as U.S. importers look for other suppliers,” she said.

(Go Nakamura/Reuters)

Political commentator Willy Lam told RFA Mandarin there is still hope that Trump won’t carry out his threat to impose tariffs above 60%.

“The 10% increase in tariffs ... is still lower than the rates Trump mentioned in 2024 of 60% or more,” Lam said. “In general, Trump’s attitude towards Xi Jinping is milder than expected.”

Analysts expect growth to be set around the 5% mark during this week’s congress, and there has also been speculation about the possibility of renewed economic stimulus packages.

“The general public in China is short of money,” Lam said. “Most importantly, they lack confidence in the government right now.”

U.S.-based economic commentator Qin Weiping cited falling marriage rates and birth rates as an indicator of low economic confidence, as young people increasingly struggle to make ends meet.

“People have no confidence in the economy, or in the future,” he said. “So demand for residential property is naturally weaker.... It will be hard to fix the real estate problem because this is a vicious cycle.”

The government should consider hiring more graduates as civil servants, Qin suggested, citing the 12.22 million who graduated in 2025 alone, swelling the ranks of the young unemployed.

(Elizabeth Frants/Reuters)

Xie Tian, ​​a professor at the Aiken School of Business at the University of South Carolina, said China’s growth figures were questionable in any case, alleging the numbers were fudged for political reasons.

“No-one believes it -- whether they say it’s 5% or 15% -- because that’s basically impossible,” Xie said. “If the economic growth rate was 5%, their unemployment rate wouldn’t be that high.”

But others noted a growing conundrum in China’s recent efforts to stimulate domestic growth without relying on traditional exports.

Qin, the economic commentator, noted Chinese officials appeared increasingly focussed in their official documents on achieving growth through artificial intelligence, which necessitates fewer workers.

Only further investment in labor-intensive industries would solve China’s problem of dampened domestic demand, he said, by putting more spending money into the pockets of China’s consumers.

“Give them a level playing field and allow the economy to get on the right track ... which will gradually solve the problem of unemployment,” he said. “People need to feel that business is good, money is easy to make, and that life is getting better and better.”

“It’s that simple.”

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Alex Willemyns.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Xi Zian, Qian Lang and Lucie Lo for RFA Mandarin.

The older brother of former World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa is serving a 20-year sentence in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang for “inciting terrorism,” local police and security officers at a school where he taught said.

Yalkun Isa, now 63, taught at the Aksu Education Institute in the city of Aksu, a college where over two dozen Uyghur educators had been arrested in 2017 at a time of mass detentions of Uyghur educators, businessmen and cultural figures in re-education camps to prevent what China said was terrorism and religious extremism.

When an expatriate Uyghur with knowledge of the situation in Aksu told Radio Free Asia in the earlier report about the detained teachers from the school, he mentioned that Yalkun Isa also had been jailed.

Yalkun’s brother Dolkun served as president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, from 2017-2024. Dolkun, who has lived in exile since 1994, has long faced harassment from China for his advocacy work on behalf of Uyghurs.

A police officer with whom Radio Free Asia spoke confirmed that Yalkun had been arrested for contacting people in foreign countries by phone, but said he also had downloaded content from foreign websites.

The police officer said he saw Yalkun’s verdict, stating that the teacher had been sentenced to 20 years for inciting those around him to form an organization and to commit “terrorism.”

Another police officer from Aksu who requested anonymity so he could speak freely about Yalkun, said the teacher was arrested in late 2017 because records of his phone communications showed he had spoken with people abroad.

Forced confession

During his interrogation, which lasted about a month, Yalkun was forced to make a confession that while speaking with Dolkun, he received instructions about establishing an organization in Aksu and conducting “terrorism,” the police officer said.

A police officer at the Aksu Education Institute said Yalkun was handed over to state security agents for questioning, and that after his closed trial he was transferred to Aksu Prison.

But a political leader from Aksu’s state security police told RFA that Yalkun’s case had been transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department.

“We didn’t interrogate him,” he said.

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Another official from the city’s state security police who asked not to be named so he could speak freely about Yalkun said during the trial, Yalkun’s ordinary discussions about international affairs with two of his students were misrepresented as “incitement.”

Another employee at the school’s police station said Yalkun was tried alongside two former classmates from Xinjiang University but did not disclose their identities.

“All three of them were arrested for plotting terrorism,” he said.

Yalkun is currently serving his sentence at Urumqi Prison No. 1, both of these officers said.

Cautions interactions

Yalkun began working at the Aksu Education Institute after he graduated with a degree in math from Xinjiang University in 1984.

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist living in Norway who maintains a list of Uyghurs in Xinjiang who have been detained, said Yalkun was always cautious in his interactions in Xinjiang because of Dolkun’s political background.

Dolkun Isa said he spoke several times with Yalkun, usually during holidays, about their elderly father’s health until April 2017, after which he lost contact with him.

In 2019, Dolkun received unofficial information from the Uyghur community that his brother had been detained and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Then, in January 2020, when the Chinese Communist Party forced Dolkun’s older sister, Azgul Isa, to make a video statement condemning Isa for “smear[ing] Xinjiang from overseas,” he said he only saw Azgul, his older brother’s son and the son’s wife in the video, but not his older and younger brothers.

On Friday, Dolkun Isa posted on X that he “woke up this morning to the news — reported by RFA — that my brother, mathematics Professor Yalkun Isa, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by China. His only ‘crime’ is that he’s my brother and Uyghur! My family and relatives are being punished for my activism abroad. +1000 of Uyghur intellectuals have been imprisoned in an attempt to silence us. But we will not be silenced!”

In 2017, authorities in Xinjiang arrested another brother, Hushtar Isa, based in Aksu, while he was working at a driving school because he was a former prisoner, sources with knowledge of the situation told RFA in an earlier report. Hushtar had been reportedly detained in 1998 and sentenced to two years in prison.

During Hushtar’s two years in a re-education camp in Aksu, authorities accused him of more than 10 crimes for “mistakes” he had committed during his life.

Their mother, Ayhan Memet, died in a “re-education” camp in May 2018 in Aksu, where she had been detained for exhibiting “religious extremism.”

Chinese authorities denied that she died in the internment facility and said Memet and other members of the family were living peacefully.

A January 2020 report by China’s Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid, revealed that their father, who had been sent to a concentration camp in May or June of 2017, died a year later.

The report criticized the WUC and Dolkun Isa for what WUC claimed reflected China’s increasing frustration with his success in bringing attention to the issue of mass internment in Xinjiang.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Shohret Hoshur for RFA Uyghur.

The older brother of former World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa is serving a 20-year sentence in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang for “inciting terrorism,” local police and security officers at a school where he taught said.

Yalkun Isa, now 63, taught at the Aksu Education Institute in the city of Aksu, a college where over two dozen Uyghur educators had been arrested in 2017 at a time of mass detentions of Uyghur educators, businessmen and cultural figures in re-education camps to prevent what China said was terrorism and religious extremism.

When an expatriate Uyghur with knowledge of the situation in Aksu told Radio Free Asia in the earlier report about the detained teachers from the school, he mentioned that Yalkun Isa also had been jailed.

Yalkun’s brother Dolkun served as president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, from 2017-2024. Dolkun, who has lived in exile since 1994, has long faced harassment from China for his advocacy work on behalf of Uyghurs.

A police officer with whom Radio Free Asia spoke confirmed that Yalkun had been arrested for contacting people in foreign countries by phone, but said he also had downloaded content from foreign websites.

The police officer said he saw Yalkun’s verdict, stating that the teacher had been sentenced to 20 years for inciting those around him to form an organization and to commit “terrorism.”

Another police officer from Aksu who requested anonymity so he could speak freely about Yalkun, said the teacher was arrested in late 2017 because records of his phone communications showed he had spoken with people abroad.

Forced confession

During his interrogation, which lasted about a month, Yalkun was forced to make a confession that while speaking with Dolkun, he received instructions about establishing an organization in Aksu and conducting “terrorism,” the police officer said.

A police officer at the Aksu Education Institute said Yalkun was handed over to state security agents for questioning, and that after his closed trial he was transferred to Aksu Prison.

But a political leader from Aksu’s state security police told RFA that Yalkun’s case had been transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department.

“We didn’t interrogate him,” he said.

RELATED STORIES

Over 2 dozen teachers at Aksu school sentenced to prison in Xinjiang

Brother of World Uyghur Congress president sentenced to life in prison in China’s Xinjiang

Targeted by Chinese smear campaign, Uyghur leader learns of father’s death

Another official from the city’s state security police who asked not to be named so he could speak freely about Yalkun said during the trial, Yalkun’s ordinary discussions about international affairs with two of his students were misrepresented as “incitement.”

Another employee at the school’s police station said Yalkun was tried alongside two former classmates from Xinjiang University but did not disclose their identities.

“All three of them were arrested for plotting terrorism,” he said.

Yalkun is currently serving his sentence at Urumqi Prison No. 1, both of these officers said.

Cautions interactions

Yalkun began working at the Aksu Education Institute after he graduated with a degree in math from Xinjiang University in 1984.

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur activist living in Norway who maintains a list of Uyghurs in Xinjiang who have been detained, said Yalkun was always cautious in his interactions in Xinjiang because of Dolkun’s political background.

Dolkun Isa said he spoke several times with Yalkun, usually during holidays, about their elderly father’s health until April 2017, after which he lost contact with him.

In 2019, Dolkun received unofficial information from the Uyghur community that his brother had been detained and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Then, in January 2020, when the Chinese Communist Party forced Dolkun’s older sister, Azgul Isa, to make a video statement condemning Isa for “smear[ing] Xinjiang from overseas,” he said he only saw Azgul, his older brother’s son and the son’s wife in the video, but not his older and younger brothers.

On Friday, Dolkun Isa posted on X that he “woke up this morning to the news — reported by RFA — that my brother, mathematics Professor Yalkun Isa, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by China. His only ‘crime’ is that he’s my brother and Uyghur! My family and relatives are being punished for my activism abroad. +1000 of Uyghur intellectuals have been imprisoned in an attempt to silence us. But we will not be silenced!”

In 2017, authorities in Xinjiang arrested another brother, Hushtar Isa, based in Aksu, while he was working at a driving school because he was a former prisoner, sources with knowledge of the situation told RFA in an earlier report. Hushtar had been reportedly detained in 1998 and sentenced to two years in prison.

During Hushtar’s two years in a re-education camp in Aksu, authorities accused him of more than 10 crimes for “mistakes” he had committed during his life.

Their mother, Ayhan Memet, died in a “re-education” camp in May 2018 in Aksu, where she had been detained for exhibiting “religious extremism.”

Chinese authorities denied that she died in the internment facility and said Memet and other members of the family were living peacefully.

A January 2020 report by China’s Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid, revealed that their father, who had been sent to a concentration camp in May or June of 2017, died a year later.

The report criticized the WUC and Dolkun Isa for what WUC claimed reflected China’s increasing frustration with his success in bringing attention to the issue of mass internment in Xinjiang.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Shohret Hoshur for RFA Uyghur.

Those tax credits and the bill that enabled them — the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, the Biden administration’s signature climate policy — helped launch 750 clean energy projects credited with creating 400,000 new jobs and over $422 billion in investments. But it drew the ire of the Trump administration. One of Trump’s first acts was signing an executive order pausing funding for programs under the IRA, though the tax credits remain spared, for now, because changing them would require an act of Congress. 

Republican-led states have benefited the most from the credits, and freezing them will hurt communities across the country, the letter sent to congressional leaders in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees late Friday warns. 

“Repeal, rollback, or adjustment of any clean energy incentives will upend countless energy projects and jobs across our country, endangering millions of American jobs, increasing costs for everyday Americans, costing billions in taxpayer dollars, and potentially forcing American jobs overseas,” reads the letter, signed by 133 local leaders representing 25 million Americans across jurisdictions led by both Democrats and Republicans.

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The IRA is the nation’s largest single investment in addressing climate change, allocating billions of dollars via grants, loans, and tax incentives to promote the energy transition away from fossil fuels. The bill passed without a single Republican voting for it and has continued to face partisan attacks, though some Republican members of Congress have come to support it as money began flowing into their communities. According to the letter from local leaders, 85 percent of announced investments and 53 percent of new clean energy jobs stemming from the IRA are in districts represented by Republicans. 

The 13 tax credits the IRA created for state and local governments have led to the creation of charging stations for electric vehicles, solar installations on government buildings, and more. In just the first year of the tax credits being available, over 500 local governments have taken advantage of them. 

Kate Gallego, Phoenix’s mayor, said the pause in tax credits has created uncertainty for local governments and businesses regarding the status of funding for various projects. In many cases, the credits come in the form of reimbursements for cities, she said. Phoenix has already placed orders for hybrid-electric buses thanks to the incentives and received a $15 million grant for expanding its EV charging network and addressing the city’s air quality problems. The city is trying to find out if that funding will still be available as city leaders work on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, she said. 

Without certainty that the funding will be there, many of the projects can’t move forward. And if the IRA’s tax credits are repealed, it would raise electric bills for Americans across the country by roughly $489 a year as well as cutting jobs, the letter stated. 

“Whether you care about helping people manage their energy consumption, or American innovation or energy independence for the United States, the clean energy tax credits and direct pay have advanced those agendas,” said Gallego, who is also chair of Climate Mayors, a network of mayors focused on climate action. Many of the letter’s signees are members.

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Naveena Sadasivam

The tax credits’ uncertain future is one consequence of the Trump administration’s funding freeze across the government, touching off court battles and warnings from experts that the country is in a full-blown constitutional crisis. Federal judges have ruled that the Trump administration cannot pause congressionally approved funds to state and local governments, but agencies are still holding money back. 

That led a coalition of 22 Democratic state attorneys general to file a motion to enforce the judges’ rulings and a motion for a preliminary injunction in one of the court cases to stop the funding freeze. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must immediately restore all frozen federal funding, a win for the states. 

“This funding is owed by law to the people of Arizona,” said Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes in a statement announcing the legal filing. “Trump can try every trick he has up his sleeve to evade the constitution, but I will be there to stop him.” 

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the effect President Trump’s executive order had on clean energy tax credits made available by the Inflation Reduction Act to state and local governments. The tax credits were not paused because changing them would require an act of Congress.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Mayors across the US urge Congress not to repeal clean energy tax credits on Feb 16, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Wyatt Myskow, Inside Climate News.

The vision

“The goal is that we’re growing the recreation economy for all recreation. So the hikers and bikers and hunters and anglers and skiers and snowmobilers and boaters and ATVers — we’re looking at what we all agree on. And we all agree on access for everyone.”

— Jessica Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable

The spotlight

In today’s political landscape, it seems unlikely for much of anything to garner bipartisan support, let alone anything to do with climate or environmental equity. But, just before the end of the year, one of the final acts of the 118th U.S. Congress was passing the EXPLORE Act, a bill aimed at expanding access to the outdoors. The sweeping piece of legislation includes measures to develop new long-distance bike trails, improve outdoor access for veterans and people with disabilities, and even address housing shortages and other strains on outdoor gateway communities. And it passed both the House and Senate with unanimous approval.

“This bill is the undefeated champion in Congress,” said Republican Representative Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the chair of the Natural Resources Committee, who sponsored and introduced the bill in the House, along with Democratic Representative Raúl Grijalva from Arizona. “I think it shows how outdoor recreation can unite people with a lot of different interests, a lot of different worldviews, and a lot of different priorities.”

The EXPLORE Act, which stands for Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences, was supported by hundreds of outdoor advocacy organizations and garnered 51 co-sponsors in the House — including a relatively even split of Democrats and Republicans.

“This is a place that I think is fairly unique in our current environment, that seems to have a lot of support,” said Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit that works to create more green spaces and connect more people with the outdoors.

That across-the-aisle support for outdoor access goes back decades. Another bill, the Great American Outdoors Act, was passed by a significant majority in 2020 and signed by President Donald Trump during his first term. The bill dedicated funding to address a backlog of maintenance projects in national parks — and also made permanent the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which was passed with bipartisan support all the way back in 1964, due to the widespread popularity of national parks.

The story is similar at state and local levels. Hauser noted that, in addition to federal legislation like the EXPLORE Act, Trust for Public Land has been focused on helping communities across the U.S. pass ballot measures related to conservation, from creating new green spaces to protecting rivers to wildfire mitigation initiatives. “We worked on 23 of those that were on the November ballot across the country — small communities, large communities, rural, urban, red, blue,” Hauser said. “All 23 of them passed.”

It’s hard to say what, exactly, makes outdoor access an issue that can cross the political divide in this way. It doesn’t hurt that outdoor recreation has grown into a $1.2 trillion industry, encompassing more than 5 million jobs. That economic power gives the industry some political clout. But the heart of the matter may have more to do with sentiment than numbers. “I think anyone who’s had an experience outside has felt it in their own lives,” said Jessica Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a coalition of outdoor recreation trade associations and organizations.

That emotional connection was key for many of the people who came together behind this bill. Westerman said that he “grew up in the outdoors,” and still enjoys spending as much time as he can doing activities like hunting, fishing, hiking, and mountain biking. Hauser noted that she herself grew up next to the Grand Canyon, enjoying that natural wonder and the surrounding national forest as one big outdoor playground. She considers her current career, leading an outdoor advocacy organization, to be the “full circle” result of a connection instilled in her from a very young age.

There are certainly some aspects of outdoor recreation and preservation where different stakeholders could have opposing priorities — for instance, it’s easy to imagine where hunters and anglers might conflict with wildlife conservationists. But, Turner said, the EXPLORE Act was zoomed-out enough to have broad appeal.

“We’re not talking about this place, this trail that horseback riders and e-bikers are not getting along on,” she said. “We’re talking about the ecosystem as a whole, our public lands being public, the water staying clean, and our kids being able to ride the same bike trail that I rode,” she said. “Someone that doesn’t agree with that is, like, really far out there. I haven’t met them.”

Outdoor Recreation Roundtable held a reception last week to celebrate the EXPLORE Act’s success, and Turner described how significant the camaraderie at the event felt, not only among lawmakers across the aisle, but also among various conservation and outdoor recreation groups and companies that are rarely in a room together. “When you do the big tent, everyone feels like they have a place in it,” she said.

This is where those who work on outdoor access see the opportunity for related issues, like climate and justice. The biggest tent — a liveable future for humanity — is something nobody would likely object to. And the best way to bring more people into it may be to frame the conversation around the things that touch on people’s lived experiences and emotional connections.

“Climate change has become politically divisive,” said Mike Bybee, the Trust for Public Land’s senior director of federal relations. “What’s not divisive are those impacts of things like flooding and fires and drought and heat.” Those are tangible realities that people can see and feel in the places where they live — and, Bybee said, the work of protecting open spaces, creating parks and playgrounds, and developing green infrastructure that can protect against the undeniable realities of new weather extremes, is something everyone can agree on, whether they view it as a climate solution or not. “These issues — outdoor recreation, access to nature — are nonpartisan,” said Bybee, who followed the EXPLORE Act’s progress in D.C.

The act was really a package of items, including over a dozen measures originally sponsored by various representatives and senators. Bybee noted one section that Trust for Public Land had advocated for was the Outdoors for All Act, a measure codifying the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership, a matching grant program to develop and improve parks in underserved communities. The Outdoors for All Act expanded eligibility for that grant program, including making Indigenous tribes eligible for the first time.

In addition, “This bill included a lot of funding for things like improving the permitting process for guides and outfitters, and things that often aren’t sexy, like improving trailheads and pit toilets,” Bybee said. Although they may not be attention-grabbing, they’re examples of the types of government services that many people interact with when they visit public spaces — and amenities that can make a real difference in people’s experiences of outdoor recreation.

Still, despite the law’s unanimous support, recent turmoil over federal funding — with the Trump administration threatening to freeze federal grants and other programs and Elon Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency rocketing in to try and slash spending — creates some doubt about the future of dollars intended for things like accessible amenities and new parks in underserved areas.

“The uncertainty in this moment that we find ourselves — it does impact the implementation,” said Bybee. “It impacts our partners in the federal government, at the National Park Service, who administer these grants.” In addition to concerns around the future of federal funds, the administration’s hiring freeze and personnel cuts will likely impact staffing at national parks, which could have a significant impact for visitors. But in spite of the uncertainty, Bybee is confident that programs like the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership are not going anywhere. “It was enacted by Congress, and it will not go away without another act of Congress,” he said, adding that “we’ll work through making sure that the benefits promised get delivered to those communities.”

Hauser and Westerman echoed that confidence. “People care about these places,” Hauser said. “Our elected representatives recognize that these are things that are important and they’re really universal.”

It doesn’t mean that politics never gets in the way. Hauser also noted that, despite the overwhelming support, the EXPLORE Act passed the House in April and then languished in the Senate for the better part of a year, while the 2024 election dominated everyone’s minds.

“The fact that it sat as long as it did in the Senate, I think speaks to sort of this unfortunate environment that, even when it’s a win, the ‘other side’ doesn’t want to see the ‘other side’ win,” she said. But, she added, the passage of the EXPLORE Act at the eleventh hour sends a clear message: that political divisions can be overcome when lawmakers recognize an opportunity to do something that will improve their constituents’ lives. “Take the pressures that happen in an election season off, and I think people sort of know, this is something that’s really good for my community and my district.”

— Claire Elise Thompson

More exposure

• Read: more about the EXPLORE Act’s passage, and the political power of the outdoors industry (High Country News)
• Read: an article examining the housing issues that outdoor gateway communities have experienced (Outside)
• Read: more about the importance of equity in the outdoors and connecting young people to nature (Grist)
• Read: about the role hunting can play in sustainable wildlife management (Grist)

A parting shot

In 2022, my team at Grist dedicated an entire special issue to the outdoors. The centerpiece was an interactive project showcasing some of the formative outdoor experiences that inspired leaders to pursue careers in climate and conservation. In the form of postcards, the contributors recounted nature memories (both positive and challenging) that shaped them — like Debbie Njai, the founder of Black People Who Hike, who described her first hiking experience in Missouri: “It was a short, 1.7-mile hike, but it was so perfect — the sunlight on my skin, the wind in my hair. I remember feeling free and happy. … When everyone can experience this same love for the outdoors, we will see a shift in how we go about caring for the environment.”

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Mia Torres / Grist

Parting shot: Jaelin Collier

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Congress agrees on one thing: Expanding access to the outdoors on Feb 12, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Claire Elise Thompson.

Much has been and much more will be written about the looming abolition of USAID.

It’s “the removal of a huge and important tool of American global statecraft” (Konyndyk), or the wood-chipping of a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America” (Musk) or, more reasonably, the unwarranted cancellation of an organisation that should have been reviewed and reformed.

Commentators will have a lot to say, some of it exaggerated, about the varieties of harm caused by this decision, and about its legality.

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Some will welcome it from a conservative perspective, believing that USAID was either not aligned with or acting against the interests of the United States, or was proselytising wokeness, or was a criminal organisation.

Some, often more quietly, will welcome it from an anti-imperialist or “Southern” perspective, believing that the agency was at worst a blunt instrument of US hegemony or at least a bastion of Western saviourism.

I want to come at this topic from a different angle, by providing a brief personal perspective on USAID as an organisation, based on several decades of occasional interaction with it during my time as an Australian aid official.

Essentially, I view USAID as a harried, hamstrung and traumatised organisation, not as a rogue agency or finely-tuned vehicle of US statecraft.

Peer country representative
My own experience with USAID began when I participated as a peer country representative in an OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) peer review of the US’s foreign assistance programme in the early 1990s, which included visits to US assistance programmes in Bangladesh and the Philippines, as well as to USAID headquarters in Washington DC.

I later dealt with the agency in many other roles, including during postings to the OECD and Indonesia and through my work on global and regional climate change and health programmes, up to and including the pandemic years.

An image is firmly lodged in my mind from that DAC peer review visit to Washington. We had had days of back-to-back meetings in USAID headquarters with a series of exhausted-looking, distracted and sometimes grumpy executives who didn’t have much reason to care what the OECD thought about the US aid effort.

It was a muggy summer day. At one point a particularly grumpy meeting chair, who now rather reminds of me of Gary Oldman’s character in Slow Horses, mopped the sweat from his forehead with his necktie without appearing to be aware of what he was doing. Since then, that man has been my mental model of a USAID official.

But why so exhausted, distracted and grumpy?

Precisely because USAID is about the least freewheeling workplace one could construct. Certainly it is administratively independent, in the sense that it was created by an act of Congress, but it also receives its budget from the President and Congress — and that budget comes with so many strings attached, in the form of country- or issue-related “earmarks” or other directives that it might be logically impossible to allocate the funds as instructed.

Some of these earmarks are broad and unsurprising (for example, specific allocations for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment under the Bush-era PEPFAR program) while others represent niche interests (Senator John McCain once ridiculed earmarks pertaining to “peanuts, orangutans, gorillas, neotropical raptors, tropical fish and exotic plants”) — but none originates within USAID.

Informal earmarks calculation
I recall seeing an informal calculation showing that one could only satisfy all the percentage-based earmarks by giving most of the dollars several quite different jobs to do. A 2002 DAC peer review noted with disapproval some 270 earmarks or other directive provisions in aid legislation; by the time of the most recent peer review in 2022, this number was more like 700.

Related in part to this congressional micro-management of its budget — along with the usual distrust of organisations that “send” money overseas — USAID labours under particularly gruelling accountability and reporting requirements.

Andew Natsios — a former USAID Administrator and lifelong Republican who has recently come to USAID’s defence (albeit with arguments that not everybody would deem helpful) — wrote about this in 2010. In terms reminiscent of current events, he described the reign of terror of Lieutenant-General Herbert Beckington, a former Marine Corps officer who led USAID‘s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) from 1977 to 1994.

He was a powerful iconic figure in Washington, and his influence over the structure of the foreign aid programME remains with USAID today. … Known as “The General” at USAID, Beckington was both feared and despised by career officers. Once referred to by USAID employees as “the agency’s J. Edgar Hoover — suspicious, vindictive, eager to think the worst” …

At one point, he told the Washington Post that USAID’s white-collar crime rate was “higher than that of downtown Detroit.” … In a seminal moment in this clash between OIG and USAID, photographs were published of two senior officers who had been accused of some transgression being taken away in handcuffs by the IG investigators for prosecution, a scene that sent a broad chill through the career staff and, more than any other single event, forced a redirection of aid practice toward compliance.

Labyrinthine accountability systems
On top of the burdens of logically impossible programming and labyrinthine accountability systems is the burden of projecting American generosity. As far as humanly possible, and perhaps a little further, ways must be found of ensuring that American aid is sourced from American institutions, farms or factories and, if it is in the form of commodities, that it is transported on American vessels.

Failing that, there must be American flags. I remember a USAID officer stationed in Banda Aceh after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami spending a non-trivial amount of his time seeking to attach sizeable flags to the front of trucks transporting US (but also non-US) emergency supplies around the province of Aceh.

President Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller has somehow determined to his own satisfaction that the great majority (in fact 98 percent) of USAID personnel are donors to the Democratic Party. Whether or not that is true, let alone relevant, Democrat administrations have arguably been no kinder to USAID than Republican ones over the years.

Natsios, in the piece cited above, notes that The General was installed under Carter, who ran on anti-Washington ticket, and that there were savage cuts — over 400 positions — to USAID senior career service staffing under Clinton. USAID gets battered no matter which way the wind blows.

Which brings me back to necktie guy. It has always seemed to me that the platonic form of a USAID officer, while perhaps more likely than not to vote Democrat, is a tired and dispirited person, weary of politicians of all stripes, bowed under his or her burdens, bound to a desk and straitjacketed by accountability requirements, regularly buffeted by new priorities and abrupt restructures, and put upon by the ignorant and suspicious.

Radical-left Marxists and vipers probably wouldn’t tolerate such an existence for long. Who would? I guess it’s either thieves and money-launderers or battle-scarred professionals intent on doing a decent job against tall odds.

Robin Davies is an honorary professor at the Australian National University’s (ANU) Crawford School of Public Policy and managing editor of the Devpolicy Blog. He previously held senior positions at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and AusAID.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“Trump keeps taking lawless and unconstitutional actions. He has been in office for less than two weeks, and the impeachable offenses continue to pile up,” says John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. “We must demand accountability when a president abuses his power.”

The Constitution contains two Emoluments Clauses that prohibit a president from profiting from the United States, individual states, or foreign governments (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8; and Article II, Section 1, Clause 7). As understood by the Founding Fathers, these provide a critical safeguard against corruption, particularly by foreign powers. As Alexander Hamilton explained, the Foreign Emoluments Clause ensures that foreign powers “can neither weaken his fortitude by operating on his necessities, nor corrupt his integrity by appealing to his avarice.” The Federalist No. 73.

Trump violated the Emoluments Clauses from his first day in office by refusing to sell his ownership stake in companies receiving substantial payments from foreign governments. At least five foreign governments pay a combined $2 million per month in fees for their units in Trump World Tower.

The campaign lists additional impeachable offenses committed during Trump’s 2024 election campaign and leading up to the inauguration, including: threatening physical violence, including murder, against political opponents, journalists, and protestors; using racist, xenophobic rhetoric that has endangered immigrant communities; and violating campaign finance laws by offering benefits in exchange for campaign contributions. It also highlights the real concern of future offenses, should Congress not follow its constitutional requirement to launch an impeachment investigation.

Since taking office, the campaign has added multiple new grounds for an impeachment inquiry, including: abuse of the pardon power, unconstitutionally stripping U.S. citizens of citizenship, dismantling independent government oversight, unlawfully firing Inspector Generals, unlawfully firing members of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, abusing his power to seek retributions against perceived adversaries, abuse of emergency powers, unconstitutionally usurping local and state authority, and unconstitutionally usurping legislative powers.

“The overwhelming support for impeachment shows that the American public is not willing to accept King Trump,” says Alexandra Flores-Quilty, Free Speech For People Campaign Director. “We need bold leaders in Congress willing to stand up and hold Trump accountable for his abuses of power and initiate an impeachment inquiry.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Donald Trump has now illegally fired multiple Democratic members of independent agency boards, including Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, years before their actual term expiry dates. In so doing, Trump has demonstrated yet again, an abject disregard for the basic rule of law, as well as an apparent willingness to engage in authoritarian-esque hostile takeovers of any part of the government able to provide a check to his power.

Congressional Democrats (and theoretically independent-minded Republicans) cannot let such an overt power grab, and such a tangible disregard for settled federal law, go without a fight. Make no mistake, though often overlooked, the actions of independent agencies have the power to shape nearly every part of public life, and the officials who staff them have genuine authority to hold corporations, including those owned by Trump’s own friends and advisors, accountable to the public they seem intent to abuse.

It is exactly this power that Trump seeks to fundamentally corrupt.

Senators could fight back with the full extent of the power that remains in their hands to engage in principled and coordinated opposition to these authoritarian power grabs. Indeed, recent years have already demonstrated masterful tactical obstructionism without any electoral consequence. It’s time to take note.

"Minority Commissioner appointments can and do matter greatly,” said Jeff Hauser, Revolving Door Project’s founder and Executive Director. “Rohit Chopra’s stint at the Federal Trade Commission under the Trump majority not only instigated substantive enforcement of existing law to the benefit of the public, but also included bringing Lina Khan onto the staff. Legacies can be made and the trajectory of policy changed by minority commissioners, which is why Trump’s corporate puppets are causing the administration to behave in such an undeniably illegal manner. People of goodwill can and should fight back.”

As we always, the Revolving Door Project will continue to track independent agencies, their personnel, their activities, and attempt our best defense of their crucial work, at AgencySpotlight.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Rescue workers in Washington, D.C., have launched a massive recovery operation in the Potomac River after a regional passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair late Wednesday, with both aircraft crashing into the water. American Airlines Flight 5342 had 60 passengers and four crew members on board and was en route to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport from Wichita, Kansas. The Black Hawk helicopter had three soldiers on board conducting a training flight. Officials believe there are no survivors. The deadly crash comes amid upheaval and staffing changes in the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration due to President Donald Trump’s ongoing purge across federal government agencies. Journalist David Sirota of The Lever says the airport also recently had its air traffic increased by lawmakers despite objections. “There is a very deep safety concern at this airport because there had been a series of near misses,” says Sirota. “These warnings about expanding the flight traffic at this airport came just a few months ago.” He also discusses the first 10 days of the Trump administration.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it could make hydroelectric dams on Oregon’s Willamette River safe for endangered salmon by building gigantic mechanical traps and hauling baby fish downstream in tanker trucks. The Corps started pressing forward over objections from fish advocates and power users who said the plan was costly and untested.

That was until this month, when President Joe Biden signed legislation ordering the Corps to put its plans on hold and consider a simpler solution: Stop using the dams for electricity.

The new law, finalized on Jan. 4, follows reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica in 2023 that underscored risks and costs associated with the Corps’ plan. The agency is projected to lose $700 million over 30 years generating hydropower, and a scientific review found that the type of fixes the Corps is proposing would not stop the extinction of threatened salmon.

The mandate says the Corps needs to shelve designs for its fish collectors — essentially massive floating vacuums expected to cost $170 million to $450 million each — until it finishes studying what the river system would look like without hydropower. The Corps must then include that scenario in its long-term designs for the river.

The new direction from Congress has the potential to transform the river that sustains Oregon’s famously lush Willamette Valley. It is a step toward draining the reservoirs behind the dams and bringing water levels closer to those of an undammed river.

“There’s a very real, very viable solution, and we need to proceed with that as soon as possible,” said Kathleen George, a council member for the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, which have fished the Willamette for thousands of years. They’ve urged the Corps to return the river closer to its natural flow.

George credited OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, and said she believes that without additional public pressure, the Corps would have continued to stall on already overdue studies.

“Our salmon heritage is literally on the line,” she said.

Asked about how the Corps planned to respond to Congress, spokesperson Kerry Solan said in a statement that the agency was still reviewing the bill’s language.

The 13 dams on the Willamette and its tributaries were built for the main purpose of holding back floodwaters in Oregon’s most heavily populated valley, which includes the city of Portland. With high concrete walls, they have no dedicated pathways for migrating salmon.

Emptying the reservoirs to the river channel would let salmon pass much as they did before the dams. It would leave less water for recreational boating and irrigation during periods of normal rain and snow, but it would open up more capacity to hold back water when a large flood comes. And the power industry says that running hydropower turbines on the Willamette dams, unlike the moneymaking hydroelectric dams on the larger Columbia and Snake rivers in the Northwest, doesn’t make financial sense.

The dams generate less than 1% of the Northwest’s power, enough for about 100,000 homes. But lighting a home with electricity from Willamette dams costs about five times as much as dams on the Northwest’s larger rivers.

Congress asked the Corps in 2020 and 2022 to study the possibility of shutting down its hydroelectric turbines on the Willamette. The agency missed its deadlines for those studies while it proceeded with a 30-year plan for river operations that included hydropower.

Oregon Rep. Val Hoyle, a Democrat whose district includes much of the Willamette River Valley, said in an emailed statement it was “unacceptable” for the Corps to move ahead without first producing the thorough look at ending hydropower that lawmakers asked for.

“Congress must have the necessary information on-hand to decide the future of hydropower in the Willamette,” Hoyle said.

The bill also requires the Corps to study how it can lessen problems that draining reservoirs might cause downstream.

Because of a 2021 court order to protect endangered salmon, the Corps has tried making the river more free-flowing by draining reservoirs behind two dams each fall. The first time the reservoirs dropped, in 2023, they unleashed masses of mud that had been trapped behind the dams. Rivers turned brown and small cities’ drinking water plants worked around the clock to purify the supply.

Congress wants the Corps to study how to avoid causing those problems downstream. That could include engineering new drinking water systems for cities below the dams.

The Corps has the authority to engineer infrastructure for local communities and cover 75% of the cost for such improvements, but it has never used this provision in Oregon.

A week before Biden signed the new bill, biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published their own 673-page report saying the Corps’ preferred solution for the Willamette — the one involving fish traps — would jeopardize threatened salmon and steelhead.

NOAA proposed more than two dozen changes for the Corps, ranging from better monitoring of the species to altering the river flow to better accommodate migrating salmon. Solan said the agency is still reviewing NOAA’s opinion and deciding what action to take.

George, who has served on the council of the Grand Ronde tribes since 2016, said she was encouraged that the latest developments on the Willamette pointed to a future where salmon and people could coexist.

“In those darkest days of our families living here on the Grand Ronde reservation, it was truly returning to the Willamette to get salmon that helped keep our people alive,” George said. “It is our time and our role to speak up for our relatives and to say that a future with people and Willamette salmon is essential.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Tony Schick, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

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This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

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For years, the home-oxygen industry has failed in myriad ways the million-plus Americans who struggle to breathe. Lincare, the country’s largest distributor of breathing equipment, has a decadeslong history of bilking Medicare and the elderly, as ProPublica has revealed. Philips Respironics hid serious problems with its sleep apnea machines, with devastating consequences, including reported deaths. Other large respiratory companies have paid multimillion-dollar fraud settlements.

But as the current session of Congress hurtles to a close, advocates for oxygen patients — in a seemingly improbable alliance with the companies that have victimized them — are making a final push for legislation that, among other things, would pay the scandal-scarred industry hundreds of millions of dollars more than it currently receives. The patients, many aged and infirm, have been besieging lawmakers with meetings, calls and emails, pressing them to pass the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform, or SOAR, Act by the end of the year. The corporate and patient advocates vow that if the legislation fails in the current term, as seems possible, they will push to reintroduce it next year.

The SOAR Act would achieve two long-sought goals for the industry, which receives much of its revenues from Medicare. The bill would protect companies from additional reductions in their billings by removing oxygen from Medicare’s competitive bidding program, which has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. And it would make it far more difficult for the government to challenge those billings.

The patient groups, in turn, have their own goals: improving the industry’s notoriously poor service and assuring access to costly liquid oxygen for a relatively small group of the sickest patients. That form of oxygen is coveted by patients with advanced lung disease because it provides the high flows they need in easy-to-carry cylinders that last for hours. Emotional accounts of stricken patients, unable to obtain the equipment they need, have been prominent in the lobbying campaign to pass the measure.

“The current situation is pretty horrific,” said Susan Jacobs, pulmonary research nurse manager at Stanford University Medical Center, who has spent more than a decade studying access to oxygen therapy and supports the legislation. “Patients aren’t getting the oxygen devices they need or being educated or trained on use of that device. The SOAR Act addresses multiple issues.”

Jacobs and other advocates acknowledge the history of bad behavior by oxygen companies. “I used to feel like they are the enemy,” Jacobs said. Added Erika Sward, assistant vice president of national advocacy for the American Lung Association, another supporter of the SOAR Act: “Some of the companies were very much acting in bad faith when it came to taxpayer dollars.”

But the patient advocates are now backing the industry’s long-standing complaints that Medicare’s payment cuts have gone too far. “I have become convinced of this over the past five years or so,” Sward said. “They’re not being paid enough under competitive bidding. … I fully believe the suppliers are negotiating from a very good-faith perspective for patients.” She added: “Unless everyone is willing to compromise, nothing is going to change. Obviously they have a financial interest.” (Sward said the American Lung Association receives no funding from oxygen companies or trade groups.)

The SOAR Act, which now has a half dozen sponsors in the Senate and 31 in the House, was first introduced in late February by Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, and Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. “Respiratory care is lifesaving for so many patients, but too often access to this care is cost-prohibitive or simply not accessible,” said Warner, in a joint press release issued at the time. Cassidy, Warner and Klobuchar did not respond to requests for comment.

Beyond protecting against further Medicare rate cuts for items such as an oxygen concentrator (the bill would essentially freeze them at current levels), the SOAR Act would create a standardized medical form for authorizing suppliers’ claims; pay companies like Lincare to provide respiratory therapist services; and more than double what the companies are paid for liquid oxygen systems.

The bill is projected to cost taxpayers about $654 million over 10 years, according to a private study partly funded by industry (which the SOAR Act’s supporters have declined to share). The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has not yet prepared an estimate. Beneficiaries would also have to pay the companies more as part of their 20% Medicare copay.

Liquid oxygen has long been virtually unavailable even to Medicare beneficiaries who need it most. In 2004, before cuts in the government’s historically lavish payments for oxygen began kicking in, suppliers provided portable liquid oxygen equipment to more than 80,000 Americans.

Fewer than 4,000 Medicare patients received liquid oxygen in 2021, according to Medicare data. That’s a tiny portion of the 1.5 million Americans who now receive some form of supplemental oxygen. The bill’s advocates say there are thousands of Medicare beneficiaries who desperately need liquid oxygen to live more normal lives. “We’re ordering liquid,” Jacobs said. “Our [suppliers] are saying, ‘We don’t have it, and we can’t provide it.’ That’s not acceptable. Patients should be able to have enough oxygen to get out of their house. They’re unable to go to religious services, unable to see family, can’t go to a child’s graduation. These are heart-wrenching stories.”

Under the competitive bidding program that was launched in 2011, oxygen companies were legally required to provide liquid systems to any patient whose doctor prescribed them. But the companies insisted it was too expensive to do it at the rates the companies had agreed to in the bidding process. Providing liquid oxygen, which is stored at freezing temperatures under high pressure in special equipment, requires special trucks, frequent deliveries and hazmat-certified drivers.

Medicare enforcers never cracked down on the companies. Then, in 2019, the federal government “paused” the oxygen bidding program and many of its reimbursement rules — five years later, it can’t say when it may replace or reactivate them — freeing companies from any obligation to provide liquid oxygen.

In a statement, a Medicare spokesperson repeated the program’s long-standing contention, disputed by industry and patient groups alike, that access to liquid oxygen has not been a significant problem: “Although there were some complaints about contract suppliers refusing to furnish liquid oxygen, the suppliers came into compliance and agreed to furnish the liquid oxygen, so no [supplier] contracts were terminated as a result.”

The SOAR Act also includes what advocates call a “patient bill of rights” — and which they view as a major concession by the oxygen companies. Aimed at addressing the dismal service that has predominated, it and other parts of the bill would require suppliers to provide equipment setup assistance and monitoring, patient education and 24/7 coverage for emergencies as a condition for Medicare payment. (Left unresolved is how the federal government, whose enforcement record has historically been less than stellar, would police such rules.)

Lincare has long blamed problems on Medicare’s cuts and what it characterizes as the “flawed” competitive bidding program. The company told the agency in a 2017 letter that low reimbursements and “burdensome documentation requirements” had made it “next to impossible to continue providing quality services to beneficiaries.” Yet Lincare appears to collect substantial profits. It generated about $300 million in profit in 2023, on revenues of $2.4 billion, according to a former company executive. (Lincare declined to comment.) Rotech, another large company in the home respiratory business, was purchased this year for $1.36 billion, after recording $200 million in earnings for fiscal 2023.

Such profits make it possible for the industry to spend lavishly on Capitol Hill. Its lead trade group is the Council for Quality Respiratory Care, made up of six big manufacturers or distributors of oxygen equipment, including Lincare and Philips, and chaired by Lincare’s CEO. Since 2018, each of the six CQRC companies has reached at least one multimillion-dollar settlement with the government alleging it cheated Medicare. The corporations have typically denied wrongdoing.

Lobbying payments by the trade group and its member companies on reimbursement issues have totaled more than $1.4 million since the start of 2023. CQRC’s outside PR firm won an industry “advocacy” award for its 2016 campaign in support of legislation slowing oxygen reimbursement cuts, where it boasted of generating 29,000 emails to members of Congress. Through such efforts, the award commendation read, “an engaged community of concerned citizens was created to help support CQRC’s efforts.”

In a statement responding to ProPublica’s questions, CQRC praised the SOAR Act for providing “long-overdue Medicare reforms” and correcting service woes that patients and their advocates have often blamed on the industry. The trade group blamed “current law” and “chronic underfunding” for leaving patients “often unable to access the medically necessary home respiratory treatments their doctors prescribe,” but it said the bill would establish “clear patient protections and supplier responsibilities” while protecting Medicare beneficiaries from “potential fraud and abuse.”

Meanwhile, a new government-funded academic study is challenging the industry’s claims about the purported harms of competitive bidding for oxygen services. Published in late October in JAMA Internal Medicine, the investigation examined Medicare data to weigh the bidding program’s impact on patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, by far the largest group of Medicare oxygen patients.

Its conclusion: Competitive bidding saved taxpayers and patients hundreds of millions of dollars, without curbing their access to oxygen or hurting their health. Dr. Kevin Duan, an assistant professor of respiratory medicine at the University of British Columbia and the article’s lead author, told ProPublica his team’s review found no evidence of harm: “No drop in claims, no change in clinical outcomes.” Duan said the study has sparked a backlash from the measure’s advocates. “I knew this was directly questioning a part of the SOAR Act,” he told ProPublica. “I feel like I walked into a firestorm.”

“We don’t have a horse in this race,” Duan said. “There’s a lot of blaming the competitive bidding program without much data. Rarely do we have high-quality evidence that can directly inform a piece of legislation. It shouldn’t be ignored.”

Doris Burke contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Peter Elkind.

The Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and Chinese activists said that while the United States once stood as a bastion of free speech and a redoubt of cultural preservation for groups targeted by the Chinese Communist Party, many now feared Beijing’s extensive reach.

Rishat Abbas, the president of the U.S.-based Uyghur Academy, told the hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that his sister Gulshan had been jailed in China on a 20-year sentence due to his and other family member’s anti-government activism abroad.

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The U.S. government says China’s government is carrying out a “genocide” against the mostly Muslium Uyghur minority in the country’s far-west. Many Uyghurs abroad actively campaign to end the genocide and to do what they can to preserve their language and culture.

But many look to the treatment of the family members, still trapped in China, of those Uyghurs who choose to speak out, and decide it’s safer not to provoke the Chinese Communist Party, even from abroad.

“My sister’s imprisonment is a clear action of retaliation,” he said. “Her detention exposes the CCP’s aggressive policies that target Uyghurs simply for their identity and for the activism of their relatives abroad.”

“She has never engaged in any form of advocacy in her life,” he said.

Abbas said he was nonetheless not deterred, and hoped to one day bring a Uyghur-language textbook developed in the United States back to China’s Xinjiang region, where Uyghurs live under surveillance.

Lawfare

It’s not only Uyghur immigrants who have been targeted.

In years gone by, American higher education institutions like Stanford University fearlessly curated U.S.-based historical archives about events censored by the Chinese government, said Julian Ku, a constitutional law professor at New York’s Hofstra University.

But things have changed.

Ku pointed to a lawsuit brought in the United States by the Beijing-based widow of the late Li Rui – a former secretary to Mao Zedong and later dissident who donated diaries to Stanford.

Stanford says Li Rui donated the diaries through his daughter, fearing that they would be destroyed by Chinese officials if left in China. But Li Rui’s widow says they are rightfully hers and wants them returned.

The widow, Ku explained, was inexplicably being represented by “some of the most expensive law firms in the United States,” and had likely already racked up legal fees in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars – and probably more – on a widow’s Chinese state pension.”

Describing the tactic as “lawfare,” he suggested that the widow had powerful backers funding the battle, who may not even care if the litigation is ultimately successful.

The nearly four years of costly legal battles sent a message to other U.S. universities, museums or nonprofits to avoid any contentious documents that might attract the attention of Beijing, Ku said.

“They might think, ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to acquire that one, because it might subject me to litigation in China and maybe litigation here in the United States,” he said. “It serves as a deterrence for universities, museums and other institutions in the United States.”

Living in fear

Like Uyghurs, many ethnically Han Chinese in America also fear speaking out against Beijing even while in the United States, said Rowena He, a historian of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing who was last year banned from entering Hong Kong.

“It’s very difficult to not to be emotional being in this room again because I remember 5-10 years ago, when I was first invited to testify to Congress,” He recalled. “I was extremely hesitant, because I was so concerned about my family members, and I was so worried.”

“I lived with fear ever since the day I started teaching and researching the topic of Tiananmen,” she explained, citing the “taboo” around the topic in China, where the massacre is not openly acknowledged.

She said increased funding for curriculums with alternate Chinese histories to the one put forward by Beijing could be one way to counter the “monopoly on historiography” held by China’s government.

“If you go to Chinatown, many people are still supporting the CCP, even though they’re physically in the United States,” He said, noting that figures like herself were denigrated as anti-government.

“Sometimes people call us ‘underground historians,’ but I do not like the term ‘underground,’” she said. “We are the historians.”

Government funding

Geshe Lobsang Monlam, a Tibetan monk who authored a 223-volume Tibetan dictionary and helps lead efforts to preserve Tibetan language outside of China, said one of the main obstacles for Tibetans outside China outside of pressure from Beijing was finding needed funds.

“Inside Tibet, the young Tibetans have appeared powerless in their ability to preserve and promote their language,” the monk said, pointing to concerted efforts to erase use of the Tibetan language as young Tibetans grow proficient in using Mandarin through smartphones.

“If there can be assistance by the United States to help procure technological equipment that can enable those of us in exile to continue our work on preservation of Tibetan culture and language and way of life … that would be very useful for us,” he explained.

Temulun Togochog, a 17-year-old U.S.-born Southern Mongolian activist, similarly appealed for more funding for cultural preservation.

Togochog said while the decreased global focus on the plight of Mongolians in China had allowed her family in the United States to openly teach her about Mongolian culture and their native language with little fear of reprisal, resources were few and far between.

Mongolians living in China’s Inner Mongolia were increasingly facing a similar treatment to Tibetans and Uyghurs, she said, with a “systematic oppression and erasure of Mongolian language” taking place in favor of what is called “patriotic education” lionizing the communist party.

In September 2020, many Southern Mongolians protested the policies through coordinated school boycotts and strikes, but there was little news coverage of the ensuing mass arrests, she explained.

“Approximately 300,000 southern Mongolian students joined the movement,” she said. “The Chinese government responded harshly, detaining and placing under house arrest 8-10,000 people.”

The young activist called on Congress to fund Mongolian-language programs on Voice of America, which currently do not exist. She said that would help the “minority within a minority” to more actively “preserve their language, culture and identity” from erasure.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.

New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has unveiled the main outcome of its congress last weekend, including its plans for the French Pacific territory’s political future.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday in Nouméa, the party’s newly-elected executive bureau, now headed by Emmanuel Tjibaou, debriefed the media about the main resolutions made during its congress.

One of the motions was specifically concerning a timeframe for New Caledonia’s road to independence.

• READ MORE: Mixed reactions to Tjibaou’s election to key Kanak pro-independence party
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Tjibaou said UC now envisaged that one of the milestones on this road to sovereignty would be the signing of a “Kanaky Agreement”, at the latest on 24 September 2025 — a highly symbolic date as this was the day of France’s annexation of New Caledonia in 1853.

‘Kanaky Agreement’ by 24 September 2025?
This, he said, would mark the beginning of a five-year “transition period” from “2025 to 2030” that would be concluded by New Caledonia becoming fully sovereign under a status yet to be defined.

Several wordings have recently been advanced by stakeholders from around the political spectrum.

Depending on the pro-independence and pro-France sympathies, these have varied from “shared sovereignty”, “independence in partnership”, “independence-association” and, more recently, from the also divided pro-France loyalists camp, an “internal federalism” (Le Rassemblement-LR party) or a “territorial federation” (Les Loyalistes).

Charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel’s father who was assassinated in 1989, was known for being an advocate of a relativist approach to the term “independence”, to which he usually preferred to adjunct the pragmatic term “inter-dependence”.

Negotiations between all political parties and the French State are expected to begin in the next few weeks.

The talks (between pro-independence, anti-independence parties and the French State) are scheduled in such a way that all parties manage to reach a comprehensive and inclusive political agreement no later than March 2025.

The talks had completely stalled after the pro-indeoendence riots broke out on 13 May 2024.

Over the past three years, following three referendums (2018, 2020, 2021, the latter being strongly challenged by the pro-independence side) on the question of independence (all yielding a majority in favour of New Caledonia remaining part of France), there had been several attempts to hold inclusive talks in order to discuss New Caledonia’s political future.

But UC and other parties (including pro-France and pro-independence) did not manage to sit at the same table.

Speaking to journalists, Emmanuel Tjibaou confirmed that under its new leadership, UC was now willing to return to the negotiating table.

He said “May 13 has stopped our advances in those exchanges” but “now is the time to build the road to full sovereignty”.

Back to the negotiating table
In the footsteps of those expected negotiations, heavy campaigning will follow to prepare for crucial provincial elections to be held no later than November 2025.

The five years of “transition” (2025-2030), would be used to transfer the remaining “regal” powers from France as well as putting in place “a political, financial and international” framework, accompanied by the French State, Tjibaou elaborated.

And after the transitional period, UC’s president said a new phase of talks could start to put in place what he terms “interdependence conventions on some of the ‘regal’ — main — powers” (defence, law and order, foreign affairs, currency).

Tjibaou said this project could resemble a sort of independence in partnership, a “shared sovereignty”, a concept that was strongly suggested early November 2024 by visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

But Tjibaou said there was a difference in the sense that those discussions on sharing would only take place once all the powers have been transferred from France.

“You can only share sovereignty if you have obtained it first”, he told local media.

One of the other resolutions from its congress held last weekend in the small village of Mia (Canala) was to reiterate its call to liberate Christian Téin, appointed president of the FLNKS (Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front) in absentia late August, even though he is currently imprisoned in Mulhouse (north-east of France) pending his trial.

Allegations over May riots
He is alleged to have been involved in the organisation of the demonstrations that degenerated into the May 13 riots, arson, looting and a deadly toll of 13 people, several hundred injured and material damage estimated at some 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion).

Tjibaou also said that within a currently divided pro-independence movement, he hoped that a reunification process and “clarification” would be possible with other components of FLNKS, namely the Progressist Union in Melanesia (UPM) and the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA).

Since August 2024, both UPM and PALIKA have de facto withdrawn with FLNKS’s political bureau, saying they no longer recognised themselves in the way the movement had radicalised.

In 1988, after half a decade of a quasi civil war, Jean-Marie Tjibaou signed the Matignon-Oudinot agreements with New Caledonia’s pro-France and anti-independence leader Jacques Lafleur.

The third signatory was the French State.

One year later, in 1989, Tjibaou was shot dead by a hard-line pro-independence militant.

His son Emmanuel was aged 13 at the time.

‘Common destiny’
In 1998, a new agreement, the Nouméa Accord, was signed, with a focus on increased autonomy, the notions of “common destiny” and a local “citizenship” and a gradual transfer of powers from France.

After the three referendums held between 2018 and 2021, the Nouméa Accord prescribed that if there had been three referendums rejecting independence, then political stakeholders should “meet to examine the situation thus generated”.

On Thursday, Union Calédonienne also stressed that the Nouméa Accord remained the founding document of all future political discussions.

“We are sticking to the Nouméa Accord because it is this document that brings us to the elements of accession to sovereignty”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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Donald Trump is entering his second term with vows to cut a vast array of government services and a radical plan to do so. Rather than relying on his party’s control of Congress to trim the budget, Trump and his advisers intend to test an obscure legal theory holding that presidents have sweeping power to withhold funding from programs they dislike.

“We can simply choke off the money,” Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending.”

His plan, known as “impoundment,” threatens to provoke a major clash over the limits of the president’s control over the budget. The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to appropriate the federal budget, while the role of the executive branch is to dole out the money effectively. But Trump and his advisers are asserting that a president can unilaterally ignore Congress’ spending decisions and “impound” funds if he opposes them or deems them wasteful.

Trump’s designs on the budget are part of his administration’s larger plan to consolidate as much power in the executive branch as possible. This month, he pressured the Senate to go into recess so he could appoint his cabinet without any oversight. (So far, Republicans who control the chamber have not agreed to do so.) His key advisers have spelled out plans to bring independent agencies, such as the Department of Justice, under political control.

If Trump were to assert a power to kill congressionally approved programs, it would almost certainly tee up a fight in the federal courts and Congress and, experts say, could fundamentally alter Congress’ bedrock power.

“It’s an effort to wrest the entire power of the purse away from Congress, and that is just not the constitutional design,” said Eloise Pasachoff, a Georgetown Law professor who has written about the federal budget and appropriations process. “The president doesn’t have the authority to go into the budget bit by bit and pull out the stuff he doesn’t like.”

Trump’s claim to have impoundment power contravenes a Nixon-era law that forbids presidents from blocking spending over policy disagreements as well as a string of federal court rulings that prevent presidents from refusing to spend money unless Congress grants them the flexibility.

In an op-ed published Wednesday, tech billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who are overseeing the newly created, nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency, wrote that they planned to slash federal spending and fire civil servants. Some of their efforts could offer Trump his first Supreme Court test of the post-Watergate Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which requires the president to spend the money Congress approves. The law allows exceptions, such as when the executive branch can achieve Congress’ goals by spending less, but not as a means for the president to kill programs he opposes.

Trump and his aides have been telegraphing his plans for a hostile takeover of the budgeting process for months. Trump has decried the 1974 law as “not a very good act” in his campaign video and said, “Bringing back impoundment will give us a crucial tool with which to obliterate the Deep State.”

Musk and Ramaswamy have seized that mantle, writing, “We believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question.”

Do you work in the federal government? We want to hear from you if critical programs at your agency are being cut or halted. Learn how to contact ProPublica reporters securely.

The once-obscure debate over impoundment has come into vogue in MAGA circles thanks to veterans of Trump’s first administration who remain his close allies. Russell Vought, Trump’s former budget director, and Mark Paoletta, who served under Vought as the Office of Management and Budget general counsel, have worked to popularize the idea from the Trump-aligned think tank Vought founded, the Center for Renewing America.

On Friday, Trump announced he had picked Vought to lead OMB again. “Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People,” Trump said in a statement.

Vought was also a top architect of the controversial Project 2025. In private remarks to a gathering of MAGA luminaries uncovered by ProPublica, Vought boasted that he was assembling a “shadow” Office of Legal Counsel so that Trump is armed on day one with the legal rationalizations to realize his agenda.

“I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral,” Vought said.

Trump spokespeople and Vought did not respond to requests for comment.

The prospect of Trump seizing vast control over federal spending is not merely about reducing the size of the federal government, a long-standing conservative goal. It is also fueling new fears about his promises of vengeance.

A similar power grab led to his first impeachment. During his first term, Trump held up nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while he pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open a corruption investigation into Joe Biden and his family. The U.S. Government Accountability Office later ruled his actions violated the Impoundment Control Act.

Pasachoff predicted that, when advantageous, the incoming Trump administration will attempt to achieve the goals of impoundment without picking such a high-profile fight.

Trump tested piecemeal ways beyond the Ukrainian arms imbroglio to withhold federal funding as a means to punish his perceived enemies, said Bobby Kogan, a former OMB adviser under Biden and the senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning think tank American Progress. After devastating wildfires in California and Washington, Trump delayed or refused to sign disaster declarations that would have unlocked federal relief aid because neither state had voted for him. He targeted so-called sanctuary cities by conditioning federal grants on local law enforcement’s willingness to cooperate with mass deportation efforts. The Biden administration eventually withdrew the policy.

Trump and his aides claim there is a long presidential history of impoundment dating back to Thomas Jefferson.

Most historical examples involve the military and cases where Congress had explicitly given presidents permission to use discretion, said Zachary Price, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. Jefferson, for example, decided not to spend money Congress had appropriated for gun boats — a decision the law, which appropriated money for “a number not exceeding fifteen gun boats” using “a sum not exceeding fifty thousand dollars,” authorized him to make.

President Richard Nixon took impoundment to a new extreme, wielding the concept to gut billions of dollars from programs he simply opposed, such as highway improvements, water treatment, drug rehabilitation and disaster relief for farmers. He faced overwhelming pushback both from Congress and in the courts. More than a half dozen federal judges and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the appropriations bills at issue did not give Nixon the flexibility to cut individual programs.

Vought and his allies argue the limits Congress placed in 1974 are unconstitutional, saying a clause in the Constitution obligating the president to “faithfully execute” the law also implies his power to forbid its enforcement. (Trump is fond of describing Article II, where this clause lives, as giving him “the right to do whatever I want as president.”)

The Supreme Court has never directly weighed in on whether impoundment is constitutional. But it threw water on that reasoning in an 1838 case, Kendall v. U.S., about a federal debt payment.

“To contend that the obligation imposed on the President to see the laws faithfully executed, implies a power to forbid their execution, is a novel construction of the constitution, and entirely inadmissible,” the justices wrote.

During his cutting spree, Nixon’s own Justice Department argued roughly the same.

“With respect to the suggestion that the President has a constitutional power to decline to spend appropriated funds,” William Rehnquist, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel whom Nixon later appointed to the Supreme Court, warned in a 1969 legal memo, “we must conclude that existence of such a broad power is supported by neither reason nor precedent.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Molly Redden.

While more than 4,000 international journalists have traveled to Israel to cover the ongoing war, Israel continues to deny them access to Gaza except for rare and tightly controlled military-led press tours to the war-torn territory. This effective ban on foreign reporting has placed an impossible and unreasonable burden on Palestinian reporters in Gaza to document an ongoing war through which they are living.

In July, CPJ coordinated a public call by more than 70 media and civil society organizations asking Israel to give journalists independent access to Gaza.

You can read the statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The bill would create a federal shield safeguarding reporter-source confidentiality and prevent government access to unreported source material. The legislation previously passed the House twice but has languished in the Senate.

The letters, authored by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, urged members of the Senate to pass the bill during this critical time and requested the House support the measure if it is returned to that chamber. 

Read the letters to the House and Senate.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The aim, apparently, is to empower the winner of November’s presidential election to get off to a running start in Washington’s strategic rivalry with Beijing.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute event in New York in July, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said that one of his main goals was to have “a significant package of China related legislation signed into law by the end of this year.”

“We’ll build our sanctions package, punish the Chinese military firms that provide material support to Russia and Iran,” Johnson said, “and we’ll consider options to restrict outbound investments.” 

It’s unclear which ones will make it to the floor of the House for debate – or if the Senate will even consider them. To become law, both houses of Congress need to approve bills by a majority of votes. 

The president then needs to either sign the bill into law or veto it. A two-thirds majority of both houses is needed to override a veto.

What are the bills?

A laundry list of bills introduced to the House over 2023 and 2024 have been put forward for consideration, with the Republican leadership of the chamber saying they will aim to pass a bulk of the bills in a single package vote by suspending the normal rules for proceedings.

Some of the more prominent bills include:

• The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) Certification Act, which would enable the president to close Hong Kong’s de facto consulates in the United States if the city’s government cannot prove its autonomy from Beijing.
• The Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act, which would create a China-focussed unit within the Department of Justice’s national security division.
• The End Chinese Dominance of Electric Vehicles in America Act, which would prohibit electric cars with Chinese-made batteries or other components from eligibility for lucrative tax credits introduced by the Biden administration this year.
• The No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act, which would require two-thirds of the Senate to approve any pandemic measures negotiated within the World Health Organization, due to fears of Chinese influence there.
• The Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries, which would limit the ability of Chinese people and companies to purchase farmland in America, citing food security concerns.
• The DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act, which would ban funding from the Department of Homeland Security to universities and colleges that accept grants from the Chinese government.

Besides those, also apparently up for votes will be the Countering CCP Drones Act, the No Foreign Election Interference Act, the Maintaining American Superiority by Improving Export Control Transparency Act, the Economic Espionage Prevention Act, the Chinese Currency Accountability Act, and the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act.

In his speech in New York, the House speaker also flagged the possibility of a bill to close the “de minimis” loophole in U.S. trade. 

Critics say that the loophole enables Chinese online fashion retailers like Shein and Temu to ship clothing allegedly made with Uyghur slave labor directly to the front doors of American consumers.

However, no such legislation has yet been put on the table. A bill targeting U.S. outbound investment in China, which was also promised by Johnson in July, also does not appear to be on the agenda.

Why is it all being done in one week?

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is a Republican from Louisiana, told Fox News that the aim was to highlight congressional action on China, which has been a focus of the current Congress.

U.S. lawmakers from across the partisan divide have zeroed in on China as a rare area of agreement in an otherwise polarized political sphere, accusing Beijing of representing a national security threat.

“We wanted to combine them all into one week so that you had a real sharp focus on the fact that we need to be aggressive in confronting the threat that China poses,” Scalise told Fox, explaining that he hoped to attract “real bipartisan support for a number of these.”

“They're all bills that should be very bipartisan, because there are things that China is doing right now that are direct threats to our country's national security,” he said, “and if we get strong bipartisan votes, you have a higher chance of getting through the Senate.”

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Will the bills become law?

The Republicans, who control a majority of the 435 seats in the House, have the numbers alone to pass the package of “China Week” bills on their own, but even then they will likely be joined by some like-minded Democrats in sending the bills to the Senate.

However, if all the bills are passed by the end of this week, it would leave the famously slow-moving Senate only two weeks to consider them.

More importantly, the House and the Senate also have to pass a bill to fund the government after Sept. 30, which is a day after both chambers head back into a monthslong recess ahead of the Nov. 5 elections.

Democrats and Republicans are already split on the proposals to keep funding going through to next year, which – if history is any guide – will likely draw the majority of their focus over the next three weeks.

Still, some of the bills could eventually be shoehorned into the mammoth defense appropriations bill typically passed by Congress in December of each year – importantly, this year, after the elections.

What does China say?

As might be expected, Beijing isn’t terribly happy about being declared the focus of proceedings in the first week back of Congress.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Radio Free Asia that the pieces of legislation proposed as part of “China Week” were all politically motivated and intended to provide lawmakers with evidence of their tough stances on China. 

“If passed, it will cause serious interference to China-U.S. relations and mutually beneficial cooperation, and will inevitably damage the U.S.'s own interests, image and credibility,” Liu said in an email.

“The so-called ‘China Week’ and the China-related bills are full of Cold War thinking and zero-sum game concepts, exaggerating the ‘China threat,’ inciting strategic competition and even confrontation with China, clamoring for a ‘new Cold War’ and ‘decoupling,’” he added. 

“This is new McCarthyism in the U.S. Congress, manipulating China issues and hyping up Sino-U.S. relations in the U.S. election year.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

We speak with former Michigan Congressmember Andy Levin, a former synagogue president, who lost his 2022 Democratic primary in a race that saw millions spent by pro-Israel groups to unseat the progressive Jewish lawmaker. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and other lobby groups have used the same playbook over the years to defeat members of Congress who do not toe the line, and Levin says the Democratic Party has to act to stop such “dark money” from deciding elections and push for a new policy on Israel-Palestine that brings peace. “We need to all get along there, and we need to work together here to make that happen,” he says.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

"Invasion" conspiracy theories depict immigrants as existential threats to American “culture” and “traditions,” fueling rhetoric that implicitly encourages hate-fueled violence. This type of rhetoric feeds into narratives of the "great replacement," a bigoted conspiracy theory that falsely asserts Jews and others are orchestrating the deliberate replacement of white Americans with non-white immigrants. Similarly, "invasion" conspiracies depict immigrants as existential threats to American culture and traditions, fueling rhetoric that implicitly encourages hate-fueled violence.

The report documents how dozens of Members of Congress have actively amplified these conspiracy theories through legislative measures, public statements, and a significant volume of social media activity and press releases. This amplification not only endangers public safety but also contributes to the deterioration of democratic norms and practices.

As we approach the fifth anniversary of the anti-immigrant terrorist attack in El Paso, Texas, that killed 23 people on August 3, 2019, we are reminded of the deadly impact of this rhetoric. The Bigoted Conspiracy Caucus report concludes with a stark warning to Congressional leadership to take immediate and decisive action to address the proliferation of this dangerous conspiracy theory and its harmful effects on society.

Report: https://bigotedconspiracycaucus.org/#homeme

Roll-out video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68p-YbdZT9Y&list=TLGGZOe8sUZFPyowMTA4MjAyNAw.youtube.com/watch?v=68p-YbdZT9Y&list=TLGGZOe8sUZFPyowMTA4MjAyNA

Quotes:

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice: “Members of Congress adopting an anti-democratic conspiracy theory rooted in white nationalism and antisemitism is a serious and urgent problem. As this new report documents, anti-semitism and white nationalism-rooted rhetoric is not an isolated problem, but rather a feature of the 118th Congress. We call on all Members of Congress to denounce and stop using bigoted conspiracies."

“The ‘great replacement’ and ‘invasion’ conspiracies are a danger to individuals, communities, and democracy itself,” said Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, Washington Director of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. “These lies have inspired violence and mass murder in places such as El Paso, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo. But instead of calling out and marginalizing these reckless falsehoods, far too many members of Congress have instead amplified them and brought them into the mainstream for their own cynical gain. It is long past time to hold these elected officials accountable for their recklessness. American Jews will not be silent in the face of this threat not only to our safety, but to the safety of so many communities in our broader American family.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said, “When lawmakers and other public figures normalize the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy and other extremist ideas – including by attacking immigrant communities to score political points – it leads to deadly violence and directly threatens our communities and our democracy. So much of this extremism is rooted in conspiracies about Jewish power and influence intended to paint immigrants and other communities as pawns of Jewish control. And as we’ve seen in El Paso – in addition to Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Poway, Buffalo, and beyond – the consequences are tragic. Our leaders in Congress have a responsibility to actively call out and combat this bigotry and extremism to keep our communities safe.”

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) National Government Affairs and Advocacy Director Chris Habiby said, “The normalization by Members of Congress of hate-filled rhetoric based on antisocial conspiracy theories poses a threat to marginalized communities across the United States. These theories, rooted in white nationalism and supremacy, have been driving much of the dangerous action that we have seen come out of the 118th Congress. It is long past time for every elected official, and especially Congressional leadership, to unequivocally reject the use of these bigoted conspiracies by their colleagues and commit to opposing legislation derived from them.”

“HIAS joins our partner organizations in calling out the Members of Congress who regularly spread vicious conspiracy theories about immigrants, said Naomi Steinberg, Vice President, U.S. Policy & Advocacy, HIAS. Invasion and great replacement theory rhetoric, both deeply rooted in white nationalist and antisemitic tropes, are no longer a bug on the Hill, they are a regular feature. It is incumbent upon all of us to speak up to denounce this language every time we hear it and to insist upon good faith, fact-based debates about how to address immigration challenges in the U.S. rather than the dangerous hate slinging that has taken over the immigration debate in the halls of Congress and on campaign trails around the country.”

Lindsay Schubiner, Director of Programs at Western States Center, said, “Bigoted "invasion" rhetoric has fueled violence and mass murder in cities like El Paso, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo. When members of Congress echo this rhetoric, they are elevating the risk of further violence. Western States Center urges members of Congress to denounce and forcefully push back against such hateful rhetoric by their colleagues. Too often, we have seen members spout dangerous, bigoted falsehoods, and rather than immediately being rebuked, condemned, and isolated, these members are welcomed into the mainstream. It's high time we hold these elected officials accountable for their recklessness. The Bigoted Conspiracy Caucus report shows how widespread this type of dangerous rhetoric has become among elected officials and how such ideas are influencing their governance.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Photograph Source: U.S. Embassy Jerusalem – CC BY 2.0

I returned home from Wednesday’s anti-Netanyahu demonstration on Capitol Hill in time to watch the Israeli prime minister address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.  The vilest thing about the event was not the speech itself, which was predictably bloodthirsty and mendacious, but the reactions of the assembled Congresspeople.  Almost all of them stood and cheered lengthily while their invited guest smeared those protesting his appearance in the streets outside the Capitol as pro-Hamas “idiots” who “stand with rapists and murderers,” and whose protests are “paid for by Iran.”

Understand that almost all those protesting, including me, were Americans — a group that the members of Congress claim to represent.  But never mind that.  Benjamin Netanyahu is an experienced con artist who knows very well when he has an audience of suckers who will buy any Brooklyn Bridge that he feels like selling.  I arrived home in time to watch him bedazzle the Congressional rubes by introducing wounded Israeli war veterans — who just happened to be people of color – in the visitors’ gallery.  No one laughed or objected when he defamed the protestors, when he called the Israel Defense Forces the most scrupulously pro-civilian army in world history, or when he accused the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court of disseminating an antisemitic “blood libel.”  But his best trick of all was using the Book of Genesis to justify Israeli claims to all of 21^st century Palestine.

“They call Israel a colonialist state,” he ranted, pounding the lectern. “Don’t they know that the Land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah preached and where David and Solomon ruled?”

That grotesque non-sequitur evoked the loudest cheers of all!  Netanyahu understands perfectly well that what sustains the remaining American support for Israel is a combination of Zionist political and financial pressure, evangelical Christian hopes for a Middle East Armageddon, and U.S. imperialism.  He baldly presented Israel as a U.S. agent in the region obviating the need for American “boots on the ground.”  His peroration, cheered on passionately by the yokels, called for an Abrahamic Alliance to make war on Iran and Hezbollah.

About half of the Democrats in Congress had the decency to absent themselves from this bellicose farce.  Kamela Harris refused to attend and preside; Rashida Tlaib attended but held up a small sign that read “War Criminal.”  Other Democrats like Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland were in the hall but behaving weirdly – sitting on their hands for some of Bibi’s more obnoxious pronouncements but rising to cheer at other moments of jingoistic bombast.  No point in offending AIPAC and its supporters in an election year!

Most Republicans, of course, were in ecstasy throughout, especially when Netanyahu praised their Dear Leader.  As I write this, he is on the way to Mar-a-Lago to pay him homage.  So much for Donald Trump the “peace candidate.”  The one useful result of this globally embarrassing event was the revelation – if one were needed – that the MAGA Republicans are united in support of a U.S.-financed “forever war” in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the world watches in disbelief as the clueless American Empire further isolates itself morally and politically from virtually all the world’s peoples.  With friends like Netanyahu, as the old Jewish joke goes, who needs enemies?

The post Netanyahu in Congress: the Crime Boss Fulminates, While His Accomplices Cheer appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Richard Rubenstein.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to defend the ongoing war on Gaza as thousands of people outside protested his appearance. The speech came two months after Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced he was seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for committing war crimes in Gaza. Over 100 Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, skipped the speech, but those in attendance gave Netanyahu numerous standing ovations as he painted a distorted picture of what’s happening in Gaza, making no mention of efforts to reach a ceasefire or the more than 16,000 Palestinian children killed in Israel’s assault. Foreign policy analyst Phyllis Bennis says the speech was “horrifying,” but says it showed that “support for Israel has become a thoroughly partisan issue.” Bennis adds that peace activists in the U.S. have built a broad consensus against the war on Gaza and military support for Israel, and says Vice President Kamala Harris has an opportunity to chart a new path on Middle East policy as she runs for president.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Some 400 Jewish activists, including over a dozen rabbis, were arrested Tuesday during a sit-in inside the Capitol to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress and demand an immediate U.S. weapons embargo on Israel. “It is absolutely shameful that congressional leadership has invited a war criminal, who is currently leading a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, to address a joint session of Congress,” says Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action. Lawmakers have rolled out a “blood-soaked red carpet to a war criminal” by inviting Benjamin Netanyahu, adds Palestinian American organizer Linda Sarsour, co-founder of the Muslim advocacy group MPower Action. Tuesday’s civil disobedience protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace. We are also joined by Noa Grayevsky, member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Portland, who joined the protest and whose cousin’s close friend was taken hostage on October 7.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

As the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza tops 39,100, tens of thousands of protesters plan to march on Capitol Hill today during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers plan to boycott the speech, including Senators Dick Durbin, Chris Van Hollen, Jeff Merkley, Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders. “Congress has made a terrible mistake in inviting Netanyahu,” says award-winning Israeli scholar David Harel, who co-authored a New York Times essay, “We Are Israelis Calling on Congress to Disinvite Netanyahu.” Harel says Netanyahu “does not represent a majority of Israelis.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Milwaukee, WI – In an incident of political thuggery and intimidation at the RNC, CODEPINK’s Palestinian campaign organizer, Nour Jaghama, has been unjustly arrested by police on accusation of assaulting a member of Congress.

While peacefully waiting in line to enter the event, Nour, a visibly Palestinian woman, was intentionally bumped into by a bald, white member of Congress while he tried to shove past her. Despite not reacting to this, Nour was falsely accused of “alleged” assault by a Texas State police officer on the scene and we are told she will be taken to a Milwaukee Police Department for arrest. Notably, two other CODEPINK staff members ahead of her in line passed through without any issues, raising concerns of racial profiling.

Nour holding a Peace Now sign at the March On The RNC rally on Monday, July 15 in Milwaukee, WI.

It is a microcosm of the misogyny at the RNC that the more gentle non-violent woman, the only Palestinian in line with our group is assaulted and then even when she did not respond she was the one who was arrested.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dissident Voice Communications.

Nour holding a Peace Now sign at the March On The RNC rally on Monday, July 15 in Milwaukee, WI.

Milwaukee, WI 

In an incident of political thuggery and intimidation at the RNC, CODEPINK’s Palestinian campaign organizer, Nour Jaghama, has been unjustly arrested by police on accusation of assaulting a member of Congress.

While peacefully waiting in line to enter the event, Nour, a visibly Palestinian woman, was intentionally bumped into by a bald, white member of Congress while he tried to shove past her. Despite not reacting to this, Nour was falsely accused of “alleged” assault by a Texas State police officer on the scene and we are told she will be taken to a Milwaukee Police Department for arrest. Notably, two other CODEPINK staff members ahead of her in line passed through without any issues, raising concerns of racial profiling.

It is a microcosm of the misogyny at the RNC that the more gentle non-violent woman, the only Palestinian in line with our group is assaulted and then even when she did not respond she was the one who was arrested.

CODEPINK unequivocally states that no one from our organization assaulted anyone. We attended the RNC to deliver a message of peace and disarmament, adhering strictly to non-violent protest methods.

The post CODEPINK’s Palestinian-American Staff Member Arrested on False Accusation of Assault by Member of Congress appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by CounterPunch News Service.

“There is no sound technical or strategic rationale for spending tens of billions of dollars building new nuclear weapons,” said Dr. Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which organized the letter. “These weapons – stored in silos across the Plains states – place a target on communities and increase the risk of nuclear war while offering no meaningful security benefits. The U.S. could eliminate the land-based leg of the triad tomorrow and the U.S. public would only be safer for it.”

The Pentagon review of the Sentinel came after the projected cost of the project rose 37%, to $131 billion, requiring a re-evaluation of the program and possible alternatives under the Nunn-McCurdy Act.

"It is unconscionable to continue to develop nuclear weapons, like the Sentinel Program,” said Dr. Barry Barish, recipient of the 2017 Nobel prize in physics, member of the National Academy of Sciences and signatory to the letter. “The Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955 simply stated for us that 'such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind.' Today's more advanced weapons only emphasize that profound statement."

While the ballooning cost is reason enough to cancel the program, silo-based nuclear missiles also pose an unnecessary danger to the U.S. public, according to the letter. A recent study found that an attack on U.S. land-based missiles – which are intended to act as a “sponge” to attract and absorb incoming adversary missiles – would result in millions of deaths across the U.S. due to radioactive fallout. Because the locations of these missiles are well known, they are vulnerable to attack. The U.S. military keeps these missiles on “hair-trigger” alert so they can be launched within minutes, increasing the risk of nuclear war due to false alarms, misunderstandings and miscalculations.

Improvements in other legs of the U.S. nuclear triad have rendered the land-based leg of the triad redundant and unnecessary. Nuclear-armed submarines hidden at sea are as accurate as silo-based missiles, quick to respond and essentially invulnerable to attack. Previous UCS research found U.S. land-based missiles to be superfluous and argued they could be eliminated without sacrificing U.S. security.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III is recommending continued spending on the over-budget and behind-schedule Sentinel program. But President Biden and Congress should examine this evaluation with a critical eye, conclude that the costs outweigh the benefits and cancel the program, saving U.S taxpayers over $100 billion.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Today’s decision by an extremist Supreme Court eviscerates four decades of legal precedent that protects Americans’ rights to clean air and water, safe workplaces, and healthcare by preventing the dedicated civil-servant experts who staff our federal agencies from implementing the laws enacted by Congress. This dangerous ruling overturns a unanimous Supreme Court determination, known as Chevron deference, that recognizes that judges are not policy experts and that it is entirely appropriate for knowledgeable regulatory agencies to respond effectively to protect Americans.

“That is why Congress must immediately pass my Stop Corporate Capture Act, the only bill that codifies Chevron deference, strengthens the federal-agency rulemaking process, and ensures that rulemaking is guided by the public interest–not what’s good for wealthy corporations.

“Today’s ruling creates massive uncertainty around the ability of the Executive Branch to fulfill its constitutional obligation to enforce our laws and casts doubt on the protections Americans depend on for a safe environment, financial markets, food products, prescription drugs, enforcement of our civil rights, and much more. It empowers the very same Supreme Court that struck down abortion rights to make far-reaching policy decisions.

“Make no mistake: this is the outcome of a multi-decade crusade by big business and rightwing extremists to gut federal agencies tasked with protecting Americans’ health and safety to instead benefit corporations aiming to dismantle regulations and boost their profits.

“In addition to passing my bill to codify Chevron deference, we must also enact sweeping oversight measures to rein in corruption and billionaire influence at the Supreme Court, whose far-right extremist majority routinely flouts basic ethics, throws out precedent, and legislates from the bench to benefit the wealthiest and most powerful.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Asia Pacific Report

The president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has welcomed the launch of a new political front, urging support for this new initiative on the “roadmap to liberation”.

Benny Wenda said the launch of the West Papua People’s Liberation Front (GR-PWP) was a  new popular movement formed to execute the national agenda of the ULMWP.

He reaffirmed the three-fold strategy as:

READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

• A visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights;
• ULMWP Full membership for ULMWP of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG); and
• An internationally-supervised self-determination referendum.

“Our roadmap is clear — we will not stray in this or that direction, but remain totally focused on our end goal of independence,” Wenda said in a statement.

“By pursuing this threefold agenda, we are rebuilding the sovereignty that was stolen from us in 1962. The ULMWP roadmap is West Papua’s path to liberation.”

Wenda said that all West Papuan organisations or affiliated groups were welcome to participate in the GR-PWP, including political activists, student groups, religious organisations, Indonesian solidarity groups, the Alliance of Papuan Students, and KNPB.

‘National agenda for self-determination’
“The Liberation Front is not factional but will carry out the national agenda for self-determination. It will deepen the ULMWP’s presence on the ground, supporting the cabinet, constitution, governing structure and Green State Vision we have already put in place,” Wenda said.

“The GR-PWP has been endorsed by the Congress, the highest body of the ULMWP according to our constitution.”

Wenda said GR-PWP would have a decentralised structure, being spread across all seven customary regions of West Papua.

The capital of Jayapura would not dictate decisions to the coasts or islands — all regions would have an equal voice in the movement.

“Unity is essential to our success. Our liberation movement will only succeed when West Papuans from all regions, from all tribal groups and political factions,” Wenda said.

“The agenda belongs to all West Papuans.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois says “big money in politics” is a threat to U.S. democracy, pointing to Jamaal Bowman’s primary race as an example of how deep-pocketed interest groups can impact election contests. Bowman is a progressive “Squad” member facing a tight nomination race in New York’s 16th Congressional District against his Democratic challenger George Latimer, who has the backing of groups affiliated with the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which have pumped millions of dollars into the primary. Bowman was one of the first lawmakers to call for a Gaza ceasefire after October 7. “They are literally trying to purchase that election because he dared to stand for peace and justice,” says Ramirez.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Boeing CEO David Calhoun appeared before a Senate committee on Tuesday to face questions about the aerospace giant’s safety record, just hours after the release of a damning report on Boeing’s business practices. Released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the report found that the company lost track of hundreds of substandard aircraft parts, eliminated quality inspectors and put manufacturing workers in charge of signing off on their own work. We speak with Nadia Milleron, an aviation safety advocate, whose daughter Samya Stumo was killed on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019 when a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed due to the plane’s malfunctioning software that put the plane into a nosedive. She attended Tuesday’s hearing and is also running for Congress in Massachusetts. “Why is Dave Calhoun paid $32 million? He’s paid that money to cut costs. That’s what he’s good at. He’s not good at production. He’s not an engineer. He’s paid to strip-mine the company,” says Milleron, who signed a letter along with other families of Boeing crash victims calling on the Justice Department to consider criminal prosecutions against company leadership. “They need to clean house.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The national congress of New Caledonia’s pro-independence platform, the FLNKS, was postponed at the weekend due to major differences between its hard-line component and its more moderate parties.

The FLNKS is the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front.

It consists of several pro-independence parties, including the Kanak Liberation Party (PALIKA), the Progressist Union in Melanesia (UPM) and the more radical and largest Union Calédonienne (UC).

• READ MORE: Other New Caledonia crisis reports

In recent months, following a perceived widening rift between the moderate and hard-line components of the pro-independence umbrella, UC has revived a so-called “Field Action Coordination Cell” (CCAT).

This has been increasingly active from October 2023 and more recently during the series of actions that erupted into roadblocks, riots, looting and arson.

CCAT mainly consists of radical political parties, trade unions within the pro-independence movement.

The 43rd FLNKS congress, in that context, was regarded as “crucial” over several key points.

Stance over unrest
These include the platform’s stance on the ongoing unrest and which action to take next and a response to a call to lift all remaining roadblocks — but also the pro-independence movement’s fielding of candidates to contest the French snap general election to be held on June 30 and July 7.

There are two seats and constituencies for New Caledonia in the French National Assembly.

Organising the 43rd FLNKS Congress, convened in the small village of Netchaot — near the town of Koné north of the main island — was this year the responsibility of moderate PALIKA.

It started to take place on Saturday, June 15, under heavy security from the organisers, who followed a policy of systematic searches of all participants, including party leaders, local media reported.

However, the UC delegation arrived three hours late, around midday.

A meeting of all component party leaders was held for about one hour, behind closed doors, public broadcaster NC la 1ère reported yesterday.

It was later announced that the congress, including a much-awaited debate on sensitive points, would not go on and had been “postponed”.

CCAT militants waiting
The main bone of contention was the fact that a large group of CCAT militants were being kept waiting in their vehicles on the road to the small village, with the hope of being allowed to take part in the FLNKS congress, with the support of UC.

But hosts and organisers made it clear that this was not acceptable and could be seen as an attempt from the radical movement to take over the whole of FLNKS.

They said they had concerns about the security of the whole event if the CCAT’s numerous militants were allowed in.

On Thursday and Friday last week, ahead of the FLNKS gathering, CCAT had organised its own general assembly in the town of Bourail — on the west coast of the main island — with an estimated 300-plus militants in attendance.

Moderate components of the FLNKS and organisers also made clear on Saturday that if and when the postponed congress resumed at another date, all roadblocks still in place throughout New Caledonia should be lifted.

In a separate media release last week, PALIKA had already called on all blockades in New Caledonia to be removed so that freedom of movement could be restored, especially at a time when voters were being called to the polls later this month as part of the French snap general election.

Candidates deadline
As the deadline for lodging candidates expired on Sunday, it was announced that the FLNKS, as an umbrella group, did not field any.

On its part, UC had separately fielded two candidates, Omaira Naisseline and Emmanuel Tjibaou, one for each of the two constituencies.

Earlier this month, UC president Daniel Goa said he was now aimed at proclaiming New Caledonia’s independence on 24 September 2025.

The date coincides with the anniversary of France’s colonisation of New Caledonia on 24 September 1853.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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Members of Congress pressed Microsoft on Thursday to strengthen how it handles reported security flaws in its ubiquitous products after a series of cyberattacks struck the federal government.

The criticism from members of the House Homeland Security Committee came in response to a new ProPublica investigation that found Microsoft repeatedly rebuffed a company engineer who, beginning in 2017, warned that a product flaw left millions of users vulnerable to attack, including federal employees. Russian hackers later exploited that weakness in one of the largest cyberattacks in U.S. history, widely known as SolarWinds.

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee’s top Democrat, entered the news organization’s story into the congressional record. He then asked Microsoft President Brad Smith if the company has since established a process “to ensure that employee concerns about security at Microsoft or their products are prioritized and addressed.”

Smith, sitting alone at the witness table in a packed hearing room, told lawmakers that the company is shifting its approach to security. Microsoft is trying “to empower every employee to focus on continuous improvement and speak up ... and to ensure that those voices are heard and heeded,” he said.

Smith added, “We want a culture that encourages every employee to look for problems, find problems, report problems, help fix problems and then learn from the problems.”

As ProPublica reported, that is not the corporate culture that the former Microsoft engineer, Andrew Harris, encountered in the years leading up to SolarWinds. Harris said product leaders, who were focused on Microsoft’s drive to dominate the cloud computing market, told him that addressing the weakness he’d identified would undermine the company’s business goals of securing federal government contracts and marginalizing competitors.

The federal Cyber Safety Review Board, in its own examination of Microsoft’s role in a separate hack perpetrated last year by Chinese attackers, also found the company’s security culture “inadequate” and in need of an “overhaul.” Microsoft “deprioritized both enterprise security investments and rigorous risk management,” the board found, resulting in a “cascade of … avoidable errors.”

On Thursday, Smith said Microsoft accepted responsibility for the board’s findings and has since moved to tie executive bonuses to cybersecurity. He said security would also be part of every Microsoft employee’s performance review, and thus would indirectly impact compensation across the company.

Microsoft’s promise to change its security culture echoes a similar pledge from founder Bill Gates more than 20 years ago. “When we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security,” Gates wrote at the time.

In the decades since, former employees told ProPublica, developing new products and features was often prioritized over fixing security bugs in existing offerings.

While the official subject of Thursday’s hearing was the cybersafety board’s report on the China hack, members of the committee asked Smith question after question about ProPublica’s SolarWinds investigation, which Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., called a “bombshell report.”

She said the hearing was a “reckoning moment” for the company, which has repeatedly downplayed its role in SolarWinds. One of the flaws the Russians exploited involved a Microsoft application, which was supposed to ensure users had permission to log on to cloud-based programs. The weakness allowed intruders to masquerade as legitimate employees and rummage through sensitive data in the cloud, including emails.

Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., asked Smith about his prior congressional testimony, in which he said that Microsoft had first learned about this weakness in November 2017, when an outside cybersecurity firm published a report on it. ProPublica’s investigation, Magaziner noted, found that Harris had raised it even earlier, only to be ignored. The lawmaker asked Smith if his prior testimony was incorrect.

Smith demurred, saying he hadn’t read the story. “I was at the White House this morning,” he told the panel.

Later, Smith complained that ProPublica’s investigation was published the day of the hearing and said that he’d know more about it “a week from now.” ProPublica sent detailed questions to Microsoft nearly two weeks before the story was published on Thursday and requested an interview with Smith. The company declined to make him available.

On Thursday, Smith pointed out that the weakness in Microsoft’s product could also be found in other companies’ software. Cybersecurity specialists have noted, however, that Microsoft’s version was one of the most widely used, including by the federal government.

When Ramirez asked how Harris’ discovery would have been handled differently today, Smith said, “I think what’s most important for today is simply to note how we are changing … how we elevate these issues and reward people for finding, reporting and helping to fix problems.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Renee Dudley.

According to various news reports across Andhra media, the four TV news broadcasters have been blocked since Thursday, June 6, in connection with their critical reporting of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which defeated the incumbent Yuvajana Sramika Rythu (YSR) Congress Party in state-level elections. 

On June 11, Parliament member S. Niranjan Reddy, of the YSR Congress Party, wrote a letter to the chairperson of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, raising concerns about the ban. In his letter, reviewed by CPJ, he highlighted how such an action violates the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services Interconnection (Addressable Systems) Regulations, which ensure fair and non-discriminatory interconnection arrangements among service providers. Reddy also emphasized the impact on press freedom and the public’s right to information.

“The news of the blacking out of four news broadcasters by the Cable TV Operators Association is a disturbing one. It is crucial for the new Andhra Pradesh government to uphold the principles of a free and independent press- to ensure that all broadcasters, regardless of how critical they may be, can operate without interference or censorship,” said Kunāl Majumder, CPJ India Representative. “The public’s right to access diverse sources of information is fundamental to a healthy democracy, and any attempts to silence the media must be swiftly addressed and rectified.”

On June 12, TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu was sworn in as the Chief Minister of the state. TDP is also a partner of the ruling alliance led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the federal level.

CPJ’s attempts to contact the Andhra Pradesh Cable TV Operators’ Association were unsuccessful. TDP national spokesperson Deepak Reddy has not responded to CPJ’s message seeking comment. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

I was arrested again inside of Congress for speaking out against US-backed genocide. Myself and others were brutally tackled and carried out of the room by Capitol Police. I was charged with “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding” for speaking out and holding a sign as the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense testified in Congress for more money for the endless US war machine.

While they are arresting peace activists for exercising first amendment rights they are making plans to host Netanyahu- a war criminal with an actual arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

For decades, people following CODEPINK’s lead have been protesting inside the halls of Congress. The year before October 7, there were a handful of us protesting the bloated military budgets and the US warmongering. I was arrested several times on my own, but since October, dozens of us have been arrested in Congress, hundreds in DC, and thousands across the US and the world for Palestine.

The sustained energy and activism are the result of the 40,000+ thousands of Palestinians murdered, millions being starved and displaced, their land, water, and air poisoned, and neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, and refugee camps demolished.

The real criminals are the ones we are protesting against–the ones literally sitting directly in front of us inside the hearing room–and should be the ones arrested, charged, and found guilty for the war criminals they are funding and supporting and the war crimes they are committing.

Any of us speaking and acting out on the side of justice know we are taking risks. We see it as our duty as people in the US in solidarity with and inspired by the Palestinian people facing and resisting this horror.

As I await my court date, I think of the people I spent the night with at the DC detention facility. Just this year, there have been 5 deaths inside the D.C. jail. The dozen or so women in there reminded me that poverty is a policy choice and our carceral, systemically racist state perpetuates harm and cycles of violence.

According to the US Center for Palestinian Rights in Washington DC, for this year alone (before our additional billions of aid weresent), $15,596,311 to Israel’s weapons could instead fund 451,735 households with public housing, 1,322,199 children receiving free or low-cost healthcare, 41,490 elementary school teachers, 10,818,505 households with solar electricity produce, and 100,563 students with their loan debt canceled.

The fight against US militarism is one where the climate, feminist, Indigenous, economic, and racial justice movements are all uniting around right now. And as it deepens and strengthens, we must become more organized as we escalate while we continue to make those in power uncomfortable.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Olivia DiNucci.

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The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that, for the first time, expressly permits states to spend millions of federal dollars on stillbirth prevention.

The Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act, which passed the House in mid-May, now goes to President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign the measure into law.

ProPublica has spent the past two years reporting on the crisis around stillbirth, the death of an expected child at 20 weeks of pregnancy or more. Every year in the U.S., more than 20,000 pregnancies end in stillbirth. Research shows as many as 1 in 4 stillbirths may be preventable.

The bipartisan bill, which does not allocate any new money, amends the Social Security Act to add stillbirth prevention and research to the programs that can use existing Title V funds dedicated to improving the health of mothers and children.

“This bill is the first step to preventing stillbirths across America, and I will keep pushing to deliver the federal resources needed to bring down the shockingly high rate of stillbirths and maternal mortality in the United States,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who credited ProPublica for keeping a spotlight on the stillbirth crisis.

Merkley introduced the bill with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, and Alma Adams, D-N.C., introduced the measure in the House.

For decades, Adams said, Congress has underinvested in addressing stillbirths, despite having tremendous power to direct money and resources toward research, awareness and effective interventions.

“This does not have to be a silent crisis anymore,” she said, adding that several thousand lives can be saved every year.

“I’m very thankful to ProPublica,” Adams said. “They’ve raised this issue to the forefront of U.S. politics.”

The U.S. has long lagged behind other wealthy countries in reducing stillbirths, but Adams said she hopes that will change.

The bill, which was first introduced in 2022 but never voted on, was reintroduced last July. The Senate passed the measure unanimously, but it was sent back to the Senate because of minor changes made in the House.

Emily Price, CEO of the Iowa-based nonprofit Healthy Birth Day, which has championed the measure, said when Title V was written in the 1930s, stillbirth was left out because of the outdated belief that stillbirths just happen. The bill’s passage, she said, means stillbirth “is finally being recognized for the crisis that it is in America.”

“Now we know better, and we must do better,” she said. “The impact will affect families immediately and for generations to come.”

She said that after ProPublica’s stillbirth series was published, more people opened up about their experiences, and members of Congress and their staffs began sharing how stillbirth had affected their own families and friends.

“It was in these moments that we saw change coming,” Price said.

Fewer than 20 state health departments use money allocated under Title V Maternal and Child Health block grants for stillbirth prevention, Price said.

The new legislation includes examples of services that states can implement, many of which have been adopted in other countries. Programs include tracking fetal movement, improving the timing of birth when risk factors are present, encouraging safe sleep positions during pregnancy, supporting pregnant patients to stop smoking and monitoring for signs that the fetus is not growing as expected.

Without a federal law in place, states have had to look for local solutions. Minnesota mother Amanda Duffy, who was at the center of a November 2022 ProPublica story, enlisted the help of Minnesota lawmakers, including newly elected state Sen. Susan Pha, who was pregnant. Pha tested Healthy Birth Day’s Count the Kicks app, which encourages expectant parents to track their baby’s movement in the womb, during her third trimester. She was convinced.

“This needs to be in the hands of every single expectant mom who is pregnant because it is such a powerful tool,” Pha said.

She was lead author of the Minnesota bill to establish a stillbirth prevention pilot program that incorporates Count the Kicks. The Minnesota Legislature passed the bill last month.

North Carolina doesn’t have a state stillbirth prevention law in place, which is part of the reason Tomeka James Isaac had been advocating for the Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act.

In 2018, the North Carolina mother was rushed into emergency surgery. She delivered her stillborn son, Jace, and then nearly died herself. Isaac, a Black woman, is now executive director of the nonprofit Jace’s Journey, which addresses disparities in maternal and infant health. Black women are more than twice as likely to have a stillbirth than white women, and they face an increased risk of dying during or soon after pregnancy.

Isaac traveled to Washington, D.C., last month with Price and other stillbirth families to advocate for the bill’s passage and a second bipartisan stillbirth bill pending in Congress. That bill, the Stillbirth Health Improvement and Education (SHINE) for Autumn Act, proposes $45 million over the next five years for improving data collection, stillbirth research, awareness and education, as well as supporting training for fetal autopsies.

Jessica Brady Reader, a former congressional aide, is now pushing for SHINE. After Reader gave birth to her stillborn daughter, Francesca, in 2021, she and her husband parked in front of the funeral home to read their daughter a nightly bedtime story until her body was cremated and they could bring her remains home.

“I view this as the beginning, not the end,” she said. “Passing SHINE is a necessary next step. We can’t stop.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Duaa Eldeib.

CAIR also urged all Americans to use its click-and-send action alert to call on members of Congress to follow suit and boycott or protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress on July 24th due to his openly racist views, genocidal war crimes, disrespect for the United States, and opposition to a Palestinian state.

TAKE ACTION: URGE CONGRESS TO BOYCOTT OR PROTEST WAR CRIMINAL NETANYAHU’S SPEECH TO CONGRESS

In a statement, CAIR Director of Government Affairs Department Robert S. McCaw said:

“We encourage all Americans to urge your members of Congress to boycott or protest Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 24th speech to Congress. The only speech the war criminal Netanyahu should ever give outside of Israel is testimony at The Hague.

“Any member of Congress who stands to applaud an openly racist, anti-American, genocidal butcher like Netanyahu would become a cheerleader for his crimes.

“This war criminal should have never been invited to address Congress, and if he does show up, the only moral response is to either boycott or protest his speech.”

McCaw thanked former House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for her words opposing Netanyahu’s speech and urged her to clarify if she would boycott the speech as well.

Remind your U.S. House representatives and your senators that Netanyahu is a racist, a corrupt politician and a genocidal war criminal whose government has spent eight months massacring thousands of innocent people and spent years beforehand oppressing millions of Palestinians and undermining American presidents, including President Obama.

CAIR previously called on members of Congress to reject any attempt by House Speaker Mike Johnson to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress.

Last month, CAIR condemnedthe ongoing Israel-U.S. massacre of Palestinian civilians in a so-called “safe zone” in Gaza, declaring the Biden administration’s complicity because of President Biden’s insistence on sending more bombs to enable Netanyahu’s war crimes in Rafah. CAIR believes that this is now as much an American genocide as it is an Israeli genocide.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“New Hampshire was able to indict Kramer because the robocalls aimed to deter people from voting. Almost every state makes it illegal to undertake fraudulent efforts to deceive people into not voting. New Hampshire also makes it illegal to impersonate a candidate on a telephone call.

“However, most political deepfakes misrepresenting candidates and aiming to defraud voters will not run afoul of existing law – unless lawmakers and regulators act. Eighteen states and counting have passed laws to prevent political deepfakes. Congress is moving slowly on the issue, with no guarantee of action. And the Federal Election Commission is, at best, slow walking the issue.

“The New Hampshire deepfake robocall should have been a wakeup call to policymakers across the country. Most hit the snooze button, but today’s indictment is the alarm sounding again: The American people need you to act now to prevent deepfake chaos in November. No one benefits from deepfake chaos and the problem is preventable. If policymakers fail to act, we should expect chaos to ensue.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

We speak with Palestinian American University of Michigan student Salma Hamamy, who was pepper-sprayed and beaten at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor when the Gaza solidarity encampment there became the latest to be violently dismantled Tuesday morning in the nationwide crackdown on student-led protests in solidarity with Palestine. Student protesters set up the encampment about a month ago to demand the University of Michigan’s endowment divest from companies with ties to Israel, but school President Santa Ono claimed the peaceful action had become a threat to public safety. Dozens of officers raided the encampment before dawn, arresting and hospitalizing students after pepper-spraying and pushing them to the ground. “I repeatedly said that my family has been killed, and that is why I am here. And as I was saying that through the megaphone, police officers snatched the megaphone out from my hand,” says Hamamy. She explains the university has refused to discuss divestment with protesters. “Instead of meeting with us at the table and meeting with us at the encampment, they decided to meet us with violent force and chemical attacks.” University of Michigan President Santa Ono is slated to appear before Congress Thursday alongside the presidents of UCLA and Yale.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post The Threat to Press Freedom in Congress and Beyond appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

right Wing influencer Arun Pudur tweeted the letter, claiming that the Association of Sunni Muslims in Dubai was providing complete financial assistance to Muslims in Karnataka to help Congress form the government. He sarcastically remarked that Hindus were either sleeping at home due to the intense heat or falsely claiming that the prime minister had done nothing for them.

An X handle named Indu Makkal Katchi also tweeted the letter, claiming that the ‘Muslim Board in Karnataka’ was spending money to get Indian Muslims residing in Saudi Arabia to vote for Congress.

A handle known to frequently promote misinformation (@AmitLeliSlayer) also shared the letter on X, claiming that Congress was receiving international support.

BJP supporter Saravanaprasad Balasubramaniam tweeted the letter as well, stating that Sunni Muslims in Dubai planned to reimburse the flight expenses for Muslims participating in the Karnataka elections on May 7 so that they could fly in and vote for Congress.

Fact Check

We performed a Google search and found that the address provided on the letter (#2-11TH STREET KHALID BIN WALEED ROAD PLOT NO. UMM HURAIR ONE DUBAI-UNITED ARAB EMIRATES) was listed as the office address of the Consulate General of Pakistan in Dubai on their official website. This means that this address does not belong to any Sunni Muslim organisation.

Furthermore, there was no information available on the internet about such an organisation.

This letter contains three contact numbers. When we searched these numbers, we found that the first number mentioned in the letter was shared by the company Dallmayr, a coffee vending machine manufacturer in Dubai, from its X handle. This means that this number does not belong to any Muslim organisation. We have attempted to contact the remaining two mobile numbers mentioned in the letter, and this article will be updated if we receive a response.

To sum it up, the information provided in this letter is false, and it has no connection to any organisation or appeal to Muslims. Several users have shared this dubious letter, making false claims that a Sunni Muslim organisation in Dubai would be reimbursing the flight expenses of Muslims in Karnataka to vote for Congress.

The post Letter promising financial aid to Muslims voting for Congress is not genuine appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

X (formerly Twitter) user ANGRY BIRD (Modi का परिवार) (@angryladki) shared the video on May 5 with a caption in Hindi that stated, “Congress party leaders dance with shoes on the Hindu deities of Sanatan Dharma…”

Readers should note that the user @angryladki has been found sharing misinformation several times in the past.

कांग्रेस पार्टी के नेताओं सनातन धर्म के हिंदू देवी देवता के ऊपर जूते से डांस करते हैं। हिंदू लोगों ने 65 वर्ष से कोंग्रेस पार्टी को वोट दिया। मै और मेरा परिवार कोंग्रेस पार्टी को वोट कभी भी नहीं देंगे।
जय जय श्री राम@INCIndia #CongressMukthBharat @RahulGandhi
क्या अब भी? pic.twitter.com/x6eMBslwv5

— ANGRY BIRD (Modi का परिवार) (@angryladki) May 5, 2024

Propaganda outlet Panchjanya (@epanchjanya) also shared the viral video with the same claim.

कांग्रेसियों की शर्मनाक हरकत !

भगवान राम की तस्वीर को पैर से कुचला, पोस्टर फाड़े।

स्थानीय अखबार के मुताबिक, इन्हें BJP का पटका गले में डालकर भगवान राम का पोस्टर फाड़ने को कहा गया था। pic.twitter.com/BovZUX9BOh

— Panchjanya (@epanchjanya) May 6, 2024

Several other users on Facebook and X shared the same video claiming that the Congress workers had stomped on the posters with images of Hindu deity Ram.

Fact Check

At the 1.27 mark of the viral video, a person who is recording the scene is heard saying in Hindi, “These are our BJP workers”. Toward the end of the video, the women who were stomping on the posters can be seen chanting ‘Jai Jai Siya Ram’, and one of the women in the crowd is spotted wearing a saffron and green scarf with the BJP symbol (Lotus) on it.

Further, we found the same video tweeted with the claim that the posters were torn by BJP members. It was shared by X handle @IndiaAwakened_. Here, too, one can see the BJP symbol on the scarves worn by some of the women.

Taking a cue from the above, we ran a relevant keyword search and found a news report by the Free Press  Journal which carried screengrabs from the viral video. The title of the report said: “Imarti Devi Row: Angry BJP Mahila Morcha Trample Jitu Patwari’s Posters Featuring Lord Ram & Hanuman In Indore; Congress Calls It ‘Insult To God’ (WATCH)”.

The report said that members of the BJP women’s wing had staged a demonstration outside the house of Congress leader Jitu Patwari, a former minister and current president of Madhya Pradesh Congress, in Indore, in protest against some comments made by him about former MLA and BJP leader Imarti Devi. The women in the video were tearing posters of Patwari, which also consisted of images of Hindu deities Hanuman and Ram.

We noticed that on several occasions in the video, then name Jitu Patwari or parts of the name are visible on the damaged posters. Here is one such frame:

As per a report by the NDTV, a case has been registered against Patwari for allegedly making objectionable comments about Imarti Devi.

Hence, the claims that it was Congress workers who had torn apart posters with images of Hindu deity Ram are false. The women seen in the video are BJP members protesting against some remarks by Congress leader Jitu Patwari.

The post BJP women’s wing members tore down Congress posters in Indore with images of Hindu deities; video falsely viral appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

While the Lok Sabha comprises 545 seats, elections are being held in 543. Hence 272 is the majority figure.

Modi said in Gujarati, “If you want to form a government, then at least 272 seats are required. Except for the BJP, no political party in the country is contesting 272 seats, and then they are saying they will form the government. Even the royal family of Delhi is not going to vote for Congress… There is no Congress candidate where they vote… Ahmed Patel’s family in Bharuch will not vote for Congress… A big Congress leader who votes in Bhavnagar, will not be able to vote for Congress. This is the condition of the Congress…”

News Agency ANI shared the above-mentioned part of the PM’s speech on May 1.

#WATCH | Gujarat: In Banaskantha’s Deesa, PM Modi says, “If you want to form a government, then at least 272 seats are required. Except for the BJP, no political party in the country is contesting 272 seats, and then they are saying they will form the government. Even the royal… pic.twitter.com/n6HZn6DJvu

— ANI (@ANI) May 1, 2024

Zee News also published a report on the claim by the Prime Minister.

Several users on social media further amplified the claim.

Fact Check

We came across a tweet from Pawan Khera, the chairman of the media and publicity department of Congress, in which he quote-tweeted ANI and said, “The Congress Party has so far declared 326 seats.
Do you also have a degree in entire mathematics, Mr @PMOIndia?”

The Congress Party has so far declared 326 seats.
Do you also have a degree in entire mathematics, Mr @PMOIndia ? https://t.co/VHueKKpaun

— Pawan Khera (@Pawankhera) May 1, 2024

To confirm the above, we checked the X handle @INCSandesh which shares all official announcements of Congress. The page shared a consolidated list of Lok Sabha candidates contesting from constituencies across the country on April 22 which consisted of a total of 301 names.

LOK SABHA ELECTIONS – 2024

List of Congress Candidates :- pic.twitter.com/Ip9qeiofYG

— INC Sandesh (@INCSandesh) April 22, 2024

Further, we found that after the publication of this list, the Congress had announced 26 more candidates till April 30. These candidates have been announced in constituencies in the states of Bihar (1), Andhra Pradesh (3), Telangana (3), Maharashtra (2), Haryana (9), Odisha (2), Punjab (4) and Himachal Pradesh (2). This makes the total number of seats that the Congress is contesting 327, till now.

Congress has not nominated any candidate from the Bharuch and Bhavnagar seats, as its partner in the INDIA alliance Aam Aadmi Party is contesting from these two places.

Hence, the claim by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that no party other than BJP is contesting more than 272 seats is completely false.

The post Modi’s claim false; BJP not the only party contesting in 272+ seats, Congress has named 327 candidates so far appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

Biden proclaimed: “It’s going to make the world safer.” In fact, the bipartisan authorization, passed on April 23, could nudge the doomsday clock a little closer to midnight.

Lest there be any confusion about what the head of the US empire means by making the world safer, Biden explains: “it continues America’s leadership in the world.”

US leadership is the crux of the matter. That is, at a time of increasingly challenged US hegemony, the official US strategy is still global “full spectrum dominance.” No longer does the empire justify itself as leading the crusade against communism, or even against what it considered “terrorism,” or its “war on drugs.” Today, the official national security doctrine is naked “great power competition.”

Continuing the Orwellian theme, the US president backed up his claim about US world leadership, saying, “everyone knows it.”  This was not reflected in the UN General Assembly vote on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where the US side was trounced by an overwhelming 153 in favor. Besides the US and Israel, only eight others voted against and a mere 23 abstained.  On any number of issues, the majority of the world’s population opposes the US.

Biden’s boast that “Ukraine has regained over half the territory that Russia took from them” is not particularly reflected by the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, which concluded that the current deadlock “plays to Russia’s strategic military advantages and is increasingly shifting the momentum in Moscow’s favor.”

Hailing the “brave Ukrainians,” Biden overlooks that 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age have fled the country.

Diminishing prospects for a decisive US/NATO victory in Ukraine have precipitated a particularly dangerous response from Washington, which rejects a negotiated settlement. The current administration’s plan is not to pull for peace but to push for more war. This is spun as a strategy “to stop Putin from drawing the United States into a war.” Yet it is the US, which is doing its part feeding the conflict by giving yet more armaments to the military effort.

The expansion of NATO, contrary to earlier US assurances not to advance east, is hailed in Biden’s speech. Yet, this march of NATO toward the Russian border is the very cause that Russian President Putin gave for his country’s incursion into Ukraine. This abundantly articulated Russian “redline” should be well known in Washington.

Yet, Biden in his speech goes on to ominously raise NATO’s Article Five for mutual defense which declares “an attack on one is an attack on all.” This is plainly a taunt for a war with another nuclear power. Veterans for Peace antiwar activist and author Dee Knight calls the military aid package “an open-ended commitment to the NATO war against Russia.”