March, 16 2016, 11:30am EDT
Statement by NOW President Terry O'Neill on the Supreme Court Justice Selection
Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, clearly possesses the qualities the President said he would look for--a rigorous intellect, impeccable credentials, and a record of excellence.
WASHINGTON
Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, clearly possesses the qualities the President said he would look for--a rigorous intellect, impeccable credentials, and a record of excellence.
Still, it's unfortunate that President Obama felt it was necessary to appoint a nominee to the Supreme Court whose record on issues pertaining to women's rights is more or less a blank slate. Equally unfortunate is that we have to continue to wait for the first African American woman to be named. For this nomination, the so-called political experts ruled that the best choice for the highest court in the nation was a cipher--a real nowhere man.
The selection of Judge Garland comes amid outrageous statements by Senate Republicans that they will not even meet with this President's nominee, let alone hold hearings or conduct an up-or-down vote. NOW condemns this obstructionism and calls on the Senate to do its job.
For women, who need to know that their fundamental reproductive, voting, marriage, and other rights will be protected, this is no way to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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'The Window Is Closing': Fears Grow That World Leaders Will Fail to Protect Nature at COP16
"The very limited progress we've seen so far in the negotiations at COP16 is insufficient to address the very real implications of getting this wrong," one expert said.
Oct 31, 2024
As a major international biodiversity summit approaches its Friday conclusion, environmental advocates fear that world leaders will not make the conservation and financial commitments needed to halt the destruction of nature.
The 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity launched in Cali, Colombia on October 21. It is the first international meeting since nations pledged to protect 30% of land and ocean ecosystems by 2030 and generate $700 billion a year to fund the protection of nature, with a smaller goal of $200 billion per year by 2030.
Yet nations are not on track to meet these goals, even as studies released this month warn that vertebrates have declined on average by nearly three-quarters in the last half-century and that over a third of analyzed tree species are at risk of extinction.
"Each passing day without the fulfillment of agreed commitments is a missed opportunity to protect biodiversity."
"The very limited progress we've seen so far in the negotiations at COP16 is insufficient to address the very real implications of getting this wrong," Yadvinder Malhi, a University of Oxford professor of ecosystem science, toldThe Guardian. "Biodiversity is continuing to decline at an alarming rate. I really hope that the crunch discussions this week yield those commitments, for the sake of a flourishing future for people and for our planet."
World leaders failed to meet a single one of the biodiversity targets set for 2020 in Aichi, Japan. There was hope, after nations agreed to a Global Biodiversity Framework during the Kunming-Montreal talks that concluded in December 2022, that the next decade would be different. Yet progress so far has been lagging.
Ahead of COP16, nearly 85% of countries missed the deadline to submit new national biodiversity strategies and action plans, according to an analysis from Carbon Brief. Since the deadline passed, only five more countries had submitted plans as of October 25.
An official progress report published Monday by the United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center and the International Union for Conservation of Nature concluded that only 17.6% of land and 8.4% of the ocean are currently protected. To meet the 30 by 30 goal, nations will need to protect a land area the size of Australia and Brazil put together and a marine area larger than the Indian Ocean within the next six years.
"This report is a clear reminder that with only six years remaining until 2030, the window is closing for us to equitably and meaningfully conserve 30% of the Earth," IUCN director general Grethel Aguilar said in a statement. "The '30 by 30' is an ambitious target, but one that is still within reach if the international community works together across borders, demographics, and sectors."
A major stumbling block to meeting any targets is the question of who will pay for it, how, and how much. This has emerged as a central point of contention in the talks, with Global South nations and environmental justice advocates calling on the wealthier nations of the Global North to do more.
Wealthier countries have pledged $20 billion a year in public money by 2025, yet the African delegation said that the idea these countries would reach the goal was "wishful thinking," The Guardian reported.
On Monday, the U.K., Germany, France, Norway, and four other countries promised $163 million. But Alice Jay, Campaign for Nature's director of international relations, said actually meeting the target "would require them to announce $300 million each month from now to 2025, and then keep that up each year until 2030."
"Countries from the Global South expect more from the Global North," Nigeria Environment Minister Iziaq Kunle Salako said. "Finance is key in the context of implementing all the targets."
Brian O'Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, told The Guardian that progress had been "too slow."
"I think political prioritization of nature is still too low," O'Donnell said. "This is reflected by progress on the targets. Several target[s] are very easy to measure: 30x30 has metrics on area and quality, finance has a dollar figure. We have new data on both that show we're not on pace."
O'Donnell added that it was "disturbing' to approach countries about their finance plans and be received as if making an unrealistic demand, rather than a follow-up on a pledge the country had already made.
"To me, that is a reflection of not a true commitment to this," he said.
As the second week of negotiations began on Sunday, Greenpeace called on wealthier nations to step up and also to offer funds for Indigenous and local communities that are on the frontlines of protecting biodiversity in their territories.
"Each passing day without the fulfillment of agreed commitments is a missed opportunity to protect biodiversity," Estefania Gonzalez, Greenpeace Andino's deputy campaigns director, said in a statement. "Countries with greater resources have both the capacity and responsibility to drive change, by meeting the agreed goals and supporting those facing the greatest impacts of biodiversity loss."
An Lambrechts, a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International, said that progress had partly been held up by lobbying efforts from the private sector, as has notably been the case at international climate talks as well.
"Well-paid industry representatives are doing their worst to undermine progress to ensure they can continue profiting off nature for free," Lambrechts said. "We need less big promo shows for false solutions like 'biodiversity credits' and more of the new money for actual nature protection that is absent so far. What is clear in Cali is the world is ready for global action on biodiversity if governments can deliver a real outcome at COP16."
Indigenous advocates have also called for money to be sent to them directly, rather than through intermediaries.
"Very little reaches the territories," Tabea Cacique, a member of the Asháninka people of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, said at the talks, as El Paísreported. "Do not look at us as Indigenous peoples who cannot manage the funds; teach us."
Yet even as funding remains illusive, the stakes are high.
"Nature is life," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in an address at COP16 on Tuesday, "and yet we are waging a war against it. A war where there can be no winner."
"Every year, we see temperatures climbing higher," he continued. "Every day, we lose more species. Every minute, we dump a garbage truck of plastic waste into our oceans, rivers, and lakes. Make no mistake. This is what an existential crisis looks like."
In his address, Guterres called for "making peace with nature."
"Biodiversity is humanity's ally," he said. "We must move from plundering it to preserving it. As I have said time and again, making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century."
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Worker Group Rebukes Trump as 'Billionaire Sleazeball' Over Dump Truck Stunt
The Republican nominee "acting like he is a worker is beyond gross, and slap in the face to all working-class people," said the Durham Workers Assembly.
Oct 31, 2024
A worker group in North Carolina on Wednesday criticized former U.S. President Donald Trump and one of the Republican nominee's allies for campaign stunts involving garbage trucks.
After struggling to open the truck's door—which led to a viral video clip and concerns about Trump's physical condition—the ex-president climbed into the passenger seat of a white truck adorned with American flags and a banner that said, "Trump, Make America Great Again! 2024."
Wearing an orange high-visibility vest that he also wore during a later rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump took aim at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, saying to reporters: "How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden."
In a pair of social media posts, the Durham Workers Assembly highlighted that the dump truck gimmick followed Trump donning an apron last week at a McDonald's in another swing state—Pennsylvania—where he worked a french fry fryer and dodged questions about raising the minimum wage.
"First slinging fries at McD's now this!" said the Durham, North Carolina branch of the Southern Workers Assembly, which aims to organize the unorganized working class in the U.S. South and coordinate actions across the region.
"A billionaire sleazeball acting like he is a worker is beyond gross, and slap in the face to all working-class people," the group declared on social media. "Workers must organize and raise up to smash MAGA fascism!"
The Durham Workers Assembly noted that "pro-Trump fellow billionaire" Vivek Ramaswamy participated in a similar stunt, arriving at a Wednesday campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina on the back of a sanitation truck.
The garbage truck events, as Politicoexplained, came in response to "Biden responding to a comedian at the former president's Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden calling Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage.' Biden, addressing the racist joke on Tuesday, appeared to call Trump's supporters 'garbage' in return, which Republicans seized on even as the White House said he was referring to Trump's 'supporter's'— note the apostrophe placement—'demonization of Latinos.'"
Winning over working-class voters has been a priority for both campaigns. Many national unions have endorsed Harris—though, notably, not the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose leader spoke at this year's Republican National Convention and faced criticism for not backing a presidential candidate for the first time in decades.
The United Auto Workers is among the unions that have endorsed Harris. In a Tuesday speech, UAW president Shawn Fain advocated for working-class unity against Trump, whom he's called a "scab," and emphasized that "we engage in politics as a union because it is core to our fight for economic and social justice."
Unions and worker advocates cheered Harris' selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. A former public school teacher, Walz has slammed Trump and his vice presidential candidate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as enemies of the working class, saying that "the only thing those two guys know about working people is how to work to take advantage of them."
Vance is a former venture capitalist known for his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was made into a movie. As Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson wrote in September: "In the pages of his book, Vance presents a dim view of the actual poor, whom he refers to as 'welfare queens' and accuses of 'gaming' America's too-generous social services. And as he campaigns in 2024, Vance is wielding his book as both a shield and a cudgel, using the tale of his hardscrabble youth to distract from the fact that he's now a multimillionaire member of the Senate, while simultaneously lashing out at the 'elites' for looking on his kind with contempt."
During a Thursday campaign event, Walz acknowledged the garbage truck stunt while lambasting Trump's tariff plans.
"This dude's nearly 80 years old. He damn near killed himself getting in a garbage truck. You would think over 80 years you would understand how a tariff works," Walz said. "Smarter people than Donald Trump—which is a good chunk of folks—CEOs of companies like Black & Decker, AutoZone, and Columbia, have gone on the record to say, if Donald Trump goes forward with this plan, they will simply have to raise prices and pass it on to you."
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Experts Sound Alarm on Potential Right-Wing Violence Fueled by 'Election Denialism'
Online discussion of potential violence has been on the rise over the past month, as it was ahead of the 2020 election.
Oct 31, 2024
Recent violent incidents at a Democratic National Committee office in Arizona and ballot boxes in the Pacific Northwest have been accompanied by rising online discussion of potential political violence following the November 5 elections, with people in right-wing forums ramping up the spread of baseless claims that Democrats will "steal" the presidential election and threatening to help Republican nominee Donald Trump take power by force.
That's according to a study published this week by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), which warns the group is "seeing the same warning signs of political violence based on election denialism combined with violent language across fringe platforms that we saw in the weeks before the 2020 election and before the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol."
At the messaging platform Telegram, violent rhetoric related to denying the results of an election that hadn't even taken place yet rose by 317% over the course of October 2020, and GPAHE found an identical trend this past month.
Users have threatened to "shoot to kill any illegal voters," apparently referring to the supposed scourge of illegal voting by non-citizens that Republicans including Trump and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have vowed to defeat, despite the lack of evidence that such a problem exists. A Telegram group frequented by members of the Minnesota Proud Boys have called for "patriots" to "take action" and attend a protest at the Minnesota state Capitol on November 2.
On other platforms, GPAHE co-founder Heidi Beirich told The Guardian on Thursday, the numbers of political violence threats "have been lower so far this year, but they are quickly rising as we approach Election Day."
On Gab in 2020, violent election rhetoric rose 462% during October and shot up "a staggering 8,309% the week of the election," said GPAHE. This month, the rhetoric has gone up by about 105%, with users saying people engaged in "election fraud"—a vanishingly rare occurrence—should face "public executions."
"The military needs to be brought in," at least one user wrote this month, echoing Trump's statement that an "enemy within on Election Day "should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military."
"The Trump campaign, its surrogates, or right-wing sympathizers could invite unrest, threats, or violence to try putting their collective thumb on the scales at key decision points."
Beirich told The Guardian that GPAHE is also seeing "posts targeting election workers with violence, a sign that real world activity could escalate."
The report was released as authorities investigate two incidents in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon in which devices were used to set ballot boxes on fire, resulting in damage to hundreds of ballots cast by early voters. Officials have linked the alleged arson acts to an incident on October 8 in which a suspicious device was found in a ballot drop box.
A man named Jeffrey Michael Kelly was also arrested last week for shooting at the Democratic National Committee office in Tempe, Arizona. Authorities found 120 guns, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, and other weapons at his home, and said he was likely planning to commit a "mass casualty event" ahead of the election.
Those incidents and the memory of the violent riot on January 6, 2021, in which Trump urged thousands of his supporters to descend on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results, are likely contributing to rising fears among voters about violence after next week's election. About 4 in 10 voters told The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research this week that they are "extremely" or "very" concerned about violence related to election denial.
In an analysis of political violence risks in the U.S. on Tuesday, the International Crisis Group noted that current conditions in the country may lower the chances of violent attacks related to election denial compared to 2020.
The prosecution of leaders of the January 6 insurrection and investigations into groups involved have "dented these groups' capacity," wrote program director Michael Wahid Hanna.
President Joe Biden has also lowered the risk of Trump challenging a potential election loss the way he did in 2020, when he and his allies urged "fake electors" in seven states to falsely declare him the winner, among other efforts. Biden signed the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, which includes new rules for how Congress tallies electors chosen by each state and "raises the bar for any objection" to the election results, wrote Hanna.
However, added Hanna, "Trump himself remains a major risk factor" for violence after the election:
The Trump campaign, its surrogates, or right-wing sympathizers could invite unrest, threats, or violence to try putting their collective thumb on the scales at key decision points. Local officials told not to certify tallies and battleground-state Republican state legislatures urged to appoint 'faithless' electors could be subject to personal threats or rowdy demonstrations designed to show that 'the people' support Trump's preferred course of action. Later, Republican lawmakers in Congress could be intimidated in comparable ways. Democrats, who would presumably fight an effort of this sort at every stage in court, could be exposed to similar or worse. Any anti-Trump street protests, meanwhile, could very well be met with counter-demonstrations including far-right elements, which could lead to clashes, with the risk of deadly violence rising at each new phase of legal maneuvering.
With many in the Republican Party relentlessly transmitting the message that "its candidate cannot lose unless the other side cheats," wrote Hanna, the risk of political violence after the election can't be ignored.
"Responsible actors with Trump's ear should prevail upon him to stick to the rules," he wrote, "Election boards, state legislators, members of Congress, and judges will need to do the same: The country's electoral laws are in better shape than they were four years ago, but the reforms will only matter if the country's institutions adhere to them in good faith."
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