Ken Zinn, 240-235-2008 or Kari Jones, 510-433-2759
National Nurses United Endorses Beto O'Rourke in Texas U.S. Senate Race
National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the country, today announced its endorsement of Rep. Beto O'Rourke in the 2018 Texas U.S. Senate race, given his strong stance on issues that positively impact public health and safety.
National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the country, today announced its endorsement of Rep. Beto O'Rourke in the 2018 Texas U.S. Senate race, given his strong stance on issues that positively impact public health and safety.
"From supporting Medicare for All, to supporting NNU's federal safe nurse staffing bill, the 150,000 RNs of NNU, including our 3,000 Texas nurses, know Beto O'Rourke would provide the kind of leadership we need in the U.S. Senate to protect patients, nurses and our communities," said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. "We strongly endorse his campaign."
Rep. O'Rourke aligns with nurses' values on critical issues, including:
Championing Medicare for All: In Texas, 4.3 million residents, including over 600,000 children have no health insurance--a rate 1.75 times the national average. Millions more are under-insured with deductibles and co-payments so high they cannot afford to use their insurance to seek needed medical care. Nurses know that astronomical health care costs and lack of access mean patients often do not receive treatment until it's too late, or are forced to make devastating choices between paying for medication or paying for rent or food. Rep. O'Rourke joins NNU in supporting a Medicare for All health care system that will provide safe, therapeutic care for everyone as a basic human right, through a progressively financed, single-payer system.
"Every day, nurses have to watch our patients suffer and die simply due to lack of healthcare," said Judy Lerma, RN, of San Antonio, Texas. "Beto O'Rourke understands that, regardless of ability to pay, every patient deserves a single standard of care, as a human right."
Supporting legislation for safe patient care in hospitals: Rep. O'Rourke is a co-sponsor of NNU's federal safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios bill: the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act.
In 49 out of 50 states, including Texas, healthcare corporations are legally allowed to maximize profits by cutting corners on staffing, with no set limit to how many sick or injured people nurses can be assigned at once. Studies have shown short staffing is detrimental to patients -- and also to nurses (who experience higher rates of injury and job burnout). A 2016 study (Aiken et. al) found that with each 10 percentage point reduction in the proportion of professional nurses, there was an 11 percent increase in the odds of patient death.
"As a neonatal intensive care unit nurse, who cares for some of the youngest, most vulnerable patients out there, I know how important it is not to cut corners on staffing. Beto O'Rourke knows this, too, because he listens to nurses. One of the many reasons we need him in the U.S. Senate is that he will continue to be a champion of safe staffing limits, to protect nurses and patients across the country," said Sandy Wakefield, RN, of El Paso.
Working to advance economic justice, the rights of working people: In an era of extreme economic disparity, nurses know that we need elected officials who value the health and safety of working people over the profits of corporations. O'Rourke believes workers should benefit from the economic growth they help create and promotes policies that encourage companies to focus on returning investments back to working people and the community.
Protecting the health and safety of our immigrant patients: Nurses care for our nation's border communities, have firsthand experience treating immigrant patients, and are in many cases immigrants themselves--or the children of immigrants. RNs stand with O'Rourke in the commitment to end the militarization of our immigration enforcement system, and close private immigration prisons and detention centers that profit from locking up families.
The health of child detainees is especially concerning to nurses given that--in addition to the toxic stress experienced by detention and the still-lingering cases of family separation--immigrant patients may already have underlying health issues as a result of their stressful journey to the U.S. and from experiencing poverty and violence in their home countries.
"Beto O'Rourke stood with nurses, as we protested the inhumane separation of immigrant families, which can cause toxic stress and increase children's risk for illnesses such as depression, diabetes, asthma, cancer and heart disease," said Rio Grande Valley RN Laura Dominguez. "He stood up for what's right, and nurses stand with him in his run for U.S. Senate. He cares for public health and safety as deeply as nurses do, and we need more of that in the U.S. Senate."
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
(240) 235-2000'Incredible': Leftists Poised to Win Most Seats in France as Voters Reject Fascists
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftist La France Insoumise party, called the election results an "immense relief for a majority of people in our country."
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Preliminary results from France's parliamentary election on Sunday show that strategic collaboration between the left and allies of President Emmanuel Macron has succeeded in preventing Marine Le Pen's fascist National Rally from winning an absolute majority.
According to projections released shortly after polls closed, Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP)—a coalition of left-of-center parties formed ahead of the snap elections to counter the far-right—is on track to secure the largest number of seats in parliament. The Financial Timesreported that NFP is expected to win "anywhere from 170 to 215 seats," while Macron's centrist alliance was "running close behind, with pollsters predicting ranges of 140 to 180 seats, a big drop from the roughly 250 they held in the outgoing National Assembly."
Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN) is expected to finish third with between 120 and 150 seats.
Following the first round of voting last weekend, hundreds of candidates from Macron's alliance and parties within the NFP dropped out of three-way runoff races in a strategic bid to defeat RN candidates—an effort that appears to have paid off in a major way.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftist La France Insoumise party, called the early election results an "immense relief for a majority of people in our country" and urged Macron to resign and allow the left to govern.
"The united left saved the republic," said Mélenchon. "It can begin the ecological and social work that our people, our time, our world, [and] our Europe so badly need."
The Associated Pressnoted that the leftist leader's speech "is an indication of what's ahead" as coalitions prepare to jockey over who will lead the government.
"He says he will not negotiate with Macron, and Macron has refused to negotiate with him," AP added.
Israeli Newspaper Confirms IDF Employed 'Hannibal Directive' on October 7
IDF soldiers were reportedly ordered to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone."
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Sunday that Israel's military repeatedly employed a protocol known as the "Hannibal Directive" during the October 7 Hamas-led attack in an attempt to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers—even if it meant putting the lives of army captives and civilians at risk.
Haaretz found based on documents and interviews with soldiers and senior Israeli officers that Hannibal—an operational order developed in 1986 that "directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity" by enemy militants—was used "at three army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well."
During the first hours of the Hamas-led attack, according to Haaretz, Israeli soldiers were given an order: "Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza."
"At this point, the IDF was not aware of the extent of kidnapping along the Gaza border, but it did know that many people were involved," the newspaper continued. "Thus, it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be."
The full text of the Hannibal Directive has never been published. But according to a Haaretz story about the directive from more than two decades ago, part of it states that "during an abduction, the major mission is to rescue our soldiers from the abductors even at the price of harming or wounding our soldiers."
"Light-arms fire is to be used in order to bring the abductors to the ground or to stop them," it adds. "If the vehicle or the abductors do not stop, single-shot (sniper) fire should be aimed at them, deliberately, in order to hit the abductors, even if this means hitting our soldiers. In any event, everything will be done to stop the vehicle and not allow it to escape."
Israeli authorities have acknowledged "multiple incidents of our forces firing on our forces" on October 7. In April, Israel's military said that one of the hostages taken by Hamas militants during the October attack was likely killed by Israeli helicopter fire.
But the IDF, which has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza since October 7, has declined to say whether Hannibal was used during the Hamas-led attack.
Haaretz stressed Sunday that it "does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target."
The first of the known uses of the Hannibal Directive on October 7 came "when an observation post at the Yiftah outpost reported that someone had been kidnapped at the Erez border crossing, adjacent to the IDF's liaison office," Haaretz reported.
"'Hannibal at Erez' came the command from divisional headquarters, 'dispatch a Zik.' The Zik is an unmanned assault drone, and the meaning of this command was clear," the newspaper found.
The directive was employed at least two additional times during the attack, according to Haaretz, which cited one unnamed source in Israel's Southern Command as saying that the country's forces were instructed to "turn the area around the border fence into a killing zone, closing it off toward the west."
The newspaper continued:
One case in which it is known that civilians were hit, a case that received wide coverage, took place in the house of Pessi Cohen at Kibbutz Be'eri. Fourteen hostages were held in the house as the IDF attacked it, with 13 of them killed. In the coming weeks, the IDF is expected to publish the results of its investigation of the incident, which will answer the question of whether Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of Division 99 who was in charge of operations in Be'eri on October 7, was employing the Hannibal procedure. Did he order the tank to move ahead even at the cost of civilian casualties, as he stated in an interview he gave later to The New York Times?
Haaretz's reporting comes weeks after a United Nations investigation concluded that the IDF "had likely applied the Hannibal Directive" on October 7, killing more than a dozen Israeli civilians.
Sanders on Biden: 'He's Gotta Do Better'
"The American people want an agenda for the next four years that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "And frankly, I don't think the president has brought that agenda forward."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that President Joe Biden must do a better job articulating a positive agenda to the American public as he faces mounting calls to step aside following his disastrous debate performance against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Sanders (I-Vt.) has thus far declined to join the growing chorus demanding that Biden drop his reelection bid, but the senator acknowledged in an appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation" that the president had a "terrible" debate and that concerns about his performance are "legitimate."
"I think he's done better since, and I think he's gotta do better again," said Sanders, who competed against Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. "But I think most importantly now, this is not a beauty contest, it's not a Grammy award contest. It is a contest of who stands with the vast majority of the people of this country—the elderly, the children, the working class, the poor. And that candidate is obviously Joe Biden."
.@SenSanders says he will not participate in a conversation organized by a fellow Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, to discuss the future of the party’s presidential ticket: "No, I have not been invited. No, I will not attend." He describes Warner as "one of the more… pic.twitter.com/us4WCp2UkE
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 7, 2024
Sanders said he would not take part in a conversation organized by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who is reportedly trying to bring together a group of senators to urge Biden to drop out of the 2024 race and clear the way for an alternative candidate to take on Trump in November as the president faces a revolt from donors and Democratic lawmakers.
"Mark is a friend of mine. I like Mark," the Vermont senator said when asked about the effort. "He's one of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus. No, I have not been invited. No, I will not attend."
Sanders implored Biden, who has insisted he intends to stay in the race, to recognize that touting his first-term achievements will not be enough to defeat Trump, whom the senator described as "the most dangerous president in the history of this country."
"The American people are hurting," said Sanders. "Sixty percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 25% of elderly people are trying to get by on $15,000 a year or less. The American people want an agenda for the next four years that speaks to the needs of the working class of this country. And frankly, I don't think the president has brought that agenda forward."
"He has gotta say, 'I am prepared to take on corporate greed, massive income and wealth inequality, and stand with the working class of this country,'" Sanders continued. "He does that, he's gonna win and win big."
"President Biden can clearly defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in the history of this country," @SenSanders says, but he says Biden's campaign needs to address how "the American people are hurting" economically.
"The American people want an agenda for the next… pic.twitter.com/tyilv7OPTn
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) July 7, 2024
Sanders' "Face the Nation" appearance came less than 48 hours after Biden's televised and closely watched ABC Newsinterview, which did little to assuage the concerns of those calling on the president to step aside.
The New York Timesreported based on recent interviews with more than 50 Democrats that "growing swaths" of the party now believe "that by remaining on the ticket, the president is jeopardizing their ability to maintain the White House and threatening other candidates up and down the ballot."
"Certainly, many leading Democrats have publicly expressed support for the president, or remained quiet about any misgivings," the Times noted Sunday. "One senior White House official, however, who has worked with Mr. Biden during his presidency, vice presidency, and 2020 campaign, said in an interview on Saturday morning that Mr. Biden should not seek reelection."