May, 14 2019, 12:00am EDT
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AOC, Sanders Rally Audience at Sunrise Movement's Green New Deal Event to Close Month-Long National Tour
WASHINGTON
Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez headlined the final stop of the Road to a Green New Deal Tour, rallying a crowd of 1,500 people at the Cramton Auditorium at Howard University. The event capped off a month with over 200 town halls across the country where tens of thousands of people gathered to hear how the Green New Deal would improve their communities and get the tools and resources to pressure their policymakers to get behind it.
During her speech, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, "And I will be damned if the same politicians who refused to act then are gonna try to come back today say we need a middle of the road approach to save our lives. That is too much for me."
"From California to Kansas to Kentucky the story is the same: climate change is here, it's destroying lives and livelihoods," said Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash, who spent the last month on tour. "Over the next few months, we'll be mobilizing our chapters around the country to make sure that every candidate knows that if they want our energy, if they want our votes, if they want our passion, they need to support the Green New Deal."
Speakers included: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Sen. Bernie Sanders; Sen. Ed Markey; Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement; Judith Howell, SEIU 32BJ member; Payton Wilkins, HBCU Climate Consortium Alumni & Executive Director of Black Trade Unionists Education Center; Naomi Klein, author and activist; Alexandra Rojas, Executive Director of Justice Democrats; Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Policy Lead for the Green New Deal at New Consensus; Kari Fulton, environmental justice advocate and journalist; and Jeremiah Lowery, environmental justice activist.
Speakers touted the movement's accomplishments over the past 6 months since the Sunrise Movement stormed Nancy Pelosi's DC office following the midterm elections demanding the Democrats make a plan to stop climate change. All the major Democratic Presidential contenders except Joe Biden say they back the Green New Deal, 104 members of Congress have co-sponsored Sen. Markey and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's resolution, and more than 200 Sunrise chapters have launched in the last five months.
Polls also show that the Green New Deal goals are broadly supported among voters of both parties and the Green New Deal a top-two issue for Democratic primary voters. Last week, a CNN poll showed that 96% of Democratic voters say it is very important for a Presidential candidate to "take aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change," more than any other issue they asked about.
Following the tour, Sunrise will mobilize chapters across the country to pressure all the candidates to meet three demands ahead of a massive demonstration at the Detroit Presidential debate in July: 1) sign the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, 2) commit to making the Green New Deal -- a WWII-scale federal government led mobilization of the society and economy to stop climate change and create economic prosperity for all -- the top priority for on Day 1 and throughout their administration, and 3) join us in calling on the DNC to host a climate debate so that we have a chance to hear where all the candidates stand on this issue.
Sunrise Movement is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
LATEST NEWS
Student Loan Payments Paused for Millions Amid Court Fight Over Relief Plan
While praising the Biden administration's move "to stave off this reckless attack from extremist politicians and judges," advocates stressed that "broad-based debt cancellation is the only solution."
Jul 19, 2024
The Biden administration responded to an appellate court temporarily blocking one of its student debt relief programs by pausing payments for the 8 million borrowers already enrolled—a move welcomed by advocates, even as some called for further action.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona acknowledged in a statement that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against President Joe Biden's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan "could have devastating consequences for millions of student loan borrowers crushed by unaffordable monthly payments if it remains in effect."
"It's shameful that politically motivated lawsuits waged by Republican elected officials are once again standing in the way of lower payments for millions of borrowers," Cardona continued. "Borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan will be placed in an interest-free forbearance while our administration continues to vigorously defend the SAVE plan in court. The department will be providing regular updates to borrowers affected by these rulings in the coming days."
The appellate court's Thursday ruling was just the latest in a series of legal decisions endangering one of the administration's surviving policies to help Americans with burdensome student loans. Biden's attempt to roll out a broader debt cancellation program last year was thwarted by the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices.
Despite that setback, the Democratic president has continued to pursue relief programs while seeking reelection in November. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are preparing to face former Republican President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Analyses have warned that Trump's return to the White House would worsen the U.S. student debt crisis.
"It wasn't so long ago that a million borrowers defaulted on their student loans every single year, mainly because they couldn't afford the payments," Cardona noted Friday. "The SAVE plan is a bold and urgently needed effort to fix what's broken in our student loan system and make financing a higher education more affordable in this country. The Biden-Harris administration remains committed to delivering as much relief as possible for as many borrowers as possible."
"Already, we've approved an unprecedented $169 billion in relief for nearly 4.8 million Americans, including teachers, veterans, and other public servants, students who were cheated by their colleges, borrowers with disabilities, and more," he added. "And from larger Pell Grants to free community college, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and I continue to believe that college affordability is a cause worth fighting for—and we're not giving up."
The Student Borrower Protection Center, which had advocated for a payment pause after Thursday's ruling, thanked Cardona "for taking swift action to protect the millions of borrowers enrolled in SAVE."
"Opponents of SAVE have inflicted mass confusion and chaos across the entire student loan system—all borrowers are at risk," the group added. "Halt student loan payments and protect borrowers ASAP!"
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten put out a statement on Friday praising the administration's action "to stave off this reckless attack from extremist politicians and judges."
"But we shouldn't even be in this situation," she stressed. "These borrowers are on a roller coaster that's being forced off the rails by far-right politicians who will do anything in their power to hurt them, rather than help them get the relief they deserve."
"We are grateful that the Biden-Harris administration will continue to push for affordable monthly payments as bad faith actors continue to throw up roadblock after roadblock," she added. "In the end, broad-based debt cancellation is the only solution—and we will continue to advocate for it through every avenue available."
While also welcoming the pause as the court battle continues, the Debt Collective said Friday: "But no need to stop there—pause everyone's payments. Unburden them from what has been."
Recalling when student debt payments were halted because of the Covid-19 pandemic, initially under Trump and then Biden, the group also said that the president "never should have restarted student loan payments," calling it "an unforced error."
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Watchdogs Blame Corporate Concentration for Global IT Outage
"It is long overdue that Microsoft and other Big Tech monopolies are broken up—for good," said one expert.
Jul 19, 2024
Digital rights advocates responded to Friday's havoc-wreaking global technology outage by sounding the alarm on the Big Tech monopolies.
The outage—which is being attributed to a software update by the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike—sparked worldwide chaos on Friday, causing so-called "blue screens of death" on computers using Microsoft Windows. The outage grounded commercial flights and caused serious disruptions to transportation, financial, and healthcare systems.
"Today's massive global Microsoft outage is the result of a software monopoly that has become a single point of failure for too much of the global economy," George Rakis, executive director of the advocacy group NextGen Competition, said in a statement.
"For decades, Microsoft's pursuit of a vendor lock-in strategy has prevented the public and private sectors from diversifying their IT capabilities," he continued. "From airports to hospitals to 911 call centers to financial systems, millions today are feeling the consequences of the greed and ego of one of the most egregious offenders in Big Tech."
Emily Peterson-Cassin, who heads Demand Progress' corporate power program, said that "today's outage shows how one software issue stemming from only one or two companies can ground flights, take down hospital systems, stop 911 calls, and cut off access to the internet in one fell swoop."
"Economy-wide reliance on a few giant companies is a serious fundamental risk to Americans," she asserted. "No one regulatory or legislative intervention will prevent this kind of situation, but there are plenty of policies that can reduce the danger. Efforts to empower regulators' ability to tackle the risks posed by concentrated corporate actors are critical to protecting Americans from these kinds of failures."
Bloomberg columnist Parmy Olson—who focuses on tech issues—said that Friday's outage "should spur Microsoft and other IT firms to do more than simply administer a Band-aid."
"The bigger problem is the supply chain itself for cloud computing and, by extension, cybersecurity services, which has left too many organizations vulnerable to a single point of failure," she noted. "When just three companies—Microsoft, Amazon, and Google—dominate the market for cloud computing, one minor incident can have global ramifications."
European Union nations "are furthest ahead in addressing the market stranglehold that these so-called hyperscalers have with the new E.U. Data Act, which aims to lower the cost of switching between cloud providers and improve interoperability," Olson noted.
"U.S. legislators should get in the game too," she argued. "One idea might be to force companies in critical sectors like healthcare, finance, transportation, and energy to use more than just one cloud provider for their core infrastructure, which tends to be the status quo."
"Instead, a new regulation could force them to use at least two independent providers for their core operations, or at least ensure that no single provider accounts for more than about two-thirds of their critical IT infrastructure," Olson added. "If one provider has a catastrophic failure, the other can keep things running."
However, most congressional efforts to rein in Big Tech monopoly power and encourage competition have failed or languished amid opposition and obstruction from lobbyists and corporate lawmakers.
Ultimately, Rakis stressed, "it is long overdue that Microsoft and other Big Tech monopolies are broken up—for good."
"Microsoft has turned a blind eye to cybersecurity vulnerabilities for years and enough is enough," Rakis said. "Not only are these monopolies too big to care, they're too big to manage. And despite being too big to fail, they have failed us. Time and time again. Now, it's time for a reckoning. We can't continue to let Microsoft's executives downplay their role in making all of us more vulnerable."
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ACLU Warns Trump Win Would Herald 'New Era of Mass Incarceration'
The rights group put out a memo detailing how a second Trump administration would "exacerbate inequalities" in the criminal justice system, "harm communities," and "infringe upon our rights and humanity."
Jul 19, 2024
The ACLU on Friday issued a memo warning that a second term for former President Donald Trump would "exacerbate inequalities" in the criminal justice system and laying out plans to push against a potential Republican administration's efforts to do so.
The 14-page memo argues that Trump's agenda would be to expand incarceration, abusive policing practices, and the use of the death penalty, all of which the ACLU, a nonprofit human rights organization, opposes.
"We know from this country's history that these extreme and immoral policies harm communities and infringe upon our rights and humanity," Yasmin Cader, director of the ACLU's Trone Center for Justice and Equality, said in a statement that accompanied the release of the memo. "The ACLU is prepared to meet the Trump administration with the same fierce response as we did during his last term in office should he be reelected."
In our latest memo, we make the case for how a second Trump administration would fuel our mass incarceration crisis and threaten all of our civil rights and civil liberties.
Our legal experts break down what’s at stake for criminal legal reform, and how we’ll work toward changes…
— ACLU (@ACLU) July 19, 2024
Most of the U.S. criminal legal system is run at the state or local level. More than 1.6 million people are incarcerated in state and local jails or prisons, compared to just over 200,000 in the federal system.
However, a second Trump administration would set the "tone" and create a "ripple effect across the country," threatening a "new era of mass incarceration," the ACLU said. The memo warns that Trump would do so in the following ways:
- Escalating punitive, draconian sentencing and incarceration approaches;
- Incentivizing dramatically worse conditions for the nation's 1.9 million incarcerated people;
- Reincarcerating nearly 3,000 people released to federal home confinement during the pandemic; and
- Undermining recent reforms, including the First Step Act.
The memo also argues that Trump encourages police abuses and has made an "open endorsement of authoritarian and violent policing." Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had the Department of Justice "pull back" on investigations of police abuse, the memo notes.
The ACLU also drew attention to Trump's extreme position on the death penalty. More people were executed by the federal government during his four-year term than had been in any in over a century, and his administration went on what ProPublicacalled a "last-minute killing spree" before his term ended.
Trump's pro-death penalty position dates back decades. In 1989, he took out full-page advertisements in The New York Times and several other city newspapers calling for a reinstitution of the death penalty in New York state following the rape and assault of a jogger in Central Park. Five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted of the crime.
"Bring back the death penalty and bring back our police!" the advertisement said in all caps.
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