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Climate Activists Nationwide Take "Polar Bear Plunge" to Push Congress to Adopt President Biden's Plan for 100% Clean Electricity By 2035
Congressman Don McEachin (D-Va), Bill Mckibben, and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Lead Kickoff Rally During Saturday Event. Participants Are Plunging into Rivers, Ponds, and Backyard Pools from Coast-to-Coast
TAKOMA PARK, MD
Climate activists nationwide take the "polar bear plunge" on Saturday to call on Congress to immediately adopt President Joe Biden's plan for 100% clean electricity by 2035. In this first-ever national plunge for climate action, participants dipped into rivers, ponds and backyard pools after a virtual rally led by Congressman Don McEachin (D-Va), author Bill McKibben, and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus.
The "Keep Winter Cold" national plunge was organized by Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN). Even a pandemic could not stop participants from facing icy waters. Participants came together virtually and showcased videos and photos of themselves plunging from home -- with everything from ice buckets and water guns to dips in local bodies of water and bath tubs. There was also a costume contest featuring Amazonian queens, Bernie in his mittens, a dragon, the James River, and a Viking.
This year's plunge, which took place the day before Valentine's Day, is also partly a celebration of the climate champions we elected in 2020. The Biden administration has made the climate crisis a top priority by taking immediate actions such as rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline. CCAN will continue pushing for ambitious climate solutions, including President Biden's promise of 100% clean electricity by 2035, as well as other national and regional priorities.
"Today hundreds of people took the plunge into icy-cold water nationwide to highlight the need to save our warming planet," said Mike Tidwell, director of CCAN. "From age seven to 75, these climate heroes are challenging Congress to also take the plunge, and join Joe Biden's call for 100% clean electricity by 2035. It's time. "
Every winter for the past 15 years, hundreds of passionate climate activists from across Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, would come together to run, walk, and skip into an icy body of water to raise funds for CCAN. Just like a charity fun run, plunge participants take pledges from their friends and family to support CCAN's vital climate work.
The very first Polar Bear Plunge to "Keep Winter Cold" was held in December of 2005 and brought in just over a dozen participants, raising around $5,000. The humble beginnings of this event sowed an incredible foundation for what is now CCAN's largest signature fundraising event.
This year's Polar Bear Plunge was made possible with the support from our partners MOM's Organic Market, Neighborhood Sun, and Amalgamated Bank.
The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to build and mobilize a powerful grassroots movement in this unique region that surrounds our nation's capital to call for state, national and international policies that will put us on a path to climate stability. - See more at: http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view;=itemlist&...
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With Cease-Fire Deal in Sight, Israeli Bombings Kill at Least 12 in Lebanon
The Israeli military carried out airstrikes across Lebanon as negotiators worked to finalize the details of a cease-fire agreement that would end fighting for at least 60 days.
Nov 25, 2024
A cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be within reach on Monday amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has repeatedly scuttled diplomatic efforts in recent months—has broadly accepted the proposed terms of a truce after months of devastating bombing that has ramped up in recent days.
Citing an unnamed senior U.S. official, Axiosreported Monday that "Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the terms of a cease-fire agreement to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict."
The proposed agreement could still collapse: Netanyahu sparked fury within the Biden White House by publicly dismissing a U.S.-led cease-fire push in late September, and the far-right prime minister has been an obstacle to diplomatic attempts to end Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
According to Axios, Israel's Security Cabinet is expected to approve the newly proposed deal as early as Tuesday.
"We think we have a deal. We are on the goal line but we haven't passed it yet," the anonymous U.S. official said. "The Israeli cabinet needs to approve the deal on Tuesday and something can always go wrong until then."
Michael Herzog, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., said in a radio interview Monday that "we are close to a deal."
In its current form, the deal would reportedly entail an initial 60-day halt to fighting and a withdrawal of the Israeli military from Lebanon. During that two-month period, according to the Financial Times, "Lebanon and Hezbollah would move its weapons north of the Litani river, which runs 30 kilometers from the U.N.-drawn border."
The Israeli outlet Channel 12reported Monday that the Biden administration has signaled U.S. support if Israel decides to attack Lebanon again "whenever it sees an immediate threat."
Israel's large-scale bombardment of Lebanon—which began in mid-September and was soon followed by a ground invasion—has killed more than 3,000 people, including hundreds of children; displaced more than a million; and sparked a massive humanitarian crisis.
Hezbollah rocket fire has killed dozens of civilians in Israel, according toThe Associated Press, and more than 50 Israeli soldiers have been killed on the ground in Lebanon.
"There's nothing complicated about the fact that children in Lebanon deserve protection, and they're getting none," reminds UNICEF Spokesperson @1james_elder.
Ceasefire for the children of Lebanon NOW. pic.twitter.com/4krwuf1A6N
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 19, 2024
Israel bombings intensified in densely populated areas of Lebanon over the past several days as negotiators raced to finalize a cease-fire agreement. One Israeli attack on a multistory residential building in central Beirut on Saturday killed at least 29 people and injured dozens more.
In response, Hezbollah fired a large barrage of rockets into Israel in what was described as the group's largest attack in weeks. Reutersreported that "the Israeli military said houses had been destroyed or set alight near Tel Aviv" as a result of the rocket attack.
Israel's military launched fresh attacks across Lebanon on Monday, killing at least a dozen people.
"Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre," APreported. "Military officials said they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds. They issued evacuation orders for Beirut's southern suburbs, and strikes landed across the city, including meters from a Lebanese police base and the city's largest public park."
Humanitarian organizations and United Nations officials have been pleading for a cease-fire in Lebanon for weeks amid the surging death toll and intensifying humanitarian emergency sparked by Israel's assault.
James Elder, a spokesperson for the U.N. Children's Fund, told reporters last week that "for the children of Lebanon, it has become a silent normalization of horror."
"In Lebanon, much the same as has become the case in Gaza, the intolerable is quietly transforming into the acceptable. And the appalling is slipping into the realm of the expected," said Elder. "And once more, the cries of children go unheard, the world's silence grows deafening, and again we allow the unimaginable to become the landscape of childhood. A horrific and unacceptable new normal."
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Wall Street Cheers Trump's Treasury Pick, Corporate Tax Cut Proponent Scott Bessent
"For all his talk of looking out for working class Americans, President-elect Trump's choice of a billionaire hedge fund manager to lead the Treasury Department shows he just wants to keep a rigged system," said one critic.
Nov 25, 2024
With the stock market surging Monday morning after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to be treasury secretary, some Wall Street executives said they were celebrating a "reasonable" pick who would moderate some of Trump's most extreme proposals.
But economic justice advocates and experts said the jubilation was likely over expectations that Bessent will deliver "trillions in tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy."
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, founder and president of the Yale Chief Executive Institute, toldCNN that the billionaire Key Square Group executive is a "pragmatic" choice who supports only "selective tariffs" and could dial back Trump's plan to introduce across-the-board tariffs of up to 20% on imported goods—a plan that economists say would raise prices for U.S. households.
But Bessent himself told radio host Larry Kudlow on Saturday that tariffs "can't be inflationary."
David Kass, executive director of the economic justice group Americans for Fair Taxation (ATF), said that during Bessent's confirmation process, the organization will work to ensure lawmakers get answers to questions about whether the Wall Street billionaire plans to use tariffs to fund another Trump plan Bessent has endorsed: the renewal of the 2017 tax cuts.
"As income inequality is soaring and Americans are being crushed by the rising costs of living, we have to ask why billionaire Scott Bessent supports renewing the Trump tax bill, which gives trillions in tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations," Kass said. "Moreover, we also need to know how Mr. Bessent would fund this massive tax giveaway. Will he make working and middle-class Americans foot the bill by enacting wide-ranging cuts to vital government programs like Social Security and Medicare? Will he squeeze Main Street by raising prices on essential goods through tariffs?"
The government watchdog Accountable.US noted that Bessent has defended Trump's tariff plan, which analysts found would raise annual household costs by an average of $3,900, while backing the extension of Trump's tax plan, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and corporations.
"For all his talk of looking out for working-class Americans, President-elect Trump's choice of a billionaire hedge fund manager to lead the Treasury Department shows he just wants to keep a rigged system that only works for big corporations and the very wealthy," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk. "If confirmed, Scott Bessent's first order of business will be to push trillions of dollars in more tax giveaways to the very well-off and at the same time essentially enact a $3,900 tax increase for the typical American family."
"This is yet another disastrous cabinet nomination by Donald Trump, and a further indication of the administration's plans for massive giveaways to the superrich and slashing of regulatory safeguards that guarantee the well-being of the American people."
As the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by 500 points on Monday, National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons told CNN that Bessent is likely to try to rein in what he called President Joe Biden's "out-of-control government spending." Republican leaders have signaled that with the GOP set to control both chambers of Congress as well as the White House starting in January, the party is likely to try to make cuts to Medicare and Social Security—long derided by the right as too expensive and wasteful.
"Wall Street may be breathing a sigh of relief at Scott Bessent's nomination, but working people see no help coming their way," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who is set to be the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Monday. "Mr. Bessent's expertise is helping rich investors make more money, not cutting costs for families squeezed by corporate profiteering."
Earlier this year, Bessent told his clients at Key Square Group that a second Trump turn would mean an "economic lollapalooza" for them, with the Republican lowering taxes for his wealthy investors and bringing about an era of deregulation.
The Republican megadonor has proposed a "3-3-3" policy approach to Trump, which would include cutting the budget deficit by 3% by 2028, boosting GDP growth by 3%, and urging Big Oil to produce another 3 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Bessent has also expressed support for Trump's embrace of the cryptocurrency industry, which poured more than $110 million into federal election spending this year and spent an all-time high of $24.7 million on anti-regulatory lobbying in 2023.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of financial tech firm Ripple, said Friday that he expects Bessent to be "the most pro-innovation, pro-crypto treasury secretary we've ever seen." Critics have warned that the unregulated and highly speculative crypto industry has little to offer working people.
"America doesn't need a hedge fund executive to lead its economic policymaking, least of all one under the delusion that tax cuts for the rich, rollbacks of public regulatory protections, and an increase in oil drilling is somehow the way to strengthen the nation's economy," said Robert Weissman, co-president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. "This is yet another disastrous cabinet nomination by Donald Trump, and a further indication of the administration's plans for massive giveaways to the superrich and slashing of regulatory safeguards that guarantee the well-being of the American people."
Despite some proponents' claims that Bessent is a more mainstream pick than some other names that were floated for treasury secretary, Carrk said the nomination is from "the same old playbook, and it will have the same results of an economy that only works for a select few, not everyone."
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'Poverty Doesn't Fly': Ahead of Thanksgiving, Charlotte Airport Workers Strike
"We're on strike today because this is our last resort. We can't keep living like this," one cabin cleaner said.
Nov 25, 2024
Service workers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport walked off the job Monday in order to protest low wages and unfair labor practices.
The employees work for two American Airlines subcontractors, ABM and Prospect Airport Services, and carry out essential tasks like cleaning airplane interiors, collecting trash, and escorting passengers who are in wheelchairs. They voted to authorize a 24-hour strike this past Friday.
The workers are represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which released a statement Monday announcing the strike and saying that the employees are demanding "an end to poverty wages and respect on the job during the holiday travel season," according to WCCB Charlotte. SEIU represents about 700 workers at CLT, a spokesman told the The Charlotte Ledger Monday.
In addition to a late-morning rally, the workers plan to hold a "Strikesgiving" lunch "in place of the Thanksgiving meal that many of the workers won't be able to afford later this week," union officials said. WCNC Charlotteshowed workers picketing early Monday morning with signs that read "Poverty Doesn't Fly" and "Respect Black and Brown Workers."
The strike could be disruptive, given that the Charlotte airport estimates that it will process upwards of a million passengers between this past Thursday and the Monday following Thanksgiving.
In a statement sent around to press, the union said that most workers earn between $12.50 and $19 and hour, which they called insufficient.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Living Wage Calculator, a living wage in the Charlotte metropolitan area is $23.26 an hour for one adult with no children.
"We're on strike today because this is our last resort. We can't keep living like this," ABM cabin cleaner Priscilla Hoyle said in a statement, according to CBS News. "We're taking action because our families can't survive."
Workers picketed on Friday to draw attention to their labor action. At the picket, one worker told local news that he's currently living in a storage unit, and that his current wage isn't enough to get a one- or two-bedroom apartment.
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