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New Fix Our Senate Report Examines the Filibuster's History as a Racist Tool to Obstruct Voting Rights
Report details how the filibuster has blocked progress on voting rights, civil rights, and democracy reform."No dispute among historians"—report disproves Senator McConnell’s brazen false claims of "no racial history."
WASHINGTON
A new report from Fix Our Senate details the "long and shameful history of segregationists and racists using the filibuster to block necessary progress on voting rights and democratizing our democracy." The comprehensive examination breaks down how the filibuster was used to block equal treatment under the law - specifically on voting rights, civil rights, and democracy reform - and how that use continues today. The report release comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing today, "Jim Crow 2021: The Latest Assault on the Right to Vote," and as Senator Mitch McConnell makes clear his intention to use the filibuster to block S.1, the "For The People Act."
Senator McConnell recently falsely claimed that the filibuster has "no racial history at all" and "there's no dispute among historians about that." Yet as the report details, throughout history racists and segregationists have used the filibuster to undermine bills that would combat voter suppression and protect civil rights.
The report focused on the filibuster's origins; its usage as a tool to block voting rights and democracy reforms; and the recognition that if we don't eliminate the filibuster, it will effectively provide Senator McConnell veto power over efforts to strengthen our democracy. Notable excerpts from the report include:
"Much of the legislation passed during the Civil Rights Movement that is now considered foundational equal rights law was initially met with stark opposition and faced numerous filibusters from senators who wanted to postpone or prevent that progress. Since then, the filibuster has been used to block voting rights in a slightly more discreet manner, thwarting bills that would abolish the Electoral College and strengthen campaign finance laws - both of which would make our democracy more representative by redistributing power and influence away from the wealthy and toward historically underrepresented groups."
"The filibuster - the legacy of a 19th century drafting error - is a racist tool of obstruction that impedes national progress, especially in the realm of democracy reform and voting rights. It enables the will of the minority to be prioritized over the passage of legislation to help the American people."
"The filibuster is not just a relic of our nation's racist past - it is also a present-day obstacle that will continue to block progress within the realms of democracy reform, voting rights, and many other areas. If we don't eliminate the filibuster, we are giving Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans the ability to veto any and all attempts to strengthen our democracy and voting protections - reforms which were promised to voters when we delivered the Senate and the presidency."
Fix Our Senate spokesperson Eli Zupnick was quoted as saying:
"Despite Senator McConnell's false claims, the historical record is clear: there is a long and shameful history of segregationists and racists using the filibuster to block overdue progress on civil rights, voting rights and other efforts to build a more inclusive democracy. Senators can protect the filibuster, which President Obama called a 'Jim Crow relic,' or they can protect our democracy and the right to vote. They cannot do both."
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As Biden Adviser Speaks at COP29, Green Groups Say Act Before Trump Takeover
"President Joe Biden must reject all pending LNG export permits and stop the expansion of fossil fuels."
Nov 11, 2024
As the U.S. senior adviser to the president for international climate policy addressed the United Nations summit in Azerbaijan on Monday, green groups urged the outgoing Democratic administration to do whatever it can to tackle the global crisis before Republicans seize control of the White House and likely both chambers of Congress.
"I want to address tonight a topic that is on everyone's mind—the U.S. election," John Podesta, President Joe Biden's adviser, told the crowd in Baku on the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), less than a week after President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.
Although votes are still being counted, Republicans have secured a majority in the U.S. Senate and are on track to retain control of the House of Representatives—paving the way for Trump's plans to roll back the Biden-Harris administration's progress on the climate emergency and "drill, baby, drill," which would lead to a surge in planet-heating pollution.
"Podesta's speech must be followed by swift action to limit U.S. fossil fuel expansion and achieve a strong COP29 outcome."
"For those of us dedicated to climate action, last week's outcome in the United States is obviously bitterly disappointing," Podesta acknowledged, "particularly because of the unprecedented resources and ambition President Biden and Vice President Harris brought to the climate fight."
Noting that Biden pledged to halve emissions this decade, rejoined the Paris agreement, signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and promised $11 billion in international climate funds, Podesta warned that "the next administration will try to take a U-turn and reverse much of this progress."
"As President Biden said in the Rose Garden last week, setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science," he continued. "This fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle, in one country. This fight is bigger still."
"We can and will make real progress on the backs of our climate-committed states and cities, our innovators, our companies, and our citizens, especially young people, who understand more than most that climate change poses an existential threat that we cannot afford to ignore," he added. "Failure or apathy is simply not an option."
Responding to the envoy's remarks in a Monday statement, Collin Rees, United States program manager at Oil Change International, said that "if John Podesta and President Joe Biden are committed to doing everything possible to continue climate progress despite Donald Trump's reelection, this moment demands a bold agenda that goes beyond locking in clean energy gains and takes real action toward a just transition off fossil fuels."
"There is no shortage of critical work to be done before Biden leaves office," Rees argued. "Here at COP29, the United States must support a new, transformative global finance goal in which rich countries pay their fair share in high-quality, grant-based finance and work to submit a Paris-aligned nationally determined contribution committing to do its fair share of climate action and phase out fossil fuels."
In the United States, Rees argued, Biden must "finalize studies on the dangerous impacts" of new liquefied natural gas exports, "reject deadly projects like the Dakota Access oil pipeline and pending LNG facilities in the Gulf South," and urge Congress to block the latest attempt by outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) "to destroy bedrock environmental protections."
Looking toward next week's Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting, Rees said that "Biden's administration must support a global agreement to end export credit finance for oil and gas projects, a process which could end tens of billions of dollars in international finance for fossil fuels every year. This agreement would limit the global climate damages Trump and his fossil fuel cronies are able to perpetrate."
"Podesta's speech must be followed by swift action to limit U.S. fossil fuel expansion and achieve a strong COP29 outcome," he stressed. Leaders at other climate organizations—who have often argued that Biden hasn't gone far enough to tackle the fossil fuel-driven crisis—issued similar demands on Monday.
Emphasizing that "climate diplomacy on a boiling planet doesn't stop for a climate denier," Ben Goloff, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, called on Biden officials to "use the next two months to set up a bulwark of protections and secure their climate legacy."
"Beyond urgently getting IRA money out the door, John Podesta must commit the U.S.'s fair share of global climate finance and announce an ambitious NDC climate target," Goloff said, referring to nationally determined contributions for the Paris agreement.
Biden, he added, "has to make good on last year's agreement to transition away from fossil fuels by rejecting pending mega-polluting project," and "should also act quickly to fill all federal judicial vacancies as a wall of defense to Trump's rampage of legal attacks."
Jamie Minden, acting executive director of the youth-led movement Zero Hour, also declared that "before Trump takes office, President Joe Biden must reject all pending LNG export permits and stop the expansion of fossil fuels."
"Our climate is on the brink of collapse, and it is sheer madness that politicians continue to expand and subsidize deadly fossil fuels," Minden said. "Young people are fighting for our planet because we are facing the worst consequences of the unrelenting greed of these selfish politicians."
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Climate Campaigners Demand COP29 Free of 'False' Finance Solutions
"We are hurtling toward 3° of warming; human rights can't withstand dangerous distractions," said one climate justice advocate.
Nov 11, 2024
The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference has been called the "climate finance" conference, with participants expected to establish a new annual target for providing funds for the Global South to confront the climate crisis—but campaigners on Monday expressed concern that on the first day of the summit, there are already signs leaders will push for "false solutions" that only perpetuate planetary heating.
An annual climate finance target of $100 billion was set by policymakers in 2009, but that pledge expires at the end of 2024 and advocates say it's just a fraction of what is needed to help developing countries invest in climate crisis mitigation and adaptation to planetary heating.
Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network, which includes more than 1,900 global civil society groups, told The Guardian that "a down payment of $5 trillion" annually in climate finance is needed, noting that "the debt is much larger."
But Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law, said the Azerbaijani presidency of the 29th Conference of the Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) is already looking "to speed up the endorsement of new standards on carbon markets."
"This is extremely alarming. If this moves forward, it would be a real cop-out by governmental delegations gathered in Baku," said Duyck, referring to the capital of Azerbaijan, where COP29 is being held over the next 11 days.
Duyck pointed to new standards that were passed ahead of COP29 by a supervisory body with the aim of operationalizing and expanding carbon markets—pricing mechanisms that allow governments and other entities to trade greenhouse gas emission "credits."
"Fully operationalizing carbon markets on Day 1 would set a terrible precedent for the next two weeks, starting COP29 on a disastrous note and eroding the trust needed to achieve a bold, transformative agreement on finance," said Jax Bongon, climate justice policy officer for IBON International.
Proponents say carbon markets allow wealthy countries or corporations to purchase "carbon credits" from countries in the Global South; in exchange, governments in developing countries are paid to build renewable energy infrastructure, plant trees, or take other sustainable steps.
Those steps are thought to "buy time" for the wealthy country or company to cut down on their own pollution. But the scheme has been exposed as allowing companies to continue polluting without the supposed "offsets" actually helping to mitigate the climate crisis.
Lise Masson, climate justice and energy advocacy officer at Friends of the Earth (FOE), emphasized that "carbon markets are not climate finance, and we cannot accept these neocolonial schemes to be propped up as a success of COP29."
"Decisions at COP29 threaten to open the floodgates for a global carbon market that would have devastating impacts on communities in the Global South, on Indigenous peoples, and on small peasant farmers first and foremost," said Masson.
Marta Scaaf, who directs Amnesty International's climate justice program, warned COP29 delegates may "bypass accountability norms on Day 1 and issue recommendations to govern carbon markets, which are essentially pollution permits."
Essop suggested that carbon markets are being pushed as a false solution in order to save wealthy countries from having to provide what is needed for the Global South to mitigate the climate crisis and adapt to the hurricanes, flooding, drought, and other extreme conditions that have been linked to planetary heating.
"Five trillion dollars is what we come here to demand," Essop said. "Governments out there are absolutely capable of finding the money that does wrong in the world. They found the money for military spending. They found the money for the genocide in Gaza. They find the money to subsidize and support the fossil fuel industry. To come here and say that they do not have money is absolutely untruthful and unacceptable."
Meena Raman of FOE Malaysia stressed that climate finance "isn't charity; it's reparations for a climate debt long overdue."
"Grants must replace loans, and loss and damage funding must also be scaled up tremendously to meet the needs of impacted countries in the Global South," said Raman. "Debt cancellation for the Global South is essential to break cycles of injustice. The money exists: redirecting funds from global military spending and climate justice are paths forward."
The international human rights group Global Witness drove home the point by taking over the web address that some might arrive at if they were looking for more information about COP29.
Visitors to cop29.com on Monday were met with the words "Payback Time."
"We've taken over cop29.com to unite the millions of people demanding justice," said Global Witness. "This summer broke heat records again. Wildfires, droughts, and storms are killing thousands and driving up the cost of food, energy, and insurance. Worse is coming."
"COP29 is our moment," added the group. "The loss and damage fund was created to help developing nations that are being hit hardest by climate chaos... Fossil fuel companies rake in billions. They must pay into the fund to help communities rebuild, adapt, and repair some of the damage they've caused."
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The Amsterdam 'Pogrom' That Wasn't: Corporate Media Fails To Tell the Whole Story
'The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match'
Nov 09, 2024
Thursday night, Israeli soccer fans clashed with Amsterdam residents before and after a Europa League soccer match between their team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam.
Clashes occurred outside the Johan Cruyff Arena and across the city on Thursday night. Police on Friday said five people had been taken to hospital, and 62 arrests had been made.
The violence reportedly started when the far-right Israeli soccer hooligans began chanting racist and violent anti-Arab slogans, attacked Arab and Muslim residents, and vandalized houses and businesses with Palestinian flags.
Al Jazeerareported:
In one video, Israeli supporters were heard singing: “Let the IDF win, and f*** the Arabs!” referring to the Israeli army’s offensive on Gaza. Another video captured a fan screaming: “F*** you terrorists, Sinwar die, everybody die,” in reference to the Hamas leader who was killed last month.
The Israeli fans instigated the violence after arriving in the city and attacking Palestinian supporters before the match, an Amsterdam city council member said.
“They began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started,” Councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera on Friday.
“As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.”
Yet the corporate media - both in the US and abroad - portrayed the events as one-sided "anti-semitic" attacks on helpless soccer fans:
US President Joe Biden, his Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer were quick to echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that the events in Amsterdam were unprovoked anti-semitic attacks reminiscent of pogroms or the Kristallnacht.
However many social media posts reported the context of the violence that was missing from corporate media reporting:
@martydoesnotplay On request: a recap of what has been happening in Amsterdam the past few days in which Zionist hooliguns from Tel Aviv attacked people on our streets and sang songs about burning Gaza down. But where only the response from clashes with them were caught up by the media. Placed within a narrative by the devil himself that this was anti-semitism 🍉
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