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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
"The bipartisan deal must only be the start. And let's be clear, it is not even remotely sufficient in and of itself. It now must be paired with a robust reconciliation package that meets the size and scope of the challenges that too many Americans face.
"The bipartisan deal must only be the start. And let's be clear, it is not even remotely sufficient in and of itself. It now must be paired with a robust reconciliation package that meets the size and scope of the challenges that too many Americans face. Now that this deal has been made, Democrats can not wait any longer, or allow any additional Republican obstruction, and must move forward with urgency on a bill that will invest in good paying union jobs, clean energy jobs, the care infrastructure that so many people depend on, and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, and essential workers like farmworkers. And we must invest in working families by making sure the ultra-wealthy and tax-dodging corporations pay their fair share.
"Let's be clear, one bill can not pass without the other. This is a package deal. And a deal that the American people can not afford to wait any longer for."
MoveOn is where millions mobilize for a better society--one where everyone can thrive. Whether it's supporting a candidate, passing legislation, or changing our culture, MoveOn members are committed to an inclusive and progressive future. We envision a world marked by equality, sustainability, justice, and love. And we mobilize together to achieve it.
One expert said the Biden administration is "ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the Netanyahu government."
The Biden administration has reportedly received around 500 notices from international humanitarian groups, nonprofit organizations, and eyewitnesses alleging that the Israeli military has used American weaponry in attacks that harmed civilians in the Gaza Strip, likely in violation of both U.S. and international law.
But the administration, which has armed Israel's military to the hilt since the Hamas-led attack of last year, "has failed to comply with its own policies requiring swift investigations of such claims," according to The Washington Post, which first reported the nearly 500 notices on Wednesday.
Dozens of the reports delivered to the U.S. State Department over the past year "include photo documentation of U.S.-made bomb fragments at sites where scores of children were killed," the Post noted, citing unnamed human rights advocates who were briefed on the process.
"Yet despite the State Department’s internal Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, which directs officials to complete an investigation and recommend action within two months of launching an inquiry, no single case has reached the 'action' stage," the newspaper reported, citing unnamed current and former officials. "More than two-thirds of cases remain unresolved... with many pending response from the Israeli government, which the State Department consults to verify each case's circumstances."
"When it comes to the Biden administration's arms policies, everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel."
John Ramming Chappell, a legal and policy adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told the Post that Biden administration officials are "ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the Netanyahu government."
"When it comes to the Biden administration's arms policies," Chappell added, "everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel."
William Hartung, a senior research fellow and arms industry expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the Post that "it's almost impossible" that Israel isn't violating U.S. law "given the level of slaughter that's going on, and the preponderance of U.S. weapons."
Since last October, the U.S. has delivered more than 50,000 tons of weaponry to Israel, a flow of arms that has continued amid overwhelming evidence that the Israeli military has used American weapons to commit grave violations of international law.
In April, as Common Dreamsreported at the time, Amnesty International USA sent a research brief to the Biden administration detailing several cases in which the Israeli military violated international humanitarian law with U.S. weapons, including a pair of deadly strikes last year on homes full of civilians—attacks that killed 19 children.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military bombed a five-story residential building in northern Gaza, killing around two dozen children and scores of adults.
Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration is "deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life in this incident" and has "reached out to the government of Israel to ask what has happened here."
Later in the same briefing, reporters pressed Miller on actions the Biden administration is taking to push Israel to stop impeding shipments of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. It's been just over two weeks since the Biden administration sent a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if the humanitarian situation in Gaza doesn't improve within 30 days.
"Obviously, the 30 days isn't up," Drop Site's Ryan Grim noted during Tuesday's press briefing. "But two weeks ago the situation in northern Gaza was bad; like, today it's utterly dystopian. The opposite of making progress has happened there."
Miller responded that "we have made clear that the situation in northern Gaza... needs to change."
Nevertheless, Miller insisted to reporters that the U.S. State Department has "not assessed [Israel] to be in violation of the law at this point," a statement that contradicts the findings of both internal department experts and outside analysts.
"All the laws and policies that are supposed to prevent U.S. weapons from being used to commit atrocities by foreign countries are being completely ignored by the Biden admin in its rush to continue unimpeded weapons flows to Israel to commit genocide," Josh Ruebner, policy director at the IMEU Policy Project, wrote Wednesday.
"We can't sit this one out," said United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain. “Every organizing campaign, every contract, every grievance settlement will be impacted by this election."
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain late Tuesday called for working class unity against Republican nominee Donald Trump in the final stretch of the 2024 race, warning that the former president would serve the interests of his own class and embolden the nation's executives to intensify their decades-long war on the labor movement.
Responding to members who question why the UAW is involved in the political process at all, Fain said during a video livestream that "we are up against a billionaire class that will not stop their attack on us at the bargaining table."
"They will not stop at the workplace, they will not stop at the border—they will take every inch we give them," said the president of the UAW, which has endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. "We don't engage in political activity because we like a candidate. We don't do it for ourselves, as your union leadership. We don't do it for the Democratic or Republican parties. We engage in politics as a union because it is core to our fight for economic and social justice."
Fain said that the United States is currently trapped in a "vicious cycle" in which the "ruling class has waged a one-sided class war on the working class, and they've been winning."
"We're in a vicious cycle where the billionaire and corporate class take more and more for themselves and rewrite the rules of the game to keep it that way," said Fain. "They use their insane wealth to buy off politicians and elections. The lap dogs of the billionaires then pass more laws that restrict unions and keep working-class people down. They consolidate the fruits of our labor into the hands of Wall Street and corporate America, and that cycle goes on and on."
"It is an embarrassment to our democracy when billionaires can openly buy elections. But it's also a devastating situation for the working class."
Fain acknowledged that "it's a bipartisan issue" and that billionaires have "done everything they can to buy off both parties," characterizing the GOP as the outspoken party of big business and condemning "corporate Democrats" who "have also cozied up to the rich."
"It is an embarrassment to our democracy when billionaires can openly buy elections," said Fain. "But it's also a devastating situation for the working class."
But in the 2024 election, Fain argued, the choice is stark.
"The Democratic Party is interested in working-class people and what they have to say, and they want us to be in their coalition," said Fain. "On the other side, we have the Republicans, who—on a national level in particular—have embraced the billionaire class. They embraced their billionaire candidate, and they embrace his billionaire buddies, and they explicitly push policies that help billionaires and hurt anyone who might challenge that system."
"We can't sit this one out," the union president said. "Every organizing campaign, every contract, every grievance settlement will be impacted by this election. If the billionaires take back our presidency through their lap dog, that lap dog Donald Trump, you can be damn sure that every single CEO in this country will smell blood in the water."
Watch Fain's full remarks, which he urged union members to share with their co-workers, friends, and families:
Fain has used the waning days of the 2024 presidential race to highlight the slew of anti-worker policies Trump pursued and implemented during his first term in the White House, including the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—a trade deal that the UAW president has called "Trump's NAFTA."
"The proof of Trump is already in the body of work," Fain said in a recent interview with The Nation. "Trump was president for four years. Auto plants were closing. He didn't do a damn thing to stop any of it, to save any of it. He didn't even make an effort to curtail any of that. He continues to tell this lie that he's fixing this and he fixed that and he's saving auto jobs and he's saving working-class jobs. But his body of work when he was president shows different. He didn't [fix things]. We lost jobs under Trump, and nothing improved with trade."
The UAW's messaging and organizing against Trump appear to have had an impact on the union's members: According to survey data released last week, Harris is leading Trump by 22 percentage points among UAW members in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
The poll found that "among those who say they have been contacted by the union," Harris' lead over Trump was 29 percentage points.
"What we do in this election matters," Fain said Tuesday, pointing to the survey results. "What we do as a union matters. When we talk to our co-workers about this election, it has an impact. When we talk to our families about this election, it has an impact. What you do in the next week matters—it matters for the next four years, it matters for your next contract negotiation, and it matters for your next organizing drive."
"For us in the UAW, it ain't about a campaign, it ain't about one day—it's about power," Fain continued. "No matter what happens in this election, we're all UAW, and we either rise together or we fall together. You can disagree with me, and you can vote however you're going to vote, but you cannot ignore our duty as a union to fight like hell for social and economic justice for every single member of this union, and every single member of the working class."
"The industry's operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction."
With just a few more days of the United Nations biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, 140 organizations collectively called on government representatives to pursue "an immediate halt" to new planet-heating oil and gas projects and "a managed decline of existing activity."
The letter—signed by civil society groups, Indigenous peoples, and social movements—advocates "prioritizing areas of high biodiversity importance" and stresses the need for "a full, fair, fast, funded, and feminist phaseout of all fossil fuels and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss."
"Oil and gas activity threatens biodiversity at every stage—from exploration and production to transportation and end use," the letter states. "The industry's operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction. The risk oil and gas activity poses to biodiversity grows as these operations expand into vulnerable ecosystems."
"Effective biodiversity protection is not possible without halting the expansion of oil and gas activity."
"Places like the Amazon, including the mouth of the Amazon River, are experiencing significant environmental and social impacts from oil and gas activity," the letter notes. "Deforestation, habitat destruction, and pollution of water sources are threatening biodiversity in one of the world's most critical ecosystems, and severely disrupting the fundamental human rights and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples."
The coalition—which includes Amazon Watch, Center for International Environmental Law, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, Oil Change International, Waterkeepers Alliance, and World Wide Fund for Nature—has a list of recommendations for attendees of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16).
The groups want summit attendees to "recognize the threat that oil and gas activity poses to all biodiversity, particularly in areas of high biodiversity importance." Regarding such vital areas, they want attendees to "identify concrete actions currently being taken and that will be taken in the future to immediately reduce oil and gas activities" as well as "adopt a decision to immediately halt" new fossil fuel activities in such spaces.
The organizations are also calling for a "fossil fuel-free zone" in the Amazon and prioritizing "the protection of environmental and human rights defenders." According to Global Witness, at least 196 such activists were killed in 2023 alone, bringing the total since 2012 to 2,106.
Additionally, the coalition wants COP16 attendees to "enhance equitable international cooperation to ensure that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for driving biodiversity loss and the production and use of fossil fuels move first and fastest to halt the expansion of oil and gas activity, and pursue new enforceable international mechanisms, such as a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty."
"Faced with an unprecedented planetary crisis, the time is now for parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to fulfill their legal obligations and reaffirm their mandate to protect global biodiversity," the letter argues. "Effective biodiversity protection is not possible without halting the expansion of oil and gas activity, and eliminating the threat from ongoing oil and gas activity, particularly in areas of high biodiversity importance."
COP16 kicked off in Cali on October 21 and is set to wrap up on November 1. Reutersreported Tuesday that "countries were at an impasse over how to fund conservation and other key decisions... with nations pledging millions of dollars rather than the billions needed."
At COP15 in late 2022, countries finalized the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to protect 30% of all land and water vital to species and ecosystems by 2030. To reach that goal, "protected and conserved areas must almost double in area on land and more than triple in the ocean, the U.N. Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said Monday.
The IUCN also
warned Monday as part of its "Red List" that more than 16,000 of 47,000 analyzed tree species worldwide are at risk of extinction. The report followed similar warnings of wildlife population decline released ahead of COP16.