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For Immediate Release
August, 06 2024, 02:59pm EDT
Contact:
202-879-4400
AFT’s Weingarten on Kamala Harris’ Selection of Tim Walz as Her Running Mate
AFT President Randi Weingarten released the following statement after Vice President Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate:
“Gov. Walz has been an unabashed champion for families, for public education, for educators and other workers throughout his life in public service. He knows the promise of public education. He shares our commitment to solving problems and forging a future in which all Americans can get ahead, not just get by.
“Walz and Harris are about opportunity and freedom—the freedom to join a union, the freedom to thrive, to make our own healthcare decisions, to be free from gun violence. They will stand up for the middle class against a weak, dark, dystopian alternative that wants to send us back to the past.
“Gov. Walz is a proud educator who drew on his experience in the classroom to show Minnesotans what a pro-education, pro-labor administration can look like. He is from a small town, served in the military and has consistently given back to his community. He believes the essence of America is to be kind to your neighbor and to help those around you thrive. And he is a former AFT member.
“The contrast is clear: Gov. Walz oversaw billions of dollars in increased funding to Minnesota public schools, provided free school meals to every student and guaranteed unemployment insurance to hourly school workers. Trump and Vance want to destroy educational opportunity, abolish programs that help the least well-off, and pass unaccountable voucher programs.
“Gov. Walz expanded collective bargaining rights, fought wage theft, enacted paid family and medical leave, and took on mandatory captive audience meetings. And he unreservedly supports a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health decisions. The Harris-Walz team will build on the Biden administration’s legacy as the most labor-friendly administration in history and will continue to grow our economy from the bottom up and the middle out.
“The AFT’s 1.8 million members will stand with Walz and Harris over the next 12 weeks as they campaign to realize the promise and potential of America. We will hit the road to defeat Donald Trump and JD Vance from coast to coast and keep their extremist policies out of the White House for good. The future starts here—and we are not going back.”
The American Federation of Teachers is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do. The American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was founded in 1916 and today represents 1.6 million members in more than 3,000 local affiliates nationwide.
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Climate Experts Rebuke Musk Over 'Dumbest' Interview With Trump
"Why is Musk doing this?" asked 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben. "My only conjecture is that he hopes the world will become barren enough that we simply have to pony up for his big trip to Mars."
Aug 14, 2024
Elon Musk thinks he knows more about climate issues than the entire staff of a major international newspaper, but on Wednesday, experts on the planetary emergency offered the billionaire businessman a reality check.
Responding to a Guardianarticle critical of Monday's glitch- and lie-laden interview of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Musk's X social media platform, Musk proclaimed that "my little fingernail knows more about climate issues than the entire staff of The Guardian."
Bill McKibben, who co-founded the climate action group 350.org, is quoted in that article calling the Musk-Trump interview "the dumbest climate conversation of all time."
Responding to Musk's diss, McKibben said Wednesday on X that he would "be pleased to debate you (or your little fingernail) at any point about why we don't, in fact, have a century to spare in solving this crisis."
Climate scientist Michael Mann, who calls Musk a "climate denier" in the Guardian piece, also weighed in, telling Musk on X that "if you've got a beef, take it up with me."
Some X users noted that once upon a time, Musk—who is the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla—acknowledged the urgency of the climate crisis. In 2018, he said: "Why not go renewable now and avoid [the] increasing risk of climate catastrophe? Betting that science is wrong and oil companies are right, is the dumbest experiment in history, by far."
In an opinion piece published Tuesday by Common Dreams, McKibben noted that after Musk—who endorsed Trump and created a pro-Trump super political action committee—the former president's biggest funder may be fracking billionaire Harold Hamm.
"He took Trump up on his offer that for a billion dollars he'd give the oil industry whatever it wanted, and he's been working the phones ever since," McKibben wrote of Hamm.
Trump returned the favor by calling Hamm "so boring to be with... because all he wants to talk about is oil and gas."
During his first White House run, Trump infamously called climate change "a Chinese hoax." He staffed his administration with climate deniers and rolled back previous administrations' climate policies under the "drill, baby, drill" mantra popularized by former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
"Why is Musk doing this?" McKibben asked. "Who knows? After all, the success of Tesla has been mostly driven by government subsidy that grows out of the effort to slow the growth of carbon in the atmosphere."
"My only conjecture," McKibben added, "is that he hopes the world will become barren enough that we simply have to pony up for his big trip to Mars."
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Pamphlet on Arizona Abortion Measure Can Say 'Unborn Human Being'
"We are deeply disappointed in this ruling, but will not be deterred from doing everything in our power to communicate to voters the truth of the Arizona Abortion Access Act," said the campaign behind the ballot measure.
Aug 14, 2024
While celebrating that Arizona voters will get to weigh in on an abortion rights ballot measure this November, reproductive rights advocates on Wednesday blasted a state Supreme Court ruling about language in a related informational pamphlet.
Overturning a decision from the Maricopa County Superior Court, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Republican legislators' use of "unborn human being" to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet "substantially complies" with the state's impartiality requirements.
"The Arizona Supreme Court today reversed the trial court's well-reasoned ruling and held that the phrase 'unborn human being'—a watchword for anti-abortion advocates with no basis in medicine or science—is somehow impartial or objective," the Arizona for Abortion Access campaign said in a statement.
"This means that Arizona voters won't get to learn about the questions on their ballot in a fair, neutral, and accurate way but will instead be subjected to biased, politically charged words developed not by experts but by anti-abortion special interests to manipulate voters and spread misinformation," the campaign continued.
"We are deeply disappointed in this ruling," the campaign added, "but will not be deterred from doing everything in our power to communicate to voters the truth of the Arizona Abortion Access Act and why it's critical to vote YES to restore and protect access to abortion care this fall."
The Arizona Abortion Access Act is a proposed state constitutional amendment that would prohibit many restrictions on abortions before fetal viability and safeguard access to care after viability to protect the life or health of the patient. The office of Arizona's secretary of state formally certified the proposed ballot measure on Monday.
The campaign to get the measure on the ballot garnered national attention earlier this year, when the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 abortion ban that includes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Although Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed legislation to repeal the ban less than a month later, reproductive rights advocates have continued to emphasize the importance of passing the amendment.
Arizona is one of several states where reproductive freedom measures are—or soon could be—on the ballot in November. Rights advocates have increasingly pushed and succeeded in passing such measures since the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority reversedRoe v. Wade two years ago, which set off a fresh wave of GOP efforts to enact state abortion bans.
The battle over the Arizona pamphlet is connected to a broad push by the anti-choice movement to ultimately end abortion care by recognizing fetuses and embryos as people with legal protections and rights.
This strategy has even influenced the latest Republican Party platform, which says that "we believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process, and that the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights."
The platform was finalized last month, shortly before the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, announced U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate—a decision that further stoked fears of what a GOP victory in November would mean for abortion rights at the federal level.
Trump and Vance are set to face Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who have strong support from reproductive rights groups. Planned Parenthood Action Fund president Alexis McGill Johnson recently declared that they "are the only people we can trust to ensure that everyone has the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies."
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'Major Power Milestone': US Green Groups Cheer Wind, Solar Overtaking Coal
"This historic milestone marks a significant win for clean energy advocates, for ratepayers, and for people and communities across the country," said one climate leader.
Aug 14, 2024
U.S. climate advocates this week are celebrating new federal data that show wind and solar have generated more power than coal during the first seven months of 2024 and are on track to do so for the entire calendar year.
"This is the kind of news we like to see!" Food & Water Watch said of the data on social media Tuesday. "Ensuring a livable climate for all depends on us making a swift and just transition to clean energy like wind and solar."'
The group shared reporting from E&E News, which noted that "the milestone had been long expected due to a steady stream of coal plant retirements and the rapid growth of wind and solar. Last year, wind and solar outpaced coal through May before the fossil fuel eventually overtook the pair when power demand surged in the summer."
"Renewables' growth has been driven by a surge in solar production over the last year," the news outlet continued. "The 118 terawatt-hours generated by utility-scale solar facilities through the end of July represented a 36% increase from the same time period last year, according to preliminary U.S. Energy Information Administration figures. Wind production was 275 TWh, up 8% over 2023 levels. Renewables' combined production of 393 TWh outpaced coal generation of 388 TWh."
Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in a statement Wednesday that "wind and solar energy has long been the most cost-effective choice for utilities, but now it has also outpaced coal generation as the top source of energy, further demonstrating that clean energy is critical to a reliable and affordable grid."
"This historic milestone marks a significant win for clean energy advocates, for ratepayers, and for people and communities across the country that simply want to breathe clean air, drink safe water, and worry less about climate disasters like floods and wildfires," Jealous continued.
"For decades, the Sierra Club has fought to move America Beyond Coal and onto a clean, reliable, and affordable grid," he added. "To date, the Beyond Coal campaign has secured the retirement of 385 coal plants and counting, and on August 16th, we celebrate the two-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which made historic investments in clean energy and clean energy jobs. Together, families across the country are saving money, enjoying good paying jobs, breathing clean air, and drinking safe water."
Along with celebrating the federal legislation signed in 2022 by President Joe Biden, Sierra Club highlighted a state law signed the previous year by Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
"Illinoisans should be proud of the work we've done to close our largest coal plants and leverage the power of clean energy to drive economic growth while reducing pollution that's harmful to public health and our planet," said Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club's state chapter. "Thanks to the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act of 2021, Illinois workers are now building the clean energy that is replacing old, dirty fossil fuels and bringing a brighter future to communities across our state."
Celebrations over the "major power milestone" come as Americans prepare for a November presidential election in which Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—who are endorsed by a range of climate groups—are set to face former Big Oil-backed former Republican President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio).
During an April event in Florida, Trump told fossil fuel executives that if they invested just $1 billion into his campaign, he would gut the Biden-Harris administration's climate regulations. The Washington Postreported Tuesday that billionaire Continental Resources founder then "called other oil executives and encouraged them to attend fundraisers and open their wallets."
While Hamm is reportedly sharing Big Oil's priorities with the Trump-Vance team, their approach can be summed up by a phrase they've said on the campaign trail: "drill, baby, drill."
Although the Republican candidates have tried to distance themselves by the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, the right-wing policy agenda—crafted by many Trump allies—has also alarmed climate campaigners.
Noting the new energy data, Antonia Juhasz, a senior researcher on fossil fuels at Human Rights Watch, said Tuesday: "This transformation is due in large part to federal government policy which has specifically incentivized renewable energy development and deployment and increased regulation on the harms of fossil fuels. All of which are specifically targeted for removal in Project 2025."
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