SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Many of the so-called “radical” ideas of one generation have become the common sense of subsequent generations. History reveals that change that improves the lives of most Americans is possible. We can do better—and we must.
Someone once asked labor leader Samuel Gompers, "What does labor want?" His response is often misquoted, limited to one word: "More." By doing so, that one-word answer makes the labor movement seem narrow and selfish. What Gompers (who lived from 1850 to 1924) actually said reflects his vision that a very different kind of society was possible and that the labor movement could play an important role in shaping that vision into reality. What Gompers actually said (in the sexist language of that era) was the following:
“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”
Gompers' statement should inspire us to ask: What kind of society do WE want, today and in the future? What do we mean by a "decent" and "humane" society? Here's my answer.
A humane and decent society provides people with the opportunity to fulfill their potential and find happiness and meaning, including meaningful work. These cannot be guaranteed but they can be made more likely by two key ingredients: shared prosperity and robust democracy.
Shared prosperity means that everyone in society has the basics: a well-paying job, safe workplaces, access to health care (including health providers and medications, and mental health services), affordable housing, accessible parks and playgrounds, safe streets and neighborhoods, decent schools and libraries, access to transportation by car, bus, and/or train, clean air, and leisure time.
These things should be available to people regardless of where they live, their income, race, gender, religion, or ethnicity. It doesn’t mean that everyone in society has the same level of income and wealth, that everyone can live in a mansion or take lavish vacations. But it does mean that these things are considered “public goods” that are basic rights for all. They are a floor below which people should not fall in a humane society.
A decent and humane society seeks to limit various forms of inequality and segregation in terms of income, wealth, race, gender, schools, work, housing, and health.
Compounding these inequalities is geographic inequality and segregation, which makes it more difficult for our society to create both shared prosperity and robust democracy. A great deal of research shows that in an unequal society, where you grow up and live has a profound influence on opportunities to live a fulfilling life. Poor ghettos are the flip side of rich ghettos. Poverty is the flip side of super-wealth. The growing geographic segregation of America’s wealthy, middle class, and poor people is not the inevitable result of human nature, but a legacy of attitudes and policies that can be changed. In the pursuit of shared prosperity and robust democracy, place matters.
The provision of “public goods” requires a robust, efficient, and effective government. It requires government to establish strong rules and provide support to people and places. It imposes limits on market forces and businesses that seek to make excessive profits – for example, by protecting people from corporate practices that pollute the environment, pay low wages, sell unsafe products, profit from the proliferation of assault weapons, or charge high prices for basic necessities, such as medicine, apartments, water, electricity, and food.
Only government can provide parks and playgrounds, schools, and libraries, roads and buses, safe streets and public safety departments (police and fire) that are available to everyone, regardless of wealth or income.
A decent and human society requires government run by people who believe in the power of laws and rules that apply to everyone. Only government can make possible the conditions that allow businesses to thrive—schools and universities that train the future workforce, public transportation (cars, buses, trains, ports, and airports) that allows the movement of goods, public safety that permits companies and other employers to conduct business, and a military and diplomatic corps that protects the country from invasion and allows the flow of goods, services, people, and ideas across borders.
We pay taxes so that government can adopt policies and provide services and subsidies that make our society more livable and more fair. These include up-to-date fire trucks and other equipment, minimum wages, emergency assistance for victims of hurricanes and earthquakes, funds for public schools and playgrounds, financial aid for college students, funds to upgrade roads and bridges, laws that protect consumers and workers, rules that set standards for safe workplaces, food stamps to reduce hunger, housing subsidies to help families pay rent, funds to help parents pay for child care, and rules that limit discrimination and abuse by landlords, police, banks, employers, and others. Taxes should be based on income and wealth. They should be progressive, so people and corporations pay their fair share.
A robust democracy means that people have a voice in their government and have access to information so they can make good choices. This involves voting rights, election laws, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, laws regulating and limiting the use of private wealth in elections, laws protecting workers’ right to join unions, and laws protecting people’s right to peacefully protest without intimidation.
Throughout human history, people have organized social movements to try to improve their lives and the society in which they lived. Examples include labor, civil rights, feminist, gay rights, disability rights, environmental, peace, farmer populism, and others. Powerful groups and institutions have generally resisted these efforts in order to maintain their own privilege, although there are always people from privileged backgrounds who join forces with the oppressed and less powerful.
Back in 1900, people who called for women’s suffrage, laws protecting the environment and consumers, an end to lynching, the right of workers to form unions, a progressive income tax, a federal minimum wage, old-age insurance, dismantling of Jim Crow laws, the eight-hour workday, and government-subsidized health care and housing were considered impractical idealists, utopian dreamers, or dangerous socialists.
Now we take these ideas for granted. Many of the so-called “radical” ideas of one generation have become the common sense of subsequent generations. History reveals that change that improves the lives of most Americans is possible.
In many ways, the U.S. is a more humane and democratic society than it was in the early 1900s or even the 1960s. Many obstacles to democracy and fairness have been removed or weakened. More Americans have the right to vote, including people of color and those between 18 and 21, despite conservative efforts at voter suppression. Gay couples have the right to marry. Cars, trucks, factories and other facilities have to control toxic emissions. Corporations have to provide warning labels on consumer products and medicines. Banks, landlords, developers, and employers face penalties if they are caught engaging in racial or gender discrimination. Workplaces are safer, thanks to government regulations. These laws and rules only matter if they are enforced, and that remains a challenge.
Since 1961, the number of African American members of Congress has increased from four to 59. Since 1985, the number of Hispanics in Congress has grown from 14 to 52. Since 1977, the number of women in Congress has grown from 18 to 150. The current Congress has 12 openly LGBT members — an all-time high. There are similar trends among local and state elected officials.
This is cause for celebration but not cause for self-satisfaction or apathy. Many other countries do better than the U.S. at both robust democracy and shared prosperity.
There is much more to do, many more struggles to fight. We have a long way to go to achieve shared prosperity and a robust democracy.
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Someone once asked labor leader Samuel Gompers, "What does labor want?" His response is often misquoted, limited to one word: "More." By doing so, that one-word answer makes the labor movement seem narrow and selfish. What Gompers (who lived from 1850 to 1924) actually said reflects his vision that a very different kind of society was possible and that the labor movement could play an important role in shaping that vision into reality. What Gompers actually said (in the sexist language of that era) was the following:
“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”
Gompers' statement should inspire us to ask: What kind of society do WE want, today and in the future? What do we mean by a "decent" and "humane" society? Here's my answer.
A humane and decent society provides people with the opportunity to fulfill their potential and find happiness and meaning, including meaningful work. These cannot be guaranteed but they can be made more likely by two key ingredients: shared prosperity and robust democracy.
Shared prosperity means that everyone in society has the basics: a well-paying job, safe workplaces, access to health care (including health providers and medications, and mental health services), affordable housing, accessible parks and playgrounds, safe streets and neighborhoods, decent schools and libraries, access to transportation by car, bus, and/or train, clean air, and leisure time.
These things should be available to people regardless of where they live, their income, race, gender, religion, or ethnicity. It doesn’t mean that everyone in society has the same level of income and wealth, that everyone can live in a mansion or take lavish vacations. But it does mean that these things are considered “public goods” that are basic rights for all. They are a floor below which people should not fall in a humane society.
A decent and humane society seeks to limit various forms of inequality and segregation in terms of income, wealth, race, gender, schools, work, housing, and health.
Compounding these inequalities is geographic inequality and segregation, which makes it more difficult for our society to create both shared prosperity and robust democracy. A great deal of research shows that in an unequal society, where you grow up and live has a profound influence on opportunities to live a fulfilling life. Poor ghettos are the flip side of rich ghettos. Poverty is the flip side of super-wealth. The growing geographic segregation of America’s wealthy, middle class, and poor people is not the inevitable result of human nature, but a legacy of attitudes and policies that can be changed. In the pursuit of shared prosperity and robust democracy, place matters.
The provision of “public goods” requires a robust, efficient, and effective government. It requires government to establish strong rules and provide support to people and places. It imposes limits on market forces and businesses that seek to make excessive profits – for example, by protecting people from corporate practices that pollute the environment, pay low wages, sell unsafe products, profit from the proliferation of assault weapons, or charge high prices for basic necessities, such as medicine, apartments, water, electricity, and food.
Only government can provide parks and playgrounds, schools, and libraries, roads and buses, safe streets and public safety departments (police and fire) that are available to everyone, regardless of wealth or income.
A decent and human society requires government run by people who believe in the power of laws and rules that apply to everyone. Only government can make possible the conditions that allow businesses to thrive—schools and universities that train the future workforce, public transportation (cars, buses, trains, ports, and airports) that allows the movement of goods, public safety that permits companies and other employers to conduct business, and a military and diplomatic corps that protects the country from invasion and allows the flow of goods, services, people, and ideas across borders.
We pay taxes so that government can adopt policies and provide services and subsidies that make our society more livable and more fair. These include up-to-date fire trucks and other equipment, minimum wages, emergency assistance for victims of hurricanes and earthquakes, funds for public schools and playgrounds, financial aid for college students, funds to upgrade roads and bridges, laws that protect consumers and workers, rules that set standards for safe workplaces, food stamps to reduce hunger, housing subsidies to help families pay rent, funds to help parents pay for child care, and rules that limit discrimination and abuse by landlords, police, banks, employers, and others. Taxes should be based on income and wealth. They should be progressive, so people and corporations pay their fair share.
A robust democracy means that people have a voice in their government and have access to information so they can make good choices. This involves voting rights, election laws, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, laws regulating and limiting the use of private wealth in elections, laws protecting workers’ right to join unions, and laws protecting people’s right to peacefully protest without intimidation.
Throughout human history, people have organized social movements to try to improve their lives and the society in which they lived. Examples include labor, civil rights, feminist, gay rights, disability rights, environmental, peace, farmer populism, and others. Powerful groups and institutions have generally resisted these efforts in order to maintain their own privilege, although there are always people from privileged backgrounds who join forces with the oppressed and less powerful.
Back in 1900, people who called for women’s suffrage, laws protecting the environment and consumers, an end to lynching, the right of workers to form unions, a progressive income tax, a federal minimum wage, old-age insurance, dismantling of Jim Crow laws, the eight-hour workday, and government-subsidized health care and housing were considered impractical idealists, utopian dreamers, or dangerous socialists.
Now we take these ideas for granted. Many of the so-called “radical” ideas of one generation have become the common sense of subsequent generations. History reveals that change that improves the lives of most Americans is possible.
In many ways, the U.S. is a more humane and democratic society than it was in the early 1900s or even the 1960s. Many obstacles to democracy and fairness have been removed or weakened. More Americans have the right to vote, including people of color and those between 18 and 21, despite conservative efforts at voter suppression. Gay couples have the right to marry. Cars, trucks, factories and other facilities have to control toxic emissions. Corporations have to provide warning labels on consumer products and medicines. Banks, landlords, developers, and employers face penalties if they are caught engaging in racial or gender discrimination. Workplaces are safer, thanks to government regulations. These laws and rules only matter if they are enforced, and that remains a challenge.
Since 1961, the number of African American members of Congress has increased from four to 59. Since 1985, the number of Hispanics in Congress has grown from 14 to 52. Since 1977, the number of women in Congress has grown from 18 to 150. The current Congress has 12 openly LGBT members — an all-time high. There are similar trends among local and state elected officials.
This is cause for celebration but not cause for self-satisfaction or apathy. Many other countries do better than the U.S. at both robust democracy and shared prosperity.
There is much more to do, many more struggles to fight. We have a long way to go to achieve shared prosperity and a robust democracy.
Someone once asked labor leader Samuel Gompers, "What does labor want?" His response is often misquoted, limited to one word: "More." By doing so, that one-word answer makes the labor movement seem narrow and selfish. What Gompers (who lived from 1850 to 1924) actually said reflects his vision that a very different kind of society was possible and that the labor movement could play an important role in shaping that vision into reality. What Gompers actually said (in the sexist language of that era) was the following:
“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”
Gompers' statement should inspire us to ask: What kind of society do WE want, today and in the future? What do we mean by a "decent" and "humane" society? Here's my answer.
A humane and decent society provides people with the opportunity to fulfill their potential and find happiness and meaning, including meaningful work. These cannot be guaranteed but they can be made more likely by two key ingredients: shared prosperity and robust democracy.
Shared prosperity means that everyone in society has the basics: a well-paying job, safe workplaces, access to health care (including health providers and medications, and mental health services), affordable housing, accessible parks and playgrounds, safe streets and neighborhoods, decent schools and libraries, access to transportation by car, bus, and/or train, clean air, and leisure time.
These things should be available to people regardless of where they live, their income, race, gender, religion, or ethnicity. It doesn’t mean that everyone in society has the same level of income and wealth, that everyone can live in a mansion or take lavish vacations. But it does mean that these things are considered “public goods” that are basic rights for all. They are a floor below which people should not fall in a humane society.
A decent and humane society seeks to limit various forms of inequality and segregation in terms of income, wealth, race, gender, schools, work, housing, and health.
Compounding these inequalities is geographic inequality and segregation, which makes it more difficult for our society to create both shared prosperity and robust democracy. A great deal of research shows that in an unequal society, where you grow up and live has a profound influence on opportunities to live a fulfilling life. Poor ghettos are the flip side of rich ghettos. Poverty is the flip side of super-wealth. The growing geographic segregation of America’s wealthy, middle class, and poor people is not the inevitable result of human nature, but a legacy of attitudes and policies that can be changed. In the pursuit of shared prosperity and robust democracy, place matters.
The provision of “public goods” requires a robust, efficient, and effective government. It requires government to establish strong rules and provide support to people and places. It imposes limits on market forces and businesses that seek to make excessive profits – for example, by protecting people from corporate practices that pollute the environment, pay low wages, sell unsafe products, profit from the proliferation of assault weapons, or charge high prices for basic necessities, such as medicine, apartments, water, electricity, and food.
Only government can provide parks and playgrounds, schools, and libraries, roads and buses, safe streets and public safety departments (police and fire) that are available to everyone, regardless of wealth or income.
A decent and human society requires government run by people who believe in the power of laws and rules that apply to everyone. Only government can make possible the conditions that allow businesses to thrive—schools and universities that train the future workforce, public transportation (cars, buses, trains, ports, and airports) that allows the movement of goods, public safety that permits companies and other employers to conduct business, and a military and diplomatic corps that protects the country from invasion and allows the flow of goods, services, people, and ideas across borders.
We pay taxes so that government can adopt policies and provide services and subsidies that make our society more livable and more fair. These include up-to-date fire trucks and other equipment, minimum wages, emergency assistance for victims of hurricanes and earthquakes, funds for public schools and playgrounds, financial aid for college students, funds to upgrade roads and bridges, laws that protect consumers and workers, rules that set standards for safe workplaces, food stamps to reduce hunger, housing subsidies to help families pay rent, funds to help parents pay for child care, and rules that limit discrimination and abuse by landlords, police, banks, employers, and others. Taxes should be based on income and wealth. They should be progressive, so people and corporations pay their fair share.
A robust democracy means that people have a voice in their government and have access to information so they can make good choices. This involves voting rights, election laws, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, laws regulating and limiting the use of private wealth in elections, laws protecting workers’ right to join unions, and laws protecting people’s right to peacefully protest without intimidation.
Throughout human history, people have organized social movements to try to improve their lives and the society in which they lived. Examples include labor, civil rights, feminist, gay rights, disability rights, environmental, peace, farmer populism, and others. Powerful groups and institutions have generally resisted these efforts in order to maintain their own privilege, although there are always people from privileged backgrounds who join forces with the oppressed and less powerful.
Back in 1900, people who called for women’s suffrage, laws protecting the environment and consumers, an end to lynching, the right of workers to form unions, a progressive income tax, a federal minimum wage, old-age insurance, dismantling of Jim Crow laws, the eight-hour workday, and government-subsidized health care and housing were considered impractical idealists, utopian dreamers, or dangerous socialists.
Now we take these ideas for granted. Many of the so-called “radical” ideas of one generation have become the common sense of subsequent generations. History reveals that change that improves the lives of most Americans is possible.
In many ways, the U.S. is a more humane and democratic society than it was in the early 1900s or even the 1960s. Many obstacles to democracy and fairness have been removed or weakened. More Americans have the right to vote, including people of color and those between 18 and 21, despite conservative efforts at voter suppression. Gay couples have the right to marry. Cars, trucks, factories and other facilities have to control toxic emissions. Corporations have to provide warning labels on consumer products and medicines. Banks, landlords, developers, and employers face penalties if they are caught engaging in racial or gender discrimination. Workplaces are safer, thanks to government regulations. These laws and rules only matter if they are enforced, and that remains a challenge.
Since 1961, the number of African American members of Congress has increased from four to 59. Since 1985, the number of Hispanics in Congress has grown from 14 to 52. Since 1977, the number of women in Congress has grown from 18 to 150. The current Congress has 12 openly LGBT members — an all-time high. There are similar trends among local and state elected officials.
This is cause for celebration but not cause for self-satisfaction or apathy. Many other countries do better than the U.S. at both robust democracy and shared prosperity.
There is much more to do, many more struggles to fight. We have a long way to go to achieve shared prosperity and a robust democracy.
"It's a performance with serious costs for immigrant communities," said one critic. "And it's a performance to help sell their greater authoritarian agenda."
Citing four unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's administration intends to start delivering on his long-promised mass deportations with "a large-scale immigration raid" in Chicago, Illinois that "is expected to begin on Tuesday morning, a day after Trump is inaugurated, and will last all week."
"The Trump team intends to target immigrants in the country illegally with criminal backgrounds—many of whose offenses, like driving violations, made them too minor for the Biden administration to pursue," according to the newspaper. "But, the people cautioned, if anyone else in the country illegally is present during an arrest, they will be taken, too."
After considering which "sanctuary cities" to target, "they settled on Chicago both because of the large number of immigrants who could be possible targets and because of the Trump team's high-profile feud with the city's Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson," the Journal detailed. "Large immigrant centers, such as New York, Los Angeles, Denver, and Miami, are also in the incoming administration's sights, and more targeted raids could come."
The Trump transition team, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and representatives for Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker did not respond to the paper's request for comment, but the Democratic governor on Saturday circulated "know your rights" resources from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on his social media accounts and pledged to "protect those rights and ensure our state laws are followed."
Every family and child deserves to feel safe and secure in the place they call home. Every resident of Illinois should know their rights. I intend to protect those rights and ensure our state laws are followed.
[image or embed]
— Governor JB Pritzker ( @govpritzker.illinois.gov) January 18, 2025 at 12:36 PM
As that resource sheet notes, people questioned by ICE officers have the right to remain silent, and the federal agency's officers must have a warrant signed by a judge to enter a private residence without consent.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that "Beatriz Ponce de Leon, deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant, and refugee rights, warned City Council members of the impending street sweeps during a series of virtual briefings Friday" and advocates are "organizing 'know your rights' workshops and distributing cards in Latino neighborhoods with bilingual information on residents' legal rights."
Under the Welcoming City Ordinance, the Chicago Police Department does not document immigration status or share information with federal immigration authorities. WGN9 pointed out that "Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago Park District, and Community Colleges of Chicago have all been directed not to allow ICE access into any of its buildings."
According to The New York Times, which spoke with two unnamed sources and obtained related correspondence, "hundreds of agents were asked to volunteer" for ICE's "Operation Safeguard," and the agency plans to send roughly 150 agents to Chicago.
Tom Homan, Trump's incoming "border czar" and former acting director of ICE, previewed the administration's targeting of the Illinois city while attending a Northwest Side GOP holiday party last month, telling other attendees that "Chicago's in trouble because your mayor sucks and your governor sucks," and if Johnson "doesn't want to help, get the hell out of the way."
The reports about the massive raids in Chicago confirmes much about the mass deportation regime. 1 Homan is in charge 2 raids are weapon to be selectively wheeled at political opponents - yes it’s about targeting the undoc but also the Dem mayor 3 the staged performance is their key objective
[image or embed]
— Zachary A Mueller ( @zacharyamueller.bsky.social) January 18, 2025 at 10:16 AM
In a social media thread about the reported plans for Chicago, Zachary Mueller, senior research director at the advocacy group America's Voice, said that Trump's administration "will parade out some number of immigrants who have committed serious crimes, to sell the lie that this is about protecting the American people. It's not."
"Don't fall for their trap," Mueller continued. "There will be arrests in other cities to say that this is not weaponized raids as [a] political attack on political opponents. But the [performance] to instill widespread fear is the point. Fear to immigrant communities. Fear to any elected official not in a major city of the cost of speaking out."
"Homan wants a confrontation. They want to perform the narrative for their audience they are taking it to the 'enemy within," Mueller added. "It's a performance with serious costs for immigrant communities. And it's a performance to help sell their greater authoritarian agenda."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, responded similarly, saying Friday: "The actual operation described in the piece (100-200 agents) seems not that unusual for ICE (Google Operation Cross-Check). Expect a PR blitz, though."
"Not to diminish... the impact, but from [the Journal's] reporting it seems that the scale of this is entirely precedented. ICE has done similar operations in the past. This seems mostly about generating media," Reichlin-Melnick explained.
"As many people have said, it is going to take time for the Trump administration to ramp up immigration enforcement," he added. "In the meantime, however, they are going to basically slap a 'mass deportation' logo on the side of every regular ICE operation."
In addition to sounding the alarm over how Trump's mass deportations are expected to impact the estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and their families, migrant rights advocates and experts have warned that the plan, if fully implemented, "would deliver a catastrophic blow to the U.S. economy."
Although Trump won't be president again until his Monday inauguration, Republicans on Capitol Hill are already pushing forward the GOP's anti-migrant agenda, with help from some Democrats in Congress. On Friday, 10 Democratic senators voted with Republicans to advance the Laken Riley Act, setting it up for a final vote next week.
Those 10 Democrats are Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Jon Ossoff (Ga.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), and Mark Warner (Va.). Gallego and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who did not vote on Friday, also co-sponsored the bill.
"The process displayed by Democrats during the Laken Riley Act legislative debate is an alarming first sign of acquiescence to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller," said America's Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas, referring to the family separation architect set to serve as the president-elect's homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff for policy.
"Greenlighting a massive increase in unnecessary detention and empowering the radical anti-immigrant state attorneys general is deeply harmful and undermines the solutions we need," she stressed. "Despite Donald Trump's victory and the prominence of his vicious anti-immigrant pledges, a strong majority of the American public prefers a balanced approach to immigration, involving both border security and legalization for undocumented immigrants, instead of mass deportation."
According to Cárdenas' group, a coalition of nearly two dozen organizations including Families for Freedom, United We Dream, and multiple state arms of Make the Road are launching a nationwide week of action scheduled to begin Monday in California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
"While this temporary cessation of fighting and bombing must be both respected and long-term, this is only the beginning of addressing the immense humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza."
As Israel's military continued its 15-month assault that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and decimated the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed that early Saturday the full Cabinet approved a recently announced cease-fire and hostage-release deal that is set to take effect at 8:30 am local time Sunday.
The 24-8 vote on the three-phase deal negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, and the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations came after the Security Cabinet endorsed it on Friday.
Later Saturday, Netanyahu said that "we will be unable to move forward with the framework until we receive the list of the hostages who will be released, as was agreed. Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. Hamas is solely responsible."
Since negotiators announced the agreement on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 100 more Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health's figures.
Gaza health officials said Saturday that the Israeli assault has killed at least 46,899, with another 110,725 wounded since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. More than 10,000 people remain missing in the Palestinian region reduced to rubble, and experts warn the official death toll is likely a significant undercount.
"The temporary cease-fire agreement in Gaza is a relief, but it arrives more than 465 days and 46,000 lives too late," Doctors Without Borders said in a Saturday statement. "While this temporary cessation of fighting and bombing must be both respected and long-term, this is only the beginning of addressing the immense humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza."
"Israel must immediately end its blockade of Gaza and ensure a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid into and across Gaza so that the hundreds of thousands of people in desperate conditions can begin their long road to recovery," added the group, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières. "The toll of this hideous war includes the obliteration of homes, hospitals, and infrastructure; the displacement of millions of people that are now in desperate need of water, food, and shelter in the cold winter."
After reaching a cease-fire deal to stop Israel's assault on Lebanon late last year, the IDF was accused of violating it with continued strikes allegedly targeting the political and militant group Hezbollah.
According to Drop Site News: "Egyptian media reported the formation of a joint operations room in Cairo, with representatives from Egypt, Palestine, Qatar, the United States, and Israel, to oversee the Gaza cease-fire and 'ensure effective coordination and follow up on compliance with the terms of the agreement.'"
Israel—whose troops have been armed by the United States—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Gaza and the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
After the Israeli Security Cabinet's Friday decision, Kenneth Roth, the former director of Human Rights Watch, said: "Keep in mind that a cease-fire is NOT an amnesty. Senior Israeli officials must still be prosecuted for genocide and war crimes. Otherwise, governments could commit atrocities with impunity by simply agreeing to a cease-fire at the end."
This post has been updated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's later Saturday statement.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions."
As Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to further accelerate already near-record liquefied natural gas exports after taking office next week, a report published Friday details how soaring U.S. foreign LNG sales are "causing price volatility and environmental and safety risks for American families in addition to granting geopolitical advantages to the Chinese government."
The report, Strategic Implications of U.S. LNG Exports, was published by the American Security Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and offers a "comprehensive analysis of the impact of the natural gas export boom from the advent of fracking through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and provides insight into how the tidal wave of U.S. exports in the global market is altering regional and domestic security environments."
According to a summary of the publication:
The United States is the world's leading producer of natural gas and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Over the past decade, affordable U.S. LNG exports have facilitated a global shift from coal and mitigated the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel imports from Russia and the Middle East. Today, U.S. LNG plays a critical role in diversifying global energy supplies and reducing reliance on adversarial energy suppliers. However, rising global dependence on natural gas is creating new vulnerabilities, including pricing fluctuations, shipping route bottlenecks, and inherent health, safety, and environmental hazards. The U.S. also faces geopolitical challenges related to the LNG trade, including China's stockpiling and resale of cheap U.S. LNG exports to advance its renewable energy industry and expand its global influence.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions," the report states.
American Security Project CEO Matthew Wallin said in a statement that "action needs to be taken to ensure Americans are insulated from global price shocks, the impacts of climate change, and new health and safety risks."
"Our country must also do more to protect its interests from geopolitical rivals like China that subsidize their growth and influence by reselling cheap U.S. LNG at higher spot prices," Wallin asserted. "U.S. LNG has often been depicted as a transition fuel, and our country must ensure that it continues working towards that transition to clean sources instead of becoming dependent on yet another vulnerable fuel source."
Critics have
warned that LNG actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite President Joe Biden's 2024 pause on LNG export permit applications, his administration has presided over what climate campaigners have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis.
In addition to promising to roll back Biden's recent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, Trump—who has nominated a bevy of fossil fuel proponents for his Cabinet—is expected to further increase LNG production and exports.
A separate report published Friday by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration is expected to fast-track, creating 510 million metric tons of climate pollution–"equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants."
While campaigning for president, Trump vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill." This, as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers, according to The New York Times.
"This research reveals the disturbing reality of an LNG export boom under a second Trump term," Friends of the Earth senior energy campaigner Raena Garcia said in a statement referring to her group's new report. "This reality will cement higher energy prices for Americans and push the world into even more devastating climate disasters. The incoming administration is poised to haphazardly greenlight LNG exports that are clearly intended to put profit over people."