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Nov 20, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump has tapped several TV personalities for key posts in his incoming administration, including Dr. Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency that oversees health coverage for 150 million people. Oz, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, supports privatizing Medicare. "His background really has nothing to do with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services," says Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of the Health Research Group for Public Citizen.
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Nov 20, 2024
President-elect Trump has announced his nomination of billionaire Linda McMahon to head the Department of Education, which Trump has pledged to shut down. McMahon is the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and also headed the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term. "President-elect Trump has a habit of choosing people who have either a desire to destroy the department or who have no experience. She falls into the latter category: She does not have any experience in education," says education historian Diane Ravitch, who served as assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush.
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Nov 20, 2024
We continue to look at the attacks on civil society in Azerbaijan leading up to the COP29 U.N. climate summit. The government's crackdown has included the arrests of local journalists, including several with the independent outlet Abzas Media. Since November of last year, at least six of their reporters have been arrested on trumped-up charges of smuggling foreign currency into the country. Leyla Mustafayeva, the outlet's acting editor-in-chief, speaking from Berlin, lays out how there has been a "total crackdown on Azerbaijani media" over the last year.
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Nov 20, 2024
As we broadcast all week from COP29 in Baku, climate justice activists and civil society groups have raised concern over Azerbaijan's role as host of the U.N. climate talks. The authoritarian country has cracked down on journalists, activists and government critics leading up to COP29 and has been accused of using the climate summit to drum up business for its oil and gas industry. On Wednesday, Democracy Now! attended a news conference led by Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiev, who is the COP29 lead negotiator, but who refused to answer a question about the arrests. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman later tried to ask Rafiev in the halls of the convention venue, but he again refused to answer.
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Nov 20, 2024
As we broadcast all week from COP29 in Baku, climate justice activists and civil society groups have raised concern over Azerbaijan's role as host of the U.N. climate talks. The authoritarian country has cracked down on journalists, activists and government critics leading up to COP29 and has been accused of using the climate summit to drum up business for its oil and gas industry. On Wednesday, Democracy Now! attended a news conference led by Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev, who is the COP29 lead negotiator, but who refused to answer a question about the arrests. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman later tried to ask Rafiyev in the halls of the convention venue, but he again refused to answer.
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Nov 20, 2024
As we broadcast all week from COP29 in Baku, climate justice activists and civil society groups have raised concern over Azerbaijan's role as host of the U.N. climate talks. The authoritarian country has cracked down on journalists, activists and government critics leading up to COP29 and has been accused of using the climate summit to drum up business for its oil and gas industry. On Wednesday, Democracy Now! attended a news conference led by Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev, who is the COP29 lead negotiator, but who refused to answer a question about the arrests. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman later tried to ask Rafiyev in the halls of the convention venue, but he again refused to answer.
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Nov 20, 2024
As Democracy Now! continues to broadcast from the U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, we speak with Colombia's Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, who chairs Colombia's delegation here at COP29. She calls the return of Donald Trump to the White House "a disaster for global climate" due to his promise to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement again, discusses Colombia's plan to phase out fossil fuels despite being a major exporter of coal, and says a recent biodiversity conference held in Colombia could point the way for how to finance a green energy transition. Muhamad, who is of Palestinian heritage, also discusses Colombia's decision to suspend coal exports to Israel earlier this year. "We are calling other countries to not supply … fossil fuel energy that is used in genocide," Muhamad tells Democracy Now!
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Nov 20, 2024
U.S. Shuts Embassy in Kyiv, Citing Possible Imminent Russian Attack, Biden Approves Transfer of New Type of Landmines to Ukraine, Crowds of Hungry Palestinians Queue for Food Amid Shortage of Flour Due to Israeli Siege, Al Jazeera Reporter Injured After Israel Struck Gaza Home Following Earlier Attack, Protests Rock Senate Office Building Ahead of Vote on U.S. Military Aid to Israel, Trump Taps TV Personality Dr. Oz to Lead Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Trump Taps Wrestling Mogul Linda McMahon for Education Secretary, Billionaire Howard Lutnick for Commerce, Leaked Records Show Matt Gaetz Sent $10,000 to Two Women Who Testified He Paid Them for Sex, L.A. City Council Adopts Sanctuary City Ordinance, GOP Lawmaker Seeks to Ban Incoming Trans Colleague from Using Women's Bathroom, Texas Board of Education Wants Bible Lessons in Public Schools
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Nov 19, 2024
The search for an energy alternative to fossil fuels has renewed interest in nuclear power production across the globe. Despite nuclear boosters' promotion of the energy source, Tim Judson of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service calls nuclear power an "elaborate greenwashing scheme." Nuclear is "not carbon-free," says Diné organizer Leona Morgan, who highlights the fuel costs and environmental contamination — particularly within and around Indigenous communities in the southwest United States — of the uranium mining required to produce nuclear power. Because the carbon costs before and after nuclear generation are not factored into energy calculations, says Morgan, "it's really not going to solve the energy crisis."
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Nov 19, 2024
Tech companies are turning to nuclear to fulfill the skyrocketing energy needs of artificial intelligence, with major corporations like Amazon, Google and Microsoft announcing plans to invest in nuclear power. But the speed at which energy needs are growing may not align with the construction or revitalization of nuclear infrastructure, says Alex de Vries, who researches the unintended consequences of AI and cryptocurrencies. There may be a "mismatch between the needs of tech companies today" and the future, while nuclear power continues to carry the same safety risks that led to its phasing out in the first place.
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Nov 19, 2024
In Baku, Azerbaijan, Democracy Now! continues our coverage of the 2024 U.N. climate summit and its host country's record on human rights. "Considering that our economy is completely relying on oil and gas sales and the COP29 is a great place to have a lot of oil and gas lobbyists, it's actually a great chance for the Azerbaijani government to have more oil and gas contracts … and then to enrich the regime itself," says Zhala Bayramova, a human rights lawyer focused on LGBTQ rights now. Their father Gubad Ibadoghlu is one of hundreds of Azerbaijani political prisoners targeted for his criticism of corruption and the fossil fuel industry. Ibadoghlu and his wife were violently assaulted and threatened last July, and Ibadoghlu has been detained ever since. "The reason that they did this, the way that they physically assaulted my parents and brutally attacked them, is because they wanted to show everybody and to create also a chilling effect," says Bayramova, who notes that the country's arrests of activists appear to have aligned with its preparations to host the U.N. climate summit, as the regime sought to "clean up the streets."
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Nov 19, 2024
Israeli Strike on Northern Gaza Kills 17 Family Members of Doctor's Family, U.N. Committee on Palestinian Rights Warns Israel's Assault on Gaza Has "Characteristics of Genocide", UNICEF Warns Israeli Attacks Have Killed Over 200 Children in Lebanon, Senate to Vote on Resolutions to Block U.S. Arms Sales to Israel, Kremlin Says Ukraine Fired U.S.-Supplied ATACMS at Russia as Putin Issues New Nuclear Doctrine, Trump Taps Fox News Personality and Climate Conspiracist Sean Duffy as Transportation Sec., Woman Testified to House Committee She Saw Matt Gaetz Have Sex with a Minor, Trump Confirms Plans to Deploy Military Resources in Mass Deportation Campaign, New Wave of Harassing Text Messages Target Latinx and LGBTQ People, House GOP Weighs Austerity Measures, New Restrictions on Medicaid and SNAP, COP29 Negotiators at Odds over Carbon Markets Which Allow Polluters to Greenwash Emissions, Hong Kong Court Sentences 45 Pro-Democracy Activists in Landmark National Security Trial, 42,000 People Call on New Zealand to Respect Treaty of Waitangi in Historic Protest
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Nov 18, 2024
As we broadcast all week from the COP29 talks in Azerbaijan, we look at what Donald Trump's reelection as U.S. president means for the climate. Clean energy and environmental advocates are raising alarm over Trump's picks for key roles in his administration, including fracking magnate Chris Wright to serve as energy secretary and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department, where he could greatly expand drilling on federal lands. Burgum, a major ally of the fossil fuel industry, was also tapped to head a newly created National Energy Council aimed at increasing oil and gas production. For more on the White House transition, we speak with Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Natural Resources Defense Council Action. He calls Trump's picks "deeply troubling" but says there is still room for optimism. "The clean energy transition in the United States is unstoppable. It's going to hit some speed bumps now, but it will move forward," says Bapna.
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Nov 18, 2024
As we broadcast this week from the U.N. climate talks in Baku, human rights groups have warned of Azerbaijan's escalating crackdown on civil society groups, government critics and the press. Since the announcement last year of Azerbaijan as the host of COP29, dozens of activists and journalists have been arrested, arbitrarily detained or prosecuted on "bogus charges," says Giorgi Gogia, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. "Azerbaijan has had an abysmal rights record for many years, but it has dramatically deteriorated in the run-up to COP29," states Gogia, who joins us from Tbilisi, Georgia, and co-authored the recent HRW report titled "'We Try to Stay Invisible:' Azerbaijan's Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society."
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Nov 18, 2024
We are broadcasting live from the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, which has entered its second and final week, and already there is frustration over a lack of progress on the key issue of financing the energy transition and climate adaptation in Global South countries. Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want and lead spokesperson for the Climate Justice Coalition, says this year's summit is supposed to be "the finance COP" and calls for about $5 trillion a year in financing, but "rich, developed countries are putting pennies on the table." He also addresses the overwhelming presence of industry lobbyists at the annual summits and calls from some activists to boycott the talks. "If we, as civil society, weren't here also holding the feet of Global North governments to the fire, we would see much worse outcomes than we are seeing already," says Rehman.
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Nov 18, 2024
We are broadcasting live from COP29, the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where countries are shaping the world's response to the climate crisis. Despite pledges at last year's summit in Dubai to cut global emissions, the burning of coal, oil and gas has continued to rise as the world keeps breaking temperature records. This year's summit is also taking place under the shadow of a second term in the White House for Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax and promised to take the United States out of the Paris Agreement and ramp up domestic fossil fuel production. Despite restrictions on demonstrations at COP29, climate justice activists have been taking a stand, including on Saturday when they held a silent protest in the halls of the conference venue to demand trillions in climate financing for the Global South to speed up the transition to clean energy. Democracy Now! was there, and we bring you some of their voices. "I'm here because I am trying to enhance my voice to talk about our people, our communities and why climate change [needs] to be treated urgently. We need the money. We need it now," says Juliana Melisa Asprilla Cabezas, an Afro-descendant climate activist from Colombia, referring to the push for a fair climate finance deal. "We are protesting here because we have discovered that there's more fossil fuel lobbyists attending the COP29, which means the voices of the voiceless will still be suppressed," adds Thabo Sibeko. Palestinian delegation member Akram Al-Khalili explains that a key demand is for a global energy embargo.
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Nov 18, 2024
Biden Gives Ukraine Go-Ahead to Strike Inside Russia with U.S. Long-Range Missiles, Pope Calls for Investigation into Gaza Genocide as Israel Kills Dozens More Palestinians Every Day, Israeli Strikes Kill Another 8 Paramedics in Lebanon, Hezbollah Media Chief, Protesters Arrested After Setting Off Flares Near Home of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, House GOP Working to Push Through Bill That Would Let Trump Shut Down Nonprofits, Trump Selects Fracking Exec. Chris Wright, Climate Crisis Denier, to Lead Energy Dept., WaPo: Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth Paid Off Woman He Sexually Assaulted in 2017, Trump Taps FCC's Brendan Carr, One of Project 2025's Authors, to Chair Communications Agency, Deadly Typhoon Man-yi Slams Philippines, Sixth Major Storm to Hit the Country in Past Month, COP29 Protesters Call for Energy Embargo over Gaza Genocide, Climate Catasrophe, Activists Take to Rio Streets as G20 Gets Underway in Brazil, Guatemala Court Reverses House Arrest Order for José Rubén Zamora, Sending Journalist Back to Prison, Las Vegas Police Kill Man Inside His Home After He Called 911 to Report a Break-in, DOJ Opens Civil Rights Probe into Sheriff's Deputy's Fatal Shooting of Sonya Massey in Her Own Home, Malcolm X's Family Files $100 Million Federal Lawsuit Against NYPD, CIA, FBI
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Nov 15, 2024
In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of "civil religion" that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World War. However, in recent decades, Traverso warns, "the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories." Witnessing this distortion of history, "I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood," says Traverso. "Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality."
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Nov 15, 2024
Concerns are mounting over Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is a vocal opponent of the military's multiculturalism and decision to allow women to serve in combat, promises to purge the military of generals disloyal to Trump and sports tattoos connected with neo-Nazi and white nationalist movements. "Here's a man who wrote a book declaring his intention to wage, not metaphorical, but actual war within the United States," says Jeff Sharlet, an expert on the rise of far-right extremism in the United States. Sharlet explains how Hegseth and Mike Huckabee, Trump's choice for U.S. ambassador to Israel, have Christian nationalist and Christian Zionist views that ultimately work to whip up animosity toward domestic enemies of the far right.
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Nov 15, 2024
Public health officials are decrying President-elect Donald Trump for selecting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, Kennedy would head a sprawling agency that oversees drug, vaccine and food safety, as well as medical research. Kennedy is one of the nation's most prominent vaccine skeptics and has spread numerous public health conspiracy theories. Kennedy has claimed HIV may not cause AIDS. He claimed COVID-19 was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. He has claimed chemicals in the nation's water supply are leading more children to be gay and transgender, and he's publicly spoken about removing fluoride from drinking water. "I can't think of a darker time for public health in America and globally than now," says Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University. "He has no fidelity to truth, to science. … He will make America sick, certainly not healthier again."
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Nov 15, 2024
Trump Taps RFK Jr., Vaccine Skeptic and Health Conspiracy Theorist, to Lead HHS, Trump Names Oil and Gas Industry Ally Doug Burgum to Oversee Interior Dept., Trump Elevates Personal Lawyers to Top Gov't Roles, House Dems Call for Release of Ethics Probe into Matt Gaetz, Israeli Airstrikes Devastate Beirut, Baalbek, Killing Dozens of People and Forcing 100,000s to Flee, Rashida Tlaib Calls on Blinken to Resign for Violating U.S. Laws on Aid and Arms Trade, Netanyahu's Aides May Have Doctored Phone Records on Israeli General's Pre-Attack Warning on Oct. 7, NYT: Elon Musk Secretly Met with Iranian Ambassador in NY; IAEA Visits Tehran over Nuclear Program, Sri Lanka's New President Receives Mandate for Leftist Economic Agenda After Parliamentary Victory, Biden in Lima for Last APEC Gathering as Peruvian Police Crack Down on Protests, EU Fines Meta over Facebook Marketplace Monopoly, Norway Apologizes to Indigenous Peoples for Forced Assimilation Policy, Thousands March to New Zealand's Capital to Oppose Rollback of Maori Rights, Gov. Kathy Hochul Revives NYC Congestion Charge Program Before Trump Comes into Office, The Onion Buys InfoWars in Bankruptcy Auction, Plans to Turn Conspiracy Outlet into Parody Site
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Nov 14, 2024
A federal jury in Virginia has ordered the U.S. military contractor CACI Premier Technology to pay a total of $42 million to three Iraqi men who were tortured at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. The landmark verdict comes after 16 years of litigation and marks the first time a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for the gruesome abuses at Abu Ghraib. We discuss the case and its significance for human rights with Baher Azmy, the legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the Abu Ghraib survivors. "This lawsuit has been about justice and accountability for three Iraqi men — our clients, Salah, Suhail and Asa'ad — who exhibited just awe-inspiring courage and resilience," he says.
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Nov 14, 2024
We go to Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where we get an update from Arwa Damon of the humanitarian organization INARA on "deteriorating conditions" as Palestinians are "slowly exterminated" by disease and starvation caused by Israel's brutal siege. A special U.N. committee has found that Israel's actions in Gaza are "consistent with the characteristics of genocide." Palestinians in Gaza feel that "they are living through their own annihilation," says Damon. "There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come."
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Nov 14, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated far-right Florida Congressmember Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general. The selection of Gaetz, a staunch Trump loyalist, appears to signify Trump's intent to weaponize the Department of Justice to target political enemies. Gaetz has "no appreciable law enforcement experience," says Noah Bookbinder, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has sued the federal government for access to a DOJ investigation into allegations that Gaetz was involved in the sex trafficking of an underage girl. That investigation was not made public, and no federal charges were filed, but the House Ethics Committee launched its own inquiry into Gaetz, the status of which is now up in the air after Gaetz resigned on Wednesday. If approved as attorney general, Gaetz is likely to "take an ax to the nonpartisan functioning of the Justice Department," warns Zack Beauchamp, a senior correspondent at Vox. "His chief qualification … is his willingness to do whatever Donald Trump needs to be done." We also discuss the status of various other legal issues swirling around Trump and his supporters, including the Justice Department probes into Trump, the potential pardoning of January 6 insurrectionists and if Trump will abuse the presidential power of recess appointments when he takes office.
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Nov 14, 2024
U.N. Report Finds Israel's Assault on Gaza "Consistent with Genocide," Including Starvation Campaign, Israeli Airstrikes Pound Beirut; WaPo: Israel Planning to Offer Lebanon Ceasefire as "Gift" to Trump, U.S. and U.K. Carry Out More Airstrikes on Yemen, Senate GOP Pick John Thune as New Leader as PA Recount Could Extend Republican Majority to 53, Matt Gaetz Tapped by Trump to Head DOJ, Resigns from Congress Ahead of "Damaging" Ethics Report, Trump Taps Democrat Turned Trump Loyalist Tulsi Gabbard for Nat'l Intelligence Director, Trump's Pick to Lead U.S. Military Has Tattoos Linked to White Supremacists and Nazis, House Democrats Introduce Bill to Clarify Trump May Not Run for Third Term, Death Toll from Sudan's Civil War Is Far Higher Than Previously Known, Ambush on MSF Ambulance Kills 2 in Haitian Capital Amid Worsening Violence, Climate Activists Demand Wealthy Polluters "Pay Up" to Fund Adaptation and Resilience, CIA Officer on Trial for Leaking U.S. Documents Detailing Israel's Plans to Attack Iran, Airman Jack Teixeira Gets 15 Years in Prison for Leaking Classified Pentagon Documents, "A Toxic Media Platform": The Guardian Stops Posting on X, Citing Elon Musk's Influence
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Nov 13, 2024
The U.N. climate summit known as COP29 is underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators are trying to make progress on reducing emissions and preventing the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Many activists, however, have criticized the decision to hold the talks in an authoritarian petrostate. The host country is also facing accusations that it is using the climate talks for business, after the head of the talks, Elnur Soltanov, was caught in a secret recording promoting oil and gas deals. That sting was organized by the group Global Witness, which put forward a fake investor. "In exchange for just the promise of sponsorship money, that got us to the heart of the COP29," says Lela Stanley, an investigator at Global Witness. "We need the U.N. to ban petro interests from sitting at the table, from influencing the COP."
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Nov 13, 2024
Environmental defenders are raising alarm over Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former New York Congressmember Lee Zeldin, who has a history of opposing critical environmental protections and clean energy job investments. Zeldin's nomination comes as Trump is reportedly discussing moving the EPA headquarters outside of Washington, D.C., which could lead to an exodus of staff and expertise from the agency. "I really don't think this is about government efficiency. I think this is about terrorizing the career staff," says Judith Enck, who served as a regional administrator of the EPA in the Obama administration.
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Nov 13, 2024
Arizona voters on Election Day approved a sweeping ballot measure that would allow state and local law enforcement to arrest immigrants suspected of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border outside of ports of entry, while empowering state judges to order deportations. Proposition 314, which creates a series of state crimes targeting immigrants, is modeled after a similar measure in Texas known as S.B. 4 that is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Only certain portions of Prop 314 are scheduled to go into effect later this month, while the most harmful parts won't be enforced until the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the Texas law. The measure has drawn comparisons to Arizona's controversial S.B. 1070, a 2010 law that also gave local police authority to arrest immigrants suspected of being undocumented, though large parts of it were later struck down by the Supreme Court. For more, we speak with Tucson-based activist Alejandra Pablos, who was targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for her activism and has been facing deportation proceedings for years. "People who are speaking out are the first to feel the chills," Pablos says of Trump's looming anti-immigrant crackdown. She urges the Biden administration to do what it can to mitigate the harm, including by closing deportation cases against people like her.
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Nov 13, 2024
Immigrant rights lawyers are preparing to fight back against Donald Trump's plans to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history once he takes office again in January. The president-elect has already named some leading anti-immigration figures for his incoming administration who will lead the plan, including former ICE head Tom Homan and his longtime aide Stephen Miller. Trump's picks were central in family separations, the Muslim ban, attacks on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and other anti-immigrant policies during the first Trump administration. Trump is also reportedly planning to greatly expand immigrant detention in private for-profit prisons, and during the campaign he spoke of invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up deportations. "We have been preparing nearly a year for this," says attorney Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, who argued some of the most high-profile immigration cases during the first Trump administration. He stresses that while groups like the ACLU will challenge the Trump administration in the courts, "it needs to be a national effort" to prevent abuses. "We are not opposed to basic immigration reform, but this cannot be a situation where we're just going after immigrants left and right."
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Nov 13, 2024
"Gravest International Crimes": U.N. Aid Chief Blasts Israel's Deadly Siege on Gaza , Biden Won't Enforce U.S. Law Requiring Halt of Arms to Israel Despite Clear Human Rights Abuses, Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Beirut Suburbs and Mount Lebanon Governorate, National Press Club's Press Freedom Award Goes to Wael al-Dahdouh for Gaza Coverage, Mike Huckabee, Who Declared "There's No Such Thing as a Palestinian," Named U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Trump Nominates Fox News TV Personality Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, John Ratcliffe, Who Defended Trump During Impeachment Hearings, Nominated as CIA Director, Trump Picks Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to Lead Drastic Overhaul of Federal Bureaucracy, Senate GOP Meets to Pick New Leader; House Freedom Caucus May Challenge Speaker Mike Johnson, House Fails to Pass Bill Granting President Sweeping Powers to Target Nonprofits, Jury Orders Military Contractor CACI to Pay $42 Million to Abu Ghraib Torture Survivors, Climate Campaigners Ask Scottish Court to Halt Development of Rosebank Oil Field
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Nov 12, 2024
American Coup: Wilmington 1898 premieres tonight on PBS and investigates the only successful insurrection conducted against a U.S. government, when self-described white supremacist residents stoked fears of "Negro Rule" and carried out a deadly massacre in Wilmington, North Carolina. Their aim was to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow the city's democratically elected, Reconstruction-era multiracial government, paving the way for the implementation of Jim Crow law just two years later. We feature excerpts from the documentary and speak to co-director Yoruba Richen, who explains how the insurrection was planned and carried out, and how the filmmakers worked to track down the descendants of both perpetrators and victims, whose voices are featured in the film.
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Nov 12, 2024
Incoming President Trump's vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants when he starts his term has sent private prison stocks soaring. Immigrant rights advocates, including our guest, the executive director of Detention Watch Network, Silky Shah, are preparing for the Trump administration's threats of mass deportation, a central tenet of his presidential campaign. "The first Trump campaign was defined by the border wall, and this one is really defined by mass deportations," says Shah. If the Biden administration wants to protect immigrants' rights before Trump takes office, she adds, it must begin reducing detention capacity by "shutting down facilities now."
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Nov 12, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to appoint his former senior adviser Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller will play a key role along with Trump's border czar Tom Homan and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who will reportedly be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Miller is the architect of Trump's anti-immigrant agenda, an avowed white nationalist and a man who is spurred by his "animus to the notion of the United States as a multicultural and multiethnic democracy," says author Jean Guerrero, author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. Guerrero says the Trump administration's "obsessive deportation" attempt to "radically reengineer the racial demographics of the United States" will "backfire" on the U.S. economy and destroy "the United States' global reputation as a safe haven for the persecuted."
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Nov 12, 2024
Israel Fails to Meet 30-Day U.S. Deadline to End Starvation Campaign in Northern Gaza , Israel Bombs Beirut Suburbs as Defense Minister Rules Out Ceasefire with Lebanon, Israel's Smotrich Lauds Trump's Victory, Orders Preparations to Illegally Annex West Bank, GOP to Retake House Majority, Cementing Party's Control Over All Branches of U.S. Government, Trump to Nominate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Trump Taps Rep. Elise Stefanik as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Trump Nominates SD Gov. Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary, Trump Selects Foreign Policy Hawk GOP Rep. Mike Waltz as National Security Adviser, Ex-VA Secretary Robert Wilkie to Head Pentagon Transition Despite Mishandling Sexual Assault Report, White Nationalist Anti-Immigrant Adviser Stephen Miller to Return to Trump White House , Trump Taps Former Rep. Lee Zeldin to Lead EPA, Considers Moving the Agency from D.C., Trump Refuses to Sign Presidential Transition Ethics Agreement as Required by Law, House GOP Bill Would Grant President Power to Target Nonprofit Organizations, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé Sworn In as Haiti's Prime Minister, Promises New Elections, Firefighters Battle Blazes Across the Northeast as the U.S. Faces Record Drought, 2024 Was a "Master Class in Climate Destruction": U.N. Issues Dire Warning at COP29, Dutch Court Overrules Landmark Decision That Required Shell to Accelerate Emissions Cuts
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Nov 11, 2024
Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between visiting Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam. The Dutch authorities made over 60 arrests, and at least five people were hospitalized as a result of the clashes, which local and international leaders were quick to brand as antisemitic, even though observers in Amsterdam have said it was Israeli hooligans who instigated much of the violence. Rabbani says that while it's common for rival teams' fans to get into skirmishes, what happened in Amsterdam was different. "What we're talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims," Rabbani says.
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Nov 11, 2024
Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between visiting Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam. The Dutch authorities made over 60 arrests, and at least five people were hospitalized as a result of the clashes, which local and international leaders were quick to brand as antisemitic, even though observers in Amsterdam have said it was Israeli hooligans who instigated much of the violence. Rabbani says that while it's common for rival teams' fans to get into skirmishes, what happened in Amsterdam was different. "What we're talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims," Rabbani says.
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Nov 11, 2024
We speak with Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani about the latest developments in the Middle East as Israel continues its deadly assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. Qatar recently announced it will no longer act as mediator for ceasefire talks, saying the two sides were not serious about reaching a deal to stop the fighting. "This entire process from the outset has been a complete charade," Rabbani says of the U.S.-backed ceasefire negotiations, urging Egypt to follow suit and also stop acting as a mediator. Rabbani also discusses how a second Trump administration could deal with the region, saying Trump's "erratic" behavior makes predictions difficult, but that signs point to a more aggressive posture toward Iran.
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Nov 11, 2024
Thousands attended a Palestine Festival of Literature event about "America and the War on Palestine" at the historic Riverside Church in New York Sunday, featuring conversations about U.S. complicity in Israeli human rights abuses. The literary festival, known as PalFest, aims to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle through arts and letters. The acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates moderated the conversations, including one featuring the Palestinian human rights attorney and scholar Noura Erakat. "This is about all of us," says Erakat. "The fact that Palestinian children have been evaporated, beheaded, killed in NICU, their NICU system, rotted in NICU beds, right? And their parents have had to collect their flesh to weigh it in rice bags in order to bury them, right? At this point, there should have been mercy."
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Nov 11, 2024
Thousands attended a Palestine Festival of Literature event about "America and the War on Palestine" at the historic Riverside Church in New York Sunday, featuring conversations about U.S. complicity in Israeli human rights abuses. The literary festival, known as PalFest, aims to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle through arts and letters. The acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates moderated the conversations, including one featuring the Palestinian human rights attorney and scholar Noura Erakat. "This is about all of us," says Erakat. "The fact that Palestinian children have been evaporated, beheaded, killed in NICU, their NICU system, rotted in NICU beds, right? And their parents have had to collect their flesh to weigh it in rice bags in order to bury them, right? At this point, there should have been mercy."
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Nov 11, 2024
The FBI is investigating a spate of racist text messages targeting Black Americans in the wake of Donald Trump's election victory last week. The texts were reported in states including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, addressing recipients as young as 13 by name and telling them they were "selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation" and other messages referencing slavery. For more, we speak with Robert Greene II, a history professor at Claflin University, South Carolina's first and oldest historically Black university in Orangeburg, where many students were targeted. "Initially when I heard about the texts, I thought it was a bit of a hoax, but … it quickly became clear that this wasn't just a Claflin problem, it was a national issue, as well," says Greene. We also speak with Wisdom Cole, senior national director of advocacy for the NAACP, who says "this is only the beginning," with a second Trump administration expected to attack civil rights and embolden hate groups.
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Nov 11, 2024
Ex-ICE Dir. Thomas Homan, Trump's Pick for "Border Czar," Says U.S.-Born Children Could Be Deported, Trump Poised to Sweep Swing States; Democrat Gallego Defeats Trump Ally Kari Lake in AZ Senate Race, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Not Resigning Before Biden Leaves Office, FBI Probes Racist Text Message Campaign Against Black Americans Referencing Slavery, Israel Kills Dozens of Members of the Same Family in Jabaliya as Genocidal Attacks Continue, Israel Kills at Least 4 More Palestinian Journalists in Gaza, Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Lebanon, Including 10 Paramedics, Kremlin Denies Reports of Trump-Putin Call as Ukraine and Russia Both Launch Drone Strikes, COP29 Kicks Off in Azerbaijan; Summit Leader Secretly Filmed Negotiating Fossil Fuel Deals, Greta Thunberg Shuns COP29, Calls for Protests Against Azerbaijan Human Rights Abuses, Amsterdam Police Crack Down on Pro-Palestinian Protesters After Israeli Hooligans Wreak Havoc in City, Haiti's Interim PM Ousted by Transitional Council as Violence, Humanitarian Crisis Worsens, Train Station Blast Kills 26 in Pakistan; Thousands Rally to Demand Release of Former PM Imran Khan
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Nov 08, 2024
Top U.N. officials are again warning that the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is "at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence." At least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, many of them children, since October, when Israel imposed a draconian siege and began an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing on northern Gaza. Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council recently spent several days in Gaza. He describes what he saw as "devastation beyond belief," as Palestinians face "the most intense and most indiscriminate bombardment anywhere in the world in recent memory," coupled with the utter depletion of aid. Egeland pleads for the United States, the largest supplier of military funding and equipment to Israel, to condition its weapons to Israel, enforce the provision of aid and commit to ending Israel's assault. "It's not in Israel's interest to destroy its neighborhood in Gaza and in Lebanon. It will create new generations of hatred," Egeland says.
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Nov 08, 2024
In the wake of the reelection of Donald Trump, some of the richest people in the world saw their net worths soar as stock prices rapidly shot up. "What was different about this election was how central billionaires were in the entire political discourse," says The Lever's David Sirota, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the outsized role of the super-rich in U.S politics, pointing out that both Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned heavily with billionaires, including Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. "These people are not giving money simply out of the goodness of their hearts. They want things. They have policy demands," Sirota says. "The investors, the donors, like billionaires, are looking for a return on their investment." Sirota, who previously worked as a communications adviser and speechwriter for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, also explains how Elon Musk's influence on Trump's campaign is a preview of the power he could wield if he ends up appointed to the Trump administration.
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Nov 08, 2024
"Why is it that the issues that most of the public agrees with — healthcare, living wages, voting rights, democracy — why is it that those issues weren't more up front?" We speak to Bishop William Barber about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's failed election campaigns, Donald Trump's election as president and the urgent need to unite the poor and working class. Barber is the national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and a co-author of the book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy. He urges the Democratic Party to recenter economic security and poverty alleviation in its platform and draws on historical setbacks for U.S. progressive policies to encourage voters to "get back up" and "continue to fight."
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Nov 08, 2024
Trump Taps Campaign Co-Chair Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff as His Electoral College Tally Hits 301, House Control Undecided with Republicans Leading Dems, Expanding Senate Control, "Project 2025 Is the Agenda": Trump Allies Gleefully Flaunt Far-Right Plans in Wake of Election, Judge Tosses Program That Would Allow Undocumented Spouses to Stay in U.S. During Legal Process, "We Are the Solution": New Yorkers Vow to Fight Trump's Anti-Immigrant Agenda, Israel Attacks Another School Shelter, Killing 12 Palestinians, as North Gaza Remains on Precipice, Israel Acquires 25 Boeing Fighter Jets, Paid For by U.S. as Part of "Aid" Package, Spain Rejects Arms Ships Headed for Israel; Canadian Palestinians Sue Trudeau Gov't over Genocide, New York Activists to Launch Hunger Strike for Gaza Outside U.N., Joining Global Protest Movement, Israel Kills More Civilians in Attacks on Lebanon, Levels Historic Structures, U.N. Report Finds Wealthy Nations Have Given a Pittance Toward Climate Finance Pledges, Unprecedented Wildfires in Bolivia Scorch 75,000 Acres of National Park, Mozambique Police Kill 5, Wound Scores in Latest Crackdown on Protests over Contested Election, Australia Poised to Restrict Social Media Use for Children Under 16
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Nov 07, 2024
Donald Trump has made the mass deportation of immigrants a centerpiece of his plans for a second term, vowing to forcibly remove as many as 20 million people from the country. Historian Ana Raquel Minian, who studies the history of immigration, says earlier mass deportation programs in the 1930s and '50s led to widespread abuse, tearing many families apart through violent means that also resulted in the expulsion of many U.S. citizens. "These deportations that Trump is claiming that he will do will have mass implications to our civil rights, to our communities and to our economy, and of course to the people who are being deported themselves," says Minian. She also says that while Trump's extremist rhetoric encourages hate and violence against vulnerable communities, in terms of policy there is great continuity with the Biden administration, which kept many of the same policies in place.
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Nov 07, 2024
With former U.S. President Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, we speak with Pakistani author and columnist Fatima Bhutto. Bhutto is an award-winning author and writes a monthly column for Zeteo on world affairs. She criticizes Kamala Harris's campaign for relying heavily on celebrity endorsements and vague appeals to "joy" while silencing dissent on Gaza as the Biden administration continues backing Israel. "You don't need to be a man to practice toxic masculinity, and you don't need to be white to practice white supremacy," says Bhutto.
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Nov 07, 2024
We speak with historian Robin D. G. Kelley about the roots of Donald Trump's election victory and the decline of Democratic support among many of the party's traditional constituencies. Kelley says he agrees with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who said Democrats have "abandoned" working-class people. "There was really no program to focus on the actual suffering of working people across the board," Kelley says of the Harris campaign. He says the highly individualistic, neoliberal culture of the United States makes it difficult to organize along class lines and reject the appeal of authoritarians like Trump. "Solidarity is what's missing — the sense that we, as a class, have to protect each other."
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Nov 07, 2024
We speak with historian Robin D. G. Kelley about the roots of Donald Trump's election victory and the decline of Democratic support among many of the party's traditional constituencies. Kelley says he agrees with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who said Democrats have "abandoned" working-class people. "There was really no program to focus on the actual suffering of working people across the board," Kelley says of the Harris campaign. He says the highly individualistic, neoliberal culture of the United States makes it difficult to organize along class lines and reject the appeal of authoritarians like Trump. "Solidarity is what's missing — the sense that we, as a class, have to protect each other."
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Nov 07, 2024
Kamala Harris Concedes to Trump as Data Show Majority of U.S. Voting Groups Swung Right, Democrats Lose Montana Senate Seat, Hold On to Nevada & Michigan as Fate of House Remains Unknown, Puerto Rico's Third-Party Leftist Alliance Appears to Narrowly Lose Governorship to Trump Ally, Elon Musk Becomes Even Richer After Trump Win; Trump Reportedly Taps Brian Hook for State Dept., Special Counsel Jack Smith Winds Down Cases Against Trump, Who May Also Avoid NY and GA Trials, Immigrants Waiting Near U.S. Border Could Face Even More Treacherous Conditions with Trump in Power, Israeli Strikes Kill 27 Palestinians; Military Says It Won't Let Northern Gaza Residents Return, 40 Killed as Israel Bombs Lebanon's Beqaa Valley and City of Baalbek, North Korean Troops Enter Combat in Russia as Moscow and Pyongyang Agree to Mutual Defense Pact, German Coalition Government Collapses After Olaf Scholz Fires Finance Minister, Toxic Smog Shrouds Pakistan's Punjab, Leaving Hundreds Hospitalized with Respiratory Ailments, Thousands Ordered to Evacuate Southern California Wildfires, Hurricane Rafael Collapses Cuba's Power Grid, Made Vulnerable by U.S.-Led Embargo
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Nov 06, 2024
While Democratic candidates suffered major losses in this year's U.S. elections, elsewhere on the ballot voters supported liberal positions. In the wake of tightening federal and state restrictions on abortion, historic ballot measures enshrining the right to an abortion passed in seven states, while other initiatives to raise the minimum wage and codify marriage equality also won by wide majorities. We're joined by Chris Melody Fields Figueredo of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center to examine the role of ballot measures, a form of direct democracy, in elections, and why this "powerful tool" may be at risk as conservatives flood elected office. "Because we are resisting, we are winning on these progressive issues, they are trying to take that power away from us."
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Nov 06, 2024
Shortly after Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the U.S. presidential election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to enthusiastically congratulate him. Meanwhile, the Israeli military continued its violent assault on Gaza, killing multiple Palestinians in strikes on apartment buildings and homes. We speak to Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri about what we know of Trump's pro-Israel policies and how Trump beat Kamala Harris for the presidency. "Trump out-dramatized Harris, and that's how he won," he says.
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Nov 06, 2024
Donald Trump's performance in the 2024 election surpassed expectations, with the candidate winning the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia and picking up larger shares of more diverse segments of the electorate, including Black and Latino male voters. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, says the blame lies squarely on the Harris campaign, which refused to differentiate itself from unpopular incumbent President Joe Biden. "The problem here is with the leadership of the Democratic Party," adds John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation. Nichols and Taylor discuss how Democrats "demobilized" young voters and grassroots organizers, to their electoral detriment. "Donald Trump, as a president who has very few guardrails, has the potential to take horrific actions," says Nichols. For those seeking to oppose him, says Taylor, "There's a lot of rebuilding that has to be done."
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Nov 06, 2024
In the Arab American-majority city of Dearborn, Michigan, Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by over six percentage points, with third-party candidate Jill Stein capturing nearly one-fifth of the vote. During the primary elections, a majority of Democratic voters in Dearborn selected "uncommitted" over then-presumptive nominee Joe Biden, citing disapproval of the president's handling of Israel's aggression in the Middle East. "Uncommitted" voters continued to press the Harris campaign to shift its Israel policy as the election went on, but were routinely ignored. Democrats "made a calculation that they did not need Arab American, Muslim American and Palestinian American voters," says Palestinian American organizer Linda Sarsour, who was in Dearborn on election night. We speak to Sarsour about the Harris campaign's failure to secure the support of a previously key part of the Democratic base. "We are going to be in big trouble, and I blame that solely on the Democratic Party and one of the worst campaigns I have seen in my 23 years in organizing."
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Nov 06, 2024
When Donald Trump reenters the White House, he will be met with a newly Republican-controlled Senate, consolidating power in the hands of a party now dominated by supporters of Trump. We take a look at the results of down-ballot races for the Senate and House, and the possibilities for congressional opposition to Trump's agenda with John Nichols, The Nation's national affairs correspondent. Nichols notes that losing Democratic Senate candidates missed opportunities to highlight working-class voters and economic issues, likely to their detriment.
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Nov 06, 2024
"This is a collapse of the Democratic Party." Consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader comments on the reelection of Donald Trump and the failures of the Democratic challenge against him. Despite attempts by left-wing segments of the Democratic base to shift the party's messaging toward populist, anti-corporate and progressive policies, says Nader, Democrats "didn't listen." Under Trump, continues Nader, "We're in for huge turmoil."
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Nov 06, 2024
Donald Trump has been reelected president of the United States. Ahead of Kamala Harris's expected concession speech, we speak to professors Carol Anderson and Michele Goodwin to discuss Harris's historic campaign — and historic loss. "The Confederacy won," says Anderson, a professor of African American studies at Emory University. "It paints a picture of what Americans are willing to embrace," says Goodwin, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown and an expert on healthcare law, who warns of the public health dangers of a second Trump administration and discusses the election's implications for reproductive rights.
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Nov 06, 2024
Donald Trump Wins Presidency After Kamala Harris Underperforms in Swing States, Republicans Win Senate Majority for First Time Since 2020, House of Representatives Remains Up for Grabs as Vote Counting Continues, Voters in 7 States Approve Abortion Rights Measures; 3 Others Fail, Protests Erupt Across Israel After Netanyahu Fires War Chief Yoav Gallant, Palestinians Condemn Biden's Support for Israeli Military as Assault on Gaza Continues, Israeli Raids on Occupied West Bank Kill 8, Wound Child and Photojournalist, Israeli Strike on Residential Building Kills 20 in Beirut Suburb, NGOs Ask U.N. Human Rights Council to Probe Israel's Assault on Lebanon, U.K. Authorities Drop Terrorism Charges for Retired Academic Who Advocated for Palestinian Rights, Rudy Giuliani Empties Prized Possessions from Manhattan Home Following $148M Defamation Judgment
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Nov 05, 2024
As Latino voters are a key voting bloc in the 2024 presidential election in battleground states like Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania, they have been targeted by a rise in Spanish-language misinformation. Most of the false messaging disparages Kamala Harris and supports Donald Trump, says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, host of Latino USA, which investigated the phenomenon in a new episode called "The Misinformation Web." She interviewed some of the content creators in this "blob" of online vitriol and says there is almost no effective content moderation online, nor many reliable fact-checking sources in Spanish to counter the lies.
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Nov 05, 2024
In a major piece for Mother Jones magazine on "Why Ballot Measures Are Democracy's Last Line of Defense," voting rights correspondent Ari Berman discusses abortion ballot measures in 10 states, important downballot races in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and the movement to abolish or reform the Electoral College.
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Nov 05, 2024
Ari Berman, the voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, details how pro-Trump forces may try to throw out the results of the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins, with a focus on the swing state of Georgia, the "epicenter" of Trump's failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. "It's very dangerous to imagine what people who don't believe in free and fair elections can do when given the power to oversee those very elections," says Berman.
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Nov 05, 2024
As voters across the United States head to the polls, we speak with New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg about how Donald Trump may try to preemptively declare victory and challenge election results. The former president has ramped up claims Democrats are "a bunch of cheats" and preemptively cast doubt on a win by Vice President Kamala Harris, following a similar playbook as 2020 when he baselessly claimed the election was stolen. Rutenberg spoke to pro-Trump election officials in battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania who say they are ready to refuse to certify local election results as part of a wide-ranging effort to throw the system into disarray. Rutenberg says after the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021, many in Trump's orbit had a clear goal for 2024: "We have to go local." He also discusses the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 that makes it harder to stop the final certification of results.
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Nov 05, 2024
As voters across the United States head to the polls on Election Day, many face "a choice between two unsatisfactory candidates," says Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. This choice is especially "excruciating" for those "who are outraged by our government's continued support for Israel's yearlong genocidal assault on Gaza." He says the 2024 election has echoes of 1968, when many progressives sat out the election because of anger over Vietnam, but Richard Nixon's victory and ultimate expansion of the war proved to be disastrous. "It would take many years for some of us to realize we had made a big mistake in sitting out that election. … Making these decisions at the time of election may be difficult but sometimes necessary to do to open up the way for possible change in the future.
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Nov 05, 2024
Harris and Trump Make Final Pitches in What Could Be One of Closest Elections in Modern U.S. History, PA Judge Allows Elon Musk to Go Ahead with $1M Daily Giveaway Scheme for Swing State Voters, Israel Kills 70 People in Gaza over Past Day, Launches More Attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, Aid Entering Gaza at Just 6% of Pre-Genocide Deliveries as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA, "Not the End of the Semester": State Dept. Says Too Early to "Grade" Israel on North Gaza Actions, At Least 4 West Bank Palestinians Killed as Israeli Soldiers and Settlers Continue Deadly Attacks, Death Toll from Israeli Assault on Lebanon Tops 3,000 After More Deadly Strikes This Week, Syria Blasts Israeli Airstrikes Near Damascus, Which Killed at Least 2 People, Putin Hosts Pyongyang Officials as NATO Calls North Korean Troops in Ukraine War an "Escalation", White Ex-Cop Found Guilty of Murder in Andre Hill Shooting, Two Ohio Officers Charged with Reckless Homicide in Killing of Frank Tyson, Boeing Workers Approve New Contract with 43% Raises Over 4 Years, Ending Costly Weekslong Strike
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Nov 04, 2024
All eyes are on Michigan as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris battle over undecided voters in the crucial swing state, including many of the state's 200,000 Arab American and Muslim voters who reject both the Republican and Democratic parties' stance on Israel and Palestine. We speak to Dearborn, Michigan's Lebanese American Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who is the first Arab and Muslim mayor of the city, about many of his constituents' loss of support for the Democratic Party and how the Arab American vote could impact the presidential election. Hammoud, like many Dearborn residents, has lost extended family to Israel's attacks on Lebanon, and describes the climate in the city as "a blanket of grief." Having called for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel, he refused to meet with Trump last week, but has also declined to endorse Harris. Hammoud calls on voters to not sit out the election entirely, but to "vote their moral conscience, and says the citizens of Dearborn are "willing to put people over party, first and foremost."
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Nov 04, 2024
As Israel continues to block lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza, humanitarian organizations are describing its siege as "apocalyptic" and warning of mass Palestinian starvation and death. "The situation is absolutely desperate," says Rachael Cummings of the aid group Save the Children International. Cummings joins us from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where aid organizations have been halted from entering the north. She responds to news of Israel's bombing of a polio vaccination center in an area that had been marked for an official humanitarian pause, and the Knesset's vote to ban the U.N. relief agency UNRWA.
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Nov 04, 2024
As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stirs up false claims of voter fraud ahead of Election Day, we look at the role of an increasingly "partisan" Federal Election Commission with former FEC general counsel Larry Noble, who explains why "voters of a lot of wealth have the ability to influence elections the way that the rest of us don't." As the influence of money in politics grows unchecked, he warns, it has the effect of "silencing the voter." Noble also responds to multibillionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk's $1 million giveaways to Pennsylvania voters and discusses the lasting impact of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision on campaign finance law.
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Nov 04, 2024
As Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaign in Pennsylvania on the last day before the presidential election, false claims of voter fraud are spreading. "The truth is, none of these lies have been about election integrity. It's always been about power," says Neil Makhija, chair of the board of elections in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania — the battleground state that "could decide the election" — in a video essay featured by The New York Times. Makhija joins Democracy Now! to discuss his work expanding access to the vote and debunking the myth of mass voter fraud.
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Nov 04, 2024
Harris and Trump in Swing State of Pennsylvania on Last Day of Campaigning Before Election, Protesters Center Abortion Rights in Preelection Women's March to White House, Israel's Genocidal Assault on Northern Gaza Continues as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA, Progressive Reps Warn U.S. Involvement in Middle East Unlawful as Pentagon Sends More Arms to Israel, "No Votes for Genocide": Protesters in NYC Decry U.S. Support for Israel Ahead of Nov. 5, King Felipe Taunted by Angry Crowds as He Visits Flood-Stricken Valencia, Int'l Biodiversity Conference Ends with New Indigenous U.N. Body, No Deal on Financing, Moldova's EU-Aligned President Maia Sandu Wins Second Term, Prosecutors in Republic of Georgia Investigating Election Fraud After Disputed Polls, More Accounts from Sudan of Rape Being Used as Weapon of War, Genocide, Bad Bunny Performs at Rally for Puerto Rico's Center-Left, Third-Party Coalition Alianza, Ex-Cop Brett Hankison Found Guilty of Violating Breonna Taylor's Civil Rights, Faces Life in Prison, Pioneering Music Producer Quincy Jones Has Died at 91
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Nov 01, 2024
With just days to go before the November 5 presidential election, fears are growing that Republicans intend to interfere with the official results in order to install Donald Trump as president. At Sunday's Madison Square Garden rally, Trump said he had a "little secret" with House Speaker Mike Johnson that would have a "big impact" on the outcome, though neither he nor Johnson elaborated on what that entailed. Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent for The Nation, says the secret is almost certainly a plan to force a contingent election, whereby no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College and the president is instead chosen by the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority. Mystal notes that even if Democrats challenge such an outcome, the case would still end up before a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority that is likely to side with Trump.
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Nov 01, 2024
We speak with The Nation's John Nichols in Wisconsin, where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are spending a lot of their time in the closing days of the election in a tight battle for the state's 10 Electoral College votes. Nichols also discusses the battle for the Senate, with key races in Wisconsin and Nebraska; how New York races could tip control of the House to Democrats; and why Kamala Harris needs to expand her message beyond the threat of Trump's authoritarianism. "At the doors, people want to talk about economics," says Nichols.
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Nov 01, 2024
Kamala Harris is blasting Donald Trump for vowing to protect women whether they "like it or not" at the same time he is calling for Republican Liz Cheney to be shot in the face. We get response from The Nation's abortion access correspondent Amy Littlefield and talk about 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot, including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota and Missouri. Trump's remarks are a "succinct and clear definition of patriarchy," says Littlefield. She argues the 2024 election will be decided in large part by white women and whether they will vote for abortion rights. Trump is "laying out the bargain that white patriarchy has offered for white women in this country," says Littlefield. "He is saying, 'White women, we will protect you from Brown and Black men.'"
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Nov 01, 2024
At Least 95 Palestinians Are Killed in One Day as Israel Intensifies Attacks on Northern Gaza, Israeli Forces Detain, Beat and Brand Palestinians After Deadly West Bank Raid, Israel's Assault on Lebanon Destroys or Damages One-Quarter of All Buildings Near Border, Peace Activists Celebrate as Barclays Sells Shares of Israeli Weapons Maker Elbit Systems, In Arizona, Kamala Harris Promotes Women's Rights; Donald Trump Says Liz Cheney Should Be Shot, Bill Clinton Sparks Outrage After Saying Israel Was "Forced" to Kill Civilians in Gaza, Death Toll from Flash Flooding in Spain Soars to 158, Papua New Guinea to Boycott U.N. Climate Talks After Calling Out "Empty Talk" of Polluters, North Korea Test-Fires ICBM, Sends 10,000 Troops to Join Russian Forces Near Ukraine, "I Have a Death Squad": Philippines Ex-President Rodrigo Duterte Admits to Extrajudicial Killings, Botswana's President Concedes in Ruling Party's First Defeat Since Decolonization, Brazil: Two Ex-Cops Who Confessed to Killing Marielle Franco Get Long Prison Terms
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Oct 31, 2024
We speak with former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffer Nina Turner about how the 2024 election has left her and many voters "frustrated" and "exhausted." While she is not endorsing a candidate, she denounces the white supremacist rhetoric of the Trump campaign, which she notes is "as American as apple pie." Turner pushes back on comparisons of the Trump movement to the rise of Nazi Germany, which she argues threaten to whitewash the United States' own anti-democratic history. "The unfulfilled promises of this country, the undealt-with anti-Blackness and other types of racism and bigotry have not been dealt with sufficiently," she explains. "It is us, and we need to deal with it and not push it off on some other nation."
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Oct 31, 2024
"There can be no middle ground, not in this moment." As the U.S. presidential race draws to a close, Bishop William Barber, the national co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School and co-author of White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, explains why he is endorsing Kamala Harris for president in his personal capacity. In contrast to Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric and policies that will benefit the rich, Barber says "we see clearly Harris trying to unify." He makes a theological argument for opposing Trump and also discusses voting rights and access in his home state of North Carolina.
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Oct 31, 2024
We are joined by U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, who says Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Facing accusations of antisemitism from Israeli and U.S. officials, Albanese is in New York to present her report, titled "Genocide as colonial erasure," which finds that Israel's genocide is founded on "ideological hatred" and "dehumanization" and "enabled through the various organs of the state," and recommends that Israel be unseated from the United Nations over its conduct. She argues that Israel's attacks on U.N. employees, including the killings of at least 230 U.N. staff in Gaza, its flagrant violations of U.N. resolutions and international law and the unique status of "the first settler-colonial genocide to be ever litigated before [an international] court" justify this unprecedented measure. Israel's continued impunity, Albanese warns, "is the nail in the coffin of the U.N. Charter."
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Oct 31, 2024
Israeli Attacks on Lebanon's Baalbek Kill 19 as Prime Minister Mikati Hopes for Ceasefire Soon, Israel Is Committing War Crimes by Targeting Health Infrastructure, U.N. Peacekeepers in Lebanon, Israel Attacks Kamal Adwan in North Gaza, Continues Deadly Strikes Across the Strip, State Dept. Largely Ignoring 500 Reports of U.S. Weapons Used to Kill or Injure Palestinians in Gaza, Elon Musk Faces Philly Hearing over Pro-Trump Super PAC's $1M Voter Giveaway Scheme, SCOTUS Allows Virginia to Continue Voter Roll Purge Less Than One Week Before Election, Supreme Court Rejects RFK Jr.'s Request to Remove Name from Ballot in Swing States, House Speaker Mike Johnson Vows GOP Will Dismantle Obamacare, "Blowtorch" Regulations If Trump Wins, Harris Hits Back After Trump Claims He'll Protect Women "Whether They Like It or Not", Texas Abortion Ban Led to Deaths of at Least Two Patients Denied Reproductive Care, Man Who Plotted to Kidnap Nancy Pelosi and Attacked Her Husband Gets Life in Prison, Mexican Journalists Paty Bunbury and Mauricio Cruz Solís Assassinated, U.N. General Assembly Votes to Condemn U.S. Embargo on Cuba for 32nd Consecutive Year, Trial Opens for Ex-Cops Accused of Murdering Rio de Janeiro Councilmember Marielle Franco
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Oct 30, 2024
Anti-trans attacks are a key part of Donald Trump's campaign message, and Republicans are spending tens of millions of dollars in the last stretch of the presidential race to flood the airwaves and social media with political ads that focus on transgender rights. "Transphobia is not just a plank but a key pillar of the Republican Party," says journalist Imara Jones of TransLash Media. "The Republican Party has become an extremist movement." Jones is host of the investigative podcast The Anti-Trans Hate Machine, which just launched a new season about how paramilitary groups have weaponized transphobia to forge ties to Republicans and stoke political violence. "Being anti-trans is a signal for extremists as to who is on their side, and that signal then allows them to work together to push the country more and more to its extremes," she says.
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Oct 30, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris made her closing argument Tuesday in a major speech at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., scene of the Trump rally in 2021 that led to the Capitol riot. Harris described Trump as a tyrant who would shred the rule of law if given another four years in office. The Republican campaign, meanwhile, is still dealing with fallout from Sunday's rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speakers made a series of racist and dehumanizing remarks about Puerto Ricans, Black people, Palestinians and more. For more on the state of the race with less than a week to go before Election Day, we speak with journalist, author and academic Marc Lamont Hill, who says despite Kamala Harris's flaws, her message to voters is clear: "Donald Trump is worse." Hill also discusses President Joe Biden's role in the Democratic campaign, the exaggerated migration of Black men to the Republican camp and the threat of violence if Trump loses again. "No one is safe in a Trump presidency. No one is safe the day after a Trump loss," says Hill.
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Oct 30, 2024
WFP Calls for Urgent Action to Prevent Famine as Israeli Siege on Gaza Continues, Israeli Military Orders Entire Population of Baalbek to Flee or Face Bombs, Palestinian Political Prisoner Marwan Barghouti Says He Was Assaulted by Israeli Guards, Norway Seeks ICJ Opinion on Whether Israel's UNRWA Ban Violates International Law, U.N. Mission in Sudan Warns of "Staggering" Levels of Sexual Violence by Paramilitaries, Mozambique Opposition Calls for Fresh Protests over Alleged Election Fraud , Kamala Harris Rallies Tens of Thousands as She Delivers "Closing Arguments" of 2024 Campaign , Trump Insists Hate-Filled New York City Rally Was a "Love Fest", Kamala Harris Wins Endorsement of Dozens of Nobel Prize Winners, 1,000 Religious Leaders, Steve Bannon Is Released from Prison Ahead of December Trial for Defrauding Donors, Floods in Spain Kill Dozens After a Month's Rain Falls Within 24 Hours, Toxic Smog Shrouds India's Capital Region, More Than One-Third of World's Trees Face Extinction
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Oct 29, 2024
The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post announced that they would not be endorsing anyone in the U.S. presidential election this year, breaking decades of precedent and overriding planned endorsements of Kamala Harris. The decisions were ordered by the outlets' multibillionaire owners, Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos. We speak with the Los Angeles Times editorials editor Mariel Garza, who quit when the paper killed the endorsement of Harris, and veteran Washington Post reporter David Hoffman, who stepped down from the paper's editorial board in response. "We are right on the doorstep of the most consequential election in our lifetimes. To pull the plug on the endorsement, to go silent against Trump days before the election, that to me was just unconscionable," says Hoffman. "This is not a time in American history when anyone can remain silent or neutral," adds Garza.
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Oct 29, 2024
We take a close look at Donald Trump's campaign and racist rally at Madison Square Garden with filmmaker Marshall Curry, who attended the rally and also directed the short film A Night at the Garden, about the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, and notes, "The demagogues in 1939 used the same tactics that we see today."
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Oct 29, 2024
We speak with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on facism and authoritarianism, who argues that Trump's use of the hallmarks of "fascism and violence," including dehumanizing rhetoric, profane and crude discriminatory language and threats to the "enemy within," echoes the rise of midcentury fascist rulers like Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler.
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Oct 29, 2024
In the final week ahead of the presidential election, Republican Donald Trump's campaign is facing widespread backlash after his rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden, where conservative comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico "an island of garbage" and others leaned into racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. We speak to journalist Jean Guerrero, who has published books on Trump's white nationalist agenda and her own Latina and Puerto Rican identity. Trump is "seeking to restrict the notion of what it means to be American," says Guerrero. Trump and his supporters are not only othering immigrants and people of color, she argues, but anyone who does not fit a narrow, right-wing view of citizenship. "If you are a liberal, if you believe in compassion and equality and freedom for all, you do not belong in Donald Trump's America."
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Oct 29, 2024
Israeli Attack on Beit Lahia Kills at Least 93 Palestinians as Siege of Northern Gaza Continues, Israeli Lawmakers Ban U.N. Aid Agency for Palestinian Refugees, Israeli Attacks on Lebanon Flatten Homes in Tyre and Kill at Least 60 in Beqaa Valley, South Africa Files Documents with ICJ Providing Evidence of Israel's Genocide in Gaza, Israelis Protest Outside Knesset to Call for Hostage Deal, 1,000 Writers Sign On to Israeli Boycott Pledge over Gaza Genocide, Occupation of Palestine, Trump to Rally in Majority-Latinx Allentown Amid Fallout over Comic's Racist Puerto Rico "Jokes", CNN Bans Right-Wing Pundit After He Tells Mehdi Hasan "I Hope Your Beeper Doesn't Go Off", Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner Sues Elon Musk over $1M Swing State Giveaway, FBI Investigating Arson Attacks on Ballot Boxes in Washington and Portland, World Meteorological Association Warns Humans Running Out of Time on Climate
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Oct 28, 2024
In the swing state of Arizona, President Biden formally apologized Friday for U.S. government-run Native American boarding schools, which sought to exterminate Indigenous culture by forcibly removing children from their families and placing them in institutions where their languages and customs were suppressed. "If the Democrats want the vote of Indian people, we want them to stand with us, not only on issues like the apology around boarding schools, but we also want them to stand with us in the solidarity that we have calling for a ceasefire in Palestine," says Nick Tilsen, founder and CEO of the Indigenous-led NDN Collective. He says that while Biden's apology could be the start of an "era of repair" between Indigenous peoples and the U.S. government, the apology must be followed by action. Among the NDN Collective's demands is major investment in preserving Indigenous languages, the rescinding of military honors for U.S. soldiers who took part in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and clemency for imprisoned activist Leonard Peltier. "America's longest-living Indigenous political prisoner, who's incarcerated right now at the age of 80 years old in a maximum-security prison, is actually a boarding school survivor," Tilsen says of Peltier.
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Oct 28, 2024
We speak with Iranian American policy analyst Trita Parsi about Israel's latest attack on Iran on Saturday, when it bombed military facilities and air defense systems in the country. Iran said four soldiers were killed in the attack. Israel also struck air defense batteries and radars in Syria and Iraq. Israel's assault this weekend came about four weeks after Iran launched a missile attack on Israeli military sites in response to Israel's war on Lebanon and Israel's assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, part of a series of actions between the two countries since the outbreak of the war on Gaza last year. "The Israelis are just continuously escalating the situation," says Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He warns that Iran's relatively restrained responses to Israeli actions could encourage decision-makers in both Israel and the United States to "go all the way" and strike Iranian nuclear sites and other major targets. "This, unfortunately, is leading — much thanks to the approach of the Biden administration — towards a much larger escalation."
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Oct 28, 2024
More than 3,000 Israelis have signed an open letter urging "global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire." The signatories say they are motivated by patriotic duty to stop the country's war crimes in Gaza and beyond, but say the lack of sanctions from other countries has allowed Israel to continue to pursue war, abandon the hostages still held in Gaza, ignore domestic opposition and persecute Palestinian citizens of Israel without real cost. "Unfortunately, the majority of Israelis support the continuation of the war and massacres, and a change from within is not currently feasible. The state of Israel is on a suicidal path and sows destruction and devastation that increase day by day," reads the letter. For more, we speak with Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, one of the signatories of the open letter, who says international powers including allies like the United States need to "put their leg down and say enough is enough." We also speak with him about Israel's well-documented history of using Palestinians as human shields, including in its current war on Gaza.
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Oct 28, 2024
Israel's three-week siege of northern Gaza has killed at least 1,000 Palestinians. Most of the dead are women and children. On Saturday, Israeli forces withdrew from Kamal Adwan Hospital just one day after storming it, with health officials saying that soldiers detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients. This comes as the Israeli government has banned six medical NGOs from entering Gaza despite the dire humanitarian crisis stemming from repeated displacements of the population, widespread disease, injuries from Israeli attacks, hunger and more. Some 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war on Gaza last October, according to local officials, although the true toll is likely far higher. "The healthcare infrastructure is destroyed. Many of the local doctors have been either killed or kidnapped. The patients are left stranded; no one is providing any help to them," says Mosab Nasser, CEO of FAJR Scientific, one of the six medical aid groups banned by Israel.
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Oct 28, 2024
U.N. Chief Urges Restraint After Israel Bombs Iranian Targets Saturday, "North Gaza's Entire Population at Risk of Dying": Israel Decimates Northern Gaza, Incl. Hospitals, DOJ Lawyers Call on Merrick Garland to Investigate Israeli Killings of U.S. Citizens, Israel Strikes Tyre, Killing at Least 7, as It Continues Its Assault on Lebanon, Microsoft Fires Employees, Harvard Suspends Professors & Students over Gaza Solidarity Protests, Trump's NYC Rally Filled with Explicitly Racist Attacks, Threats to Trump Critics, Kamala Harris Appears with Beyoncé, Michelle Obama as She Rallies Voters Ahead of Nov. 5, WaPo and L.A. Times Face Backlash as Billionaire Owners Block Editorial Push to Endorse Kamala Harris, Virginia Judge Blocks GOP Voter Purge Less Than 2 Weeks Before Election, "Atrocious Crimes": U.N. Warns of Mounting Bloodshed in Sudan's Gezira State, Uruguay Headed to Runoff After Center-Left Candidate Orsi Falls Short of 50% of Votes, Evo Morales Blames Bolivian President Luis Arce for Apparent Assassination Attempt, Biden Apologizes for U.S.-Run Boarding Schools That Abused and Killed Native Children
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Oct 25, 2024
Will the BRICS economic and political alliance change the world's U.S.-centered balance of power? As the annual BRICS summit wraps up in Russia, we host a debate between American economist Richard Wolff and South African sociologist Patrick Bond over the significance of the conference. This year, the nine BRICS countries invited 13 new "partner states" into their alliance, which Wolff calls "historic" and "a serious economic competitor to the United States and its role in the world." Bond, on the other hand, argues that BRICS should be considered a "subimperial" formation, which expands and legitimates the existing world economic system rather than truly disrupting it.
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Oct 25, 2024
In an extended interview, Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha discusses the situation in Gaza and his new book of poetry titled Forest of Noise. He fled Gaza in December after being detained by the Israeli military, but many of his extended family members were unable to escape. He reads a selection of poems from Forest of Noise, while sharing the stories of friends and family still struggling to survive in Gaza, as well as those he has lost, including the late poet Refaat Alareer. He also describes his experiences in Gaza in the first months of the war, including being displaced from his home and abducted by the Israeli military, noting that the neighborhood in Jabaliya refugee camp that his family first evacuated to last year was bombed by the Israeli military just days ago. "Sometimes I want to stop writing because I'm repeating the same words, even though the situation is worse. The language is helpless," Abu Toha says. "Why does the world make us feel helpless?"
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Oct 25, 2024
Israeli soldiers have just conducted what Gaza's Civil Defense is calling a "major massacre" in Jabaliya, with more than 150 people killed or injured and dozens of buildings destroyed. It is the latest atrocity amid the military's weekslong siege of northern Gaza. "It's getting worse and worse," says Dr. Mohammed Salha in a call from the Jabaliya refugee camp, where he is acting director of Al-Awda Hospital.
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Oct 25, 2024
"A Major Massacre" in Jabaliya; Israeli Forces Raid Kamal Adwan Hospital in Northern Gaza, Killing Patients, Israeli Airstrike Kills 3 Journalists in Southern Lebanon, BRICS Alliance Expands to Include 13 New Members, Tropical Storm Trami Spawns Deadly Mudslides in Philippines, U.N. Report Says World Could See 3.1°C Warming by 2100 Without Urgent Action on Climate, Pacific Island States Demand Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty, King Charles Offers No Apology for Slavery, Avoids Talk of Reparations at Commonwealth Summit, Protests Continue in Mozambique After Frelimo Presidential Candidate Daniel Chapo Wins Election, Dominican and Haitian New Yorkers Condemn DR's Mass Deportation of Haitians, Trump Spews Anti-Immigrant Hate Speech; Harris Joined by Obama, Celebs in Final Days of Campaign, Al Otro Lado Wins Lawsuit Against DHS for Illegal Policy of Turning Asylum Seekers Away from Border, Biden to Issue Formal Apology for Gov't-Run Native American Boarding Schools
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Oct 24, 2024
We speak with Dr. Ahmed Ghanim, a prominent Muslim leader and former Democratic candidate for Congress, after the Kamala Harris campaign apologized for kicking him out of a Detroit election event Monday to which he was invited. Harris's staunch support for Israel as it continues its brutal war on Gaza has infuriated many Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, and while Ghanim says it's a very important issue to him, he was not there to protest. He was also not given a reason for his removal, even after the campaign called him to apologize. "Apology without accountability is not an apology," he says, adding that the incident has left him questioning whether Democrats still believe in diversity and inclusion or if "Muslims and Arabs don't have room anymore in this party."
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Oct 24, 2024
Al Jazeera is demanding the safety of its staff in the Gaza Strip after Israel claimed that six of the network's journalists there have ties to militant groups. Press freedom advocates say the Israeli accusation amounts to a preemptive justification for murder. Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza last October, at least 128 journalists have been killed, including many from Al Jazeera. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Israel has a history of smearing Palestinian journalists with unproven claims, including in July, when Israel killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and later released documents claiming to prove al-Ghoul had received a Hamas military ranking when he was just 10 years old. "There is a pattern of Israel making these kinds of allegations, providing evidence that is, frankly, not credible or, in some cases, no evidence at all," says Jodie Ginsberg, CPJ's chief executive officer. "As we have fewer and fewer journalists reporting … we have less and less information coming out of Gaza. And it's absolutely essential that we have that information, that we have those images, so that the international community can understand the scale of what's happening."
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Oct 24, 2024
The leading Israeli human rights group B'Tselem warned this week the world must stop the "ethnic cleansing" of northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has imposed a brutal siege since October 5, demanding that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee south or face death. Israel is blocking almost all food, water and medicine from reaching northern Gaza while its forces carry out deadly raids and bombardment of the area, overwhelming the remaining hospitals. B'Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli says it's impossible to watch events unfold and "not conclude that what is going on there is the deliberate pressuring by the Israeli army of the civilian population of the area to move out of this area in order to empty it of Palestinians."
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Oct 24, 2024
Israel is escalating its bombardment of Lebanon, leveling numerous buildings, including the offices of Lebanese news station Al Mayadeen. The Israeli military has also attacked the ancient city of Tyre, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, and killed three Lebanese soldiers in a strike in southern Lebanon, all while continuing to defy international calls for a ceasefire. "What we're seeing is a complete degeneration into a war that has no rules, that respects no international conventions. There's one side in this war that has complete impunity," says Lebanese sociologist Rima Majed in Beirut. "Israel is targeting civilians in most cases. … This is just terrorism."
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Oct 24, 2024
Israeli Attack on Nuseirat Kills 17; Israeli Extermination Campaign in Northern Gaza Enters 20th Day, "A Dangerous Escalation": Al Jazeera Blasts Israel's Accusations Against Journalists, Israel Carries Out 17 Overnight Strikes in Lebanon, Destroys Offices of Al Mayadeen News Station, Jewish Students Show Solidarity with Gaza During Sukkot Despite Crackdown from Universities, Faith Leaders Demand NYC Council Take Up Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, Hundreds of Spanish Artists, Academics Call for Total Arms Embargo on Israel, Turkey Strikes Kurdistan Workers' Party in Syria, Iraq After Deadly Attack on Turkish Aerospace Co., U.N. Warns of Catastrophic Hunger in Sudan, Where Civilians Face Indiscriminate Attacks, Harris Campaign Reports Record Fundraising Haul, Outraising Trump 3 to 1 in September, Harris Calls Trump a "Fascist" After John Kelly Says Trump Praised Hitler and Would Rule Like a Dictator, Justice Department Warns Elon Musk over $1 Million Payments to Registered Voters, Model Stacey Williams Says Trump Groped Her in "Twisted Game" with Jeffrey Epstein, Boeing Workers Reject Tentative Union Contract, Extend Strike to Win Pension Benefits, U.S. Infant Deaths Spiked After Supreme Court Allowed States to Ban Abortion, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Who Brought a "Theology of Liberation" to Catholic Church, Dies at 96
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Oct 23, 2024
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is continuing to resist calls to resign after being indicted on federal corruption charges. In recent weeks, at least seven senior city officials have resigned, leaving the city government in a state of crisis. This comes a year before New Yorkers will vote to pick the city's next mayor. Adams has vowed to run for reelection, but opponents, including fellow Democrats, are lining up to run against him. We are joined now by New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who has just announced he will join the race. Mamdani is a Ugandan-born Democratic Socialist who was elected to the New York State Assembly four years ago. He is running on a platform centered on the needs of working-class New Yorkers and easing the cost-of-living crisis. He shares a number of his policy proposals and also discusses his pro-Palestine advocacy in the State Assembly, where earlier this year he introduced the Not on Our Dime Act, which would prevent New York charities from providing financial support for Israeli settlement activity.
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