| Democracy Now! |
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| "The Supreme Court Is a Product of Minority Rule": Author Ari Berman on America's Undemocratic System |
| Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:41:10 -0400 |
| We speak with journalist and author Ari Berman about his new book, Minority Rule, which details how the United States has since its founding privileged the rights and interests of a small elite over the needs of the majority. He outlines how, for the first time in U.S. history, five of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote, and confirmed by senators elected by a minority of Americans. Berman says the court’s makeup is the product of two skewed institutions: how we elect our presidents through the Electoral College and how we appoint U.S. senators — both of which are flawed because they violate one person, one vote, violating the principle of equal representation, and empowering white, rural, conservative and wealthy citizens at the expense of more diverse and progressive parts of the country. “Our institutions are so antiquated, so undemocratic, that we need fundamental reform to change them, to democratize them,” Berman says. |
| "People Are Going to Die": Supreme Court Case on Idaho Abortion Ban Threatens ER Care Across U.S. |
| Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:29:48 -0400 |
| The Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the legality of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, which criminalizes the procedure in all circumstances unless the life of the parent is at risk. It’s the first such case to reach the high court since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. A key issue is whether a state ban can take precedence over the federal right to receive emergency care, including an abortion. The Biden administration argued that Idaho’s law violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA. If the justices side with Idaho, it could have major implications for reproductive care and worsen racial disparities for healthcare in at least half a dozen other states with similar bans. “People are going to die,” warns Karen Thompson, legal director of the nonprofit advocacy group Pregnancy Justice. “They are going to be bleeding out in hospital rooms. They’re going to be dying from sepsis because doctors are not going to be able to make the choices that they need to make to give people the care that will save their lives in these emergency situations.” |
| Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment |
| Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:11:32 -0400 |
| As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments. One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City. Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members. We hear from two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. We also speak with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeatedly suppressed activism on campus since the start of the war in October, and says law enforcement in Georgia work closely with Israeli authorities as part of a police training exchange. “We no longer accept our tuition dollars and our tax money going to fund an active genocide,” she says. |
| Headlines for April 26, 2024 |
| Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400 |
| USC Cancels Commencement Ceremony Amid Mounting Campus Unrest, Police Crackdown on Emory and Other Schools Won’t Deter Students Protesting for Palestinian Rights, Rafah Under Incessant Israeli Attacks Ahead of Anticipated Ground Invasion, New York Court Overturns Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 Rape Conviction, SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Trump Presidential Immunity Case, Though Resolution Could Come After Nov., David Pecker Testifies He Helped “Kill” Stories That Could Damage Trump Campaign, HRW Finds U.S.-Trained Forces in Burkina Faso “Summarily Executed” 223 People, Haiti’s Unelected Prime Minister Steps Down as Transitional Council Prepares to Rule, Indigenous Leaders Fight for Land Rights and Their Survival in Brasília, Heat Wave Leads to School Closures Across South & Southeast Asia, EPA Finalizes Rules Curbing Power Plant Emissions, But Climate Groups Slam “Carbon Capture Fantasy”, FCC Restores Net Neutrality |
| Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies |
| Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:51:44 -0400 |
| Student protests calling for university divestment from Israel and the U.S. arms industry have rocked campuses from coast to coast. The nonviolent protests, which have been characterized as “antisemitic” for their criticism of Israel, have been met with an intensifying police crackdown as university administrators threaten academic discipline and arrests. On Wednesday, local and state troopers violently arrested dozens at the University of Texas at Austin. Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia University in New York City, the site of a high-profile student encampment and one of the first to be met with police action, where he called on university president Minouche Shafik to resign. We hear from two Jewish students involved in protests at their schools. Joshua Sklar, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and an organizer with Jewish Voice of Peace Austin, says concern over campus antisemitism is insincere, and that, in fact, “The people who are being targeted are Muslim students, Arab students, and especially Palestinian students.” Sklar and Sarah King, a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest who was arrested at the campus’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, also point out that a large percentage of protesters are Jewish anti-Zionists concerned about their safety from state repression. “The threat is really coming from Columbia University, which has set the police on hundreds of its students who are entrusted to its care,” says King. |
| Amnesty International: Global Breakdown of Int'l Law Amid Flagrant War Crimes in Gaza & Beyond |
| Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:27:30 -0400 |
| Amnesty International has released its annual report assessing human rights in 155 countries. The report highlights Israel’s assault on Gaza with evidence of war crimes continuing to mount, as well as U.S. failures to denounce rights violations committed by Israel. It also points to Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and the rise of authoritarianism and massive rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar. We speak to Agnès Callamard, the organization’s secretary general, who warns “the international system is on the brink of collapse” and decries the failure of rights mechanisms and Israel’s top ally, the United States, to rein in its “unprecedented” assault on Gaza. |
| Bodies Recovered at Mass Graves in Nasser Hospital Bear Signs of Torture, Mutilation & Execution |
| Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:12:14 -0400 |
| At least 320 bodies have been discovered buried in a mass grave at the destroyed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, just weeks after a similar mass grave containing up to 400 bodies was discovered amid the ruins of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Some of the bodies, which include children, medical staff and patients, appear to have been executed or buried alive. Meanwhile, Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza as its assault of the beleaguered enclave surpasses 200 days. “Every single body that is being unearthed, you find tens of people rushing for the sake of identifying whether those are their relatives,” says Akram al-Satarri, a journalist based in Gaza. “Some of the people were tied. Some of the people had medical accessories on their hands, like the cannulas. And when they were unearthed from the ground, it was apparent that they were buried alive. Some people were tortured. Some of the bodies were extremely mutilated, which means that those bodies, some of their organs were taken by the Israeli occupation.” |
| Headlines for April 25, 2024 |
| Thu, 25 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400 |
| Biden Signs $95B in Foreign Aid, as New Report Details U.S. Weapons Transfer Violates Int’l Law, WFP Renews Famine Warning in Gaza, Where 70% of North Faces Catastrophic Hunger, Aid Groups Warns Lebanon on “Brink of Imploding” After Months of Cross-Border Attacks, USC Students Continue Protest Despite Mass Arrests, Inspired by Gazans’ “Spirit of Resistance”, Police Move In on Peaceful Gaza Solidarity Protests at UT Austin, Princeton, Emerson and More, House Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Heckling at Columbia After Calling for National Guard on Campus, SCOTUS Hears Case on Idaho Abortion Ban, Which Only Allows Emergency Care If Patient Risks Death, Three Arizona Republicans Join Democrats to Repeal 1864 Abortion Ban in State House, Arizona Grand Jury Indicts Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani in “Fake Electors” Case, Iran Sentences Rapper Toomaj Salehi to Death for Supporting Popular Protests, TikTok Vows to Challenge Law Forcing It to “Ban or Divest”, 33 Climate Activists Arrested After Shutting Down Citigroup HQ |
| Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister: Deliberate U.S. Policy of "Destroying Cuban Economy" Drives Migration |
| Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:42:24 -0400 |
| We speak with Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, about high-level U.S.-Cuban migration talks held last week in Washington. He says U.S. policies that expedite permanent residency for Cubans in the United States play a major role in the movement of people between the two countries, but adds that the main driver of migration is the decadeslong U.S. embargo. “The economic conditions of the people of Cuba push them to migrate, and an important fact in provoking those conditions are U.S. deliberate policies of destroying the Cuban economy and make it unworkable.” Fernández de Cossío also discusses the 2024 election and policy overlap between the Trump and Biden administrations, Cuba’s position on the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza, recent protests inside Cuba over living conditions and more. |
| Climate Activists Blockade Citigroup HQ in NYC to Demand Banking Giant Stop Funding Fossil Fuels |
| Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:32:40 -0400 |
| Hundreds of climate activists gathered at the global headquarters of Citigroup in New York on Wednesday to demand the banking giant stop financing fossil fuel companies. The protests come on the heels of a first-of-its-kind Earth Day hearing where environmental activists from around the world gathered in New York this week to condemn what they call Citigroup’s environmental racism. Citibank is the world’s second-largest funder of coal, oil and gas. “They always say, 'We care about the planet.' … But actions speak louder than words,” says Alice Hu, climate campaigner for New York Communities for Change. “Citibank has poured over $332 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreements were signed in 2015.” We also speak with Roishetta Ozane, a Black environmental leader from Sulphur, Louisiana, who has been leading the fight against the expansion of Citigroup-funded liquified natural gas projects in her community. She says she has seen the health impacts of such projects on her own family. “I’m fighting not only for myself and my community, but for my children. And by fighting for my children, I’m fighting for everyone’s children,” says Ozane. |
| Months Ago State Dept. Panel Exposed Israeli Units' Rights Abuses, But U.S. Arms Keep Flowing |
| Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:25:35 -0400 |
| Months ago, a State Department panel urged the Biden administration to disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid over serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture. According to ProPublica, Secretary of State Blinken received the recommendation in December but has still not taken any action. “[Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, they have been publicly and fiercely lobbying against any proposed sanctions,” says ProPublica reporter Brett Murphy. “Gantz said he called Blinken personally and they talked about it. They want him to reverse course.” |
| Naomi Klein: Jews Must Raise Their Voices for Palestine, Oppose the "False Idol of Zionism" |
| Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:15:20 -0400 |
| Thousands of Jewish Americans and allies gathered in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover, held just a block from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to protest ongoing U.S. support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. “Too many of our people are worshiping a false idol,” said award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein, one of several speakers at Tuesday’s rally. “They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. And that false idol is called Zionism.” |
| "Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel": 100s Arrested at Jewish-Led Protest Near Schumer's Home |
| Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:12:03 -0400 |
| Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel. “At the core of the Passover story is that we cannot be free until all people are free,” Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told Democracy Now! “The Israeli government and the United States government are carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, over 34,000 people killed in six months in the name of Jewish safety, in the false name of Jewish freedom.” |
| Headlines for April 24, 2024 |
| Wed, 24 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400 |
| Senate OKs $95 Billion for Ukraine, Israel & Taiwan, U.S. Refuses to Back U.N. Calls for Probe into Mass Graves at Gaza Hospitals, Seder in the Streets: Hundreds Arrested in Brooklyn Protesting U.S. Arming of Israel, Crackdown Continues on College Campuses Against Pro-Palestinian Students, National Enquirer Publisher Admits to “Catch and Kill” Effort to Help Trump Win in 2016, Supreme Court to Hear Arguments on Idaho’s Near-Total Abortion Ban, Rep. Summer Lee Wins Primary: “Opposing Genocide Is Good Politics and Good Policy”, Ahead of Blinken Visit, China Condemns U.S. for Placing Missile Launchers in the Philippines, Argentina: Hundreds of Thousands Protest Milei’s Plans to Cut Education Spending, Indian Elections: Modi Accused of Hate Speech After Describing Muslims as “Infiltrators”, FTC Bans Most Noncompete Clauses, “Blood on Your Hands!”: Protesters Decry Tennessee Vote to Arm Teachers, Justice Dept. to Pay $139 Million to Gymnasts over Mishandling of Abuse Claims Against Dr. Larry Nassar, Mumia Abu-Jamal Turns 70; Supporters to Rally in Philadelphia |
| Labor Organizer Jane McAlevey on UAW's Astounding Victory in VW Tennessee & Her Fight Against Cancer |
| Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:47:35 -0400 |
| Democracy Now! speaks with the great labor organizer and writer Jane McAlevey about the historic victory for Volkswagen employees at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, factory who voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union. The plant will become the first foreign-owned car factory in the South to unionize. “This win wasn’t just a win — it was what we would call a beatdown,” says McAlevey, who says the UAW’s recent success is a result of direct democracy and smart, strategic organizing that could lead to the unionizing of Mercedes workers in Alabama. “It’ll be a massive change in the U.S. South.” We also speak with McAlevey about her terminal cancer diagnosis and why she’s “going to fight until the last dying minute, because that’s what American workers deserve.” |
| Juan González Reflects on Historic 1968 Columbia Protests & Crackdown on Gaza Solidarity Encampment |
| Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:39:39 -0400 |
| Fifty-six years ago today, hundreds of students at Columbia University in New York started a revolt on campus, occupying school buildings and disrupting class to protest the school’s ties to the Vietnam War and racism in New York. Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, who participated in the 1968 protests when hundreds of students were injured by police and arrested, speaks about the rebellion and how it compares to Columbia’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters occupying campus today. “What really strikes me about this response is the total flouting of any kind of democratic process by the current administration compared to what happened in 1968,” says González. “These students are protesting a genocide that is occurring before the eyes of the entire world and that is being funded by U.S. arms. And if anyone has the right to rebel and to stand up against injustice, these students do.” |
| Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale |
| Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:16:05 -0400 |
| Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel’s attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University. Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night. Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. “In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university,” says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. “The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and prohibitions on the fly, changing them in the middle of the night.” |
| Headlines for April 23, 2024 |
| Tue, 23 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0400 |
| More Bodies Uncovered at Nasser Hospital Grave as U.N. Warns of Intergenerational Trauma in Gaza, U.N. Commission Says Israel Still Has Not Provided Evidence of Oct. 7 Allegations Against UNRWA, Gaza Solidarity Encampments and Protests Burgeon Across College Campuses Amid Police Crackdown, PEN America Forced to Cancel Awards Ceremony Amid Fallout over Gaza Stance, Google Fires Another 20 Employees in Retaliation for Project Nimbus Protest, Prosecution and Defense Offer Opening Arguments in Trump’s Hush Money Trial, Liberal Justices Challenge Oregon City’s Homelessness Ban as SCOTUS Considers Key Case, U.K. Rams Through Plan to Deport Asylum Seekers to Rwanda Despite Major Legal and Rights Concerns, Two Mexican Mayoral Candidates Killed in One Day, Less Than 2 Months Away from Elections, Biden Administration Issues Rule Protecting Privacy of Reproductive Healthcare, Biden Announces $7B Solar Energy Plan, Including Thousands of American Climate Corps Jobs, Black and Indigenous Climate Leaders Organize Against Citigroup’s Funding of Fossil Fuels, Students File Complaints Against Universities’ Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry, South Korean Youth Activists Take Government to Court over Climate Crisis |
| "Enormous Expansion of the Law": James Bamford on FISA Extension, U.S.-Israel Data Sharing |
| Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:49:57 -0400 |
| President Biden has signed legislation to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act despite years of protest from rights groups and privacy experts who say the law is routinely used to conduct warrantless surveillance on millions of American citizens. The Senate approved the FISA bill on Friday in a 60-34 vote, and critics say it not only reauthorizes domestic spying but also dramatically expands its scope. “It’s an enormous amount of data that they’re collecting and very few rules” limiting its collection, says investigative journalist James Bamford. He warns that personal information collected by U.S. intelligence is also shared with Israel, which uses the data to target people in Gaza. “The U.S. has got to stop supplying all this data and the targeting materials,” he says. Bamford’s new article for The Nation is headlined “The NSA Wants Carte Blanche for Warrantless Surveillance.” |
| "Collective Punishment": As Gaza Assault Continues, Israel Ramps Up Violence in Occupied West Bank |
| Mon, 22 Apr 2024 08:38:44 -0400 |
| As the death toll in Gaza tops 34,000 Palestinians killed since October 7, Israeli forces and settlers have continued to ramp up violence in the occupied West Bank. The army killed at least 14 people during a two-day raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm over the weekend, and separately killed a Palestinian ambulance driver near Nablus as he was trying to reach Palestinians injured in an attack by Jewish settlers. Ramallah-based writer Mariam Barghouti says the Israeli military and armed settlers “are trying to continue the illegal annexation of lands in the West Bank” and says Israel is deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, just as in Gaza, to make life unbearable. She also responds to reports that the Biden administration is preparing to sanction the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a notorious unit within the Israeli military composed of ultra-Orthodox soldiers that is accused of carrying out human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. “It should not be against a select few. This entire regime is engaging in crimes against humanity, and it is U.S.-sponsored. It is being paid for by American tax dollars.” |
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