WASHINGTON – By a huge 57 percent margin, registered nurses at Maine’s largest hospital, Maine Medical Center (MMC) are joining the Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses United.

The Maine Med RNs voted 1,001 to 750 in a mail ballot election counted by the National Labor Relations Board, for form their first ever union. MSNA will now represent 2,000 RNs at Maine Med, the Scarborough Surgery Center and the MMC Brighton Campus in Portland. 

“It’s a new day for nurses and patients across Maine,” said MSNA President Cokie Giles, RN. “I am thrilled for my colleagues at Maine Med, for their resolve to win a collective voice for their patients and their community. And I look forward to working with you for the future of high-quality patient care for all Maine residents.”

Giles, who is also a vice president of NNU, called on Maine Med’s administration to “respect the democratic vote of the RNs, and begin work with them to negotiate a first collective bargaining agreement that would be in the best interests of the hospital, the nurses, and the community.”

“This is a dream come true, to bring us the unified strength we need to improve patient care conditions and workplace standards at Maine Med,” said Maine Med Mother Baby RN Jackie Fournier.

NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN praised the RNs. “Your courage to stand up and speak out for your patients and community in the face of the most serious threat to your own health and safety amid the worst global pandemic in a century has inspired nurses across the country. We could not be more impressed with your accomplishment.”

“We are proud to welcome Maine Med nurses to the NNU family,” said NNU President Jean Ross, RN. “Your votes, your voices today will be heard by nurses coast to coast. Like your NNU colleagues in recent months in North Carolina and North Dakota, you have sent an unmistakable signal that nurses can win for their patients, their families, and their colleagues anywhere.”

With the huge organizing win at Maine Medical Center coming on the heels of the organizing victory for 1,800 nurses in North Carolina in September, and other recent union wins, NNU reinforced its role as is one of the fastest growing unions in the U.S. Overall, NNU represents more than 170,000 RNs from coast to coast.

The RNs cited growing concerns about inadequate staffing, mandatory scheduling that requires nurses to rotate between working days and nights that they say leads to burnout and fatigue, lack of meal and break relief, assignments to work in units for which they do not have clinical experience and proper orientation, and other workplace improvements and standards.

Noting how the nurses lost another attempt to form a union two decades ago, Float Pool RN Julia Koger said that, since then “we’ve fallen behind on staffing, working conditions, and other benefits. This has only contributed to worsening retention. Meanwhile, nurses at union hospitals have been able to protect what they have and bargain for improvements. Nurses and patients at Maine Med deserve nothing less than that same right to bargain collectively.”

“MaineHealth has grown tremendously in recent years, but sometimes it feels like they’ve ‘outgrown’ bedside nurses’ clinical judgement,” said Maine Med Ambulatory Surgical Unit RN CJ Morse. “With a union and a union contract, RNs will have a real voice and we can hold MaineHealth accountable to our perspective as patient advocates.”

“As registered nurses, we can’t do our jobs properly without support from CNAs, techs, housekeeping, and so many others,” said Schola Mwangi-Walker, RN in the Inpatient Medical Psychiatry Unit. “Having a union will empower us to be strong advocates for all frontline staff at Maine Med. My previous hospital was a union hospital, and we always had the ability to advocate for our staff.”

Maine Med RNs also expressed thanks to Gov. Janet Mills, Senate President Troy Jackson, Rep. Michael Sylvester, the Maine State AFL-CIO, and many patients and community members for their words of encouragement during the campaign. “Your incredible support touched our hearts and encouraged us. It gave us hope for what we could achieve for our patients, ourselves, our colleagues, and as a model for all nurses in Maine,” said Emergency Department RN Michelle Burke.

In mid-March, Jackson sent a letter to hospital officials signed by more than 60 other state lawmakers, criticizing the aggressive harassment of the nurses by hospital managers and the high-priced Florida anti-union consultants.

In a commentary in the Portland Press Herald March 19, Jackson wrote, “Like most workers looking to organize, the nurses aren’t asking for much. All they want is fair wages, better hours, safe working conditions and a seat at the table. They’re not alone. Workers across Maine and the U.S. are joining or forming unions because of the pandemic… It’s about having the power to speak out when things get tough and push back against policies that lead to burnout and high turnover rates. This is especially true for health care.”

Under the banner “Friends of Maine Med Nurses” community supporters issued their own public letter in March. “Nurses give their all. They are the constant at Maine Med. They are the backbone… Nurses stand up for us and our loved ones, they answer our questions, they heal our kids, they explain procedures or medicines we struggle to understand, and they become part of our families … They put patients first, but too often they are not given the respect they deserve. Nurses advocate for us. The stronger our nurses feel, the better our health care will be.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

A coalition of 80 U.S. agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health, and worker groups sent a letter Thursday to key figures in the Biden administration calling for them to “respect Mexico’s sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies”—specifically, the phaseout of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn.

“It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer.”
—Kristin Schafer, PANNA

“Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree,” Timothy A. Wise of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (ITAP) noted earlier this year. “His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock.”

“Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States,” Wise added. “Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops.”

The groups’ letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference—published in English (pdf) and Spanish (pdf)—is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Its lead author is Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA).

“We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico’s decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming,” Schafer said in a statement. “It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, who are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits.”

Fernando Bejarano, director of Pesticide Action Network in Mexico, explained that “we are part of the No Maize No Country Campaign, a broad coalition of peasant organizations, nonprofit NGOs, academics, and consumers which support the presidential decree and fight for food sovereignty with the agroecological transformation of agricultural systems that guarantee the right to produce and consume healthy, nutritious food, free of pesticides and transgenics.”

“We reject the pressure from corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto—and their CropLife trade association—which are working in both the United States and Mexico to undermine the presidential decree that phases out the use of glyphosate and transgenic corn,” Bejarano said.

The letter highlights Guardian reporting on U.S. government documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents revealed that CropLife America and Bayer AG—which acquired glyphosate-based herbicide developer Monsanto in 2018—worked with U.S. officials to lobby against Mexico’s plans.

According to journalist Carey Gillam’s mid-February report:

The emails reviewed by the Guardian come from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and other U.S. agencies. They detail worry and frustration with Mexico’s position. One email makes a reference to staff within López Obrador’s administration as “vocal anti-biotechnology activists,” and another email states that Mexico’s health agency (Cofepris) is “becoming a big time problem.”

Internal USTR communications lay out how the agrochemical industry is “pushing” for the U.S. to “fold this issue” into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal that went into effect July 1. The records then show the USTR does exactly that, telling Mexico its actions on glyphosate and genetically engineered crops raise concerns “regarding compliance” with USMCA.

Citing discussions with CropLife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joined in the effort, discussing in an inter-agency email “how we could use USMCA to work through these issues.”

The Guardian also noted correspondence involving the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

As the letter to Vilsack and Tai points out: “This interference and pressure from the agrochemical industry is continuing. On March 22nd, industry representatives sent a letter directed to your attention as leaders of USTR and USDA, identifying Mexico’s planned phaseout of glyphosate and genetically modified corn as a ‘leading concern’ for agribusiness interests and the pesticide industry (represented by the pesticide industry’s trade group, CropLife America).”

“We strongly object to any interference by U.S. government officials or agribusiness interests in a sovereign state’s right to enact policy measures to protect the health and well-being of its people,” the letter states. “We urge your agencies to resist and reject these ongoing efforts.”

“We welcome the administration’s stated commitment to listening to the science, improving public health, protecting the environment, and limiting exposure to dangerous chemicals and pesticides, while holding polluters accountable and prioritizing environmental justice, particularly for communities of color and low-income communities,” it adds. “We trust that these stated commitments, as well as your dedication to ‘fairness for farmers,’ extend equally to other countries and include respect for other nations’ and peoples’ rights to self-determination.”

Other signatories to the letter include the American Sustainable Business Council, Beyond Pesticides, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, ITAP, and Organic Consumers Association.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

In what one environmental group called a “milestone in the state’s evolving energy landscape,” New York’s Indian Point Energy Center—a nuclear power plant located just 36 miles north of Midtown Manhattan—will permanently shut down on Friday. 

“There are 20 million people living within 50 miles of Indian Point and there is no way to evacuate them in case of a radiological release. And the risk of that is quite real.”
—Paul Gallay, Riverkeeper

The closure of the 58-year-old facility, which is located along the Hudson River in Westchester County, is the result of a 2017 agreement (pdf) between New York officials, plant owner Entergy, and the environmental group Riverkeeper. Going offline will be the first step in a $2.3 billion, 12-year decommissioning process that will see the dramatic demolition of the plant’s towering twin domes.  

While shutting down the plant means more planet-heating fossil fuels will be burned to make up for the lost production, anti-nuclear campaigners and other shutdown proponents say they’re more worried about the risk of an accident or terror attack at the plant.

“There are 20 million people living within 50 miles of Indian Point and there is no way to evacuate them in case of a radiological release. And the risk of that is quite real,” Riverkeeper president Paul Gallay told the Associated Press. 

Accoring to Riverkeeper, Indian Point “has a long history of accidental radioactive leaks and spills.” 

“Spent fuel pools at the plant housing toxic nuclear waste have been leaking since the 1990s, corroded buried pipes have sprung radioactive leaks, tanks have spilled hundreds of gallons radioactively contaminated water, and malfunctioning valves and pumps have leaked radionuclide-laden water,” the group said on its website. 

Kit Kennedy, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at the National Resources Defense Council, said in a statement that “there’s no question that Indian Point was sited in the wrong place some 50 years ago—a location where a severe accident would jeopardize the health of millions of people and where no large-scale evacuation plan would be remotely feasible.”

Kennedy downplayed concerns about increased fossil fuel use to compensate for the shuttered plant’s lost output, noting that “because of New York’s landmark 2019 climate legislation and years of clean energy planning and investments by the state, [it] is better positioned today than ever to achieve its ambitious climate and clean energy goals without this risky plant.”

New York officials acknowledge that the plant’s closure represents a small setback on the road toward the clean energy future experts say is crucial to avoiding the worst possible consequences of the climate emergency.

However, they argue the setback is temporary, as several renewable power projects including two large wind farms off the Long Island coast with a combined capacity of over 3,200 megawatts are under construction or approved.

“Once the large-scale renewable and offshore wind farms are complete, more than half of New York’s electricity will come from renewable sources, putting the state ahead of schedule toward reaching its goal of 70% renewable energy by 2030,” Tom Congdon, head of embattled Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Indian Point Task Force, told the New York Times earlier this month.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

A coalition of 30 environmental groups on Thursday urged U.S. senators to oppose attorney Tommy Beaudreau’s nomination for deputy secretary of the Interior due to his extensive record of working on behalf of fossil fuel corporations.

“Beaudreau exemplifies the worst type of revolving-door cronyism, jumping back and forth between representing fossil fuel interests and working for the government.”
—Brett Hartl, Center for Biological Diversity

“Tommy Beaudreau simply possesses too many conflicts of interests with the fossil fuel industry and a lackluster record within the Department of the Interior during the Obama administration to serve in such a critical role managing our nation’s public lands and irreplaceable natural heritage, not to mention tackling the climate crisis that has been caused by the very industry that Mr. Beaudreau has represented for years.”

So begins a letter (pdf) addressed to members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and written by organizations including the Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, and Revolving Door Project.

According to the coalition, “Beaudreau’s financial disclosure report reveals numerous, deeply troubling conflicts of interests with the fossil fuel industry,” which “stand in stark contrast to Secretary [Deb] Haaland’s disclosure report.”

After leaving the Obama administration, where he was the first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management (BOEM) and later chief of staff to then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Beaudreau became a partner in the law firm Latham & Watkins.

While there, “he represented numerous coal-mining, oil and gas, pipeline development, and mining companies including: Arch Resources, Total, Beacon Offshore Energy, Epic Midstream, Unocal Pipeline, and BHP,” the groups wrote.

“Beaudreau also appears to have done work for two Saudi Arabian companies—Red Sea Development and NEOM—the latter of which is connected to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” the groups added. “Reports indicate that the NEOM megacity project will result in at least 20,000 members of the Huwaitat tribe being evicted from their land.”

According to the coalition, Beaudreau’s previous tenure in the Interior Department, which began shortly after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, was also problematic.

“Eleven years ago, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 oil workers and spewed more than 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months, killing thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles, and birds,” the groups wrote. As the BOEM director, Beaudreau was tasked with reforming offshore oil and gas drilling, “including the design and implementation of new regulations establishing standards for blowout preventers.”

“Beaudreau is too cozy with the industry that is most responsible for the escalating climate crisis, and would likely undermine the president’s stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030.”
—Coalition letter

The coalition wrote that “Beaudreau failed to ensure that the strongest possible regulatory safeguards were implemented post-Deepwater Horizon.”

“The rules failed to require the use of crucial safety technology such as blind shear rams on all blowout preventers by excluding them on existing floating drilling units and those currently under construction,” the groups noted. “The administration even admitted the new rules did not make the blowout preventers completely fail-safe, and it provided the industry up to seven years to comply with many of the requirements.”

In addition, the organizations wrote, Beaudreau “failed to adequately address systemic problems that led to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.” Although the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling “called for significant revisions” to the environmental review process, “meaningful changes never occurred” at the BOEM under Beaudreau, who instead “continued to rubber-stamp offshore drilling with no real review.”

“Beaudreau is too cozy with the industry that is most responsible for the escalating climate crisis, and would likely undermine the president’s stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030,” the coalition wrote, adding: “his confirmation would greatly hinder the protections of our most cherished natural and cultural resources.”

In a statement, Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that “Beaudreau exemplifies the worst type of revolving-door cronyism, jumping back and forth between representing fossil fuel interests and working for the government.”

“Beaudreau has failed to stand up to the fossil fuel industry when it mattered most, and he’ll likely fail again if confirmed to this critical position,” added Hartl.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Warning that “time is running out to prevent irreversible changes” to the planet, a group of academics including 13 Nobel laureates on Thursday issued an “urgent call for action” in the form of “effective planetary stewardship” to address the climate emergency, global health threats including pandemics, and various forms of inequality. 

“The long-term potential of humanity depends upon our ability today to value our common future. Ultimately, this means valuing the resilience of societies and the resilience of Earth’s biosphere.”
—Academics’ statement

In a statement acknowledging that “humankind faces new challenges at unprecedented scale”—including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the climate emergency, inequality, and what they call an “information crisis”—the academics assert that “time is the natural resource in shortest supply.” 

“The next decade is crucial,” they write. “Global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by half and destruction of nature halted and reversed. An essential foundation for this transformation is to address destabilizing inequalities in the world. Without transformational action this decade, humanity is taking colossal risks with our common future. Societies risk large-scale, irreversible changes to Earth’s biosphere and our lives as part of it.”

The statement continues: 

We need to reinvent our relationship with planet Earth. The future of all life on this planet, humans and our societies included, requires us to become effective stewards of the global commons—the climate, ice, land, ocean, freshwater, forests, soils, and rich diversity of life that regulate the state of the planet, and combine to create a unique and harmonious life-support system. There is now an existential need to build economies and societies that support Earth system harmony rather than disrupt it. 

The academics note that geologists believe that around 70 years ago the Earth transitioned from the Holocene epoch of the past 12,000 years into the Anthropocene, a period in which human activity has been the primary influence on climate and the environment. 

“The Anthropocene epoch,” they write, “is more likely to be characterized by speed, scale, and shock at global levels.”

The statement urges a “decade of action” in service of “effective planetary stewardship,” a transformational endeavor that “requires updating our Holocene mindset.” 

“We must act on the urgency, the scale, and the interconnectivity between us and our home, planet Earth,” it says. “More than anything, planetary stewardship will be facilitated by enhancing social capital—building trust within societies and between societies.”

To this end, the signers offer seven proposals, including redefining measures of economic success to include human well-being; boosting science-based education and developing new models for the “free sharing of scientific knowledge”; combating the “industrialization of misinformation”; and fairly pricing economic, environmental, and social externalities.

“Humanity is waking up late to the challenges and opportunities of active planetary stewardship. But we are waking up.”
—statement

“Global sustainability offers the only viable path to human safety, equity, health, and progress,” the statement says. “Humanity is waking up late to the challenges and opportunities of active planetary stewardship. But we are waking up. Long-term, scientifically based decision-making is always at a disadvantage in the contest with the needs of the present.”

“Politicians and scientists must work together to bridge the divide between expert evidence, short-term politics, and the survival of all life on this planet in the Anthropocene epoch,” the academics conclude. “The long-term potential of humanity depends upon our ability today to value our common future. Ultimately, this means valuing the resilience of societies and the resilience of Earth’s biosphere.”

The academics’ call to action follows the 2021 Nobel Prize Summit, a first-of-its-kind virtual event at which scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and youth activists explored near-term solutions to set the planet on a path “to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity.” 

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush are joining with the advocacy groups People’s Action and Sunrise Movement to host a national phone bank on Friday, April 30 to urge members of Congress to support the Green New Deal and “pass a bold $10 trillion jobs and infrastructure package as a critical first step towards the GND.”

The effort comes after Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) reintroduced the Green New Deal Resolution last week, alongside related legislation to create a Civilian Climate Corps. Ocasio-Cortez is also working with Bush (D-Mo.) on a new bill about cities and with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on a public housing proposal.

“These bills will transform our economy, combat climate change, and create millions of good jobs in the process,” says the phone bank website. “Tell your congressperson to be a champion and take the brave steps necessary to put us all to work averting the climate catastrophe, unite our nation, and make our communities whole.”

The youth-led Sunrise Movement laid out how to participate in the day of action in an email to supporters Thursday:

• Head to https://www.callforthegnd.org/
• Type in your information. Make sure to include your zip code so we can automatically patch you through to YOUR representatives.
• Click the “MAKE THE CALL” button. Make sure you have your phone ready beside you.
• Answer the call that comes through on your phone. Read the script that appears on your screen once you are connected; you can also practice here. Feel free to adapt the script as you see fit, personalized messages are always more effective.

“Picture this: It’s tomorrow morning and every phone in your representative’s office is ringing off the hook,” wrote Paris, a representative for Sunrise. “It’s so persistent that they try to escape the noise by stepping out into the hallway. But the noise only grows louder—the calls aren’t just for them. Every phone in the office of every congressperson in Washington, D.C. is ringing.”

“It’s the sound of you, me, and thousands of others, the people they’re supposed to serve, calling to demand they pass a bold $10 trillion jobs and infrastructure package, including the Green New Deal for Public Housing, Green New Deal for Cities, and the Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice,” Paris continued. “It’s the sound of people who will not go another day being ignored, who will not go another day without a good-paying job or safe, affordable housing.”

In a statement about the event, People’s Action Climate Justice Campaign director Kaniela Ing emphasized that “change won’t come from the inside.”

“We need people on the ground demanding transformation,” he said. “We are modeling how movement politicians can work directly with organizers to push their colleagues and bring people together all across America. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest the $1 trillion a year to make that happen. If enough of us stand up and speak out, we will finally win what we need to thrive.”

The phone bank will come after Markey and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) on Thursday introduced the Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy (THRIVE) Act, which would invest $10 trillion over a decade in advancing climate, economic, and racial justice while creating 15 million jobs.

As lawmakers have introduced the THRIVE Act and Green New Deal legislation in recent weeks, President Joe Biden has put forth for his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan. While welcoming elements of that two-part infrastructure proposal, justice campaigners have urged the administration and Congress to go further.

“The THRIVE Act represents a bold vision for addressing the immediate crises of the Covid pandemic and economic collapse at the same time as the ongoing crises of systemic racism and climate change,” said Margaret Kwateng, national Green New Deal organizer at Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, in a statement Thursday.

“We must address the climate and economic crisis, and invest in care and public health, particularly in the communities that need it the most,” Kwateng added. “The investments of the THRIVE Act are critical to a full-scale recovery that protects and uplifts all people.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

In an effort to curtail police militarism, anti-war group Win Without War on Thursday released an activist guide titled Stop Militarizing Our Communities: 5 Things You Need to Know About the 1033 Program.

The activist guide was authored by Tanaya Sardesai, a student at Pomona College and a former intern at Win Without War, and centers on the Department of Defense’s 1033 program, which is responsible for supplying military weaponry to domestic law enforcement.

“One of the key ways our endless wars have blown back to exacerbate violence and undermine human security in the United States is through the DoD’s 1033 program.” 
—Win Without War“Foreign policy and domestic policy are intertwined,” said Sardesai. “Violence committed against communities of color abroad fuels violence against communities of color at home. We must end state violence and knee-jerk militarism, wherever it occurs. Ending the 1033 program is a small but necessary step toward that.”

The 1033 program, also referred to as the Law Enforcement Support Office Program, is characterized by Win Without War as a byproduct of colossal U.S. Pentagon budget and a hyper-militarized foreign policy that perpetuates ongoing conflicts around the world.

“Militarism abroad and militarism at home are inseparable,” explained the group in a statement. “One of the key ways our endless wars have blown back to exacerbate violence and undermine human security in the United States is through the DoD’s 1033 program.”

The guide elucidates the correlation between U.S. foreign policy and police militarization and concludes both systems are designed to sustain weapon manufacturers profits, the prison system, and the defense industry—at the expense of the working class and marginalized communities.

According to the guide, the 1033 program provides free military-grade weapons to local police officers and incentivizes their use by contractually requiring the weapons be used within a year or returned to the federal government. There is little oversight required under 1033 contracts and equipment often goes missing or is used improperly without accountability.

Police officers do not receive mandatory federal training under the program, leaving local agencies to train weapon recipients with little guidance.

“This further reinforces the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that is responsible for such devastation around the world,” explains the guide. “A lack of instruction exacerbates these issues by imbuing officers with the confidence to use deadly weapons without training.”

Sardesai notes that militarization has also expanded its reach to the U.S. education system, as school districts across the country have received millions of dollars of equipment from the 1033 program, including firearms, utility trucks, and rifles.

In 2017, the Government Accountability Office created a fictitious law enforcement agency and was able to obtain $1,200,000 worth of military gear from the 1033 program, suggesting a grossly inadequate vetting system.

In response to these issues, grassroots organizations are mobilizing around the U.S. to end the 1033 program and small legislative strides are being made.

The FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (pdf) included a provision to provide more oversight of the 1033 program and limit particular weapons from being used by police forces. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (pdf), which the House passed in March 2021, included a section that would limit the 1033 program.

“This must only be the beginning,” said Win Without War. “The Senate must act now. President Biden must put a moratorium on the 1033 program.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – More than 30 conservation groups today urged members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to oppose attorney Tommy Beaudreau’s nomination for deputy Interior secretary, saying his representation of fossil fuel companies would undermine President Biden’s climate agenda.

“Tommy Beaudreau exemplifies the worst type of revolving-door cronyism, jumping back and forth between representing fossil fuel interests and working for the government,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “He has too many conflicts of interest and is too beholden to the fossil fuel industry to implement President Biden’s bold vision for ending new fossil fuel leasing on public lands and waters.”

Beaudreau’s financial disclosure report reveals numerous, deeply troubling conflicts of interests with the fossil fuel industry. As a partner in the law firm Latham & Watkins, he represented numerous coal-mining, oil and gas, pipeline development and mining companies including Arch Resources, Total, Beacon Offshore Energy, Epic Midstream, Unocal Pipeline and BHP.

Beaudreau also appears to have worked for two Saudi Arabian companies, Red Sea Development and NEOM. NEOM is connected to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who U.S. intelligence reports say is implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Reports indicate that the NEOM megacity project will result in at least 20,000 members of the Huwaitat tribe being evicted from their land.

Previously Beaudreau worked in the Obama administration, where he was the first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management and later chief of staff to then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the worst offshore-oil spill in U.S. history, Beaudreau was tasked with reforming offshore drilling as the Interior Department’s BOEM director. Unfortunately many of the reforms failed to require use of the best safety equipment to prevent blowouts and provided industry up to seven years to comply with many of the requirements.

Beaudreau also failed to adequately address systemic problems that led to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that were identified by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. His agency rejected calls for new environmental review processes under the National Environmental Policy Act and continued issuing risky deepwater offshore oil-drilling permits.

“Beaudreau has failed to stand up to the fossil fuel industry when it mattered most, and he’ll likely fail again if confirmed to this critical position,” said Hartl.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

On the heels of President Joe Biden unveiling the second prong of his infrastructure proposal, progressives in Congress came together Thursday to formally introduce sweeping legislation that would invest $10 trillion over a decade in advancing climate, economic, and racial justice while putting 15 million people nationwide to work.

“We need good-paying union jobs, we need justice for all, and we need to act on climate.”
—Sen. Ed Markey

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are spearheading the Transform, Heal, and Renew by Investing in a Vibrant Economy (THRIVE) Act (pdf), which they announced last month, building on a resolution introduced last September. Several other Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups are supporting the bill.

The THRIVE Act’s introduction comes as Biden is pushing for his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan and as people worldwide are still dealing with the human and economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed over 574,000 people in the United States, nearly a fifth of the global death toll.

“Our country is facing four overlapping crises—mounting economic inequity, the climate crisis, racial injustice, and the coronavirus pandemic—and the THRIVE Act will ensure we have an intersectional response that is proportionate to the scope of the problems we face,” Markey said in a statement. “We need good-paying union jobs, we need justice for all, and we need to act on climate.”

“Last night, we heard President Biden’s vision for how to recover from the crises we face,” Markey noted, referencing the president’s first address to Congress. “The THRIVE Act would bring the scale, scope, and standards that we need to make an equitable recovery happen and ensure that all people, everywhere, can truly thrive.”

The bill would establish a THRIVE board of presidentially appointed representatives from impacted and Indigenous communities as well as labor unions to help guide at least $1 trillion in annual investments from Fiscal Years 2022 to 2031.

As Dingell’s office outlined, the THRIVE Act would:

• Upgrade our infrastructure for clean water, affordable public transit, and a reliable electric grid (creating five million jobs);
• Expand access to wind and solar power, electric vehicles, and healthy buildings (creating four million jobs);
• Protect our rural and urban spaces, wetlands, prairies, forests and support family farmers who are embracing regenerative agriculture (creating four million jobs); and
• Invest in public institutions and care for children and the elderly—essential work that is underpaid and largely performed by women of color (creating two million jobs).

“We’re in a pivotal moment right now to switch gears from relief to recovery,” Dingell declared, advocating for “intersectional policies that make the economy work for everyone” and ensuring that “we’re recovering with a focus on justice and healing.”

Co-sponsor Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) asserted that “in the richest country in the world, everyone should be able to live in a stable home, with good-paying union jobs, access to child care and family leave, with clean air and drinkable water. Unfortunately, the pandemic has made that dream even further out of reach for many Americans.”

“Millions of Americans have fallen further into poverty during the current crisis—disproportionately people of color, women, and Indigenous people,” she said. “Whether it’s poverty, climate change, or racial inequities, we need solutions that meet the scale of the challenges we face. The THRIVE Act is that solution.”

The bill’s other key co-sponsors are Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as well as Reps. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

Many of them are also co-sponsoring the Green New Deal Resolution (pdf) recently reintroduced by Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and related legislation on cities, public housing, and a Civilian Climate Corps. On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) will join with People’s Action and the Sunrise Movement for a phone bank urging lawmakers to support those bills and “pass a bold $10 trillion jobs and infrastructure package as a critical first step towards the GND.”

People’s Action and Sunrise are also among dozens of groups supporting the THRIVE Act, along with the Center for Popular Democracy, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Green New Deal Network, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indivisible, Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Physicians for Social Responsibility, United We Dream, the Working Families Party, and 350.org.

“Our movement has already handed President Biden the plan he needs to end the unemployment crisis, combat climate change, and deliver a just, equitable recovery from Covid-19: the THRIVE Act. Anything less is a failure to fully grasp the scale of the interconnected challenges that we’re facing,” said Greenpeace USA climate campaigner Ashley Thomson. “This is a moment for the president to be bold, and to listen to the wisdom of the very communities that organized to put him in office.”

“Last night, President Biden shared his vision for an America ‘on the move.’ But the president’s proposals would only keep working families moving for so long before the same crises we face today cause another devastating collapse,” said Working Families Party national director Maurice Mitchell. “That’s why today, Democrats in Congress are introducing the THRIVE Act, a recovery plan that uses bold government action to solve our biggest emergencies.”

“Now, President Biden and the rest of Democrats in Congress have an important choice to make,” he said. “We can choose to emerge from this pandemic with the inequities, injustices, and climate pollution that existed before, or we can choose the path made possible with the THRIVE Act: to transform, heal, and renew our country, and keep working families moving forward for generations to come.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

The governments of South Africa, India, and dozens of other developing countries are calling for the rights on intellectual property (IP), including vaccine patents, to be waived to accelerate the worldwide production of supplies to fight COVID-19. They are absolutely correct. IP for fighting COVID-19 should be waived, and indeed actively shared among scientists, companies, and nations.

An IP waiver or its equivalent has become a practical urgent need as well as a moral imperative.

The pharmaceutical industry and the governments of several vaccine-producing countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Commission, have been resisting the IP waiver, while 150 public leaders and experts have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden in support of it. There is no longer any question about who is right. Given the surge of COVID-19 in several regions, most recently in India, the continuing emergence of new and deadly variants of the virus, and the inability of the current vaccine producers to keep pace with global needs, an IP waiver or its equivalent has become a practical urgent need as well as a moral imperative.

As a general principle, IP should not stand in the way of scaling up production to fight COVID-19 or any other public health emergency. We need more countries to be producing vaccines, test kits, and other needed commodities. IP-related delays could mean millions more COVID-19 deaths and more viral mutations that sweep across the entire world population, possibly infecting people who have already been vaccinated.

And yet we face a situation in which the world’s urgent needs are pitted against the narrow corporate interests of a few US and European pharmaceutical companies. The companies are even trying to turn their opposition to an IP waiver into a geopolitical issue, arguing that China and Russia must be prevented from gaining the knowhow to produce mRNA vaccines. This argument is immoral, indeed potentially homicidal. If opposition to IP waivers slows the production of effective vaccines in China and Russia, it would directly endanger Americans, Europeans, and everyone else.

Even in the best of circumstances, IP involves a balancing act of costs and benefits. Patents give an incentive for innovation, but at the expense of granting 20 years of monopoly power to the patent holder. The benefits of innovation must therefore be weighed against the cost of monopoly power that limits supply. In a deadly pandemic, the choice is clear: we should waive the patent rights in order to increase the supplies of life-saving commodities in order to end the pandemic.

The relevant international law, known as the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement, already recognizes the right and occasional need of governments to override IP in the case of public health emergencies by invoking a compulsory license. A compulsory license gives local companies the right to use patent-protected IP. The right to compulsory licensing of IP to protect public health was already agreed in 2001 as part of TRIPS in the case of production for domestic use. In 2005, it was extended to cover production for exports to countries that lack their own production capacity.

It is likely that Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa could develop the capacity for increasing the global supply of COVID-19 vaccines. Yet these countries are reluctant to invoke compulsory licenses for fear of retaliation by the US Government or other governments where patent-holders are based. The proposed general waiver of IP would overcome the fear of each country in invoking a compulsory license, and would solve other heavy bureaucratic obstacles in using compulsory licenses. A waiver would also be helpful for non-vaccine technologies (solvents and reagents, vaccine vials, test kits, and so forth).

An IP waiver could be carefully designed and targeted. Patent-holders should still be compensated at a reasonable rate for the successful use of their IP. The waiver should be limited to COVID-19, and not extended automatically to other uses. And it should be temporary, say for five years.

The private investors will surely earn huge returns, so they should restrain their greed (or have it restrained for them) by recognizing the need to share the IP globally.

The pharmaceutical industry argues that an IP waiver would deprive the industry of its rightful profits, and of financial incentives for future drug development. Such claims are greatly exaggerated, and reflect greed over reason. The IP held by Moderna, BioNTech-Pfizer, and others is not mainly the result of those companies’ innovations, but rather of academic research funded by the US Government, especially the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The private companies are claiming the exclusive right to IP that was produced largely with public funding and academic science.

Some of the key scientific breakthroughs of mRNA vaccines were achieved by two researchers working under NIH grants at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1990s and early 2000s, and their pioneering work relied on a network of academic researchers funded by the NIH. The University of Pennsylvania still owns key patents that have been sub-licensed to BioNTech and Moderna. Since the emergence of COVID-19, the US government provided at least $955 million to Moderna to fund accelerated work, including the clinical trials, and also entered into an advanced market commitment with BioNTech-Pfizer. All in all, the recent US Government support for the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines has totaled more than $10 billion.

The companies brought in private investors to build up manufacturing capacity and the late-stage research and development and clinical trials needed to bring the vaccines to fruition. This is indeed an important role, and private investors put substantial sums at risk to carry it out. But they have done so with the US Government as an indispensable partner.

The private investors will surely earn huge returns, so they should restrain their greed (or have it restrained for them) by recognizing the need to share the IP globally at this stage. Moderna is currently capitalized at some $73.4 billion, compared with the roughly $1.1 billion in equity raised by the company’s initial public offering in 2018.

The benefits of mRNA and other IP should be made available globally without further delay, and the knowhow should be shared as rapidly and widely as possible. We have the capabilities to scale worldwide immunization, in order to save lives, prevent the emergence of new variants, and end the pandemic. IP must serve the global good, rather than humanity serving the interests of a few private companies.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Ahead of President Biden’s 100th Day in office, Public Citizen released a progress report outlining the administration’s accomplishments and what must be done in the coming months to continue building a political system that serves the people, rather than corporations and the super-wealthy.

“President Biden began his administration with promises to produce enough COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate all adult Americans, re-enter longstanding climate agreements, and put people over corporations. In his first 100 days, Biden has made good on those promises – but much work remains,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president at Public Citizen. “Among other things, we look forward to continuing to work with the Biden administration to build a more just political system that serves the people, rather than corporations and the super-rich.”

Public Citizen’s progress report includes plaudits for critical accomplishments in the President’s first 100 days, as well as 60+ near-term recommendations that cover more than a dozen issue areas, including pandemic response, rebuilding our democracy, climate change, health care, Wall Street accountability, taxes and budget, regulations, global trade, and more. Among the organization’s top priorities:

• Implement a $25 billion global vaccine manufacturing program to end the pandemic and build globally-distributed vaccine infrastructure for future pandemics.
• Ensure both the jobs and families plan(s) clearly address income inequality and that Wall Street and corporations pay their fair share of forthcoming recovery and investment packages, to the extent they are offset.
• Be even more vocally in support of priority legislation like the For the People Act and filibuster reform to enable its passage
• Support efforts in Congress to advance the Medicare for All Act of 2021
• Increase the corporate rate to levels on the books before Trump’s 2017 tax law, but at the very least stay strong at 28%.
• Commit to lowering the Pentagon topline figure substantially in the administration’s next request to Congress, bringing it to or below the FY21 figure, and repurpose these cost savings to meet people’s day-to-day needs.

The 100 Day Progress Report builds on Public Citizen’s Blueprint for the Biden Administration – a series of recommendations released last fall to guide the Biden administration through the country’s most pressing challenges, critical needs, and key opportunities.

Read the 100 Day Progress Report here. Reach out to the contacts above to speak with one of our experts.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Last Thursday on the 51st anniversary of Earth Day, the United States and nations around the world made historic commitments to combat the single greatest threat humanity has ever faced and the greatest test of our ability to take meaningful collective action: the climate crisis. President Biden announced that the United States—the world’s greatest historical carbon dioxide emitter—would aim to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half from 2005 levels within the next nine years, a period critical for avoiding dangerous levels of warming according to top climate scientists. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe would strive to become the world’s “first climate-neutral continent,” while Japan, Canada, and Brazil followed suit in laying out more ambitious goals for decarbonization.

The unprecedented commitments to slashing greenhouse gas emissions pledged by world leaders put places like Harvard University, which refuses to take the baseline step of divesting its nearly $42 billion endowment from the fossil fuel industry, to shame.

The day highlighted the immense progress made by the climate movement and particularly, by young people, in elevating the climate crisis to the forefront of public consciousness and making it unaffordable for politicians to further delay climate action. But it also highlighted the inertia and entrenched corporate interests climate activists continue to face: As the world moves forward, some of our most powerful and moneyed institutions are lagging behind.

The unprecedented commitments to slashing greenhouse gas emissions pledged by world leaders put places like Harvard University, which refuses to take the baseline step of divesting its nearly $42 billion endowment from the fossil fuel industry, to shame. Importantly, these commitments were far from perfect. Seeing them through and strengthening them will likely require the same level of mass mobilization and concerted political action that made them possible in the first place. Even so, they are a crucial starting point. As the United States and the international community take such pivotal steps toward a just transition to a clean energy economy, they make it abundantly clear that the institutions still holding out against a fossil fuel-free future will go down on the wrong side of history.

Every day, the window of time these institutions have to align themselves with the right side of history narrows. As I have written before, I have always hoped to see my university, Harvard, lead the movement for a just and sustainable future. Now, I merely hope it will follow in the footsteps of so many of its peer institutions, fellow investors, and elected officials who have cut ties to the fossil fuel industry, showing the level of foresight and courage its reputation demands.

Roughly a decade after students across college campuses first sounded the alarm about investing in fossil fuels, divestment remains the single most powerful litmus test for climate action. For decades, fossil fuel companies have sought to manipulate public opinion against climate science, pay off politicians to protect its calamitous interests, and sustain a core business model at fundamental odds with protecting our planet, our communities, and our collective futures. That remains the case as much today as it was decades ago—the difference being only that these companies’ greenwashing tactics have grown more sophisticated.

Rather than slow the rising tide of divestment commitments, the Covid-19 pandemic has only seemed to accelerate it. Major pension funds, universities, and foundations have all committed to or completed processes of divesting from fossil fuel companies in the past year. Some, like New York State’s pension fund and Yale University, have created principles forbidding investment in companies without clear plans or progress toward decarbonization. And even the world’s largest asset manager and a frequent target of climate activists, BlackRock, has been forced to reckon with the industry’s striking decline, recognizing the now-overwhelming financial case for divestment in private reports. Whether for the sake of people and the planet or merely their pocketbooks, investors increasingly don’t trust fossil fuel companies with their funds. These companies know it and, rightly so, they’re terrified of the divestment movement as a result.

Yet some institutions like Harvard continue to invest in Big Oil, flying in the face of our political and economic climate and even, in some cases, the law. They also continue working directly with the industry, allowing companies notorious for attacking their own climate scientists to sponsor research that could shape future climate policy and maintain an invisible voice in the room of top decision-makers. And for that, they’ll risk paying a steep price. Along with failing to reap the financial rewards that come with investing in a just transition, they’ll lose immense credibility—at least, whatever credibility they retain after years of dismissing calls for action from overwhelming numbers of community members and the broader public. In some ways, that’s a much greater loss, harder to recover from than poor financial returns.

So long as my peers and I represent the fastest-growing market of voters, consumers, and community members, the extinction of today’s fossil fueled-economy is inevitable.

Last Earth Day, I co-authored a piece titled “It’s time to let the fossil fuel industry die.” This Earth Day, I feel confident that the industry—at least, as we know it today—is on its deathbed. My peers and I know the system will keep changing to hold major corporate polluters accountable and advance a rapid, socially just transition to societal decarbonization. We also know that the institutions who refuse to heed our calls for action will be left behind. How can we be so sure? Because we know that we, the young people powering the divestment movement and making climate justice the single most defining issue of our time, are not going anywhere.

Right now, these institutions still have a choice over what role they want to have in a just and sustainable future. With the vast resources a place like Harvard has at its disposal, it can easily become a vehicle for this future. Without a change in course, however, it will just as easily become a relic of it.

The times are changing without or without our most powerful institutions. So long as my peers and I represent the fastest-growing market of voters, consumers, and community members, the extinction of today’s fossil fueled-economy is inevitable. Our futures can’t afford anything less.

To all of the institutions currently failing us, trust me when I tell you that the time to divest is now. In another few years or perhaps, just another 365 days by the next Earth Day, the opportunity to divest while it still counts—for your morals and your money—may have already disappeared.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Hundreds of people reported in a new study that they experienced abnormal menstrual cycles just after exposure to police-fired tear gas at racial justice protests last summer.

The findings call into question claims that the chemical weapon has only minor and temporary effects on the health of people who are exposed.

Kaiser Permanente Northwest conducted an online survey of more 2,200 people who attended demonstrations last year in Portland. The survey asked people to share their experiences after being exposed to tear gas between July 30 and August 20. 

“It’s really important to understand that not only are more people having these issues, but they were not minor. They were major enough that people needed to work with health professionals.”
—Britta Torgrimson-Ojerio, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research 

The survey was conducted shortly after Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported that 26 people between the ages of 17 and 43 experienced large blood clots during their menstrual periods and “cramps that felt like sharp rocks” days after being exposed to tear gas.

“This isn’t a coincidence. Something’s going on,” said one person interviewed by OPB last summer; the new research bolsters the claims of those who took part in the report.

More than half of the people who took Kaiser Permanente’s survey and who identified themselves as female, transgender men, genderqueer, or who did noy specify their sex or gender, described menstrual irregularity.

More than 36% of those respondents reported intense cramping, including pain that required visits to urgent care clinics or the emergency room in some cases, while 27.8% reported irregular spotting and 23.6% had increased bleeding. Nearly 19% reported abnormally long menstrual periods. 

Britta Torgrimson-Ojerio, a nurse researcher at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and the lead author of the new study, noted on social media that in addition to changes in menstruation, more than 72% of respondents reported psychological symptoms after tear gas exposure, and more than 54% of those who had health issues sought or intended to seek medical attention.

“There’s a commonly held belief that the chemical agents that are used for crowd control一and we’re referring to them as tear gas一cause just short-term sensory impairment…and that these things dissipate really quickly,” Torgrimson-Ojerio told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “It’s really important to understand that not only are more people having these issues, but they were not minor. They were major enough that people needed to work with health professionals.”

Research regarding the effects of tear gas on people’s health has been limited, as the majority of data comes from studies done on animals and young men in military settings in the middle of the 20th century—not on people who menstruate. 

“Tear gas is used increasingly on civilians, yet here we are, it took until 2021 for this study,” tweeted journalist Lisa Song.

The research team led by Torgrimson-Ojerio also detected a “dose response,” with people who were exposed to tear gas more frequently reporting more significant changes in their menstrual cycles. 

Because the study was conducted via an anonymous, voluntary survey, Torgrimson-Ojerio called for more research into the effects of tear gas on women and others who menstruate.

“This is a really important call to action in the research community for people to investigate this further,” she said.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

As Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths continue to soar in India, a group of Democratic U.S. senators on Wednesday sent letters to three Big Pharma CEOs urging them to expand global vaccine access by sharing technology and by lifting intellectual property barriers to allow countries to locally produce vaccines.

“Increasing Covid-19 vaccinations in India is urgently needed to reduce human suffering and prevent unnecessary deaths. It could also help halt the spread of coronavirus variants that could prolong the pandemic across the globe.”
—Senators’ letter

“Covid-19 has infected over 148 million people and killed over three million globally, with hundreds of thousands of new cases and thousands of deaths being reported daily,” write Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), and Chris Murphy (Conn.) to the CEOs of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

The senators warn that although these “and other companies have developed safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines, the uncontrolled spread of coronavirus poses significant risks to global vaccination efforts. As the virus proliferates, it evolves, increasing the risk of a variant developing that renders vaccinations ineffective.” 

“Though wealthier countries, including the United States, have successfully secured vaccines and have made significant strides in vaccinating their populations, many middle- and lower-income nations have less access to vaccine doses,” the letter continues. “A recent study estimates that unequal global vaccine distribution could result in a gross domestic product loss of $1.2 trillion annually for the global economy.”

The senators highlight the acute crisis in India, where over 360,000 new coronavirus cases—the most ever recorded in a country in a single day during the pandemic—and 3,293 deaths were reported Wednesday as the nation passed the grim milestone of 200,000 Covid-19 fatalities. 

Although noting that India is a “major producer” of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, and that it has exported over 66 million doses this year, the senators write that “it is still struggling to vaccinate people quickly enough to quell the outbreak.” 

“Addressing the spread of Covid-19 in India is critical,” they assert, adding that there are steps the pharma giants can take “to increase global vaccine access.”

“Increasing Covid-19 vaccinations in India is urgently needed to reduce human suffering and prevent unnecessary deaths,” the letter states. “It could also help halt the spread of coronavirus variants that could prolong the pandemic across the globe.”

Sharing technology, “such as vaccine recipes and manufacturing information,” could “drastically expand vaccine development and access,” it adds. 

“This technology transfer could take place voluntarily, underpinned by open, non-exclusive, and transparent agreements done in collaboration with the World Health Organization,” the senators argue, pointing to the WHO’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and its mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub, through which the United Nations agency and its partners are “seeking to expand the capacity of low- and middle-income countries to produce Covid-19 vaccines and scale up manufacturing to increase global access to these critical tools.” 

The lawmakers also note that experts have “called for the U.S. to support the temporary waiver of some Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules proposed by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization (WTO), which would temporarily lift certain intellectual property barriers and allow countries to locally manufacture Covid-19 diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.” 

Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led a group of 10 senators including Baldwin, Markey, Merkley, Murphy, and Warren in calling on President Joe Biden to back a global effort for a temporary WTO TRIPS waiver. 

Wednesday’s letter asks each of the companies if they have taken any of these or other steps, and if not, why. 

“Now is the time to use every single opportunity in every single corner of the world. These companies should make deals with as many countries as possible.”
—Abdul Muktadir,
Bangladeshi pharma CEO 

The pharmaceutical industry has dismissed efforts to permit the sharing of intellectual property to create generic coronavirus vaccines, claiming that some countries lack the facilities in which to safely manufacture them. Powerful global players like billionaire businessman and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose software fortune is largely dependent upon stringent intellectual property protection laws, have echoed this assertion—which factory owners around the world roundly refute.

“Now is the time to use every single opportunity in every single corner of the world,” Abdul Muktadir, CEO of the Bangladeshi pharmaceutical company Incepta, told the Washington Post. Muktadir said he emailed executives at Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax to offer help—he said his company can produce as many as 800 million vaccine doses per year—but none of them wrote back.

“These companies should make deals with as many countries as possible,” he said. 

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

During his first speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, President Joe Biden said that “healthcare should be a right, not a privilege in America.”

To which Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) responded: “If you say you believe healthcare is a right and not a privilege, [then] support Medicare for All.”

Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) all shared similar messages.

Despite pressure from Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate as well as dozens of advocacy groups, Biden declined to propose lowering Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 60—let alone providing Medicare to every person in the country—in his American Families Plan, the $1.8 trillion social spending and tax reform package he showcased on Wednesday.

In his speech, the president did call on Congress to “lower prescription drug costs” by giving “Medicare the power to save hundreds of billions of dollars by negotiating lower drug prescription prices.” He said that the savings could be used to “expand Medicare coverage and benefits without costing taxpayers an additional penny.”

And yet, Biden chose not to include any Medicare-related provisions in his American Families Plan.

Ahead of Biden’s Wednesday night address to Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declared in a video that “we’ve got to deal with healthcare.”

Expanding access to and improving Medicare is popular across political party lines, according to polling results (pdf) released last week by Data for Progress.

Although most voters support lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55, reducing it to zero is even more popular.

Seventy-two percent of Fox News viewers said last year that they favor “changing to a government-run healthcare plan,” a reflection of the extent to which Americans are fed up with either being deprived of health insurance or paying exorbitant amounts of money for it under an employment-based, for-profit model.

In his speech, Biden acknowledged that “the pandemic has demonstrated how badly [healthcare] is needed,” but critics noted the chasm between that statement and what is currently on offer from the president, who has been adamant in his opposition to Medicare for All.

Public Citizen published a report last month showing that Medicare for All likely would have prevented millions of Covid-19 infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths nationwide. According to the advocacy group, roughly 40% of coronavirus infections and 33% of resultant deaths in the U.S. up to that point were associated with a lack of health insurance.

Before the pandemic, around 87 million Americans were already uninsured or underinsured. In the past year, millions more have been thrown off their employer-provided coverage due to widespread job losses.

Apparently, even a national Covid-19 death toll of nearly 575,000 isn’t enough to convince Biden to embrace Medicare for All. The president didn’t even include a modest expansion of Medicare beneficiaries and benefits in his American Families Plan, although progressive lawmakers have vowed to fight for its inclusion.

Biden, who pays lip service to universal coverage as he opposes a single-payer health insurance system, remains committed to promoting the Affordable Care Act and has expressed support for a public option, even though health experts have stressed that such an approach would not eliminate burdensome co-pays and deductibles and would still leave millions uninsured.

The Congressional Budget Office has shown that implementing a single-payer system would guarantee high-quality care for every person in the U.S. while reducing overall spending by an estimated $650 billion per year.

Earlier this year, a Lancet panel of policy experts and medical professionals argued that “single-payer, Medicare for All reform is the only way forward” in the wake of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus crisis, which was preceded by “decades of healthcare inequality, privatization, and profiteering.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – People’s Action today joined U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Sunrise Movement to lead a national day of action to support the Green New Deal (GND). Participants will call their elected Members of Congress to urge them to support the GND Resolution as well as two new pieces of legislation introduced last week: the Civilian Climate Corps Act and the Green New Deal for Cities Act, which People’s Action helped draft. 

Callers can sign up here and will receive a virtual training at the beginning of their shift.

“Change won’t come from the inside. We need people on the ground demanding transformation,” People’s Action Climate Justice Campaign Director Kaniela Ing said. “We are modeling how movement politicians can work directly with organizers to push their colleagues and bring people together all across America. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest the $1 trillion a year to make that happen. If enough of us stand up and speak out, we will finally win what we need to thrive.”

Last week, People’s Action launched a new climate justice campaign, Local Green New Deal, with a joint petition, video, and new legislation alongside Bush and Ocasio-Cortez to empower local elected officials to push farther than President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan, support a Green New Deal, and advance ambitious local green new deal policies.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – The Indigenous Environmental Network champions the THRIVE act because it represents the historic opportunity for Congress to act big and bold on climate, care, jobs, and justice. By passing a transformational economic recovery and infrastructure package that puts 15 million people to work, addresses the climate crisis, and advances racial, Indigenous, gender, environmental, and economic justice, the THRIVE act delivers the scale necessary to tackle several interlocking crises at once.
 
By codifying Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), the THRIVE act helps dismantle harmful colonial systems that continue to oppress us all and moves us toward a future in which Indigenous nations and communities are full partners in all decision-making processes that impact us and our lands. Free, Prior, and Informed Consent is the pathway toward restoring Indigenous autonomy, righting colonial wrongs, & ensuring we all have healthy land, air, and water for many future generations to come. By advancing THRIVE, we advance FPIC and we normalize consent. THRIVE is for us.
 
Thrive is the NDN Country, it’s #TimetoTHRIVE!

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, Win Without War released a short activist guide titled “Stop Militarizing Our Communities: 5 Things You Need to Know About the 1033 Program.”

Militarism abroad and militarism at home are inseparable. One of the key ways our endless wars have blown back to exacerbate violence and undermine human security in the United States is through the DoD’s 1033 program, which funnels military weaponry to domestic law enforcement while encouraging police to behave like soldiers of war. In this activist guide, Win Without War breaks down the outrageous militarism of the 1033 program—and what we can do to stop it.

“Stop Militarizing Our Communities” was authored by Tanaya Sardesai. Tanaya Sardesai is a student at Pomona College and was the Win Without War Fall 2020 Policy and Advocacy Intern.

“Foreign policy and domestic policy are intertwined,” said Tanaya Sardesai. “Violence committed against communities of color abroad fuels violence against communities of color at home. We must end state violence and knee-jerk militarism, wherever it occurs. Ending the 1033 program is a small but necessary step toward that.”

View “Stop Militarizing Our Communities” here.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Today, Reps. Debbie Dingell, Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, Pramila Jayapal, Earl Blumenauer, Ro Khanna, Yvette Clarke, and Nanette Barragán and Sen. Ed Markey formally will introduce the THRIVE Act. Co-sponsored by more than 50 members of Congress and 300 leading unions, racial justice, and climate groups, the THRIVE Act would invest $1 trillion per year over ten years to create more than 15 million good jobs, end the unemployment crisis, cut climate pollution in half by 2030, and advance racial, Indigenous, gender, environmental, and economic justice.

Grassroots leaders are joining Congressional co-sponsors of the bill at a live virtual press conference (video) this morning to introduce the bill.

Greenpeace USA Climate Campaigner Ashley Thomson said:

“Our movement has already handed President Biden the plan he needs to end the unemployment crisis, combat climate change, and deliver a just, equitable recovery from COVID-19: the THRIVE Act. Anything less is a failure to fully grasp the scale of the interconnected challenges that we’re facing. This is a moment for the president to be bold, and to listen to the wisdom of the very communities that organized to put him in office. Instead of wasting billions of dollars every year subsidizing fossil fuels that poison communities across the world, our government should be investing in the renewable energy economy of the future. Not only can we avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis, we can create a world where justice, health, and equity come before corporate greed.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont made clear Thursday that he will continue pursuing a sizable expansion of Medicare as part of the American Families Plan after President Joe Biden excluded the overwhelmingly popular idea from his $1.8 trillion proposal, which contains massive subsidies for the private insurance industry.

Sanders told the Washington Post that he “absolutely” intends to continue pushing to lower Medicare’s eligibility age and broaden its coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing aids once Congress takes up Biden’s opening offer, which also omits a widely supported proposal to lower sky-high prescription drug costs.

“It’s time for Medicare to finally cover hearing, dental, and vision care.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

During his primetime address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night, Biden gave lip service to both ideas, proclaiming, “Let’s give Medicare the power to save hundreds of billions of dollars by negotiating lower drug prescription prices.”

“And the money we save, which is billions of dollars, can go to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and expand Medicare coverage benefits without costing taxpayers an additional penny,” the president said. “It’s within our power to do it; let’s do it now.”

The White House has yet to explain the disconnect between the president’s rhetorical commitment to lowering drug costs and expanding Medicare and his apparent willingness to delay action on both by leaving them out of his American Families Plan—a decision that angered patient advocacy groups.

As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders is positioned to have significant influence over the legislative package, particularly if Republican opposition forces Democrats to push the bill through the budget reconciliation process.

“We must take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, lower drug prices, and use the savings to expand Medicare by lowering the eligibility age and providing dental, hearing, and vision care to tens of millions of older Americans,” Sanders tweeted earlier this week.

Lowering the Medicare eligibility age and expanding the program’s benefits are extremely popular with the U.S. public and inside the Democratic caucus. Last week, as Common Dreams reported, more than 80 House Democrats sent a letter urging Biden to support lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60, a move that would extend coverage to an additional 23 million people.

Spearheaded by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the letter was signed by centrist Reps. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine.), an indication of broad support for the proposal within the Democratic Party.

In a statement Thursday, Jayapal said Congress “must include in the Families Plan bringing down the price of pharmaceutical drugs for all Americans who are paying over twice as much as those in other countries.”

“We must also expand Medicare benefits for seniors to include dental, vision, and hearing benefits while lowering the Medicare eligibility age to cover tens of millions more,” the Washington Democrat added.

“This push for Medicare expansion offers a rare opportunity to shore up a legendary public program with a decades-long track record, while delivering a mighty blow to the private insurance industry that leaves it less able to resist the demise it eventually deserves.”
—Natalie Shure

This past weekend, Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and more than a dozen other Democratic senators also implored Biden to support expanding Medicare, arguing that “the time is long overdue for us to expand and improve this program so that millions of older Americans can receive the healthcare they need, including eyeglasses, hearing aids, and dental care.”

But at least one powerful Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is already signalling his opposition to adding Medicare expansion to the American Families Plan.

“No, I’m not for it, period,” said Manchin, whose vote Democrats need to keep intact their razor-thin majority in the upper chamber.

In column for Common Dreams Thursday morning, Richard Eskow noted that any effort to lower drug costs and expand Medicare is also sure to face intense opposition from the industries benefiting most from the status quo.

“Lowering the Medicare age still faces resistance from the hospital industry and other interests that would lose revenue if more claims are paid under Medicare’s rates,” wrote Eskow. “Big Pharma is resolutely opposed to changes that would curb its trillion-dollar death trip. Party leaders who raise money from industry donors are undoubtedly weighing the cost in lost campaign cash against the political popularity of these measures.”

“One thing’s for sure: rhetorical genuflections aren’t enough anymore,” he added.

Healthcare writer Natalie Shure similarly argued in the New Republic Wednesday that it would be a huge moral and political mistake for Biden and the Democratic Party to push off Medicare expansion any longer.

“By improving the benefits of traditional Medicare and luring enrollees away from privately managed Medigap and Advantage plans, Democrats can bolster the healthcare financing system by funding public programs, as opposed to sending billions of dollars in ACA subsidies straight to private gatekeepers,” Shure wrote. “Meanwhile, aging Americans will be materially relieved of staggering costs that push them to, say, skip filling both prescriptions and cavities.”

“To top it off, there are rumors afoot that suggest the age cohort that would reap these benefits votes in large numbers!” Shure added. “For supporters of single-payer healthcare, like Bernie Sanders, Pramila Jayapal, and their allies, this push for Medicare expansion offers a rare opportunity to shore up a legendary public program with a decades-long track record, while delivering a mighty blow to the private insurance industry that leaves it less able to resist the demise it eventually deserves.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

WASHINGTON – Following President Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Sunrise Movement’s Communications Director, Zina Precht-Rodriguez, issued the following statement:

“Tonight, President Biden once again framed the climate crisis as a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity. But this isn’t the first time we’ve heard Democrats repeat back our “climate action equals jobs” rhetoric. In President Obama’s first joint address in 2009, he called on the country to “transform our economy” and “save our planet from the ravages of climate change” by making “clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.” Now, twelve years later, we are faced with an escalated climate crisis, but with twelve fewer years to deal with it.

“Nevertheless, Biden is right about this: doing nothing is not an option and our movement won’t wait any longer for politicians to enact the first pillars of the Green New Deal. In order to deliver on their climate mandate, Biden and Congress must pass $10 trillion of investment over the next ten years to end our unemployment crisis and put millions of Americans to work in good, union jobs to stop the climate crisis. If Biden is serious about creating millions of jobs to stop the climate crisis, he must do everything in his power to pass into law: 

• Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey’s Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) for Jobs and Justice Act. 
• A Clean Energy Standard to advance environmental justice and support a transition to renewable energy. 
• The PRO Act to ensure all jobs created are good, union jobs where workers are protected and guaranteed the right to organize.

“We’ve been down this road before. The right rhetoric didn’t save us then, and it won’t save us now. Our movement won’t wait for climate action. So show us your next best move.”

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

For the past 16 years, the Supreme Court has moved to restrict states from imposing harsh criminal sentences on children. Last Thursday, a Court remade to reflect Donald Trump’s law and order conservatism took a different approach.

It was Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose allies insisted during his confirmation that credible allegations he committed sexual assault at age 17 should not prevent him from becoming a Justice, who wrote the majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi making it easier to sentence children to life behind bars for something they did in their youth.

In the case, 31-year-old Brett Jones appealed a life-without-parole (LWOP) sentence he received for killing his grandfather at age 15. His argument built on two Supreme Court rulings.

The Jones opinion is cruel. But while it might be easy to interpret the majority and dissent as a black-and-white conflict between punitiveness and rehabilitation, challenging juvenile LWOP requires something other than rehabilitative discourse.

In Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Justices struck down state laws mandating LWOP for juveniles convicted of homicide. In Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), the Court extended Miller to retroactively nullify past sentences issued under mandatory juvenile LWOP statutes. But Jones’s sentence was not mandatory—it was chosen by his sentencing judge. His appeal sought to extend Miller and Montgomery to cases in which judges chose to impose LWOP on a juvenile.

The Court’s six conservatives declined to do so, deciding that juvenile LWOP was constitutional if imposed by judicial choice. Importantly, they ruled that judges could issue LWOP sentences without finding that a juvenile is “permanently incorrigible,” or incapable of rehabilitation. The liberal flank disagreed. Justice Sotomayor’s dissent claimed the majority deprived juveniles a chance to demonstrate “all they have done to rehabilitate themselves.”

The ruling seemingly presents a conflict between conservatives endorsing a punitive vision of the justice system and liberals endorsing the “rehabilitative ideal”—the notion that punishment should reform offenders. A Trump-branded Court will undoubtedly abet harsh sentencing, but challenging harsh policies like juvenile LWOP through rehabilitative discourse is unlikely to work. As I have written elsewhere, the idea of “incorrigibility” has always been part of the rehabilitative ideal. The spirit of “rehabilitative” reform has always incorporated a punitive streak, even for juveniles.

The rehabilitative ideal originated in the 1870s at New York’s Elmira Reformatory under the leadership of Warden Zebulon Brockway. Brockway’s model was nationally praised, especially the indeterminate sentence, which released inmates from their terms early for demonstrating reformative progress. Within a few decades, the system was replicated in seventeen states.

But what became of inmates for whom rehabilitation failed? They were labeled “incorrigibles” and subjected to harsh punishments, including lengthy sentences or sterilization to prevent propagation of their “criminal biology.” Indeterminate sentencing was designed to serve reformative and punitive purposes, allowing early release for some and containment for incorrigibles. States claimed their average terms of inmate confinement increased with indeterminate sentencing. Distinguishing incorrigibles for punitive treatment was central to the rehabilitative model.

Similar ideas are present in Supreme Court jurisprudence. When the Court upheld indeterminate sentencing in Williams v. NY (1949), Justice Hugo Black stated that indeterminate sentencing was consistent with “reformation and rehabilitation,” which required tailoring sentences to “fit the offender.” But in Williams, the judge ignored the jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment and imposed the death sentence on a defendant deemed unamenable to reform. Through rehabilitative rhetoric, the Justices authorized judges to mete out brutal sentences for anyone they deemed irredeemable.

Despite recent rulings expanding protections for juveniles from capital punishment and LWOP, juveniles were not spared the “incorrigible” classification historically. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the Supreme Court increased judicial discretion to apply the label of incorrigibility to young offenders in cases involving the Federal Youth Corrections Act (YCA) of 1950. They did so through the language of rehabilitation.

The YCA encouraged judges to consider rehabilitation and reduced sentences when sentencing offenders 16-22 years old. But in 1974, the Court ruled in Dorszynski v. US that while the YCA increased judicial discretion to “sentence youth offenders for rehabilitation,” it should be applied to “all but the ‘incorrigible’ youth,” who could be punished as adults. The Justices made it stunningly easy for judges to label someone incorrigible. A judge could simply state the juvenile would not benefit from treatment without providing any reason. In dissent, Justice Marshall condemned the majority for enabling judges to issue harsh sentences without justification.

In Ralston v. Robinson (1981), the Justices again made it easier to deem a juvenile incorrigible. When a young man sentenced under the YCA assaulted a corrections officer partway through his term, a judge terminated his YCA sentence and issued an adult sentence. The majority upheld this by concluding that “rehabilitative purposes might justify a lengthy confinement” should “rehabilitation fail.” Justice Powell’s concurrence noted that the “respondent had shown an incorrigibility” that “warrants adult treatment.”

A politics focused on preventing crime through social spending shuns concepts like individual incorrigibility by understanding crime through a structural lens. The Jones opinion is cruel. But while it might be easy to interpret the majority and dissent as a black-and-white conflict between punitiveness and rehabilitation, challenging juvenile LWOP requires something other than rehabilitative discourse. Rehabilitation shrouds a punitive logic by embracing distinctions between corrigibility and incorrigibility when these labels should be abandoned altogether. 

There are ways to accomplish this. Rejecting juvenile LWOP as cruel and unusual in light of the 8th amendment could discredit the concept of juvenile incorrigibility. The U.S. is the only country that sentences juveniles to LWOP, underscoring that the practice truly is cruel and unusual. 

Rehabilitative discourse also problematically assumes that all causes of crime, and all solutions, exist within the individual. This ignores how violent criminality is shaped by environmental factors and is not a fundamental aspect of someone’s personality. Research shows that generous social welfare and economic support is correlated with lower rates of violent and property crime. A politics focused on preventing crime through social spending shuns concepts like individual incorrigibility by understanding crime through a structural lens. 

Jones is a terrible decision, but challenges to juvenile LWOP must discredit the concept of incorrigibility, meaning we should eschew rehabilitative discourse. We would be better served by focusing on the fundamental cruelty of juvenile LWOP and challenging the deep structural forces that contribute to juvenile offending.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

These are strange days for a former Bernie Sanders staffer like me. In the days leading up to President Biden’s Wednesday speech about the American Families Act, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some pretty conservative congressional Democrats urged Biden to pivot left and do more on drug prices and Medicare expansion. Those measures weren’t in Biden’s speech and won’t be in his draft legislation, but the demands reflect a significant change in the political center of gravity.

To be sure, these proposals fall far short of Medicare For All and the other programs people like me have spent years fighting for. But the policies these Democrats are espousing would have been considered the leftmost flank of the political spectrum a few short years ago.  It’s significant that they’re being pushed by the House Speaker and some of the more conservative members of her caucus.

In the run up to Biden’s speech, Pelosi was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying, “Lowering health costs and prescription drug prices will be a top priority for House Democrats to be included in the American Families Plan.” House reforms are focused on allowing the government to negotiate prices with drug corporations on behalf of Medicare and other government programs, and then making those negotiated rates available to private health insurers.

“These proposals fall far short of Medicare For All and the other programs people like me have spent years fighting for. But the policies these Democrats are espousing would have been considered the leftmost flank of the political spectrum a few short years ago.”The public strongly supports such measures. A recent poll from Data For Progress shows that voters strongly support a wide range of measures to reduce drug prices, including the House negotiating proposal (supported by 72 percent of voters and opposed by only 17 percent) and matching US drug prices to those paid in other countries (supported by 76 percent). There is also strong support for a proposal spearheaded by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) that would let multiple companies produce generic equivalents of the same drug and compete on cost.

In a related development, more than 80 House Democrats co-signed a letter calling on Biden to: a) expand Medicare coverage to include dental, vision, hearing, and an out-of-pocket cap; b) negotiate drug prices; and c) lower the eligibility age for Medicare. Among them were some representatives with centrist reputations, like Reps. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.), Deborah Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Jared Golden (D-Colo.). That suggests that both ideological wings of the party now support action to lower drug prices.

This reflects considerable movement on the politics of Medicare, too. As HuffPost’s Jonathan Cohn noted, “Pelosi and her allies have already endorsed adding dental, visual and hearing benefits to Medicare, because they know the lack of those benefits causes real hardship for many seniors.”

This is a major shift from the Democratic Party “center” of five years ago, when major Medicare expansions were considered unthinkable. While it represents an expansion of the public sector, a Kaiser Family Foundation report indicates that it saves money for individuals, employers, and the federal government.

Cohn adds, however, that party leaders “think reducing the Medicare eligibility age is a difficult lift politically.” The letter on Medicare expansion spearheaded by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) indicates that this is changing rapidly. Forty percent of House Democrats, including Lamb, Wasserman Schultz, and Golden, have signed on to this idea.

What isn’t likely to change is industry opposition to both measures. Lowering the Medicare age still faces resistance from the hospital industry and other interests that would lose revenue if more claims are paid under Medicare’s rates.  Big Pharma is resolutely opposed to changes that would curb its trillion-dollar death trip. Party leaders who raise money from industry donors are undoubtedly weighing the cost in lost campaign cash against the political popularity of these measures.

One thing’s for sure: rhetorical genuflections aren’t enough anymore. People like me will continue to fight for Medicare For All, especially as uninsured and under-insured Americans keep dying. We won’t win that fight this year, but that effort is clearly moving the political center. Pelosi and these members of her caucus are reflecting that change in their statements. Perhaps it will soon be seen in their legislation.

Some people say it’s all political posturing. Some of it probably is. For others, it may reflect goals they’ve long kept hidden. But will it change anything? Some people will compare voters who believe these promises to Charlie Brown, falling one more time as Lucy pulls away the football. Maybe, but I don’t think so. The number one job of a politician is to get elected. I believe these Democrats recognize that fighting for drug price reductions and Medicare expansion is something they must do to win elections in this environment.

Other people will point out that, even if Biden and the House deliver, these ideas will never pass the Senate as long as politicians like Joe Manchin or Mark Kelly hold veto power. That, too, may be true. But, as Lamb, Wasserman Schultz and Jared Golden can attest, last year’s roadblock can become this year’s ally.

These positions reflect the new contours of the politically possible—and of what is politically required of a Democrat. It’s happening slowly, and many lives will be lost in the meantime. Tragically, that’s how change sometimes happens. That’s all the more reason for the activist community to persuade more of their representatives, as well as the president, to save as many lives as they possible by backing these measures. There’s no time to waste.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York responded to President Joe Biden’s address Wednesday night with a rousing call for transformational change, arguing that the path the president charted during his speech and first 100 days in office is not sufficiently bold to tackle the immediate and long-term emergencies of climate change, soaring wealth inequality, and racial injustice.

“The crises we’re facing go well beyond the Covid-19 pandemic,” Bowman said in an address delivered on behalf of the Working Families Party. “While the richest billionaires got one trillion dollars richer during the pandemic, more than ten million families are behind on rent today, and there are eight million fewer jobs than a year ago. The climate crisis continues to ravage our communities, and scientists tell us we’re running out of time to act.”

“Republicans have made themselves clear. They tried to steal the election, incited an insurrection, and they believe Derek Chauvin is innocent of murdering George Floyd. Now, they’re standing in the way of Congress trying to deliver relief to working people.”
—Rep. Jamaal Bowman

“Every week,” Bowman continued, “we see an unconscionable new video of police violence against Black and brown men, women, and even children.”

While applauding Biden’s recent infrastructure, green jobs, and safety-net proposals as “important steps,” Bowman argued the president’s plans “don’t go as big as we’d truly need in order to solve the crises of jobs, climate and care. We need to think bigger.”

Echoing Biden, the New York Democrat urged Congress to pass a $15 federal minimum wage and the PRO Act, a sweeping labor law reform bill that would make it easier for workers to join unions. But unlike the president, Bowman said that “if we need to get rid of the filibuster to do that, that’s absolutely what we need to do.”

The Democratic congressman went on to call for approval of a Green New Deal for cities, public schools, and public housing, sweeping proposals introduced in recent weeks that Biden has yet to endorse.

“We can create those new, green jobs, and we must make the jobs people already have better. That’s what the Thrive Act is all about, which would create 15 million green union jobs,” said Bowman, referring to a progressive proposal that would invest $10 trillion in infrastructure and green energy over the next decade—a far cry from Biden’s call for roughly $2.3 trillion in spending over the next eight years.

“We need to seize this moment,” said Bowman. “Republicans have made themselves clear. They tried to steal the election, incited an insurrection, and they believe Derek Chauvin is innocent of murdering George Floyd. Now, they’re standing in the way of Congress trying to deliver relief to working people.”

“So it’s on us, as Democrats and progressives, to meet the gravity of the moment,” Bowman added. “And history will judge our actions.”

Watch the full speech:

Below are Bowman’s full remarks as prepared for delivery:

Good evening.

I’m Jamaal Bowman, a member of Congress representing New York’s 16th District. It is my honor to speak on behalf of the Working Families Party this evening. The Working Families Party is the party of unions and working people across the country. And tonight, I’m delivering our response to President Biden’s address to Congress.

We are emerging from the catastrophic failures of the Trump administration. Where hundreds of thousands died because of Donald Trump, and tens of millions lost their jobs. We now have a President and a White House capable of leading our nation out of the pandemic. Shots are going into arms. Covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are all down nationwide, and we are investing historic levels of stimulus to ensure people have more money in their pockets.

Perhaps what I am most proud of, is the way we’ve attacked education inequity. Finally, our title I schools are getting what they need to open safely, and address the issue of historic underfunding.

All of that is good, it’s powerful, and it’s going to make a big difference. But the crises we’re facing go well beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the richest billionaires got one trillion dollars richer during the pandemic, more than ten million families are behind on rent today, and there are eight million fewer jobs than a year ago.

The climate crisis continues to ravage our communities, and scientists tell us we’re running out of time to act.

Every week, we see an unconscionable new video of police violence against Black and brown men, women, and even children.

And our democracy is still under attack, with Republican legislatures across the country cracking down on our right to vote.

We have taken steps to abate the immediate crises of Covid-19 and the economic shutdown it caused. But we, as the governing party, have to go beyond putting a band-aid on the virus.

We need to rebuild our nation with a new foundation. A foundation rooted in love, and care, and equality. Where justice is truly real for all of us, regardless of race, class, gender, orientation, or religion.

I fully believe we can. And the moment is now, because this moment is historic. Not since 2009 has a newly elected Democratic President had the backing of Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

We need to seize this moment. Republicans have made themselves clear. They tried to steal the election, incited an insurrection, and they believe Derek Chauvin is innocent of murdering George Floyd.

Now, they’re standing in the way of Congress trying to deliver relief to working people; last month, not a single elected Republican voted to send relief checks to struggling Americans in the middle of a pandemic.

So it’s on us, as Democrats and progressives, to meet the gravity of the moment. And history will judge our actions.

The single mom in the Bronx working two jobs to make ends meet. That’s who I’m thinking about. I want to be able to say at the end of this Congressional session that Congress has done everything we possibly could to make her life better.

That’s what our movement, the progressive movement, is guided by. Our movement is Latino, we are Asian, we are Black, we are White, we are a beautiful mix of ethnicities and cultures all over the globe who are demanding justice and humanity. We are a continuation of the civil rights movement. We are led by organizers and organizations like Stacey Abrams, Zakiya Ansari, Jesse Hagopian, and the Sunrise Movement, elected leaders who have shifted the narrative like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Ayanna, Rashida, Ilhan, Cori, and Mondaire.

And we are capable of big, powerful, transformative change.

It is entirely possible to meet the climate crisis with a big, visionary investment in jobs. Jobs that begin in our most neglected and redlined communities. We must build a Civilian Climate Corps that employs millions of Americans to do the good work of transforming our energy system and our society. We can create jobs and solve the climate crisis at the same time.

We need a Green New Deal for Public Housing, as my colleague and friend Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has proposed. We can repair and transform run-down, neglected apartments in New York and neighborhoods all across America. We can make public housing better, more healthy, and more safe while turning every public housing development into a source of clean energy.

We need a Green New Deal for Cities, as my friend Cori Bush has proposed. And we need a Green New Deal for Public Schools. Every part of our society must become part of the answer, because this crisis is urgent.

We can create those new, green jobs, and we must make the jobs people already have better. That’s what the Thrive Act is all about, which would create 15 million green union jobs.

And we have to build up labor unions too.

That’s why Congress must pass the PRO Act. The Protect the Right to Organize Act would do away with so-called “right to work laws,” make it easier for workers to unionize, and even let independent contractors bargain collectively. We also badly need a $15 minimum wage, not phased in 10 years from now, but today. And if we need to get rid of the filibuster to do that, that’s absolutely what we need to do.

If this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that the American worker is the backbone of this country. It might not be a popular idea around Washington, but the rest of us know that grocery store workers, nurses, teachers, and transit workers are all more essential than anything Wall Street does.

In fact, there is a whole economy of workers, mostly women, and disproportionately women of color, who are doing the hard, essential work of caring for our moms and dads, looking after our kids, and healing the sick.

These workers represent the care economy.

Unfortunately workers in the care economy are often underpaid, abused, or neglected by employers. They’re not unionized, so there’s no one there to speak up for them when they face unsafe working conditions or meager wages.

The care economy is already enormous and it’s only going to become more important in the future.

We need to invest in paid family and medical leave. We need to make childcare universal and exemplary. And we need living wages and benefits for care workers who provide the services we all need.

I call it the Care for All Agenda, as we must center care as the rebirth of our nation. Because caring is the entire point of what our economy should do. It should be about caring for each other, not just extracting profits from working people for Wall Street.

The proposals that President Biden has put forward over the last few weeks would represent important steps—but don’t go as big as we’d truly need in order to solve the crises of jobs, climate and care. We need to think bigger.

Because now is the time to address the burning crisis of structural racism in our country. Every single time I have to watch a video of a Black man, or a Brown kid, die at the hands of police violence, a little piece of me dies too.

I am connected to every Black man in America. Like them my ancestors were kidnapped from Africa, robbed of their language, and stripped of their religion and culture and God, and we continue to be redlined and killed by the police. I have one message to law enforcement, stop killing us! I need for President Joe Biden to say the same thing. Black people are not for target practice. We are simply trying to survive in a world stacked against us.

This nation will never be truly free if we continue to incarcerate more people than anywhere else in the world, and as long as we invest more in war, jails, and police than we do in jobs, schools, and children.  

We need to end qualified immunity for police, and we need to pass Ayanna Pressley’s People’s Justice Guarantee. Because all we are asking for is accountability. Whether you’re a clerk, a teacher or a member of congress you should be held accountable for your actions. Police cannot be above the law.  

But also, let us finally step back and have honest conversations about race and racism in this country. Because it’s not just police violence—it’s housing discrimination, and wage theft, and Black maternal mortality, it’s environmental injustice, and all of the ways racism is built into the very fabric of America.

More than anything, America needs a process of truth and collective healing. We have to be honest with ourselves about the ugliness of our history and the discrimination that persist. Only then will we meet the ideals of our democracy and get one step closer to realizing the American experiment.  One way to do this is passing HR 40, championed by the late John Conyers and the relentless Sheila Jackson Lee. Let’s study the need to repair the harms of our history. Only then, will we all be truly free.

We are in this moment because of you. Because of organizers across the country demanding progressive change. The same organizers that put President Biden in the White House and won Georgia for Democrats. But we can’t stop, and we won’t stop, until we are all truly free to thrive and make the world a better place. One in which all of us can thrive together.

But we need your help. From the abolitionists to the suffrage movement to the lunch counter sit-ins, visionary Americans like you have always helped bend the arc towards justice.

We need all who believe in a multiracial democracy, and are ready to move forward together in love, to become a part of our movement.

Join us. Help us build a better world.

It’s as simple as texting “GO BIG” to 30403.

Thank you.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Justice delayed. Photo by Jim Watson. Pool/AP

We’re just gonna leave this photo here of two smart, tough, accomplished women – one of color, and the first and second in line of succession to the U.S. presidency – on the House dais before Joe Biden’s first prime-time speech to a joint session of Congress, which opened for the only time since the reign of George Washington with the mellifluous if woefully belated phrase, “Madam Speaker, Madam Vice-President.” The media termed the presence of Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, two powerful women – so close yet so far – in the machinery of American government such as it is, “historic.” But we prefer Harris’ depiction when asked the significance. “Normal,” she said.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Hours after unveiling his American Families Plan Wednesday morning and on the eve of his 100th day in office, U.S. President Joe Biden delivered his first speech to a joint session of Congress at 9:00 pm ET.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) invited the president to share his “vision for addressing the challenges and opportunities of this historic moment.”

Ahead of the address, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) explained that due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, there would be “relatively few” members of either chamber in attendance.

Watch:

Excerpts of Biden’s remarks shared by the White House before his speech signaled that he would present his first 100 days as a rebound from the “nation in crisis” left by his predecessor.

“Now—after just 100 days—I can report to the nation: America is on the move again. Turning peril into possibility. Crisis into opportunity. Setback into strength,” Biden planned to say. “In our first 100 days together, we have acted to restore the people’s faith in our democracy to deliver.”

Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina delivered the official GOP response while Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York delivered the response of the Working Families Party.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

“I couldn’t have survived if I was in America.”

That’s what one woman concluded in a video published Wednesday by the New York Times‘ opinion section, after recounting the weeks she spent in the hospital as a child being treated for a brain virus.

She was just one of several people from around the world who participated in the Times project. Throughout the video, residents of Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom respond to the high costs of healthcare in the for-profit U.S. system.

The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without universal health coverage. While the stars of the Times video were shocked and outraged upon learning how much care costs in the so-called “land of the free,” progressives in the U.S. responded with calls for Medicare for All.

“No one in America should vote for politicians who choose to subject us to this,” Briahna Joy Gray tweeted in response to the video. The Bad Faith podcast co-host and Current Affairs contributing editor served as press secretary to the 2020 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime champion of Medicare for All.

In the video, residents of various countries reviewed some private health insurance options for U.S. residents and tried to make sense of terms like copay, deductible, and OOP max, which stands for out-of-pocket maximum, or the highest amount of money enrollees have to pay annually for healthcare services covered by their plan.

People for Bernie, which grew out of Sanders’ 2016 run for president, also shared the video and asserted that the “acceptable OOP max is $0.”

Some people in the U.S. praised the video as “so, so good” and “very well done.” Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats called it an “excellent video about the cruelty and inefficiency of our healthcare system.”

Others echoed the outrage of video participants. As NARAL Pro-Choice America president Ilyse Hogue put it: “The definition of insanity is this.”

In the video, a man in Sweden contrasts the healthcare system in his country with that of the United States. “To know that I can get sick, I can get injured, but I will still be taken care of, that is freedom,” he says. “This is not freedom.”

Despite conclusions from policymakers and medical experts—including a Lancet panel in February—that “single-payer, Medicare for All reform is the only way forward,” President Joe Biden has made clear he opposes that path to universal coverage.

Biden unveiled his American Families Plan early Wednesday. Despite pressure from progressives in the House and Senate as well as dozens of advocacy groups, he declined to include an expansion of Medicare and drug pricing reforms in the plan.

Ahead of Biden’s Wednesday night address to Congress, Sanders declared in a video from his Senate office that “we’ve got to deal with healthcare.”

“We remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right,” he said. “We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We have got to summon up the courage to take on the healthcare industry, the pharmaceutical industry.”

“My own view, as you know, is that we need a Medicare for All, single-payer system,” the Senate Budget Committee chair added, expressing hope that lawmakers can begin that process by expanding the program—by both lowering the eligibility age from 65 and including dental, hearing, and vision benefits.

“We pay for that by demanding that Medicare start negotiating prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry,” Sanders explained, citing estimates that the reform would raise $450 billion over a decade.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Racial justice advocates welcomed Wednesday’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that three men imprisoned in Georgia on murder and other charges in connection with the death of unarmed Black man Ahmaud Arbery last February also have been charged with federal hate crimes and attempted kidnapping.

According to a DOJ statement, Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and William ‘Roddie’ Bryan “were each charged with one count of interference with rights and with one count of attempted kidnapping.”

“Travis and Gregory McMichael were also charged with one count each of using, carrying, and brandishing—and in Travis’s case, discharging—a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence,” the statement added. 

Echoing numerous racial justice advocates, Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) tweeted, “It’s about damn time” in response to the DOJ announcement. 

Arbery’s relatives and other advocates also welcomed news of the new charges. Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, told CNN that the fresh indictments are “huge.” 

“It’s one step closer to justice,” she said. “They did the investigation properly and they came out with those indictments. So, my family and I were pleased.”

Arbery, who was 25 years old, was jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia on February 23, 2020 when he was confronted by Travis and Gregory McMichael, who claimed they believed Arbery may have stolen from a property under construction. 

Cellphone video recorded by Bryan from his vehicle and released over two months after the killing shows Arbery jogging down the street as the McMichaels approach and confront him in their pickup truck. Travis was driving, while Gregory is seen riding in the truck bed. A struggle ensues after Travis exits the pickup with a shotgun and confronts Arbery. Three shots are then heard as Travis shoots Arbery. The younger McMichael told investigators he fired in self-defense.

According to a statement by Bryan to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, Travis McMichael called Arbery a “fucking nigger” as he stood over the dying man. 

While observers including Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms called Arbery’s killing a “lynching,” Waycross District Attorney George E. Barnhill deemed it a “justifiable homicide,” sparking widespread outrage. Following the release of Bryan’s cellphone footage—and 74 days after Arbery’s death—the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault. Two weeks later, Bryan was arrested and charged with murder and attempted false imprisonment. 

In the past week, the DOJ’s civil rights division has launched investigations of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, respectively where George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—both Black, and both unarmed—were killed by officers last year. 

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Critics of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo renewed their calls for his resignation or impeachment on Wednesday following a New York Times report detailing efforts by his office to hide the number of nursing home deaths from Covid-19 last year.

The Times’ reporting provides new details about Cuomo’s top aides’ involvement, over a period of at least five months last year, to stop state health officials from releasing accurate data about the number of New York nursing home residents who died of the disease. 

State lawmakers and others began suspecting last spring, two months into the pandemic, that the Cuomo administration’s official tally of 6,000 nursing home resident deaths did not include those who died after being transferred to hospitals to treat the coronavirus infections they developed in nursing homes.

A report by state Attorney General Letitia James in January found that Cuomo’s tally may have undercounted the deaths by as much as 50%—but it wasn’t until Wednesday that it became publicly known that Cuomo’s top aides knew about the discrepancy for nearly a year. 

The state Health Department began preparing a report on nursing home deaths in the spring of 2020, with the governor’s top advisors supervising the effort. When the report was made publicly available last July, it emphasized that nursing home admissions from hospitals “were not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities” and included the death count of 6,000. 

But another unpublished draft which was reviewed by the Times stated that 9,739 nursing home residents had died of Covid-19 through the end of May 2020—”approximately 35%” of all deaths in the state, rather than 21%, as the published draft stated. 

In the following months, Cuomo’s office withheld data on the deaths of nursing home patients, declining to cooperate with the Trump administration’s request for the information, which the governor said was likely made in an effort to embarrass Democratic governors like Cuomo and portray them as handling the coronavirus pandemic badly. 

Cuomo, the Times report suggested, also appeared to avoid disclosing accurate numbers regarding nursing home deaths by asking for further analysis of the data, while releasing a best-selling book heralding his own coronavirus response in October. The governor also used the supposedly low percentage of nursing home deaths as a “talking point” regarding his approach to the pandemic.

MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes said the behavior detailed in the revelations was “enraging and unforgivable,” while a number of critics called for the governor’s resignation or removal.

“It is unfathomable that Andrew Cuomo is still in office,” tweeted journalist Mark Harris. 

The actions of Cuomo and his aides represent “the opposite of transparency and the opposite of good government,” the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington tweeted.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.

Progressives in the United States cheered Wednesday in response to President Joe Biden’s proposal to raise taxes on the country’s wealthiest households and rein in tax evasion to fund universal preschool, affordable child care, and paid family and medical leave, among other social investments outlined in the White House’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan.

“The tax increases on wealthy individuals in President Biden’s American Families Plan are exactly what this country needs,” said Morris Pearl, former managing director at BlackRock and current chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of rich Americans opposed to the unchecked concentration of wealth and power.

“High-income earners, wealthy investors, and millionaire heirs have skated by without paying their fair share for far too long,” Pearl continued. “The tax hikes proposed by President Biden would reverse decades of our tax code prioritizing wealth over work.”

The American Families Plan would raise the top marginal tax rate on the richest people in the U.S. from 37% to 39.6%, reversing part of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law.

The proposal would also close the so-called carried interest loophole—a tax break that benefits hedge fund and private equity executives—and increase the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends from 20% to 39.6% for households bringing in more than $1 million a year.

“It is absurd that money earned from labor, from sweat and hard work, is currently taxed at nearly double the rate as money earned from passive investments,” said Pearl. “My money should not be given special treatment over someone else’s sweat. The Biden plan to raise the capital gains tax rate to match the ordinary income tax rate would correct this fundamental injustice in our tax code, and put everyone, worker and investor alike, on a level playing field.”

The American Families Plan would close another tax loophole, known as the “stepped-up basis,” which Pearl said “allows heirs of multi-million-dollar fortunes to avoid paying taxes on vast amounts of accumulated capital gains profits, contributing to the formation of the kind of permanently wealthy, hereditary elite that our Founding Fathers rebelled against. It has no place in our tax code, and the Biden plan to eliminate it should receive widespread support.”

To ensure that rich Americans pay what they owe, Biden is calling for substantially increasing the budget of the Internal Revenue Service to provide the agency with resources to crack down on tax avoidance. According to a recent analysis by IRS researchers and academics, the richest 1% of U.S. households don’t report around 21% of their income.

The president’s plan to “dramatically increase funding for the IRS to target wealthy tax evaders is incredibly important,” said Pearl. “Thanks to years of deliberate underfunding of the IRS, wealthy tax cheats have been able to go unpunished, leading to the tax gap, or what is owed to the government in taxes but not paid, to reach over $1 trillion a year.”

Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, noted in a statement that decades of “wealth hoarding and tax avoidance by billionaires and multi-millionaires… is not an accident.”

“The super-rich—those with over $30 million and up—hire a veritable army of what social scientists call the ‘wealth defense industry’ to dodge taxes, stash wealth, and lobby for weak taxes,” said Collins. “These are highly paid tax attorneys, wealth managers, and accountants, who specialize in creating complex shell games using offshore tax havens, dynasty trusts, anonymous shell companies, and bogus transactions. Billionaires pay them millions to hide trillions.”

Bolstering the IRS is “a vital first step to economic recovery and reducing extreme wealth inequality,” Collins added. “The future of the IRS may determine whether we become a society dominated by billionaires or a functioning democracy.”

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said that “not only will investments in increased enforcement have a strong multiplier effect, but it will also help restore the public’s trust to know that everyone is paying what they owe. And it is far past time for the wealthy to pay a fairer share.”

Pearl emphasized that “each of these tax increases would affect only the wealthiest Americans, a group that has seen their fortunes grow substantially over the last several decades and throughout the pandemic.”

“Wealthy Americans like me can more than afford to pay higher taxes, and we should be expected to,” Pearl continued. “With these plans, the Biden administration is ushering in a new, better vision for what our tax code should look like, one that shrinks inequality instead of contributing to it.”

“The era of trickle-down nonsense is over—it’s time to tax the rich,” he added.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.