The Democratic staff on the House Education and the Workforce Committee announced on Thursday that they have filed a petition to form a union, the Congressional Workers Union (CWU), marking the first committee staff in congressional history to unionize. If the workers’ union is approved, they will be able to collectively bargain for provisions like salary, sick leave and better working conditions.
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The NAACP is warning President Joe Biden that failing to deliver on student debt relief if the Supreme Court strikes down his forgiveness plan will be tantamount to breaking his promises to narrow the racial wealth gap. In a letter sent to Biden on Wednesday, first reported by NBC, the group expressed frustration over Biden’s recent move to end the student loan payment pause at the end of this…
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On Tuesday, Republicans voted to pass legislation that would prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission from banning gas stoves — a proposal that was never quite on the table for the Biden administration, but that became a major moment in Republicans’ culture war nonetheless. The legislation, which passed with all Republicans and 29 Democrats voting “yes,” is largely symbolic.
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A group of Democrats is launching a push to force a vote in the Republican-dominated House on a proposal to ban assault weapons and enact other gun control initiatives as gun violence reaches a record high in the U.S. With the support of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), three Democrats have each taken the helm of a discharge petition to force votes on three different proposals…
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After spending months threatening to tank the economy over the federal deficit, Republicans have unveiled a set of new tax proposals that would cost the government billions of dollars — by handing tens of billions of dollars of tax cuts to the richest 1 percent of Americans, as a new report reveals. On Friday, just a week after the conclusion of the debt ceiling showdown…
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has fired a shot across the bow to the White House in his latest move in his quest to lower prescription drug prices in the U.S. Sanders has vowed to oppose all health-related nominees, including President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), until the Biden administration presents a “comprehensive” plan to address the prescription…
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New research based on the latest publicly available data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention finds that 2021 was a record year for gun deaths in the U.S., with deaths hitting a record high for the second year in a row. The report by Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions finds that 48,830 people died due to firearm-related causes in 2021, the highest number on record.
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A key Republican witness in a recent House subcommittee hearing may have lied to Congress about his ties to far right propaganda group Project Veritas in a recent testimony dubiously accusing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of being biased against the right, potentially constituting a breach of federal law, Democrats are saying. Republicans had presented suspended FBI agent Garret O’…
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Amid numerous scandals that have revealed the deep corruption on the Supreme Court bench, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) have reintroduced a bill seeking to reverse the relative impunity that Supreme Court justices enjoy and enact a set of binding ethical rules. The Judicial Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act would ensure that, like every other federal…
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President Joe Biden has vetoed a conservative-backed bill that would have repealed his plan to deliver up to $20,000 of relief to student debtors across the country. The bill would have nixed the plan (to provide up to $10,000 of forgiveness to student debtors making under $125,000 a year and $20,000 to Pell Grant recipients), which hasn’t yet been able to take effect. Currently…
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As unprecedented, climate change-fueled wildfires in Canada are resulting in record-breaking pollution in cities and towns across the U.S., marking not only a climate event but also a major public health event, a coal-funded lawyer went on Fox News on Wednesday night to spread a particularly dangerous lie: that breathing wildfire smoke doesn’t have any negative health effects. Appearing on “The…
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After months of silence on the violent repression of activists organizing against a massive planned police militarization compound in Atlanta known as Cop City, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) has spoken up about the issue, sending a letter this week to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expressing concern over the potentiality of activists’ First Amendment rights being trampled by the…
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Millions of federal workers across the U.S. face stricter ethics requirements than those faced by Supreme Court justices, a new report finds, revealing the large insufficiencies in oversight regarding nine of the most powerful individuals in the country. A Bloomberg analysis published this week reveals that at least 2 million U.S. federal workers, of which there are roughly 2.9 million in total…
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On Tuesday, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) lifted the veil on Republicans’ war on “woke,” saying aloud what the GOP won’t admit: that their use of the word as a pejorative is just a thin disguise for their contempt toward Black people. In a House Oversight Committee hearing about environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment — a longtime milquetoast corporate initiative that’s become…
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In the latest sign that the climate crisis is here and already endangering people across the world, much of the eastern half of the U.S. woke up on Wednesday morning to find their homes blanketed in smoke as wildfires in Canada create apocalyptic scenes in major cities like New York. Wildfire smoke swept across the Northeast, Midwest and South — even stretching as far west as New Mexico — on…
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Conservatives and the far right have been waging a relentless battle to attack the LGBTQ community that has gained steam in recent years — but, despite these often frightening smear campaigns, polling has found that support for gay marriage among the public remains at an all time high. According to Gallup polling conducted last month, 71 percent of Americans say that same sex couples should…
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Merck announced on Tuesday that it is suing the government over a recently approved plan to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, aiming to stop one of the nation’s first efforts to take a small step toward lowering sky-high drug prices in the U.S. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington on Tuesday, claims that the plan is unconstitutional and calls it a “sham” and…
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A state school board in Oklahoma has voted to approve what would be the nation’s first publicly funded religious school in a move that opponents, including the state’s attorney general, are saying is blatantly unconstitutional. The application to form the school, an online public charter school that would serve K-12, was submitted by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma. The purpose of forming the…
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A prominent civil rights group is calling for a federal investigation into Georgia police’s arrest of three lead organizers for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, a bail fund that has helped in protesters’ fight against Cop City, raising deep concerns about the state’s seeming quest to paint protesters against Cop City as “terrorists.” In a statement released on Friday, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) said…
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Far right Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed an industry-backed bill that will allow Florida landlords to charge renters a monthly nonrefundable fee in lieu of a deposit that opponents of the bill say is predatory and meant to exploit renters. The bill, H.B. 133, places no cap on the fee — which critics have compared to junk fees — meaning that landlords could charge as much as they choose.
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New polling reveals that a majority of Americans recognize the growing crisis of low teacher pay and poor treatment despite a rabid and coordinated right wing quest to vilify and attack teachers across the country. Last month, NPR/Ipsos surveyed two groups: 1,316 U.S. adults, and 510 U.S. grade school teachers. The poll found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans — 69 percent — say that public school…
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Five members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted against the debt ceiling package negotiated between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and the White House on Thursday, condemning cruel provisions in the bill aimed at harming the nation’s most economically vulnerable populations. The bill passed Thursday evening 63 to 36, with Senators John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania), Ed Markey (D…
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This story originally appeared in Truthout on May 31, 2023. It is shared here with permission.
Law enforcement officers in Georgia have arrested three top organizers behind a bail fund in Atlanta that has been aiding protesters against Cop City.
Atlanta police arrested the organizers, the CEO, chief financial officer and the secretary for the group behind the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, at their homes on Wednesday morning. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), the three were charged with money laundering and charity fraud.
Activists called the arrests an escalation in the state’s attempt to crush the Stop Cop City movement, with participants being hit with increasingly harsh charges.
“This is a major escalation — they’re arresting those who defend the arrested,” wrote Atlanta organizer Micah Herskind. “The implications of these arrests is that not only can you not protest, but you cannot defend those who are arrested for protesting. There is no first amendment in Atlanta.”
In a statement, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) spoke as though the organizers and other anti-Cop City activists were already found guilty of their charges from the GBI. He said that he was “proud” to have arrested the “criminals” who he says “facilitated and encouraged domestic terrorism,” referring to terrorism charges against Cop City protesters.
The city of Atlanta is pursuing a $90 million plan backed by both Republicans like Kemp and Democratic Mayor Andre Dickens to build an 85-acre police militarization compound in a forest in the area. If built, Cop City would be the nation’s largest police training compound, and activists say that it would only worsen brutality by local police, as evidenced by the violent response to nonviolent protesters — all while razing a forest to do so.
The Twitter account for the Defend the Atlanta Forest/Stop Cop City movement, pointed out that the Atlanta Solidarity Fund has aided in lawsuits against the Atlanta Police Department over its arrests of a journalist and protesters in the movement. “This is retaliatory,” the group wrote.
Activists have also pointed out that the GBI’s statement about the arrest, as well as Kemp’s, seem to suggest that the state is preparing to use Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges against the bail fund, which the Atlanta Solidarity Fund has been predicting for months.
The organizers have said that the state appears to be creating a “flimsy narrative” that the group is a criminal organization. So far, over 40 activists have been charged with domestic terrorism for protesting the compound.
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund has been crucial in the fight against Cop City, helping to provide support for protesters hit with bail amounts that have sometimes exceeded $300,000, according to one of the arrested organizers.
“This is targeting of organizers and movements by the police and the state,” said activist Kamau Franklin, with Community Movement Builders, in a statement. “Bail funds have been a part of organizing the Civil Rights movement and labor movement. We will continue to fight back against cop city and the political arrest of our friends and comrades.”
Activists have long maintained that the charges lobbed onto anti-Cop City activists are bogus and that law enforcement are creating false narratives in order to justify the arrests.
Backing up activists’ argument is the fact that police have already been caught lying about one of the most crucial and inhumane actions taken against protesters so far: the killing of Manuel Paez Terán, whose chosen name was Tortuguita, in January. Though police claimed that Tortuguita shot first, a DeKalb County autopsy found that there was no gunpowder residue on Tortuguita’s hands when police shot them 57 times, killing them.
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
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Law enforcement officers in Georgia have arrested three top organizers behind a bail fund in Atlanta that has been aiding protesters against Cop City. Atlanta police arrested the organizers, the CEO, chief financial officer and the secretary for the group behind the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, at their homes on Wednesday morning. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI)…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) released a report on Tuesday finding that the U.S. is quickly hurtling toward a child care cliff that will plunge the country even deeper into its child care crisis come September unless Congress acts. The report, released by Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee chair Sanders and member Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), finds that both families and…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Ahead of Wednesday’s House vote on the debt ceiling deal, progressive lawmakers have introduced a pair of amendments to remove provisions that would hurt the nation’s most economically vulnerable populations. On Tuesday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) filed an amendment to the legislation that would strike a provision buried in the bill that would restart student loan payments at the end…
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The debt ceiling deal struck between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) throws student debtors under the bus by forcing student loan payments to restart at the end of this summer with recourse for the presidential administration. The bill mandates that the ongoing student loan payment pause, which has been in place since March 2020, will end on August 30…
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