In the wake of widespread death and destruction wrought by Hurricane Ida from the Gulf Coast through New England, and with wildfires raging across the western half of the U.S., Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., inexplicably called for a “pause” on the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill this week.
The bill will contain significant elements to address the climate crisis, including transitioning to clean energy and funding resilient infrastructure to withstand extreme weather events. Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected Manchin’s call and insisted work would proceed on passage.
However, Manchin, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema…
In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and economic emergency, the Biden administration just announced the largest increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in the program’s history. It is the latest policy aimed at substantially reducing poverty, especially among children.
Anti-hunger advocacy groups applauded the action. “SNAP is one of our nation’s first lines of defense against hunger and helps some of our nation’s most vulnerable individuals, including children, the elderly, and people with disabilities,” said Lisa Davis, Senior Vice President at Share Our Strength.
“It also plays an important role in helping low-wage working families keep food…
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages and new, more dangerous variants emerge, demands are growing for a “ people’s vaccine “ to counter the chief obstacle to global vaccination-Big Pharma profiteering.
Public health officials and infectious disease specialists all agree: The pandemic will not end until most of the world is vaccinated. Poor and medium-income countries face a public health catastrophe, but even people living in wealthier countries are not safe. The Delta variant has already led to a “pandemic among the unvaccinated.”
Vaccinating most of the world’s population faces two primary obstacles: right-wing and neo-fascist sabotage and extreme profiteering by…
The GOP and the electoral coalition it reflects are in a panic. They face an existential crisis. The GOP, and its wealthy backers, are squarely on the path to minority political status in a rapidly changing nation and up against a rising multi-racial democratic movement with huge social transformative potential.
Two new studies of the 2020 election results suggest why the GOP is, in its decay, carrying out, with the connivance of a GOP-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, the biggest assault on democracy since the Civil War.
The GOP is now boxing itself in as a neo-fascist party of insurrection, white…
In the face of a vicious Republican-orchestrated assault on democratic rights and working-class economic gains, states dominated by Democratic governors and legislatures representing broad multi-racial governing coalitions are pulling in the opposite direction-going all out to expand rights.
And in some GOP-dominated states, voters are taking matters into their own hands to bypass the obstruction and pass referendums initiated by grassroots coalitions of Democratic led-initiatives popular among voters.
Voters will need to oust the Republican Party from power in as many places as possible in 2022 to block and reverse these fascist, authoritarian, and harsh anti-people agendas. …
The GOP and extreme right-wing groups are conspiring against U.S. constitutional democracy in a two-pronged scheme to ram voter suppression laws through state legislatures and block the passage of historic voting rights legislation in Congress. Millions in dark money are fueling this plot, carried out under cover of the “Big Lie” of voter fraud.
The conspiracy was outed when a video surfaced of the leader of Heritage Action for America bragging about the scheme. The group, an arm of the Heritage Foundation, has led voter suppression efforts for decades. …
A move is underway internationally to temporarily scrap patent restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines that are making pharmaceutical companies’ profits explode while many countries struggle to inoculate their people against the deadly virus. In a surprise but extraordinary decision, the Biden administration announced its support Wednesday for a waiver of such patent rights.
But to happen, all 164-member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will have to agree. Under current intellectual property protections, manufacture of the vaccines developed by private companies is blocked to anyone but the patent holders. …
President Joe Biden announced an ambitious goal to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in response to the looming climate crisis on Thursday morning. With the goal, GHG emissions are to be reduced by 50% of the 2005 level by the year 2030. Environmentalists, scientists, labor leaders, and many elected officials and businesses enthusiastically greeted the announcement, which requires an all-government and national mobilization to achieve.
The goal, also known as the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Climate Accords, was announced at the Leaders Summit on Climate on Earth Day (April 22–23) called by the Biden administration. Getting…
President Joe Biden is under mounting pressure to address the rapidly growing student debt crisis by canceling up to $50,000 in crushing individual student loans. A growing chorus of elected officials and advocates say Biden can cancel the debt through executive action.
Also, 415 community, civil rights, climate, health, consumer, labor, food and farm, and student advocacy organizations released a letter to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in support of canceling student debt.
The organizations say the debt crisis is an economic, racial, gender, and health issue. The administration could “boost the economy, tackle racial disparities, and provide a…
As the Biden administration orchestrates a massive effort to open vaccination against COVID to every adult by April 19, a “ shocking imbalance “ in vaccination is occurring globally.
While governments of many wealthier capitalist countries are vaccinating their populations, vaccinations have all but stalled in the global South countries, leaving the people in large swaths of the planet to fend for themselves.
“Vaccine nationalism” by wealthier capitalist countries, pharmaceutical industry greed, misinformation, and the lack of funding and public health infrastructure in many places are all immense obstacles to global vaccination just as the pandemic spikes.
The U.S., among…
John Bachtell
Writer at PeoplesWorld.org, triathlete, eco-socialist, vegetarian, craft beer lover, dabbler at guitar, and proud papa.
