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As the dystopian movie Civil War sets records portraying the "colorful horrors of the American future" on its current riven trajectory, we just saw the same mindless, time-honored rancor play out at "Ole Miss being Ole Miss," where a pack of rabid, jeering, shit-for-brains frat bros with white-supremely punchable faces set upon a black female student protesting genocide in Gaza. On foul display: That "Southern Heritage we’re always Jim Crowing about," and, without resistance, the next generation of GOP goons and bigots.

Robert Reich recently posted a message of hope to his students, graduating at a "tremulous" time in a world beset by racism, genocide, climate change, culture wars, rising authoritarianism. Like many of us, Reich also entered adulthood at a bitter time, in 1968, amidst war, assassinations, cities burning. "I ask my students to hold on," he writes. "To use their lives and careers to make America better. To try to heal the world." It's a tough ask in a fractious time, now grimly depicted in Alex Garland's Civil War about a nihilistic America "at war with itself." What one critic calls "a cautionary tale about America’s inevitable self-destruction," it offers a harrowing look at "the horrors that lie ahead for a great country on the rocks - and what America has done to itself already," with its "motiveless carnage," tarnished ideals, president "who has raped the U.S. Constitution," and beleaguered free press, including "an aging survivor of what’s left of the New York Times," "trying to record what they witness in the line of fire (as) the rest of us die." Its bleak message: "If things continue in the (current) political direction, no one will be safe from annihilation in the next decade."

In real life, America's political landscape takes it down a notch or so, but still leans dark. A GOP-controlled House big on "pointless gestures and posturing" just plumbed new McCarthyist depths by passing a bill that conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, "an insult (to) historical memory erasing decades of Jewish anti-Zionist politics"; its crypto-fascist "leader" Mike Johnson plans hearings on anti-genocide college protests to "look at the root causes funded by, I don’t know, George Soros or overseas entities." A corrupt, far-right judicial system now includes in its plutocratic ranks not just Alito, Thomas et al but Trump fangirl Aileen 'What Classified Documents?' Cannon, who claims her newly exposed omission of fat-cat-funded vacations was "completely inadvertent." Thanks to such chicanery - and despite efforts to protect election integrity and its stewards - a new survey shows over half of all election officials fear for their safety, from harassment to assault, and for their ability to do their jobs without political meddling. And the "petty little shit-stain" who so helped shred our democratic norms is still free (for now), and jabbering.

Of course, the "whining train-wreck" now seething through his sordid criminal trial - as Stormy Daniels say she was "ashamed" of their (ewww) sexual encounter - still pursues his rampage back to power. Last weekend, free from the legal strictures he gripes keep him from campaigning, he again fled to his tacky golf club to beg rich people for more money to keep him out of jail; with no low, he even scrounched for $9,000 in gag order fines. At a $40,000-a-plate bash, he groused about taking selfies with small donors who don't deserve them, called Biden "the Gestapo" and Jack Smith "a fucking asshole," deemed 40% of Americans moochers who "get welfare to vote and then they cheat," and paraded his trashy VP hopefuls like a motel pageant of Miss Florida also-rans: Doug Burgum - "He's a very rich man"; Kristi Noem, now urging Biden's dog Commander be added to the kill list - "Somebody that I love"; Byron Donalds - "Somebody who's created something very special, donors worth millions of dollars...I like diversity. Diversité, as you would say." And sniveling lapdog Tim Scott, in limbo with no word from on high even as he faithfully declines six times to say he'll accept the 2024 election results.

Sigh. With such civic and moral mentors, thus do we get the savage, racist, redneck frat boys at Ole Miss who somehow never learned - so much for teach your children well - it is not acceptable, when witnessing a group of righteous fellow students acting in conscience to protest the slaughter of many thousands of innocents in Gaza, to single out a black woman and leer, jeer, boo, screech, give her multiple fingers, jump up and down making grotesque faces and grunting monkey noises, clutch their crotches, throw food and cups of water, chant "We Want Trump!" "Fuck Joe Biden!" and shriek, "Who’s your daddy?,” "Take a shower," "Lizzo, Lizzo!", "Fuck you fat-ass!" "Your nose is huge!" "Shave your legs!" "Fuck you fat bitch!" and "Lock her up!" The woman, identified as graduate student Jaylin Smith, kept filming as the idiot yahoos, safely surrounded by hundreds of barbarian peers, some in stars-and-stripes overalls, feverishly bounced around her. Reports said they outnumbered by about 10-to-1 the roughly 30, diverse students with UMiss for Palestine, who calmly carried Palestinian flags and signs: "Free Palestine," "Stop the Genocide” and “U.S. Bombs Take Palestine Lives.”

Many of the yokels - one sage: "A thousand faces of 'peaked in high school'...The end product of a failed state" - reportedly had no idea what the protest was about. Said one, "I don't know what they’re doing here. I just want them gone." See the ever-prescient William Faulkner: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." For many, the ugly spectacle summoned "the ghosts of UM's past" at a school nicknamed for a plantation term, that long called its sports teams the Rebels and its mascot Colonel Reb, still has only 11% black students in a state nearly 40% black, and remains famous for the 1962 riots that followed the admission, a full eight years after Brown v. Board of Education banning segregation, of 29-year-old veteran James Meredith, the school's first African-American student, whose arrival on the Oxford campus was accompanied by 1,400 US Marshalls and federal troops and who later said of the experience, "I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One." In 1964, Nina Simone released her searing song, Mississippi Goddamn: "Hound dogs on my trail/school children sittin' in jail/thinkin' every day's gonna be my last/I don't belong here, I don't belong there."

Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam www.youtube.com

After video of the douchebag behavior toward a lone black woman by a horde of hooting good ole boys was met with outrage, UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce faintly acknowledged the school’s "challenging" history, noting, "Incidents like this can set us back." Citing "offensive and inappropriate" statements and "actions that conveyed hostility and racist overtones," Boyce said the school would "investigate" the conduct of at least one student and "determine whether more cases are warranted." "Behaviors and comments that demean people because of their race or ethnicity...undermine the values that are fundamental to a civil and safe society," he said in a statement. "People who say horrible things to people because of who they are will not find shelter or comfort on this campus." Still, it remains to be seen if so-called adults who likewise say horrible things - like Mississippi's Gov. Tate Reeves, who posted video with, "Warms my heart," and Georgia Rep. and "racist POS" Mike Collins, who captioned the repulsive scene "Ole Miss taking care of business" - will also be held accountable. (His Congressional office number is 202-225-4101. Just sayin'.)

A ghastly piece of work who's suggested murdering migrants by throwing them Pinochet-style from helicopters and introduced a bill to ban federal "zealots" from removing Greg Abbott's deadly razor buoys from the Rio Grande, Collins later backtracked, slightly. He bombastically noted there "seems to be some potentially inappropriate behavior that none of us should seek to glorify” and suggested if someone "is found" to be a racist POS "they should be punished (and) will hopefully seek forgiveness" before doubling back down on "pro-Hamas, anti-American, Antifa anarchists" who "run roughshod" over nice rebels "there to learn and enjoy college." Meanwhile, UM's NAACP chapter swiftly condemned counter-protesters' "reprehensible actions," identified the monkey asshole as James "JP" Staples from Phi Delta Theta, and called for his expulsion along with that of Connor Moore and Rouse Davis Boyce from Kappa Alpha Order as the "primary perpetrators." The next day, Phi Delta Theta removed Staples for behavior that was "offensive, outside the bounds of this discourse, and contradictory to our values." The school has yet to take any further action.

But Toby Morton has. A writer for South Park and MadTV, Morton is also the "immature and irresponsible" creator of a series of Fascist Websites paying tribute, thanks to idiotically unregistered domain names, to the vile likes of Greg Abbott - "People die on his watch" - Elise Stefanik - "Let's keep it white" - DeFascist 24 - "I've always strived to promote a safe and welcoming space for every white nationalist in Florida and beyond" - and Tennessee's Cameron Sexton: "You racist? I got your back." Now, he has a campaign website for J.P. Staples - "Racially driven experience in hate" - starting with a Hitler quote, "The first million was the hardest." "I've been carrying this burden for far too long, and I can't hold it in any longer," it reads. "I hate so much it consumes me...I hate the way black people look at me, the way they talk, the way they exist...Here I am, confessing my deepest, darkest secret. I'm a scared little bitch. I fear those who are superior to me. I fear people will see who I truly am - a piece of shit. Thankfully, I represent many Americans and how we think." And there are testimonials! Kristi Noem: "Does he have a dog?" MTG: "Welcome to the GOP."

Staples has scrubbed his social media accounts, forgetting the Internet is forever, but sleuths were quickly on it. From a Texas MAGA family whose father is a repeat DWI offender, "Monkey Boy" evidently "hates all races but his own." His posts are both racist and anti-Semitic, raging at "cock-sucking Jews" who after a week removed from streaming a movie he wanted to watch and idly wondering "if Jews use the term 'baby in the oven'" for someone pregnant. Observers mused on his future job prospects: Hero good ole boy a la Kyle Rittenhouse, or landscaping assistant, Trump advisor, guy "asking people if they want fries with their order for the rest of his life?" Many see him as "a sterling (result) of spectacularly bad parenting - mini-racists pop out." "You're looking at the next generation of racists," said one, who included girlfriends "cheering (them) on - the Klan rode up to the meeting, but the wives sewed the capes and hoods." They deem him "the true face of Mississippi," of "the Republican Party and how they behave when nobody's looking" - or even when we are - and of the ghosts of America's racist past: Still and all, "They walk among us."

The 2024 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, released today, shows that our Social Security system remains fully affordable.

This year’s report announces that, thanks to a strong and growing economy, Social Security can pay all benefits and associated administrative costs in full until 2035, one year later than projected in last year’s report. After that, it can pay 83 percent percent of benefits, also an improvement over last year — even if Congress were to do the unimaginable, and take no action whatsoever.

Social Security has an accumulated surplus of $2.79 trillion. It is 90 percent funded for the next quarter century, 83 percent for the next half century, and 81 percent for the next three quarters of a century. At the end of the century, in 2100, Social Security is projected to cost just 6.1 percent of gross domestic product (“GDP”). The following is a statement on the report from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works:

“Today’s report shows that our Social Security system is benefiting from the Biden economy. Due to robust job growth, low unemployment, and rising wages, more people than ever are contributing to Social Security and earning its needed protections. As a result, Social Security can pay all promised benefits until 2035, one year longer than projected in last year’s report, and 83 percent of benefits thereafter, also an improvement over last year — even if Congress takes no action whatsoever.

That said, Congress should take action sooner rather than later to ensure that Social Security can pay full benefits for generations to come, along with expanding Social Security’s modest benefits. That will restore one of the most important benefits Social Security is intended to provide to the American people — a sense of security.

Congressional Democrats have introduced several plans that would do just that. These plans are paid for by requiring millionaires and billionaires to contribute more of their fair share. That is particularly appropriate since, according to Social Security’s chief actuary, rising inequality is the primary unanticipated reason that Social Security faces a funding shortfall in a decade. That inequality has cost Social Security $1.4 trillion over the last decade.

Proposals to protect and expand Social Security are bipartisan in the only way that really matters — they have strong support from Republican and independent voters, as well as Democrats. In contrast, 92 percent of voters oppose cutting benefits.

President Biden is listening to the American people. As today’s report shows, Biden’s economic policies are already strengthening Social Security — and he understands that more is needed. His most recent budget calls for protecting and expanding Social Security by requiring the wealthiest to contribute their fair share.

In contrast, Republicans want to cut benefits despite overwhelming opposition from the American people. The most recent budget of the Republican Study Committee, which consists of about three quarters of House Republicans, contains over $1.5 trillion in cuts to Social Security in just the next ten years. These cuts include raising the retirement age and deeply slashing middle-class benefits, radically transforming Social Security towards a flat, poverty-level pittance instead of an earned benefit.

It’s not just Congressional Republicans. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, despite his protestations to the contrary, also supports benefit cuts. He also favors slashing Social Security’s dedicated revenue. In addition, Trump plans to sharply restrict immigration. This would harm Social Security by reducing the number of workers paying in.

Ultimately, the question of whether to expand or cut Social Security’s modest benefits is a question of values and choice, not affordability. The United States is the wealthiest nation on Earth at the wealthiest moment in our history. We can use that wealth to protect and expand Social Security, or to provide yet more tax handouts to billionaires.

This report is a reminder that the next decade is a crucial one for Social Security’s future. Americans should vote accordingly this November.”

Pesticide-maker Bayer has asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to re-approve the dangerous pesticide dicamba for use on genetically engineered (GE) cotton and soybeans.

The request comes after two different federal courts vacated the registrations of the drift-prone weedkiller — one in 2020 and the other in February 2024. Dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres, including croplands, home gardens, forests, and even wildlife refuges. Notably, neither EPA nor dicamba registrants appealed the 2024 court decision, which is now final. In an "existing stocks" order, EPA prohibited any sale or distribution of dicamba not already in channels of trade as of February 6th of this year.

Due to a 17-month review of this new application, dicamba use on GE soybeans and cotton may well remain prohibited for the 2025 crop season.

Overall, the proposal is similar to the prior approvals that the courts have twice found to be illegal, with applications still allowed in conditions that favor volatility and widespread damage to crops and the environment. However, unlike the unlawful 2020 approval, for this proposal there will be a notice and comment period, now required by the 2024 court's decision, in which stakeholders can weigh in and tell EPA to reject it.

"EPA has had seven long years of massive drift damage to learn that dicamba cannot be used safely with GE dicamba-resistant crops," said Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety. "Nothing Bayer might say or do can redeem this inherently hazardous GE crop system. EPA must deny this application to spare thousands of farmers further massive losses, and to avert still more rural strife between dicamba users and victims of its rampant drift."

"This is a farce. Virtually nothing in this application addresses the concerns the public and the courts have about this destructive pesticide," said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Bayer's cynical attempt to push through another illegal dicamba approval is obviously terrible for the environment, but it's also bad for farmers, who keep getting jerked around by the promise of another registration that's destined for failure. The EPA should stop this once and for all with a quick, decisive denial."

Bayer has offered some changes in the proposed label language, but these changes would not fix the key issues that have resulted in past calamities. Cotton growers would still be allowed to spray into the heat of summer (until July 30th), when volatility is worst, promising continued massive drift injury wherever cotton is grown. The proposed reductions in the number and amount of annual applications will not have much impact, since growers have historically used far less dicamba than permitted, causing enormous damage nonetheless. While the proposed label for soybeans would bar application after June 12th or crop emergence (whichever comes first), that language is likely to have little practical impact with a GE crop expressly designed for over-the-top use and the potential for spraying into June.

Background

In 2016 Monsanto, which has since been acquired by Bayer, opened the floodgates to massive spraying of dicamba by genetically engineering soybeans and cotton to withstand "over-the-top" spraying of the pesticide. The results have been devastating, with drift damage to millions of acres of non-genetically engineered soybeans as well as to orchards, gardens, trees and other plants on a scale unprecedented in the history of U.S. agriculture.

Dozens of imperiled species, including pollinators like monarch butterflies and rusty patched bumblebees, are also threatened by the pesticide.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that up to 15 million acres of soybeans have been damaged by dicamba drift. Beekeepers in multiple states have reported sharp drops in honey production due to dicamba drift suppressing the flowering plants their bees need for sustenance.

The pesticide industry encouraged widespread use of the older, more toxic dicamba after over-the-top use of the glyphosate-based product Roundup on crops genetically altered to resist it fueled weed resistance to glyphosate on more than 100 million acres of U.S. cropland.

In 2020 a federal court vacated the EPA's dicamba registration for the first time because of the unprecedented damage the pesticide caused. The court noted that in approving dicamba, the EPA had failed to examine how "dicamba use would tear the social fabric of farming communities." But a mere four months later, the EPA reapproved the pesticide, claiming that new measures would cut down on the damage.

Yet the EPA admitted in a 2021 report that its application restrictions to limit dicamba's harm had failed and the pesticide was continuing to cause massive drift damage to crops.

In February 2024 a federal court vacated the EPA's 2020 re-approval of dicamba. In its decision, the court outlined the massive damage to stakeholders who were deprived of their opportunity to comment. These included growers who do not use over-the-top dicamba and have suffered significant financial losses and states that repeatedly reported landscape-level damage. As a result, the court found "the EPA is unlikely to issue the same registrations" again after taking these stakeholders' concerns into account.

The court also criticized the EPA's assessment of the 2020 registrations' widespread harms. Monsanto and the EPA claimed this over-the-top new use of dicamba would not cause harm because of new restrictions on its use. But the court found the EPA's "circular approach to assessing risk, hinging on its high confidence that control measures will all but eliminate offsite movement, [led] to its corresponding failure to assess costs from offsite movement." And instead, just as independent researchers had warned, the restrictions failed and dicamba continued to vaporize and drift.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on President Biden to respond to the start of the Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of Rafah by enforcing his "red line," suspending military aid, and demanding an end to the genocide.

Yesterday, the Israeli government dropped leaflets threatening refugees and residents in eastern Rafah, demanding that they evacuate the city or face death. Over the past six months, the Israeli government has ethnically cleansed and indiscriminately bombed numerous other cities in Gaza, as well as so-called civilian safe zones.

In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:

"The Israeli government is hellbent on using American financial, military and diplomatic support to ethnically cleanse what remains of Gaza and commit another massacre.

"President Biden must stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu and take concrete action to end the genocide now. It is obvious Netanyahu wants this genocidal war to continue indefinitely so that he can remain in power, avoid jail, and fulfill his racist, far-right cabinet's demands for the complete destruction of Gaza and the massacre of its people.

“It is long past time for President Biden to end our nation's complicitly in this 21st century genocide."

As the unfathomable slaughter, hunger, maiming, razing in Gaza persists at the hands of Israel's "voracious death machine," its leaders openly vow "total and utter destruction" by what they still grotesquely call "one of the most moral militaries in the world," murdered newborns and all. But the hypocrisies and protests mount. "One of this genocide’s aims is to drown us in our own sorrow," says one of Balfour's "savages." Part of their resistance, in turn, "is to talk about tomorrow in Gaza."

The litany from Israel's mass killing, "monstrous and largely indiscriminate," to date: Almost 35,000 dead Palestinians, including well over 14,000 "ungrievable" children; more than 77,000 wounded, half children; at least 17,000 orphans, 5,000 children whose limbs have been amputated, thousands more buried under rubble, a child killed or injured every 10 minutes; hundreds of dead journalists, doctors, teachers, poets, aid workers, academics; most homes leveled, along with 400 schools, 12 universities, over 30 hospitals; starvation levels "the highest ever recorded." Thanks in part to $26 billion more the U.S. just awarded Israel, its "most decisive vote of confidence in genocide since the Indian Removal Act of 1830," the hellfire still rains down. Each day the count grows: Air strikes kill 22, mostly children, kill 20, mostly children, kill 13, nine of them children, kill eight children and two women from one family, kill three women and six children. Fathers sob over small bodies, mourning "a world devoid of all human values." A strike killed a man, his very pregnant wife, their three-year-old; doctors saved the baby. A sniper killed a West Bank man for going up on his roof; days later, his wife named their new son for him as their toddler played in sand strewn on his father's blood.

When upright IDF forces retreated from Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals after mindlessly pulverizing them, rescue workers uncovered mass graves - up to 400 bodies in one, over 200 in another - of bodies mutilated, beheaded, hands tied behind them. The IDF detain medics, block Red Crescent ambulances, storm hospitals and attack staff even as new victims "pile up," bloody and stick-thin, in rubble-strewn facilities with no supplies. "You can't imagine it unless you see it," says an Egyptian doctor working in the north. His most haunting memory: One orphan, an arm amputated, a leg broken, almost entirely burned, "constantly asking where her father, mother and siblings were." Say other doctors, Gazan and foreigh, of amputating limbs without anaesthesia, delivering babies at risk of starvation, laboring beneath the relentless noise and threat of drones where there is "no safe plae, even in our minds," "We are alive, but we are not OK." One Gazan doctor recalls a broken fellow-psychologist, leaning his head on his knees, in tears. "He asked me what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to go," he said. "I had no answers to give him."

Still, Israel, "whose founders longed to be a light unto the nations," persists in its "gallop into the abyss" by blocking food aid and facilitating "catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation," a preventable famine “unprecedented in modern history." Rights workers say Gaza's entire population of 2.2 million do not have enough available calories; half are on the brink of starvation; a third of Gazan infants are acutely malnourished. In Rafah, where half of Gaza has taken shelter, dazed people spend their days "in a perpetual state of survival," seeking or standing in line for water and food. The trickle of aid is grossly inadequate, and often fatal: Having survived an air strike that killed 17 relatives but only wounded him - "God saved him," said his grandfather - Zein Oroq, 13, was killed when a pallet of beans, rice and other food dropped by an unopened parachute hit him in the head; the stampede of people "were also hungry" and didn't stop for him. When a pharmacist mother of three, displaced six times, got a text message of an UNRWA food voucher, she stood in line five hours to get two eggs. En route home, crying, she met her 70-year-old aunt who had lost her husband and two chiuldren in an airstrike. She gave her one egg; at the tent, "We divided the egg into portions to share."

— (@)

Last month's targeted killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in a well-marked convoy - "it was very clear who we are and what we do" - seemed a sort of turning point: In what some called "a story of Western racism." The deaths of white foreigners, who "risked everything to feed people they did not know and will never meet," caused an outcry that many, while not diminishing their generous courage, couldn't help but note: "We need not delude ourselves that (media) would have run the story on its front page had the dead carried Arab names, (when) countless Palestinians, equally heroic and innocent, have been slaughtered by Israeli forces’ actions in the same way." The workers - a Palestinian, Australian, Pole, three Brits and a dual US-Canada national - were "the best of humanity," said WCK founder and chef José Andrés. "The seven souls we mourn today were there so that hungry people could eat," he said at a remembrance. "There is no excuse for these killings." Angrily rejecting Israeli claims of "mistakes" - "the perpetrator cannot be investigating himself” - he argued "the death of one humanitarian, one child, one civilian is too many." "This doesn't seem anymore a war about defending Israel," he said. "At this point, it seems it’s a war against humanity itself.”

In the midst of Israel's far-right "Kahanist Spring," its political and military leaders are astonishingly unshy on that genocidal score. This week, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly called for "total annihilation" of Gaza: "There are no half measures - Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat...'Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek'...There is no place for them under heaven." Echoing fellow war-monger Itamar Ben-Gvir - "God forbid, Israel does not enter Rafah, God forbid, we end the war" - Smotrich is so opposed to "strategic concessions" that would mean "the surrender of the State of Israel," he's threatened to bolt Netanyahu's coalition if he doesn't invade Rafah: "I will pursue my enemies and destroy them. We should deliver the decisive blow." "In any normal country," noted Haaretz' lead editorial the next day, five minutes after his remarks (Netanyahu) would have convened a press conference, fired the minister in disgrace, and publicly declared (that) people with such a worldview have no place in the Israeli government." Instead, in Netanyahu's Israel, "the leader of the far right is openly advocating genocide, but there's not one person in the government willing to stand up and say 'enough'." Because, in Netanyahu's Israel, it apparently never is.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calls for ‘utter destruction’ in Rafah www.youtube.com

The grisly evidence is everywhere. On Friday, the eldest daughter, two-month-old grandson, and son-in-law of beloved Palestinian poet and mentor Refaat Alareer, assassinated last year in a targeted airstrike that also killed his brother, sister, and her four children, were reported killed in another strike in Gaza City. "I have beautiful news for you," wrote illustrator Shaima Refaat Alareer to her slain father after giving birth. "Do you know you have just become a grandfather? This is your first grandchild, Abdul Rahman...I never imagined I’d lose you so soon before you got to meet him." Heartbreak upon heartbreak, much like the murder of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who became a symbol of the carnage visited upon Gaza when she called for help - "I'm so scared, please come" - while trapped in a car with dead relatives under Israeli fire; weeks later, her decomposed body was found alongside them and an ambulance crew sent to rescue her, because in Netanyahu's Israel, nothing is still ever enough. "For too long, Palestinians have been lectured about the value of human life and dignity," says Gazan AFSC worker Yousef Aljamal of the "deafening international silence" on Israel's atrocities, "only to discover that the value of their lives and their dignity are exceptions to the rule."

Finally, though, the horrors have "struck a chord" on American campuses with the largest student anti-war protests since the end of the Vietnam War. Nationwide, dozens of solidarity encampments have sprung up, from UCLA to New York's NYU and Columbia University, where protesters unfurled a banner renaming the historic Hamilton Hall "Hinds Hall,” for Hind Rajab. Insisting they'll remain "inescapably visible," students cite the hypocrisies and contradictions "between what our governments say they stand for in terms of democracy, human rights, freedom, and (the) actions they are supporting in Gaza" - ostensibly promoting human rights but enabling genocide, supporting free speech but siccing violent police on peaceful protests, etc. Some schools - Northwestern, Johns Hopkins - have successfully negotiated compromises, like agreeing to review college investments in return for limiting protests; laudably - "This is democracy at work" - Brown agreed to a formal divestment vote from Israel. Still, the "unhinged" response by many school administrations and riot-geared law enforcement, including a Strategic Response Group meant to combat public unrest and “counter-terrorism," aka young people opposed to genocide, has been blasted as "an authoritarian escalation."

— (@)

Speaking of: Netanyahu, meanwhile, clings to the rabid, rigid rhetoric he's used since Oct. 7, declaiming his "iron-clad determination to achieve the goals of our war" against "an outrageous assault on Israel's inherent right to self-defense" by "barbarians" and "genocidal terrorists," which evidently include newborns, six-year-olds, entire families and thousands of children, journalists, doctors, aid workers and other innocents. Reportedly worried the ICC may soon issue arrest warrants for himself and other Israeli leaders as "war criminals," he's made the "very unusual appeal" to families of the hostages - whom in his venomous investment in war he's declined to free when he repeatedly could have - "asking" them to lobby Hague officials not to arrest him. Posting a surreal speech with, "You have to hear this to believe this," he argues "trying to put Israel in the dock" for genocide would be "an outrage of historic proportions," the "first time a democratic country fighting for its life according to the rules of war is itself accused of war crimes," "fueling the fires of anti-Semitism already raging on campuses" and, by targeting "the democracy called Israel, (the) targeting of all democracies" in their fight against "savage terrorism and wanton aggression." Yes: phantasmal pot/kettle.

As he harangues, lest we forget, the head of UNICEF just declared of the harrowing conditions in Gaza, "Nearly all of the some 600,000 children now crammed into Rafah are either injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities." A UNICEF spokesperson began an op-ed with, "The war against Gaza's children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamed's eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine. Sorry, he was nine. Mohamed is now dead." In central and northern Gaza, surviving Palestinians seeking to return to their homes have found "only ruins, and the smell of death...The streets have turned to sand....It is not fit for life." And still they are terrorized: Rights groups say the IDF is luring returnees into the open with recordings of cries and screams to be shot at by snipers or drones. At Nuseirat refugee camp, a 35-year-old "son of this city" found only "mountains of rubble." Yet Gaza, he insists, has risen before: "I will wait for the water lines to be extended in the area, and I will put up a tent and sleep in it with my children." Says another former resident, "We will teach our children in tents, under the sun, and anywhere else."

"What does the liberation of Palestine mean?" asks philosopher Judith Butler, when "the grief over Jewish lives lost is very often humanized and memorialized in ways that Palestinian deaths are not." Simply, she offers "a vision of cohabitation," that Palestinians and Jews and other inhabitants of that land find a way to live together. Either next to each other or with one another, under conditions of radical equality," where occupation is dismantled. As a Jew, she also dismantles the myth that Jews, having suffered genocide, cannot be enacting genocide: "There is nothing that keeps a people who have suffered massively in life from afflicting massive suffering on others...There is nothing in the history of the world that precludes that." Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, newly installed as Glasgow University Rector, has seen and lived that reality. Except for himself, all his forefathers were born in Palestine, a land given away by Arthur Balfour, a former Glasgow rector who in his 46-word declaration announcing British support for Palestine noted, "A survey of the world (shows) a vast number of savage communities." After a lifetime as a war surgeon, said Abu-Sittah, students at the school once headed by Winnie Mandela reached out to him, and "one of Balfour’s savages" was elected.

"Students understood what we have to lose when we allow our politics to become inhuman," said Abu-Sittah of what he views as a vote of solidarity with too-long-ignored Palestinian suffering. Citing "the ravening beast" that is "the genocidal erasure of a people," he argued Gaza is the "axis of genocide" by western powers: "The quadcopters and drones fitted with sniper guns - used so efficiently (one) night at Al-Ahli hospital we received over 30 wounded civilians shot outside our hospital - today in Gaza will be used tomorrow in Mumbai, Nairobi and Sao Paulo." For those who have "seen, smelt, and heard what the weapons of war do to a child’s body," have "amputated the unsalvageable limbs of wounded children," have witnessed the "othering" by which many would be horrified by "the barbarity" of Israel killing 14,000 puppies or kittens, but not children - for all those, somehow, he urged hope. "When powerlessness is at its most acute, the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, complicatedly matters the most," he said. "It is your world to fight for. It is your tomorrow to make." Dedicating his address to dead family and colleagues, "but mostly to our land," he ended with the words of Bobby Sands: "Our revenge will be the laughter of our children."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday night spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate about the student protests taking place on college campuses across the country, and the ongoing, horrific humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

Sanders’ remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below and can be watched live here:

LIVE: A reminder to my colleagues about a document called the U.S. Constitution and, specifically, the First Amendment. https://t.co/yBa9pj9APm
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 1, 2024

President, some of us have been out of school for awhile and we may have forgotten our American history. But I did want to take a moment to remind some of my colleagues about a document called the U.S. Constitution and, specifically, the First Amendment of that Constitution.

For those that may have forgotten, here is what the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Let me also take this opportunity to remember our late colleague, the former congressman John Lewis for his heroic role in the Civil Rights Movement.

I know it’s very easy to heap praise on Congressman Lewis and many others decades after they did what they did, but, I would remind my colleagues them that Mr. Lewis was arrested 45 times for participating in sit-ins, occupations, and protests – 45 times – for protesting segregation and racism.

I would also remind my colleagues that the Lunch Counter protest at Woolworths and elsewhere desegregating the South were in fact sit-ins and occupations where young Black and white Americans bravely took up space in private businesses, demanding an end to racism and segregation that existed at that time.

I find it incomprehensible that members of Congress are spending their time attacking the protestors rather than the Netanyahu government which brought about these protests and has created this horrific situation.

Further, as I hope everybody knows, we have also seen in recent decades protests — some of them massive protests — against sexism, homophobia, and the need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels in order to save this planet.

In other words, protesting injustice and expressing our opinions is part of our American tradition. And when you talk about America being a free country, whether you like it or not the right to protest is what American freedom is all about. That’s the U.S. constitution.

And, M. President, let me also remind you: exactly 60 years ago, student demonstrators occupied the exact same building on Columbia’s campus as is taking place right now – ironically, the same building.

Across the country, students and others, including myself, joined peaceful demonstrations in opposition to the war in Vietnam. Those demonstrators were demanding an end to that War.

And maybe – just maybe – tens of thousands of American lives and countless Vietnamese lives might have been saved if the Government had listened to those demonstrators.

And I might also add that the President at that time – a great president — Lyndon Johnson, chose not to run for re-election because of the opposition to him that occurred as a result of his support for that Vietnam War. And further, let us not forget those who demonstrated against the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe those protestors should have been listened to as well.

Shock of all shocks, government policy is not always right.

President, I noted recently that a number of my colleagues in both parties, as well as many news reporters, TV, newspapers, are very concerned about the protests and violence we are seeing on campuses across the country.

So let me be clear: I share those concerns about violence on campuses, or, for that matter, any place else, and I condemn those who threw a brick through a window at Columbia University. That kind of violence should not be taking place on college campuses.

I am also concerned and condemn about the group of individuals at UCLA in California who violently attacked the peaceful encampment of anti-war demonstrators on the campus of UCLA.

President, let me be clear: I condemn all forms of violence on campus whether they are committed by people who support Israel’s war efforts or those who oppose those policies.

And I hope we can also agree that in the United States all forms of bigotry must be condemned and eliminated. We are seeing a growth of antisemitism in this country which we must all condemn and work to stop.

To stand up for Palestinian rights and the dignity of the Palestinian people does not make one a supporter of terrorism.

We are also seeing a growth of Islamophobia in this country which we must all condemn and stop. And in that regard, I would mention that in my very own city of Burlington, Vermont, three wonderful young Palestinian students were shot at close range on November 25th of last year. They were visiting a family member to celebrate Thanksgiving, walking down the street, and they were shot.

President let make an additional point, I have noted that there is an increasing tendency in the media and on the part of some of my colleagues here in the Senate to use the phrase “Pro-Palestinian” to suggest that that means “Pro-Hamas.”

To my mind, that is unacceptable and factually inaccurate. The overwhelming majority of American people and protestors understand very well that Hamas is a terrorist organization that started this war by attacking Israel in an incredibly brutal and horrific way on October 7th.

To stand up for Palestinian rights and the dignity of the Palestinian people does not make one a supporter of terrorism.

And let me also mention something that I found rather extraordinary and outrageous.

And that is just a few days ago Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing extremist government in Israel, a government which contains out-and-out anti-Palestinian racists.

Netanyahu issued a statement in which he equated criticism of his government’s illegal and immoral war against the Palestinian people with antisemitism.

In other words, if you are protesting, or disagree, with what Netanyahu and his extremist government are doing in Gaza, you are an antisemite.

That is an outrageous statement from a leader who is clearly trying – and I have to tell you, he seems to be succeeding with the American media — trying to deflect attention away from the horrific policies that he is pursuing that created an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.

So, let me be as clear as I can be: It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in almost seven months Netanyahu’s extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – seventy percent of whom are women and children.

And to protest that or to point that out is not antisemitic. It is simply factual.

It is not antisemitic to point out that Netanyahu’s government’s bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless – almost half the population. No, Mr. Netanyahu it is not antisemitic to point out what you have done in terms of the destruction of housing in Gaza.

It is not antisemitic to realize that his government has annihilated Gaza’s health care system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 health care workers. At a time when 77,000 people have been wounded and desperately need medical care, Netanyahu has systematically destroyed the health care system in Gaza.

It is not antisemitic to condemn his government’s destruction of all of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its schools, with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 children in Gaza have no opportunity for an education. It is not antisemitic to make that point.

It is not antisemitic to note that Netanyahu’s government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure – there is virtually no electricity in Gaza right now, virtually no clean water in Gaza right now, and sewage is seeping out onto the streets.

It is not antisemitic to make that point.

President, it is not antisemitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organization that functions in the Gaza area in saying that his government, in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza.

They have created the conditions under which hundreds of thousands of children face malnutrition and famine. It is not antisemitic to look at photographs of children who are starving to death because they have not been able to get the food that they need. It is not antisemitic to agree with American and UN officials that parts of Gaza could become famine districts in the not very distant future.

It is not antisemitic to agree with virtually every humanitarian organization that functions in the Gaza area in saying that his government, in violation of American law, has unreasonably blocked humanitarian aid coming into Gaza.

Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people for hundreds of years, including my own family. But it is outrageous and it is disgraceful to use that charge of antisemitism to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies that Netanyahu’s extremist and racist government is pursuing.

Furthermore, it is really cheap politics for Netanyahu to use the charge of antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment he is facing in the Israeli courts.

Bottomline, M. President: it is not antisemitic to hold Netanyahu and his government for their actions. That is not antisemitic. It is precisely what we should be doing.

Because among other things we are the government that has supplied billions and billions of dollars in order for him to continue his horrific war against the Palestinian people.

President, I would also point out while there has been wall to wall coverage of student protests, I think that’s about all CNN does right now, I should mention that it is not just young people on college campuses that are extremely upset about our Government’s support and funding for this illegal and immoral war.

The people of the United States – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – do not want to be complicit in the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children.

And I would point out that just last week this Senate voted to give Netanyahu another unfettered $10 billion for his war.

Let me quote just a few polls:

April 14 – Politico/Morning Consult: 67% support the United States calling for a ceasefire. This is at a time when Netanyahu is threatening to expand the war into Rafah.

April 12th – CBS: 60% think the U.S. should not send weapons and supplies to Israel as opposed to 40% who think the U.S. should. And for my Democratic colleagues, those figures are disproportionately higher among Democratic voters.

April 10th – Economist/YouGov: 37% support decreasing military aid to Israel, just 18% support an increase. Overall 63% support a ceasefire, 15% oppose.

No, M. President. This is not just protestors on college campuses who are upset about U.S. policy with regards to Israel and Gaza. Increasingly the American people want an end to U.S. complicity in the humanitarian disaster which is taking place in Gaza right now.

The people of the United States – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – do not want to be complicit in the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children.

Maybe, and here’s a very radical idea, maybe it’s time for politicians to listen to the American people. Maybe it’s time to rethink the decision this body recently made to provide Netanyahu another $10 billion dollars in unfettered military aid.

Maybe it’s time to not simply worry about the violence we are seeing on American campuses, but focus on the unprecedented violence in Gaza which has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 Palestinians – 70% percent of whom are women and children.

So, I suggest to CNN and some of my colleagues here, take your cameras off of Columbia and UCLA. Maybe go to Gaza and show us the emaciated children who are going to die of malnutrition because of Netanyahu’s policies. Show us the kids who have lost their arms and their legs. Show us the suffering.

President, let me conclude by saying, I must admit, I find it incomprehensible that members of Congress are spending their time attacking the protestors rather than the Netanyahu government which brought about these protests and has created this horrific situation.

Thank you and I yield.

After months of delay, House Republicans and Senate Democrats unveiled dueling Farm Bill priorities today. The House’s bill slashes nutrition programs and climate-focused conservation funding in order to boost commodity crop production. It also includes the EATS Act, which is opposed by 200 Members of Congress and more than 150 organizations. The EATS Act could wipe out many existing states’ environmental, health and safety laws related to agriculture, effectively overturning a Supreme Court ruling to uphold California’s Proposition 12, which bans extreme forms of animal confinement.

In contrast, the Senate’s Farm Bill summary provides a starting point to advance a more just, healthy and sustainable food system by protecting nutrition programs, investing in popular conservation programs, and recognizing procurement as a critical lever to improve the food system.

In response, Friends of the Earth’s senior program manager Chloe Waterman issued the following statement:

House Republicans have proposed a dead-on-arrival Farm Bill framework that puts Big Ag’s profits over everyone else: communities, family farmers, consumers, states and local rule, farmed animals, and the planet. Senate Democrats are off to a much better start than the House, but they have also fallen short by failing to shift subsidies and other support away from factory farming and pesticide-intensive commodities toward diversified, regenerative, and climate-friendly farming systems. We are particularly concerned that millions of dollars intended for climate mitigation will continue to be funneled to factory farms, including to support greenwashed factory farm gas.

Friends of the Earth recently published a report, Biogas or Bull****?: The False Promise of Manure Biogas as a Methane Solution, that documents ways in which manure biogas production undermines environmental justice and exacerbates industry consolidation – for methane reduction benefits that are overstated by the U.S. government, inadequately tracked, and insufficient to meet global methane targets.

Under fire for unreasonable delay, House Republicans and Senate Democrats released Farm Bill priorities today, teeing up lengthy debate on the seminal food and agriculture legislative package that is already months overdue.

Early reporting suggests House Republican support for a number of priorities that put Big Ag profits over people, including The EATS Act, which would preempt state regulation of the factory farm and agribusiness industry, effectively reversing a Supreme Court ruling to uphold California’s Proposition 12 last year, widely celebrated as a victory against the worst factory farm abuses.

In response, Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“Despicable ploys to undermine critical consumer and animal welfare protections must be dead on arrival. America’s farmers and consumers need forward-looking policies that build a sustainable, resilient and fair food system. Instead, House leadership seems poised to take us backwards, trading state-level gains for a few more bucks in the pockets of corporate donors. Congress must move beyond partisan bickering, and get to work on a Farm Bill that cuts handouts to Big Ag and factory farms.”

Today, the Associated Press reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is proposing rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I drug, the most restrictive class, to a Schedule III drug, a less restrictive class. Under this proposed shift, marijuana criminalization would continue at the federal level and most penalties, including those for simple possession, would continue as long as marijuana remains anywhere on the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). On the 2020 campaign trail, then-candidate Biden repeatedly pledged to decriminalize marijuana and expunge related criminal records – identifying these issues as barriers to racial equity. However, the DEA’s proposal would leave most of the harms and racial disparities associated with criminalization unaddressed.

“Supporting federal marijuana decriminalization means supporting the removal of marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, not changing its scheduling” said Cat Packer, Director of Drug Markets and Legal Regulation. “We all deserve a federal framework for marijuana that upholds the health, wellbeing, and safety of our communities – particularly Black communities who have borne the brunt of our country’s racist enforcement of marijuana laws. Rescheduling marijuana is not a policy solution for federal marijuana criminalization or its harms, and it won’t address the disproportionate impact that it has had on Black and Brown communities.”

Packer continued: “The individuals, families and communities adversely impacted by federal marijuana criminalization deserve more. Workers in the marijuana industry, people who use marijuana, all of us deserve more. Congress and the Biden Administration have a responsibility to take actions now to bring about marijuana reform that meaningfully improves the lives of people who have been harmed by decades of criminalization. Descheduling and legalizing marijuana the right way isn’t just good policy, it’s popular with voters, too.”

A majority of American voters support marijuana legalization and comprehensive reform, according to a Data for Progress poll. Policymakers, health professionals and criminal justice advocates agree that marijuana must be removed from the CSA and coupled with comprehensive Congressional legislative reform to address racial disparities, reduce harm, and move toward a federal marijuana policy and regulatory framework that benefits all communities. Descheduling has also amassed significant support in Congress, with Representatives Blumenauer (D-OR), Joyce (R-OH), Lee (D-CA), and Mast (R-FL) leading their Congressional colleagues in two letters (in December 2022 and October 2023) to the DEA calling for descheduling marijuana, and Senator Warren (D-MA) leading eleven of her colleagues, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-OH), urging President Biden’s Administration to remove marijuana from the CSA.

The Drug Policy Alliance and its coalition partners at United for Marijuana Decriminalization (UMD) plan to launch an ambitious outreach effort to encourage community members to tell President Biden and the DEA that marijuana must be descheduled once the public comment period is open. Members of the public will be able to submit comments in support of descheduling in response to the DEA’s proposal through a simple online form. During the brief, time-limited public comment period, UMD aims to solicit a historic number of public comments through extensive outreach to stakeholders, particularly those who have been harmed by marijuana criminalization, inviting participation in the public process and emphasizing the need for marijuana descheduling.

To end federal marijuana criminalization and create marijuana laws grounded in health, safety, and racial equity, the Drug Policy Alliance, fellow advocates, and Congressional leaders are calling on the DEA to deschedule marijuana by fully removing it from the CSA. While descheduling is critical to eliminating the ongoing harms of federal criminalization, marijuana reform can also take place through Executive Orders and Congressional legislation. President Biden can come closer to fulfilling his promise to end marijuana criminalization by taking immediate action to mitigate the harms of marijuana prohibition in people’s lives.

Additionally, Congressional legislation should provide relief from previous marijuana convictions, restore rights and benefits to people impacted by marijuana criminalization, reinvest in communities disproportionately harmed by criminal enforcement. Additionally, Congressional legislation should create a regulatory framework rooted in equity that prioritizes public health, workplace safety, and fair economic opportunities for small businesses. The House of Representatives has twice passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, a comprehensive descheduling bill with extensive criminal justice reform and community reinvestment. In 2022, the Senate introduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA), the most comprehensive Congressional descheduling bill to date.

Rep. Barbara Lee (CA):

“While the rescheduling of marijuana is a historic step in the right direction, anything short of descheduling falls woefully short of remedying the harms of the current system and the failed racist War on Drugs,” said Rep. Lee. “Rescheduling would allow for the criminal penalties for recreational and medical marijuana use to continue – disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities. The criminalization of marijuana is also increasingly out of step with state law and public opinion. We need full descheduling and to pass the MORE Act – which I proudly co-lead – as a solution for equitable comprehensive marijuana reform rooted in racial and restorative justice.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY):

“Descheduling marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act is not just a social justice issue; it’s an economic, medical, and public safety issue. Since marijuana was classified as a Schedule I substance during the war on drugs, countless lives have been torn apart, and individuals in primarily Black and brown communities have been targeted for nonviolent cannabis-related offenses,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Studies show that legalizing marijuana could help reduce violence in international drug trafficking and generate billions of dollars for the economy. The vast majority of Americans agree that marijuana should be legalized – that’s why I’m calling on the Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Administration to swiftly deschedule marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY):

“While rescheduling marijuana is an important step, we must go further. It is time to end the prohibition and criminalization of marijuana at the federal level. That’s why I have introduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the MORE Act, which would not only decriminalize marijuana under federal law, but it would also expunge federal marijuana convictions and encourage states to do the same. The bill would also establish a fund to support programs assisting those communities who were most directly harmed by the War on Drugs and ensure that they have equal access to the benefits of decriminalization.”

Amber Senter, Co-Founder, Board Chair, and Executive Director, Supernova Women:

“There’s no doubt that the United States government recognizing cannabis has medicinal benefits is anything short of historic. Advocates have worked tirelessly for decades to reach this moment, banding together as patients, caregivers, social justice activists, and community members. However rescheduling cannabis to Schedule 3 is not enough. People will continue to be criminalized and punished for possessing and consuming cannabis, risking employment, housing, benefits and more. Workers in the cannabis industry will run the risk of federal prosecution for simply going to work and trying to provide for themselves and their families. Patients using cannabis as medicine through legal or state medical programs will also run the risk of federal criminalization by simply choosing a less harmful way to cope with pain from debilitating medical conditions. The war on drugs will continue to rage on, destroying lives and families as it’s done for decades. As a business owner in cannabis, I recognize the much-needed tax relief that rescheduling cannabis to Schedule 3 will bring. However, we cannot continue to allow some to capitalize from cannabis while others, primarily black and brown people, continue to be punished with their lives ruined. We must deschedule cannabis and stop criminalization for a medically beneficial plant.”

Chelsea Higgs Wise, Executive Director, Marijuana Justice:

“Since prohibiting marijuana there has been a targeted enforcement that has left communities of color disproportionately harmed at the individual, familial and community level. Rescheduling only brings benefits to businesses through tax relief, while our loved ones are left with the guarantee of repetitive surveillance, imprisonment, and collateral consequences. Any federal reform must directly address the disproportionate enforcement Black families continue to face. Presidential pardons are important but for true repair, we must continue to demand for marijuana to be descheduled along with people released and records expunged.”

Michelle Rutter Friberg, Director of Government Affairs, National Cannabis Industry Association:

“While rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III will undoubtedly provide much needed tax relief to cannabis businesses, the Biden Administration and Congress must act to deschedule marijuana and remove it from the Controlled Substances Act entirely. Only descheduling marijuana will harmonize federal law with the 37 states with some form of legal cannabis commerce, allow for the implementation of sensible regulations on hemp and marijuana derived products, and create a level playing field for small and minority owned businesses in the industry.”

Dr. Rachel Knox, MD, MBA, Board Chair, Association for Cannabis Health Equity and Medine (ACHEM):

“Cannabis must be removed from the Controlled Substances Act. From inception, its scheduling has been public health enemy #1, as it has underpinned decades of racist and classist provocation, perpetuating systemic harms directly linked to generational poverty and escalating health disparities in marginalized communities. Rescheduling does nothing to unravel this framework and, in fact, will allow it to continue unchecked. The only remedy to this chronic threat is descheduling, the swift overhaul of discriminatory cannabis policies across all sectors, and thoughtful regulation of diverse cannabis markets with standards rooted in science and social justice.”

Lt. Diane Goldstein (Ret.), Executive Director, Law Enforcement Action Partnership:

“As the failed policies of marijuana prohibition continue to drag on and waste law enforcement resources, the DEA’s move to reschedule marijuana to a less restrictive class would simply not go far enough,” she said. “It would not end federal marijuana criminalization and would do little to rectify the harms of the current system, in which an arrest record can lead to fewer employment opportunities, limited housing options, and obstacles to obtaining loans, all of which make people more, not less, disposed to crime and further drug use. The only way to end this unnecessary criminalization and its harms is to completely remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.”

Dasheeda Dawson, Chair, Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition and Founding Director, Cannabis NYC:

“The time for descheduling cannabis is not just a matter of policy; it’s an imperative for justice and equity. Rescheduling would undermine the hard-fought progress made by cannabis equity and policy reform leaders like the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition, jeopardizing the livelihoods and futures of those entrepreneurs and communities disproportionately affected by past criminalization. We cannot afford to backtrack on our commitment to repair the harm inflicted by outdated policies. Descheduling is not just about legality; it’s about rectifying historic injustices and ensuring a fair and inclusive future for all.”

Weldon Angelos, President & Co-Founder, The Weldon Project:

”As an advocate for ending federal marijuana prohibition, I acknowledge that the DEA’s decision to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule 3 substance is a significant step – but it’s far from the inevitable ultimate destination where marijuana is no longer treated as contraband in America’s failed war on drugs. Only the complete descheduling of marijuana will begin to dismantle the barriers of a nationwide criminal ban and ensure that no further damage is inflicted after decades of misguided federal policies. As we navigate this pivotal moment, our actions must be bold and unequivocal to ensure justice and equity for all those who have suffered under the weight of prohibition. If our ultimate goals are to liberate and restore American communities, now is not the time to settle for half measures or, worse yet, to declare victory and pretend like everything’s been solved. It hasn’t.”

Background:

38 states have laws that allow for medical cannabis use and 24 states have laws that allow for adult recreational cannabis use. Despite these reforms at the state level – as long as marijuana is a scheduled substance under the CSA, the repercussions of federal marijuana criminalization will continue – even for conduct that is authorized under state law. Individuals could still face criminal penalties, including mandatory minimum sentences, for personal use and distribution. Additionally, under a Schedule III classification, people with marijuana-related convictions could still lose access to federal housing and food benefits, or even face deportation. According to the ACLU, over 80% of people sentenced for federal marijuana charges were Black or Latino. This is a clear indication that maintaining federal criminalization in any form will perpetuate racially discriminatory policing and enforcement.

Learn more about federal marijuana scheduling here.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today released the following statement after Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan announced that the FTC is taking action against the bogus patents Novo Nordisk filed to keep the outrageous price of Ozempic artificially high:

Let me commend the Federal Trade Commission, under the leadership of Chair Lina Khan, for taking bold action today against the bogus patents Novo Nordisk has filed to prevent Americans struggling with diabetes from receiving a generic version of Ozempic at a much lower price.

Novo Nordisk must not be allowed to make billions in profits by delaying generic competition for Ozempic by unlawfully filing junk patents that have nothing to do with the drug itself, but the injection pen.

Last week, the HELP Committee, that I chair, launched an investigation into the outrageously high prices Novo Nordisk is charging for Ozempic and Wegovy in the United States. In my view, we can no longer tolerate Novo Nordisk charging the American people $969 for Ozempic when that same exact drug can be purchased for just $155 in Canada and $59 in Germany while it costs less than $5 to manufacture.

I look forward to working with the Biden administration to take on the greed of Novo Nordisk and substantially reduce the price of Ozempic and other prescription drugs.

Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent warning letters to 10 drug manufacturers challenging the “junk listings” of more than 300 patents in the FDA Orange Book for medicines treating diabetes, weight loss, asthma, and COPD. These letters follow FTC challenges to improper Orange Book patent listings last November, which were followed by companies delisting several of the challenged patents. Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program advocate, Steve Knievel, issued the following statement:

“It’s becoming harder for drug corporations to use patent shenanigans to thwart competition, thanks to the FTC and Chair Lina Khan.

“Improperly listing patents in the FDA Orange Book stymies generic competition which is proven to dramatically lowerprescription drug prices, saving patients and the public billions of dollars.

“Today’s letter is yet another demonstration from the Biden-Harris administration that Big Pharma business-as-usual monopoly abuses and price gouging will not be tolerated. The FDA should supplement FTC’s action by clarifying guidelines for patents that can be listed in the Orange Book, as called for by Sen. Warren and Rep. Jayapal. The government should also explore using licensing authorities to overcome pharmaceutical monopoly abuses, leaving no option off the table.”

Today G7 climate, environment and energy ministers released a joint communique that falls short of carrying forward the ambition of the COP28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.

G7 countries represent 27% of global oil and gas production, and are responsible for nearly 48% of CO2 from new oil and gas production.

Oil Change International data shows between 2020 and 2022, the G7 provided USD $25.7 billion a year in international public finance for fossil fuels, compared to USD $10.3 billion for clean energy. Today’s communique reaffirmed the G7’s agreement to end this finance, but with no clear timeline.

This year’s G7 negotiations are at a historic time for climate politics. It is the first opportunity to reflect the landmark agreement from COP28 to phase out fossil fuels, and the last time the group of countries will meet before agreeing to a new climate finance goal and submitting updated climate plans to 2035. This is the last chance for this group of rich countries to align their plans with the agreed 1.5°C limit.

In response, Romain Ioualalen, Oil Change International Global Policy Campaign Manager, said:
“This was the first opportunity for the G7 to show they were taking the COP28 agreement seriously. They have failed.

“The G7 are falling far short of what’s needed to implement the COP28 agreement to phase out fossil fuels. They are not just delaying taking climate action – they are actively blocking a fair, fast, full, and funded phase out of fossil fuels. These leaders cannot say they’re committed to a livable climate, while slow walking coal phase out, endorsing expansion of fossil gas, failing to pledge new climate finance.

“While the G7 focuses on coal, it conveniently omits to stress that limiting warming to 1.5°C means they also need to end fossil fuel expansion at home, going fastest in phasing out existing production. They must end the billions of dollars in taxpayer finance still flowing to fossil fuel projects abroad and fund the buildout of affordable renewable energy on fair terms. If their oil and gas expansion plans are allowed to proceed, it would lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future.

Makiko Arima, Senior Finance Campaigner at Oil Change International said:
“At a time when we need to phase out fossil fuels, Japan is driving gas expansion across Asia and globally. Last month, Japan approved over $2.7 billion dollars in financing for new gas projects in Vietnam, Australia and Mexico, breaking its G7 promise to end public finance for overseas fossil fuel projects. Japan is especially active in promoting gas in Asia through the Asia Zero Emissions Community initiative, which is just greenwashing designed to benefit Japanese corporate interests. Committing to phase out coal is a step in the right direction, but the phase out must include technologies like co-firing ammonia at coal plants that prolong the use of coal, as well as other fossil fuels like gas to ensure it is 1.5 degree-aligned.”

Responding to an agreement reached by G7 member states today to phase out all unabated coal-fired electricity generation in the first half of the 2030s, Candy Ofime, Amnesty International’s Climate Justice Researcher, said:

“This is not the goal for coal we need and it will not deliver climate justice. Commitments put forward by G7 members – which have burnt coal for power for more than a century – to stop using this pollutant by 2035 are simply too late and weakened by unacceptable caveats.

“The end of coal power generation cannot come soon enough for those experiencing the worst effects of the climate crisis. Coal is one of the dirtiest energy sources and its burning has immense health impacts, particularly in lower income countries and among marginalized, often racialized, frontline communities globally.

The end of coal power generation cannot come soon enough for those experiencing the worst effects of the climate crisis. —Candy Ofime, Amnesty International’s Climate Justice Researcher

“Protection of human rights requires an urgent, full, fair and funded phase out of all fossil fuels. A just and equitable phase out means ending financing for coal production and coal energy everywhere. The rights of workers in the coal industry must be protected during this transition.

“There appears to be no curb in this deal on the use of coal for steel production, which accounts for about 30% of coal consumption, and the commitment to phase out just so-called ‘unabated’ coal is misleading. Abatement relies on the use of carbon capture and storage, and other technologies such as ammonia and hydrogen co-firing with coal, which are unproven at scale and can come with other risks. Coal pollution cannot be adequately abated, and harms health and the climate whenever it is used.

“This deal must not encourage an uptake of so-called natural gas, which is mostly methane, as an energy alternative. Its exploitation is increasingly associated with releases of this hugely potent greenhouse gas, which is a major contributor to global warming.

“As the world’s highest income countries, and among those most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, G7 states have the greatest responsibility to help lower income states to move away from all fossil fuels.”

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, was arrested this morning for disrupting testimony from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the 2025 budget request.

During the hearing, Benjamin voiced her opposition to the United State’s support for the genocide in Gaza, calling it illegal, immoral, and disgraceful. She directly confronted Secretary Austin, emphasizing the global scrutiny on the actions in Gaza and condemning the shipment of weapons that violates US and international laws, as well as basic principles of decency.

"The whole world is watching what we are doing in Gaza right now. Secretary General, you are supporting a genocide,” Benjamin shouted.

While being arrested, Benjamin highlighted the urgency of speaking out against this genocide, donning a T-shirt “Another Jew That Speaks Out Against Genocide” she drew attention to the allocation of billions of dollars for Israel, urging for a redirection of resources towards humanitarian efforts.

View Video of Disruption and Arrest Here.

Despite facing arrests activists and state-sanctioned violence students, peace activists, and constituents across the country will continue to do everything in their power to stop the genocide in Gaza, end the occupation of Palestine, and cease U.S. military and financial support of Israel’s war crimes.

In a newly released interview with TIME, Donald Trump doubled down on his extremist anti-abortion policies. Trump endorsed punishing women who get an abortion and allowing states to monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute women who get an abortion. Trump also left the door open to signing legislation that could ban IVF and stood with extremist anti-abortion activists who want to ban medication abortion nationwide.

Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju released the following statement in response:

“There is zero doubt in my mind that Trump will choose anti-abortion extremists and their horrifying agenda over American families every single chance he gets, and this new interview proves that he will ban abortion in all 50 states. It’s imperative that we double down on our mission to reelect the Biden-Harris ticket and deliver Congressional majorities to lock our right to abortion care into federal law.”

Today, the Biden administration’s White House Council on Environmental Quality released a final rule guiding federal decision making under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

This rulemaking, which was initiated with Phase 1 in 2022, reverses Trump-era attacks on the bedrock environmental protection, as well as ensuring reviews fully and accurately consider the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of proposed projects and that affected communities are consulted as early as possible.

In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:

“This rule is yet another reminder that we do not have to choose between environmental justice and meeting our energy needs. Through this commonsense reform, we can unlock the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act and bring abundant clean energy resources online without sacrificing communities or rubber-stamping more fossil fuels. We applaud the Biden administration for taking this important step toward ensuring certainty, efficiency, and transparency in the federal environmental review process.”

Today, the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced its final rule reinstating 2020 rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act. The rule will officially restore past gutting of the nation’s bedrock environmental protection law, as well as add climate change and environmental justice as factors that should formally be considered by federal agencies when implementing NEPA review.

CEQ’s announcement is the direct result of a 2020 lawsuit filed filed by a coalition of organizations, including Friends of the Earth, which challenged the Trump Administration’s attacks on NEPA. The litigation has been stayed pending CEQ’s restoration efforts. The 2020 attacks on NEPA attempted to exempt dirty energy projects from basic environmental reviews and silence public input. Today’s rule completes CEQ’s two-phase approach to undoing these unlawful rollbacks.

Hallie Templeton, legal director for Friends of the Earth, issued the following statement:

We commend CEQ for taking long-overdue actions to strengthen and restore NEPA, our nation’s most crucial environmental protection law. This marks a victory in our years-long litigation to reverse the rollbacks and benefits frontline communities who rely on NEPA for a voice in the permitting process and for transparency around our government’s activities. While much more must be done to shore up our nation’s environmental and environmental justice laws, this is a certain step in the right direction for safeguarding people and the planet.

CEQ issued its draft Phase 2 rule in Aug. 2023, the final publication of which completes a 2-phase approach to reinstating and strengthening NEPA. CEQ published the Phase 1 rule in April 2022. Plaintiffs in the litigation are reviewing the rule and determining next steps for their lawsuit over the unlawful 2020 rollbacks.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality today announced its final rule as part of a two-step process to restore and strengthen the critical National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This rule reinstates provisions that were gutted by the Trump administration to exempt industry from commonsense environmental safeguards. It also goes further by strengthening requirements to factor climate change risks into planned projects and consider the potential for disproportionate harm to human health or the environment in communities contending with ongoing environmental injustices. In effect for more than 50 years, NEPA is a foundational environmental law that helps ensure communities are meaningfully engaged in decisions about projects being built nearby or that affect them.

Below is a statement by David Watkins, the director of government affairs for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

“Polluters have been attacking NEPA since it was signed into law 50 years ago, with the previous administration’s undermining efforts serving as the latest example. By restoring and strengthening key provisions of NEPA, the Biden administration has unequivocally declared that polluting industries will not have the only say in how federal investments and projects are evaluated.

“These new regulations will reverse the worst of the Trump administration’s attacks, implement bipartisan changes mandated by Congress, protect communities’ ability to weigh in on projects that affect their health and surrounding environment, and make NEPA a more effective tool for responding to the climate crisis. As an organization committed to scientific integrity and advancing environmental justice, we welcome these numerous improvements. A robust NEPA process leads to better public health outcomes, a cleaner environment and lower overall costs.”

In addition to Watkins, UCS has the following experts on staff available for interviews on this topic:

• Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS.
• Michell McIntyre, the policy director and program manager for the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS.

If you have any questions or would like to arrange an interview with Watkins or another UCS expert, please contact UCS Climate and Energy Media Manager Ashley Siefert Nunes.

Additional Resources:

• A blogpost by Watkins, “NEPA, the ‘Magna Carta’ of Federal Environmental Laws, May Be About to Improve.”

Today the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released its final set of regulations to restore the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a bedrock environmental law that gives communities the ability to weigh in on federal actions that impact their air, water and public health.

The new rule is the second in a two-phase process to reverse a Trump administration rollback that gutted NEPA review to fast-track polluting projects and stifle community input.

In response, Food & Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen released the following statement:

“NEPA gives communities the power to participate and advocate for themselves when the federal government green-lights polluting projects like factory farms and fossil fuel power plants. Today’s rule restores strong environmental review of federal actions and will go a long way towards having a meaningful process to assess the health and safety impacts of an array of projects.
“Over the past few years, NEPA has been targeted by polluters and their political allies as an impediment to permitting sensible and necessary projects. But this is simply not the case; full, transparent consideration of a project’s impacts – including climate and environmental justice impacts – is critical to informed decision making and ultimately transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

The fourth session of the United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, or INC-4, ended today without much-needed progress toward an international agreement to end plastic pollution and protect human health, the climate and biodiversity.

While INC-4 did manage a commitment to convene experts to conduct intersessional work before the final scheduled negotiation session in November, it was marred by aggressive efforts by low-ambition countries to clog the text with plastic-promoting edits.

“Countries should be rallying around plastic production cuts at this critical stage, not continuing to wrangle over the treaty’s scope,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, an observer at INC-4. “Despite hearing people from polluted communities around the world give sensible proposals to curb the lifecycle harms of plastics, fossil fuel and petrochemical interests are still shamelessly blocking progress and focusing on utterly inadequate plastic waste management.”

Throughout INC-4, U.N. member states discussed treaty text options proposed at previous negotiations and attempted to streamline the draft toward a final agreement. To the frustration of environmental, public health, and frontline organizations observing the session, nations struggled to agree even on the treaty’s scope and key substantive provisions.

Highlighting the ongoing division over the core issue of plastic production cuts, fossil fuel- and petrochemical-friendly countries could not even agree that intersessional work should cover the issue of primary plastic production.

The Center and many other groups from the Break Free From Plastic movement attended INC-4 in person to pressure member states to negotiate strong and effective treaty language that cuts plastic production and addresses pollution along the full lifecycle of plastic, from extraction and refining of the oil and gas that provides its raw materials to its disposal and loss in the environment.

Rwanda and Peru — both members of the “High Ambition Coalition” — released strong proposals for text on production reductions. In contrast, a coalition of fossil fuel–aligned countries, including Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia, continued to forcefully object to treaty measures to address plastic production. These member states, calling themselves the “Like-Minded Group,” suggested changes to the treaty text that gut it almost entirely.

“Rather than showing leadership, the United States has remained disappointedly in the middle,” said Teel Simmonds. “The U.S. proposals lack binding targets and focus on cutting demand for plastic rather than production itself. And they don’t go beyond existing U.S. policy, which has failed to curb plastic production or protect frontline communities and the environment from harm.”

The BFFP movement released a call for action expressing disappointment and demanding more from the U.S. delegation.

Representatives of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus attending the negotiations again highlighted the lack of resources and support to ensure their strong participation. The harms that Indigenous Peoples face from plastic production were underscored by INC-4 participants from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, who are fighting to protect their health from an INEOS petrochemical facility recently shut down for leaking illegal levels of benzene.

Even more fossil fuel, chemical and beverage industry representatives attended INC-4 than previous sessions, and several groups again called for policies to protect the negotiation process from conflicts of interest.

“Despite mounting proof of plastics’ enormous harm to people and the planet, the petrochemical industry and the countries that put them first are ramping up efforts to water down this treaty,” Teel Simmonds said. “We’ll keep fighting their deception and obstruction because the world desperately needs a treaty that protects us from plastic production and pollution. And we’ll keep pushing the United States to lead.”

The next negotiating session, INC-5, will take place in Busan, Korea, in November 2024.