Belgium Court Declares Inadequate Climate Policy a Human Rights Violation

Climate campaigners claimed a “historic victory” after a Brussels court on Thursday condemned Belgium for its climate policy that breaches the country’s duty of care and human rights obligations. The verdict from the Court of First Instance followed a six-year legal battle first launched by non-profit group Klimaatzaak (Climate Case) representing over 58,000 citizens.

Did Trump Just Concede? Former President Says “We Didn’t Win” on Fox News

Former President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden, has finally seemed to acknowledge that he will never be named the true winner of that year’s presidential race. While being interviewed by Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Trump continued with his typical (and false) talking points on election fraud he has made over the past seven months, including bragging about his popular vote totals. “We were supposed to win easily, 64 million votes,” Trump claimed. “We got 75 million votes and we didn’t win, but let’s see what happens on that.”

Democrats Prepare $6 Trillion Infrastructure Bill That Sidesteps GOP

Senate Democrats are in talks over a $6 trillion reconciliation package that would sidestep Republican opposition and contain provisions over and above President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposals to address the climate crisis and expand Medicare. The package would adopt many provisions from Biden’s twin economic packages, the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan and the $1.9 trillion American Families Plan. It would include provisions to expand the child tax credit and establish universal pre-kindergarten and paid leave, according to The Washington Post — all provisions that are currently missing from the infrastructure proposal offered by centrist senators, which has been panned by progressives.

Supreme Court Backs Catholic Foster Care Agency in LGBTQ Discrimination Case

This morning the Supreme Court ruled that the city of Philadelphia violated the First Amendment when the city declined to renew a contract with a Catholic social service agency that refused to consider placing youth in need of foster care with LGBTQ families. The judgment was unanimous. While it’s crucial to consider the implications of this case — Fulton v. City of Philadelphia — for non-discrimination rules, we should also take a broader lens and recognize the harm that the foster system itself does to LGBTQ, BIPOC and working-class communities.

Transgender Students Protected Under Title IX, Education Department Says

The Department of Education announced this week that it would interpret Title IX protections for across the U.S. to include protections for LGBTQ students, including transgender students that are being targeted by conservative legislation in numerous states. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona made the announcement, which reverses a Trump administration policy, on Wednesday.

Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz Suggest FBI Attacked Capitol

The evolution — or devolution, if you will — of the right’s January 6 narrative continues apace, but is steering toward strange waters. When it happened, it was deemed an appalling attack against the very fabric of democracy … but Donald Trump didn’t like that, because the attackers were his people, and so the story began to change. It was antifa! Black Lives Matter protesters! No, that didn’t stick. Wait, they were peaceful tourists! See how they stay within the ropes as they carry their Confederate battle flags and lengths of pipe! Ten minutes with the footage from the front stairs and hallways batted that one down.

To Pave the Way for Medicare for All, We Need to Overcome “Citizens United”

There’s only one person in this photograph/video of last week’s G7 meeting who represents a country where an illness can destroy an entire family, leaving them bankrupt and homeless, with the repercussions of that sudden fall into poverty echoing down through generations. Most Americans have no idea that the United States is quite literally the only country in the “developed world” that doesn’t define healthcare as an absolute right for all of its citizens. That’s it. We’re the only one left.

EPA Workers Demand the Removal of Fossil Fuel Stocks From Their Retirement Plans

This article was originally published at Labor Notes. Not long ago, workers at the Environmental Protection Agency were battling the Trump Administration’s many attempts to interfere with both their agency’s mission and their rights on the job.

FBI Probes Allegation That DeJoy Used Illegal Scheme to Rise as GOP Megadonor

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating Republican campaign donations in connection to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his former company. As first reported by The Washington Post, FBI agents have been looking into campaign contributions potentially made by people currently and formerly employed by DeJoy. Sources told the publication that investigators have also issued a subpoena to the embattled postmaster general in connection with the donations.

New Report Finds Police-Perpetrated Killings in 2020 Were Vastly Underreported

According to The Guardian newspaper, 1,093 people were killed by police in the United States in 2020. Meanwhile, the website Mapping Police Violence, another well-respected source for such information, puts that number slightly higher at 1,127, and Statista claims it is 1,021. These figures reflect a consensus that has existed since around 2015 that, in general, police in the United States kill about 1,000 people per year.

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