Justice

Economy & Labor Pelosi Is Wrong – Biden Has the Power to Cancel Student Debt, and He Should Culture & Media Glen Ford’s Journalism Fought for Black Liberation and Against Imperialism Environment & Health EPA Approval of PFAS for Fracking May Spell a New Health Crisis for Communities Politics & Elections Both the Delta Variant and Thin-Willed Democrats Are Lethal to Our Society Environment & Health Biden Promotes $100 Incentives to Encourage Unvaccinated to Get Their Shots Environment & Health Exxon-Influenced Senators Carved Climate Out of Infrastructure Almost Entirely After many of their fellow Democratic lawmakers skipped town for a weeks-long vacation, Reps. Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley slept outside the U.S. Capitol building Friday night to demand that the House immediately reconvene and pass an extension of the soon-to-expire national eviction moratorium. With the reprieve set to lapse on Saturday, House Democratic leaders scrambled to pull their caucus together at the last-minute to pass legislation that would extend the moratorium until the end of 2021. But the effort, spurred by the Biden administration’s refusal to act on its own, ultimately fizzled out as a number of centrist Democrats made clear they would rather leave Washington, D.C. for August recess than work to prolong the moratorium, which is shielding millions of people across the U.S. from potentially imminent eviction. A parallel effort by Senate Democrats has also failed to get off the ground. “Earlier Friday afternoon, top Democrats began floating an alternative that they hoped would pick up votes from the moderate wing of their caucus — an extension of just over three months, rather than six months — on what is likely to be the House’s final task before departing for its lengthy August recess,” Politico reported. “But moderates remained unconvinced.” Because House Democratic leaders attempted to pass a moratorium extension using a procedure known as unanimous consent, a single Republican objection—in this case from Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.)—was enough to block the legislation. There was no full vote in the chamber, so centrist Democrats did not have to go on the record opposing an extension. The House is not scheduled to return to session until September 20. Bush (D-Mo.), who was formerly unhoused as a mother of two, expressed outrage that many of her Democratic colleagues “chose to go on vacation early today rather than staying to vote to keep people in their homes.” “That the House suddenly adjourned this evening without a roll call vote on Chairwoman Waters’ legislation is a moral failure,” Bush wrote in a letter to House Democrats on Friday, referring to Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-Calif.) bill to extend the eviction ban. “I have been unhoused and evicted. I’ve slept in my car and slept outdoors. I know what it’s like, and I wouldn’t wish that trauma on anyone.” “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes, including staying in Washington and demanding that the House vote on H.R. 4791,” Bush continued. “I cannot in good conscience leave Washington tonight while a Democratic-controlled government allows millions of people to go unhoused as the Delta variant is ravaging our communities. Millions of people are about to lose their homes and, as Democrats, we must not give up on the chance to save their lives.” The Missouri Democrat went on to invite her colleagues to join her in sleeping outside the Capitol, but just two lawmakers — Pressley and Omar — heeded the call, along with a number of activists. We’ve got you, Sis. Extend the #EvictionMoratorium https://t.co/WH9X1Owazf pic.twitter.com/gHDhwmzMf4 — Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) July 31, 2021 First implemented by the CDC in September, the federal eviction moratorium is set to expire as more than 10 million tenants across the country are behind on rent and relief funds appropriated by Congress to help at-risk households remain largely unspent. “Six months after the aid program was approved by President Donald Trump in December, just 12% of the first $25 billion in funds had reached people in need due to loss of income from the pandemic,” the Washington Post reported Friday. “More than three months after President Biden signed a March relief package with another $21.5 billion for the program, even less of that has been spent.” Housing advocates have warned that a wave of evictions, while unacceptable at any time, would be especially perilous in the current moment, given the nationwide spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. While renters in Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Illinois, and a handful of other states will still be protected by temporary eviction bans after the national moratorium expires on Saturday, experts have argued that federal action is necessary to prevent a looming housing disaster. “Without immediate action, millions of these households will be at risk of losing their homes and their ability to keep themselves and their families safe and healthy,” National Low Income Housing Coalition and other organizations wrote in a letter (pdf) to congressional leaders on Thursday. “The newly surging Delta variant, low vaccination rates in communities with high eviction filings, and the slow rate of distributing [Emergency Rental Assistance] make the necessity of an extension abundantly clear.” The letter came hours after the Biden White House asked Congress to pass legislation to extend the moratorium — just three days before it was set to expire. In a statement Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted that the Biden administration cannot unilaterally prolong the moratorium due to a recent Supreme Court ruling — a justification that many questioned. “The CDC could extend the eviction moratorium right now,” argued Kriston Capps, a staff writer for City Lab. “It would almost certainly be struck down, but it would take time for a challenge to reach the Supreme Court. Instead the White House punted to Congress but with very little time to reach a deal.” From the front of the U.S. Capitol, Bush tweeted Saturday morning that the House could have passed an extension in time, “but some Democrats went on vacation instead.” “We slept at the Capitol last night to ask them to come back and do their jobs,” Bush added. “Today’s their last chance. We’re still here.” This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

A one-time 99% tax on billionaires’ massive pandemic wealth gains would raise enough revenue to pay for coronavirus vaccines for every adult on Earth — and provide each of the hundreds of millions of unemployed workers around the world with a $20,000 cash grant. So finds an analysis released late Wednesday by Oxfam International, the Fight Inequality Alliance, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Patriotic Millionaires, progressive advocacy organizations that are pushing governments to tax billionaires to help fund critical pandemic relief measures.

Environment & Health EPA Approval of PFAS for Fracking May Spell a New Health Crisis for Communities Politics & Elections Both the Delta Variant and Thin-Willed Democrats Are Lethal to Our Society Environment & Health Biden Promotes $100 Incentives to Encourage Unvaccinated to Get Their Shots Environment & Health Exxon-Influenced Senators Carved Climate Out of Infrastructure Almost Entirely Environment & Health Chomsky: We Need Genuine International Cooperation to Tackle the Climate Crisis Politics & Elections The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy Former President Donald Trump, as a candidate for office during the 2016 presidential election cycle, promised to donate his entire executive salary back to the federal government if he was chosen to be president. Half a year after he exited the White House, it’s unclear whether he fulfilled that pledge. An analysis from The Washington Post cannot account for $220,000 of Trump’s salary donations. That amount is derived from the last six months he served in 2020 and the 20 days he served in January as president, during which time the White House made no formal announcements about where Trump was donating his income. The Post sought to find out whether Trump donated his last bit of salary without fanfare. It surveyed every major agency in the federal government to see if he did. No agency reported a donation from Trump. Trump frequently made a big deal about donating his earnings, at least 14 times, or once per quarter, during the first three-and-a-half years he was in office. But in the last two financial quarters of 2020, there were no formal announcements from the administration about donating the executive’s salary. Trump may have been upset that he wasn’t receiving praise for his donations anymore, suggested Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold. “In Trump’s public comments about this promise, you can see him getting more and more bitter about it — grousing that nobody is giving him credit,” Fahrenthold said on Twitter. “Then, in 2020, the White House stopped announcing any donations.” It’s likely that many observers saw his supposedly charitable actions for what they were: political theater. Indeed, as Trump purportedly gave up getting paid while in office, he was earning more than 1,000 times back in profits from his businesses, from which he infamously refused to divest before becoming president. Trump also reaped the benefits of millions in taxpayer dollars which were reportedly spent at several properties owned by the Trump Organization because of his frequent trips to them during his tenure in office. As a former president, Trump continues to receive a presidential pension of more than $220,000 per year. (He has not made any promises to donate that income.) Trump also charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 in the first few months after leaving office for around-the-clock security at his resort, regardless of whether he or members of his family were on the premises. Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Environment & Health New COVID Variants Threaten to Make Pandemic Permanent Economy & Labor COVID Relief Packages Dramatically Reduced Poverty. They Should Be Permanent. Economy & Labor Predatory Banks at Walmarts Made Over 100 Percent of Profits From Overdraft Fees Environment & Health Biden to Set Goal for Half of All Vehicle Sales to Be Electric by 2030 Environment & Health MO Coroner Says He Alters Death Certificates If Families Dislike COVID Inclusion Environment & Health Biden Made Big Compromises on Climate — and Movements That Backed Him Are Livid Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, whose district includes Minneapolis, says she supports a ballot initiative to abolish the city’s police department and replace it with a new “Department of Public Safety.” Local activists have already gathered tens of thousands of signatures for the move. “We’ve had a very incompetent and brutal police department for a really long time,” says Omar, who adds that while much of the world associates the city’s cops with the murder of George Floyd, local residents have witnessed the department’s violence for much longer. TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Omar, speaking of the horror of losing lives unnecessarily, I wanted to pivot to your home state and to your city, Minneapolis, where police killed George Floyd, murdered him, prompting mass protests. Now local activists have gathered more than 22,000 signatures to place a measure on the ballot this November to vote on whether to abolish the city’s police department and replace it with a new Department of Public Safety. But the city attached an explanatory note to the ballot initiative that organizers say is a misleading, partial description. They filed a lawsuit to stop the note from being placed on the ballot initiative, saying the city is trying to influence voters with subjective, selective language. You are one of the leaders of this community that has experienced so much trauma. Can you talk about your views on this and what you think would lead to a more just solution, not only in Minneapolis, but it is certainly a model for the whole country? REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah. Well, first of all, in regards to the ballot measure and to the tactics of those that want to keep the status quo in place, I say to them, you know, we’ve dealt with that before in Minnesota in regards to ballot measures, and I believe that this one will also be met with the same fate as the other ones, so I’m confident that we will prevail. We’ve had a very incompetent and brutal police department for a really long time. And, you know, to the rest of the country and the world, they saw what happened with George Floyd and might have thought this is a one-off situation. I remember witnessing my first police shooting as a teenager, where they put nearly 38 bullets into the body of a mentally ill man who was just released from an institution, who didn’t speak a word of English, who couldn’t respond to their commands, who was not of any imminent threat to have had his life taken in such a brutal and a shameful way. And so many of us have experienced those kind of killings in front of civilians far too often than we would like to have seen. So, the fact that the Minneapolis Police Department can no longer exist the way it is is one that is understood by the majority of us. And I believe in the fight that people have engaged in, in regards to trying to have a more just system for us, and we’ll continue to support their effort. AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Congressmember Ilhan Omar, Minnesota congressmember representing the 5th Congressional District, from Mogadishu to Minneapolis. The paperback edition of her memoir has just been released. It’s titled This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman. Thanks so much, Congressmember Omar. Well, up next, we go to Lebanon, where security forces fired water cannons and tear gas at protesters marking one year since the devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut, killing hundreds, injuring thousands. Stay with us. This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

The July employment report again showed very strong gains in both the establishment and household survey. In addition to showing 943,000 new jobs in July, the numbers for April and May were also revised up substantially so that the average over the last three months is now 832,000. At that pace, we would make up the jobs lost in the recession in seven months. Unemployment Record Far Ahead of Recovery From Great Recession

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement got a powerful boost when Ben & Jerry’s announced its boycott in the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territory. On July 19, the iconic ice cream company said in a statement, “We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT),” which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The statement quoted an op-ed penned by co-founders Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield in The New York Times, calling the boycott “a rejection of Israeli policy, which perpetuates an illegal occupation that is a barrier to peace and violates the basic human rights of the Palestinian people who live under the occupation.” Israel lashed back, threatening “severe consequences” for the boycott and urging U.S. states to employ anti-boycott laws. In every case but one, however, courts have struck down such legislation as unconstitutional. Boycotts are protected by the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech, association and assembly.

Environment & Health EPA Approval of PFAS for Fracking May Spell a New Health Crisis for Communities Politics & Elections Both the Delta Variant and Thin-Willed Democrats Are Lethal to Our Society Environment & Health Biden Promotes $100 Incentives to Encourage Unvaccinated to Get Their Shots Environment & Health Exxon-Influenced Senators Carved Climate Out of Infrastructure Almost Entirely Environment & Health Chomsky: We Need Genuine International Cooperation to Tackle the Climate Crisis Politics & Elections The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy Human Rights Watch is calling on the International Criminal Court to open a probe into apparent Israeli war crimes committed during its recent 11-day assault on Gaza that killed 260 Palestinians, including 66 children. We discuss a major report HRW released this week that closely examines three Israeli strikes that killed 62 Palestinians civilians in May. U.S.-made weapons were used in at least two of the attacks investigated. Human Rights Watch concluded Israel had committed apparent war crimes. “You had people’s entire lives — their homes, their businesses, their wives, their children, their husbands — gone in a flash,” says Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, who helped lead the investigation. “The international community focuses on Gaza maybe when there are armed hostilities. But two months later these families continue to deal with the aftermath of the devastation wrought upon their lives.” TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Human Rights Watch is calling on the International Criminal Court to open a probe into apparent Israeli war crimes committed during its recent 11-day assault on Gaza that killed 260 Palestinians, including 66 children. Human Rights Watch concluded Israel had committed apparent war crimes after closely examining three Israeli strikes that killed 62 Palestinian civilians in May. U.S.-made weapons were used in at least two of the attacks investigated. Human Rights Watch released this video to accompany its new report. A warning to our audience, the video contains graphic content, including the sounds of military attacks on civilians. NARRATOR: On May 10, 2021, 11 days of hostilities began between the Israeli military and Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, in the Gaza Strip and Israel. The fighting took place amid escalating repression in occupied East Jerusalem and the prolonged closure of the Gaza Strip. These policies and practices reflect the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. PEOPLE: [shouting and screaming] NARRATOR: Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth investigations into three Israel strikes that killed 62 Palestinian civilians and involved serious violations of the laws of war and apparent war crimes. PERSON: Human Rights Watch will be reporting in August 2021 on Palestinian armed group attacks that caused civilian casualties. NARRATOR: In the northeastern corner of the Gaza Strip, outside Beit Hanoun town shortly after 6:00 p.m. on May 10, a guided missile struck near four houses belonging to the extended al-Masri family. Members of the family were packing processed barley for animal feed into sacks at the time. YOUSSEF ATALLAH AL-MASRI: [translated] My brother Ibrahim and I were around 150 to 200 meters away. When they struck our children, we were facing the events. We saw it with our own eyes when they were hit. I ran to them right away. I found our children scattered. They were scattered on the floor, ripped to pieces, blood and brain fragments. PEOPLE: [shouting] NARRATOR: Israeli authorities have said that the attack involved a misfired Palestinian rocket coming from the West but have produced no evidence to back up this claim. Witnesses saw a munition approaching them from the east, from Israel. Based on munition remnants found at the scene of the attack and witnesses’ descriptions, we determined that the six children and two adults were most likely killed by a type of guided missile used to attack military vehicles or personnel in the open. Six days after the attack, the Israeli authorities also included the photo of one man killed in the Beit Hanoun attack on a list of militant group activists they said had been killed in unspecified locations. Human Rights Watch’s interviews with witnesses who knew him indicate the man was a civilian. Our research uncovered no evidence of a military target at or near the site. We therefore found the attack to be unlawful. MOHAMMAD ATTALAH AL-MASRI: [translated] It was a scene I could never expect. Everyone cries and screams every day. Do you know what my wife wants? She wants me to sell the house. She cannot accept how her children were all killed. NARRATOR: Al-Shati Refugee Camp, located northwest of Gaza City, is one of the most densely populated places in the world. At about 1:40 a.m. on May 15, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a three-story building in the camp, killing two women and eight of their children. ALAA ABU HATTAB: [translated] I lived with my wife and five children in the house. Our home was filled with love, peace, and happiness. We had been living here for 30 years. There was no prior notice, no phone call, no order to vacate. That night I went to buy bread for dinner. All of a sudden there were sounds of explosion in the air. I found that my own home had been struck. PEOPLE: [shouting] NARRATOR: The Israeli military said it struck the building because senior Hamas officials were there. It also separately said that they had targeted a bunker under or near the building. None of the witnesses Human Rights Watch interviewed were aware of any militants or other military targets in or near the building. The Israeli authorities have presented no such evidence. PEOPLE: [shouting] ALAA ABU HATTAB: [translated] I had a reality. I had a dream here. I had a family here. Now I have no family and no home. My only daughter and I are on the street. They destroyed everything in my life. They destroyed my life entirely. NARRATOR: At about 1:00 a.m. on May 16, the Israeli military launched a four-minute attack in the heart of Gaza City along five streets including Al-Wahda Street, causing three multistory residential buildings to collapse. OMAR ABU EL-OUF: [translated] Me, my father and mother, and my brother and sister, we started hearing the sound of loud explosions. After the second missile landed, the house started to sway right and left as if it were about to fall down and collapse. I pulled my sister by the arm towards the hallway and held her in order to shield her. And suddenly, we saw the third missile coming from the window, and the hallway’s entire wall collapsed, and the whole floor suddenly disappeared, and everything fell on us. And afterwards, the fourth missile came down on us and destroyed everything. NARRATOR: Human Rights Watch determined that the three buildings collapsed after missiles struck the road or sidewalk next to the buildings. The Israeli military said that they targeted tunnels used by armed groups. Later they said the attack had targeted an underground command center, but without providing any details or evidence. OMAR ABU EL-OUF: [translated] Why did they kill my family? Why did they kill my mother and father? Why did they turn me into an orphan? Who will in the end give me justice? NARRATOR: The attacks killed 44 civilians, including 14 women, 12 men and 18 children. It also injured about 50 others. The Israeli military used powerful weapons in a heavily populated residential area putting the lives of scores of civilians at risk. Since then they have produced no evidence of a military target in the vicinity to justify the attack. If there was a military target, they have also not shown that it was important enough to justify the risk to civilians. As a result, these attacks were unlawful. The U.N. says that Israeli airstrikes in May killed at least 129 civilians, including 66 children. The Israeli military said that Palestinian armed groups in Gaza fired more than 4,360 rockets and mortars towards Israel between May 10 and May 21, resulting in 12 civilian deaths, including two children. Several Palestinians also died in Gaza when rockets fired by armed groups fell short and landed in Gaza. Rockets that Palestinian armed groups fire at Israel are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward areas with civilians. Their use in such circumstances violates the laws of war and amounts to war crimes. For years, Israeli and Palestinian authorities have systematically failed to credibly investigate alleged war crimes. The International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate Israeli attacks in Gaza that evidently killed civilians unlawfully, rocket attacks by Palestinian armed groups against Israel that violate the laws of war, and other grave abuses, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. AMY GOODMAN: That new video produced by Human Rights Watch. The video was released along with a new report titled Gaza: Apparent War Crimes During May Fighting. We are joined now by Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch. He is joining us from Amman, Jordan. What were you most shocked by in these interviews, in this investigation into what happened in Israel’s last attack on Gaza? OMAR SHAKIR: Amy, some of the testimonies that we collected are among the most harrowing I have ever come across in my four and a half years working on Israel-Palestine. You had strikes that wiped out entire families. You had cases where families were reduced from having seven or eight kids to having one surviving member of their family. You had people’s entire lives, their homes, their businesses, their wives, their children, their husbands gone in a flash. And those testimonies are so important for us to discuss today because the international community focuses on Gaza maybe when there are armed hostilities, but two months later, these families continue to deal with the aftermath of the devastation wrought upon their lives. And it’s critically important to them and to all victims of grave human rights abuse that there is accountability for these serious abuses and that steps are taken by the international community to prevent yet another cycle of bloodshed and repression. This wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last unless we take grave, definitive action. AMY GOODMAN: What has been the response of the Israeli government to your report, Omar? To Human Rights Watch’s report? OMAR SHAKIR: Human Rights Watch wrote to the Israeli government in June. We specified the strikes that we were looking into. We sent them a number of detailed questions. They replied to our letter saying that they were not obligated under Israeli law to answer our questions and providing a list of general assertions, stating, for example, that they took measures to minimize the impact from their strikes. That fault belongs to Hamas because according to them they fire from populated areas. And saying that of course they would investigate these strikes. But these are the same allegations, these are the same claims they trot out each time. They did so in 2008, in 2012, in 2014, in 2018, in 2019. And they are doing so again today. The reality is that there is a whitewash mechanism within Israel that ensures that these abuses are not investigated, that impunity is the norm. And that is why it is so important that the International Criminal Court include these attacks as well as their larger context, including apartheid and persecution, in the formal probe that they are currently working on. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the change in perception in the United States about what is happening with the Israeli government and the occupation. I remember that front page photo display. It was Friday, May 28th. And the headline was, “They were just children.” And it shows scores of more than 65 children’s faces in Gaza who died in the attack. OMAR SHAKIR: That sort of reporting should be the norm, Amy, and it is unfortunate that for too many years, that has not been the case. The reality here is for too often Palestinian deaths, when they are covered—I mean, just this week as you mentioned in the lead to the news program today, you had a 20-year-old Palestinian who was killed. Killed while in a protest over the killing of a 12-year-old. And an organization, whose work is the defense for children in international Palestine, to document children’s deaths, had their offices raided this week by the Israeli army. Too often, these sorts of events do not make the international news cycle. These sorts of events highlight the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. There is certainly, Amy, growing awareness, I think, that apartheid and persecution are the reality for millions of Palestinians. I think we saw a shift in the latest hostilities, including members of the U.S. Congress, who did not just focus on the latest Palestinian rocket or Israeli airstrike, but looked at what they described as root causes of the conflict. Looking at the larger context, the discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. That is so important, because the first step to solving any problem is to diagnose it correctly. So recognition needs to happen. And then the action needs to be taken that is commensurate with that problem, in this case ending complicity with grave crimes as well as ensuring accountability for them. AMY GOODMAN: You talked about the killing of the 12-year-old Palestinian boy. He was named Mohammed al-Alami, sat in the backseat of his father’s car in an Israeli checkpoint north of Hebron. The 11th Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank this year. That is according to Defense for Children International, which publicized Mohammed’s killing on Wednesday. Yesterday, Israeli forces raided the group’s main office, seizing files about Palestinian children in Israeli detention. Can you comment on this? OMAR SHAKIR: Absolutely. There has been a systematic assault on human rights advocacy, on the individuals and groups that are reporting, documenting, speaking out against the reality of Israeli repression. For international groups, that can take the form of denials of entry or deportation. For Israeli groups, it can be smear campaigns. But Palestinian groups face it the worst. This is not the only example of the army raiding a human rights organization. It happened a couple of years ago with the group Addameer. And it is not limited to that. As we speak, there are Palestinian human rights defenders that are sitting in an Israeli prison over their activism and advocacy. There are Palestinian human rights defenders who face a travel ban, a punitive ban that seems linked to the work they do promoting awareness and calling for an end to Israeli repression. So it is important for the international community to speak out to defend the space for human rights advocacy and human rights groups to operate. Because if the international community cannot protect the space for human rights groups to report on human rights abuse, how are they ever going to stop human rights abuse in the first place? These are not one-offs. This is part of a systematic practice, and it must end. AMY GOODMAN: Omar Shakir is Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch. We will link to your report Gaza: Apparent War Crimes During May Fighting. And Omar, we are going to ask you to stay with us for our next segment as we look at the fallout from Ben & Jerry’s decision to halt ice cream sales in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli government claims the move is anti-Semitic, but many Jewish groups, including J Street, support Ben & Jerry’s decision. Stay with us. This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Environment & Health New COVID Variants Threaten to Make Pandemic Permanent Economy & Labor COVID Relief Packages Dramatically Reduced Poverty. They Should Be Permanent. Economy & Labor Predatory Banks at Walmarts Made Over 100 Percent of Profits From Overdraft Fees Environment & Health Biden to Set Goal for Half of All Vehicle Sales to Be Electric by 2030 Environment & Health MO Coroner Says He Alters Death Certificates If Families Dislike COVID Inclusion Environment & Health Biden Made Big Compromises on Climate — and Movements That Backed Him Are Livid ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. John Winkler II was dying of heart failure when doctors came to his hospital bedside, offering a chance to prolong his life. The HeartWare Ventricular Assist Device, or HVAD, could be implanted in Winkler’s chest until a transplant was possible. The heart pump came with disclaimers of risk, but Winkler wanted to fight for time. He was only 46 and had a loving wife and four children, and his second grandchild was on the way. So, in August 2014, Winkler had surgery to implant the device. A golf-ball-sized rotor was attached to his left ventricle to pump blood through a tube and into his aorta. A cable threading out of a small incision in his waist connected to a battery-powered controller strapped to his body. If something went wrong, an alarm as loud as a fire drill would sound. Winkler returned home weeks later and, as he regained his strength, became hopeful about the future. He started making plans to visit colleges with his daughter, and was able to host his parents and new grandchild for Christmas. “He was doing so much better,” his wife, Tina Winkler, said. “We thought he was coasting until he got his transplant.” What John Winkler didn’t know: Months before his implant, the Food and Drug Administration put HeartWare on notice for not properly monitoring or repairing HVAD defects, such as faulty batteries and short circuits caused by static electricity, that had killed patients. The agency issued a warning letter, one of its most serious citations. It demanded fixes within 15 days, but took no decisive action as problems persisted. Ten days after Christmas 2014, Winkler’s two teenage children heard the HVAD’s piercing alarm and ran upstairs. They found their father collapsed on his bedroom floor, completely unresponsive. Kelly, 17, dropped to his side and tried to copy how people on television did CPR. She told her brother to call 911, and over the device’s siren did her best to hear instructions from the operator. When paramedics arrived and assessed her father, one made a passing comment that has haunted Kelly ever since: “Well, his toes are already cold.” He died two days later. Medtronic, the company that acquired HeartWare in 2016, settled a lawsuit by the family last year, admitting no fault. Tina Winkler believes her children blamed themselves for their father’s death. “Those two kids have never been the same,” she said. “I think they feel like they didn’t do things they needed to do.” But it was the FDA that failed to protect Winkler and thousands of other patients whose survival depended on the HVAD, a ProPublica investigation found. As HeartWare and Medtronic failed inspection after inspection and reports of device-related deaths piled up, the FDA relied on the device makers to fix the problems voluntarily rather than compelling them to do so. The HVAD was implanted into more than 19,000 patients, the majority of whom got it after the FDA found in 2014 that the device didn’t meet federal standards. By the end of last year, the agency had received more than 3,000 reports of patient deaths that may have been caused or contributed to by the device. Among them were reports of deaths the company linked to serious device problems: a patient who vomited blood as a family member struggled to restart a defective HVAD; a patient who bled out internally and died after implant surgery because a tube attached to the pump tore open; a patient whose heart tissue was left charred after an HVAD short-circuited and voltage surged through the pump. The ineffective regulatory oversight of the HVAD is emblematic of larger, more systemic weaknesses. For decades, the FDA and its Center for Devices and Radiological Health have been responsible for ensuring that high-risk medical devices are safe and effective. Yet they mostly rely on manufacturers to identify and correct problems. The agency says it can seize products, order injunctions against companies or issue fines, but it rarely does so, preferring instead for companies to make fixes voluntarily. When federal investigators found repeated manufacturing issues with the HVAD for years, the FDA didn’t penalize the company, even as the company issued 15 serious recalls of the device starting in 2014, the most of any single high-risk device in the FDA’s database. Thousands of patients with recalled models needed to have external HVAD parts replaced or take extra caution while handling their devices and monitor them for signs of malfunctions that could cause injury or death. Meanwhile, the processes to inform the public through formal FDA notices and messages to healthcare providers repeatedly failed and left patients in the dark about known problems with the HVAD. “Patients have no idea, and they rely on the FDA to ensure the safety and effectiveness of high-risk devices,” said Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco who studies medical device regulation. “How can you not take action on a warning letter with these serious issues with very sick patients?” In response to ProPublica’s findings, the FDA said it had been closely monitoring issues with the HVAD. It said that after Medtronic acquired HeartWare in 2016, it met with the company more than 100 times to ensure problems were being fixed and to review safety concerns related to the heart pump. The agency also said it initiated formal reviews of new device modifications and continually tracked whether the HVAD had a “reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness.” “Our decisions that we made along the way have always been patient-focused,” said Dr. William Maisel, the director of product evaluation and quality at the FDA’s device division. He added that more than 80% of companies fix their problems by the time the FDA reinspects. That did not happen with the HVAD. In 2016 and 2018, inspectors found that issues detailed in the 2014 warning letter remained unresolved. Medtronic told the FDA last year that it had fixed the problems, but, before the agency could verify the claim, inspections were paused because of the coronavirus pandemic. In June, Medtronic stopped HVAD sales and implants. The company conceded that a competing device was safer after a new study showed the HVAD had higher rates of death and neurological injury. Medtronic also cited a 12-year-old problem with its devices not restarting if they disconnect from power, leaving patients’ hearts without support. Medtronic declined to make CEO Geoffrey Martha or president of mechanical heart support Nnamdi Njoku available for interviews. In an email, a spokesperson said, “There is nothing more important to Medtronic than the safety and well-being of patients.” The email continued, “Medtronic takes this matter very seriously and, over the past five years, we have worked closely with FDA and engaged external experts to resolve the issues noted in the warning letter. FDA is aware of the steps Medtronic has taken to address the underlying concerns.” The company said it will have a support system in place for the 4,000 patients worldwide and 2,000 in the United States who still rely on the HVAD. Medtronic will station 20 specialists across the globe to help with device maintenance and patient education. A centralized engineering team will also provide technical support and troubleshooting for patients and medical staff. Medtronic said it will also offer financial assistance if insurance doesn’t fully cover the surgery to replace a device with a competing product, but only if a doctor decides it’s medically necessary. Patients with HVADs have little choice but to hope the devices keep working: The surgery to remove HVADs is so risky that both Medtronic and the FDA advise against it. The device is meant to be left in place until its wearer gets a heart transplant. Or dies. Warning Signs In late 2012, HeartWare, then an independent company headquartered in Massachusetts, won FDA approval to sell a new device that could keep heart failure patients alive and mobile while awaiting a transplant. A competing device, the HeartMate, was already gaining attention, with high-profile patients like former Vice President Dick Cheney, a heart attack survivor who eventually got a transplant after using the device for 20 months. The HVAD offered a smaller option that could even be used in children, and it led to a string of publicized successes. A fitness model was able to return to the gym. A 13-year-old with heart defects could attend school again. Medtronic’s YouTube page features 16 interviews with grateful patients and families. The patients who received HVADs had already been in grave peril. They had advanced heart failure, serious enough to need blood pumped out of their hearts artificially. Most patients were older than 50, but there were also younger patients with heart defects or other cardiac conditions. The device provided help but brought its own risks. Implanting it required invasive open-heart surgery, and clots could develop inside the pump, which, in the worst cases, led to deadly strokes. The device also came with a steep price tag. Each HVAD cost about $80,000, and, even though HeartWare never made a profit as an independent company, in 2015 device sales brought in $276 million in revenue. For many severe heart failure patients, the opportunity to survive longer and return to normal life made the device worth the risks and cost. But patients were unaware the FDA started finding manufacturing issues at HeartWare’s Miami Lakes, Florida, plant as early as 2011, when the device was still seeking approval. Among the findings, a federal inspector expressed concerns that engineering staff “were not completely reviewing documents before approving them” and found one employee assigned to monitoring device quality had missed several required monthly trainings. HeartWare leadership promised quick corrective action, according to FDA documents. Then, in 2014, the FDA found more serious lapses, detailed in federal inspection reports. For example, HeartWare knew of 119 instances in which batteries failed unexpectedly, which could leave the pump powerless, stopping support for the patient’s heart. But the company didn’t test the batteries in inventory for defects, or the batteries of current patients, even though one person’s death had already been linked to battery failure. The company also received complaints that static electricity could short-circuit its devices. It learned of at least 27 such cases between 2010 and 2013, including four that resulted in serious injuries and two that led to death. HVAD patients would need to avoid contact with certain household objects like televisions or vacuum cleaners — anything that could create strong static electricity. HeartWare added warnings to the patient manual and redesigned its shield to protect the device controller, but the FDA found that the company didn’t replace shields for devices already being used by current patients or produced and sitting in inventory. Continuing quality control concerns led to the FDA warning letter in June 2014. The document labeled the HVAD as “adulterated,” meaning the device did not meet federal manufacturing standards. The agency gave HeartWare 15 days to correct the problems or face regulatory action. Still, investment analysts who followed HeartWare believed the warning posed little risk to the company’s business prospects. One described it as being “as benign as possible.” The 15-day deadline passed, and the FDA never penalized the company. The agency told ProPublica it had provided additional time because HeartWare was a relatively new manufacturer and the HVAD was a complicated device. It also said it avoided punitive action to make sure patients with severe heart failure had access to this treatment option. “We’re talking about the sickest of the sick patients who really have very few alternatives,” Maisel, the head of device quality, said. But the HeartMate, the competing device, was available and already being used by the majority of patients. When Medtronic stopped HVAD sales, both companies said the HeartMate could fill the gap. Inspectors continued to find problems at HeartWare facilities in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. In the most recent report in 2018, inspectors identified seven separate violations at the HVAD plant, including three previously cited in the 2014 warning letter. The company was still mishandling newly discovered defects like pins connecting the controller to a power source that could bend and become unusable, and controllers built with incompatible parts that could chemically react and “attack” the plastic exterior. Again, the inspection report said the company “promised to correct” the issues. “What penalty is there for noncompliance? There isn’t one,” said Madris Kinard, a former public health analyst with the FDA and the CEO of Device Events, a software company that analyzes FDA device data. “There’s nothing the FDA is doing that penalizes, in any true sense of the matter, the manufacturer.” By the time sales were halted last month, the HVAD had become the subject of 15 company-initiated “Class I” recalls for dangerous device problems that could cause injury or death. One recall came with a warning sent to health care providers in December that said pumps were failing to start up properly. The pattern of malfunctions was almost as old as the device itself, the company later admitted when it halted device sales in June. But even recent patients were completely unaware of the problem. “A No-Brainer” When children asked Latoya Johnson Keelen about the cable that came out of her side and connected to a controller on her hip, she told them she was Iron Woman. For a while, she felt invulnerable with the HVAD on her heart. Johnson Keelen, who lives in the Atlanta suburbs, learned she needed the device after delivering her fourth child, Isaiah, in early 2018. Doctors diagnosed her with postpartum cardiomyopathy, a rare and mysterious form of heart failure that afflicts mothers during pregnancy or after birth. Black mothers in the South have among the highest rates of the illness. Some mothers quickly regain heart function, some only partially recuperate and others never recover. Tests showed that Johnson Keelen, then 42, was suddenly in end-stage heart failure. Her body’s immune response at the time was too strong for her to receive a heart transplant. Doctors gave her two choices: an HVAD or end-of-life hospice care. “It became a no-brainer,” she said. “I just had a baby. I just gave birth. I’m not ready to plan for a funeral.” Johnson Keelen, a woman of faith, believed God would heal her, either through a medical advancement or a miracle. She thought the HVAD was the answer. Living with a life-sustaining medical device was difficult at first for the fiercely independent mother. She had to leave her job as a public health communications specialist, ask her older sons to change her bandages and lean heavily on her new husband, only a year into their marriage. But, for about three years, she found comfort in the soft humming of the HVAD’s spinning rotor at night. It served as a lullaby for her new baby when he lay on her chest. She said she was never told about the manufacturing problems the FDA repeatedly found at HeartWare’s facilities or about device recalls, including one sent to patients in December 2020. The notice said the device sometimes wouldn’t restart properly, which had led to two patient deaths at that point. It warned that current patients should always keep at least one power source, a battery or an AC or DC adapter, connected at all times to avoid the need for a restart. Two months after that notice, Johnson Keelen was getting her kids ready for school when the HVAD’s low-battery alarm blared. She had unplugged the battery to replace it without realizing her wall adapter was disconnected. Once before, Johnson Keelen had simply plugged the charger back into the outlet and her device restarted. But this time it wouldn’t. As an emergency alarm sounded, she called the ventricular-assist team assigned to her case, and a specialist directed her to switch out the device controller. Nothing changed, and panic crept into the voice on the phone. An ambulance took Johnson Keelen to a hospital where medical staff used several backup controllers to try to start the pump. Still nothing. Doctors and nurses tried to keep calm, but Johnson Keelen could see fear and shock on their faces. Without the HVAD, her only options were a transplant or a completely new pump. Doctors scurried to locate a donor heart and airlifted her for an emergency transplant. But while running tests, the medical team was stunned to find that Johnson Keelen’s miracle had occurred: Her heart was once again pumping blood on its own. She had a new choice. She could avoid the risks of transplant rejection and open heart surgery during the pandemic by leaving the device on her functioning heart, while cutting the wires, removing the external components and sealing the pump. She chose to trust her newly functioning heart, and leave the decommissioned HVAD inside her. Three months later, when Medtronic said it was stopping HeartWare sales and implants, its announcement cited the problem with pumps not restarting among the reasons. Company-Led Oversight If evidence suggests a medical device may be linked to a serious patient injury or death, hospitals and other health care facilities must submit a report to the manufacturer and the FDA. Device companies must also submit reports if they learn independently of any incidents. By the end of 2020, roughly 3,000 death reports and 20,000 injury reports related to the HVAD had been filed with the FDA. Any details that could identify patients, like their age or gender, are removed from the publicly available reports. Most only have limited details about circumstances surrounding deaths or injuries. But it’s clear from the reports on the HVAD that some of these outcomes could be linked to problems previously identified by FDA inspectors. Doctors attempted CPR for two hours after an electrostatic shock short-circuited one patient’s device in 2014, a few months after the FDA inspection that year. An autopsy revealed voltage had caused “deep charring” of the tissue inside the patient’s chest. Friends found another patient dead in the kitchen, with groceries still on the counter, in 2018 after their device, which did not have the recommended static shield, short-circuited. Last year, paramedics found a patient with the device disconnected from power. They struggled to restart the device, but it wouldn’t plug back into the power source because the connector pins were bent. The patient would die at the hospital. In most cases, the FDA turned to the company to investigate whether a malfunction caused or contributed to the incidents. But the FDA has long known HeartWare and Medtronic could not be relied on to properly submit HVAD incident reports. In 2014, the FDA cited HeartWare because in at least 10 cases, there were no documents showing the company attempted to investigate. In 2016, the agency wrote another citation when the company was late in reporting more than 200 cases, some more than a year past their 30-day reporting deadlines, and failed to report malfunctions that occurred during clinical trials. The FDA told ProPublica the agency increased its monitoring of HVAD reports, and Medtronic hired new employees to submit timely reports. But by 2018, its backlog had only grown, with 677 late case filings. Again, the FDA did nothing beyond telling the company to fix the problem and further increasing its monitoring. In an email, Medtronic said it “has robust systems in place to monitor the safety of all of our products, including the HVAD device.” The email said, “When any potential safety issues are identified, those issues are thoroughly investigated and relevant information is shared with regulators and healthcare providers.” The company didn’t respond to the pattern of late reports and incomplete investigations identified in FDA inspections. Maisel, the director of FDA device evaluation and quality, once criticized asking companies to investigate their own devices. In 2008, as a practicing cardiologist, he testified to the U.S. House oversight committee about his concerns. “In the majority of cases, FDA relies on industry to identify, correct and report the problems,” he said. “But there is obviously an inherent financial conflict of interest for the manufacturers, sometimes measured in billions of dollars.” Maisel has since had a change of heart. When asked about his 2008 testimony, he told ProPublica that he now believes the regulatory system “generally serves patients well” and “most companies are well intentioned.” HeartWare’s track record of questionable investigations was glaring in John Winkler II’s case. A report submitted by HeartWare that matches the dates and details of Winkler’s case shows the company decided there was “no indication of any device malfunctions.” It told the FDA that the device couldn’t be removed from the body because the hospital said his family declined an autopsy. HeartWare added that the evidence of the device’s role in Winkler’s death was inconclusive. Yet little of this appears to be true. Documents reviewed by ProPublica show an autopsy of the heart and lungs was performed a day after the death. Tina Winkler said she was told the pump was removed from her husband’s body and was available for inspection. A year after John Winkler’s death, HeartWare recalled 18,000 potentially faulty batteries produced between 2013 and 2015. Tina Winkler came across the notice online and found her husband’s battery serial numbers on the list. The company never contacted her about it or any further investigation, she said. Rewards, Not Penalties As deaths and recalls mounted, HeartWare and Medtronic touted additional FDA approval to treat more patients and their attempts to develop new cutting-edge devices. With the company on notice under the 2014 warning letter, HeartWare geared up to begin human trials on a smaller heart pump, called the MVAD or Miniaturized Ventricular Assist Device. It would be powered by a new algorithm to more efficiently pump blood. Industry analysts predicted robust sales. In July 2015, implantations were set to begin on a select group of 60 patients in Europe and Australia. But they were abruptly stopped less than two months later after only 11 implants. Patients experienced numerous adverse events, including major bleeding, infection and device malfunction, according to published data. HeartWare’s stock price plummeted from about $85 to $35 by October 2015. The next year, Medtronic bought HeartWare for $1.1 billion, replacing much of the company’s leadership shortly after. Some former HeartWare investors filed a class action lawsuit in January 2016 alleging deception in the development of the MVAD. According to the accounts of six anonymous former employees in the lawsuit, the details mirror the scandal surrounding Theranos, the former blood test company charged with fraud for raising more than $700 million by allegedly lying about its technology. Where Theranos made empty promises of a test that only needed a few drops of blood, the suit alleges HeartWare promoted a life-sustaining medical device that former employees said had many problems and actually worsened blood flow, increasing clotting risks. “Nothing really worked right,” one former HeartWare manager said in the lawsuit, citing “improper alarms, improper touch screen performance, gibberish on display screens — just so many alerts and problems.” Leadership proceeded with human testing anyway, the suit alleges. Months later, at an investor conference, HeartWare leadership acknowledged the pump and algorithm led to multiple adverse events. For two patients in particular, the algorithm would direct the pump to speed up so fast that it would try to suck up more blood than was available inside the heart for prolonged periods of time. HeartWare and Medtronic settled the investor suit for $54.5 million in 2018, admitting no fault. None of the allegations slowed the FDA as it gave Medtronic additional approval and support for its heart pump technologies. In September 2017, the agency approved the HVAD as “destination therapy” for patients who were not heart transplant candidates and would rely on the device for the rest of their lives. “We’re really excited about our HVAD destination therapy approval,” a Medtronic executive said on an investor earnings call. “That’s a real game changer for us in that market.” Two years later, Medtronic announced it was developing a fully implantable version of the HVAD that would no longer need a cable coming through the waist to connect to power. Even though issues with the HeartWare device had been unresolved for five years at that point, the FDA accepted the pitch into its new fast-track approval process for high-risk devices. “Slipped Through The Cracks” After Johnson Keelen’s pump failed in February, she found a news story about the recall notice sent to medical providers two months prior. It said the company had identified a problem with pump restarts that could cause heart attacks or serious patient harm. Nineteen patients had been seriously injured so far, and two people had died. The recall warned that patients should be careful to avoid disconnecting the device’s power sources. “I kept seeing Medtronic on record saying they notified patients,” Johnson Keelen said. “Who did they contact? No one told me.” Her doctor later told her she must have “slipped through the cracks,” she said. The current system for informing patients of new safety concerns with high-risk devices relies on a communication chain that can easily break. The device company contacts the FDA and health care providers that work with device patients. The FDA typically issues a public notice, while health professionals contact their patients. But the agency admits most patients don’t know to look for formal FDA postings. And, experts say, the medical system can lose track of who needs to be notified, especially if a patient moves or switches primary care physicians. Tina Winkler still wonders why she was never told about FDA-known safety issues with the HVAD. She said her husband’s medical team “had to teach me how to clean his wound, how to change his batteries and what to do if alarms go off. And they never mentioned any of this.” She said, “If we had all the facts, there’s no way he would have gotten that device implanted in his heart.” When FDA inspectors find serious safety issues with a medical device, inspection reports are not posted online or sent to patients. The public can obtain reports through a Freedom of Information Act request, but the agency’s records department has said new requests can be stuck behind a year-long backlog. Patients can find warning letters online in a searchable database of thousands of letters from different FDA divisions, including the center for devices. But HeartWare’s 2014 letter is no longer available for public review because the website purges letters older than five years. There are also few documents available in state courts about faulty products, because of restrictions on lawsuits related to medical devices. The restrictions date back to a 2008 Supreme Court decision in a case against Medtronic. The court found that U.S. law bars patients and their survivors from suing device makers in state court, essentially because their products go through such a rigorous FDA approval process. Two recent patient lawsuits against HeartWare and Medtronic, including one filed by Tina Winkler, were moved from state court to federal court. In both cases, Medtronic filed to dismiss the cases because of the U.S. law that protects device companies. Medtronic and the families reached private settlements soon after. Winkler and an attorney for the other family said they could not comment on their settlements. Johnson Keelen, with a decommissioned HVAD still attached to her heart, wonders what that means for her and other patients’ chances of recourse. “Why isn’t anyone now stepping up for the patient?” she asked. “They are now liable for taking care of us because we relied on them.” “Run Its Course” Deserae Cain, 33, is one of the 4,000 patients still relying on a HeartWare device. She was implanted with the heart pump in late 2017, after suddenly being diagnosed with heart failure. Scans showed her heart was three times normal size. It took time for her to come to terms with needing a life-sustaining device — not long before her diagnosis, she had been going on five-mile runs. In the four years since, though, Cain has built a life around the HVAD with her fiance in their Dayton, Ohio, home. They know the device can malfunction. In 2019, the pump failed for almost an hour as doctors at a nearby hospital struggled to restart it. Cain just tried to stay calm, knowing anxiety could threaten her unsupported weak heart. Months later, she needed an emergency experimental procedure to clear out blood clots developed within her HVAD. Then, in 2020, Cain developed a widespread infection. Doctors told her she needed surgery to clean out and replace the pump. Cain asked her medical team if she could switch to the alternative HeartMate device, which other patients told her presented fewer problems, she said. Doctors said the HVAD was better suited for her smaller frame. But her new pump had problems soon after the surgery. The device’s suction alarms, which alert when the pump is trying to pull in more blood than is available within the heart, sounded multiple times a day, for hours at a time, she said. Baffled by the issue for months, her medical team eventually turned off that specific alarm. Soon after, her ventricular-assist specialist called her about a patient’s death linked to the belt that holds the device controller, she said. The belt had ripped and the equipment had fallen, yanking on the cable that connected the controller to the pump. Cain replaced her belt but it quickly frayed and had to be replaced again within six weeks. Then, in June, she found out about Medtronic’s decision to stop sales and implants. Cain received a letter from her hospital mentioning a Medtronic support program, but it provided few specifics. Cain wondered if things would be any different than before. Anxious about her future, she asked: “Are they just going to let it run its course until there is none of us left?” This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

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