Justice

When President Trump used his executive authority to pause the nearly $2 trillion in outstanding student loan payments and interest back in March 2020, there was no pushback from legal experts or uproar from Congress members, from neither Democrats nor Republicans. Of course, the sudden advent of a deadly, airborne viral pandemic signified a future so grim that partial student loan cancellation seemed uncontroversial, even for an unforgiving Trump administration.

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 Two headlines had themselves a nasty little car accident in my mind yesterday. “Pro-Sanders Group Rebranding Into ‘Pragmatic Progressives’” blew through a stoplight and t-boned “‘The War Has Changed’: Internal CDC Document Urges New Messaging, Warns Delta Infections Likely More Severe,” right there in the intersection of my prefrontal lobe. Shattered safety glass everywhere, air bags sagging over steering wheels, a side-view mirror in the gutter like a lost shoe… it was ugly. “The delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox,” reads the grim tide of words under the second headline, from the Washington Post. “The [Centers for Disease Control] document strikes an urgent note, revealing the agency knows it must revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold.” Of course, I have absolutely had it with the “Because Trump” brigade and their Bellagio fountain of self-interested bullshit when it comes to getting the shot (among a great many other things, but we’ll leave that for later). Those who refuse to be masked and/or vaccinated as they cling to right-wing conspiracy theories have become petri dishes for the variants that are stealing more and more lives and putting all of us at grave risk. “Pro-Sanders Group Rebranding Into ‘Pragmatic Progressives,’” however, is the jerk that ran the light. “Rather than insisting on ‘Medicare for All’ — Sanders’ trademark universal, government-funded health care plan — or the climate-change-fighting Green New Deal, Our Revolution is focusing on the more modest alternatives endorsed by President Joe Biden,” reports the Associated Press. Check me here, because I could very well be off-base: In a time when drastic measures are shriekingly necessary to stave off a whole cavalcade of calamities, an advocacy group founded on the principles of lifelong advocate Bernie Sanders is downshifting from progressive advocacy to some sort of milquetoast cuddling with the conservative Democrat in the White House? The guy who got one quarter of what he asked for in his first infrastructure try and dared to call it a triumph after the Republicans ate his (and our) lunch. “The senator didn’t comment for this story,” reads the report, and Christ on crutches, I hope that means Sanders doesn’t endorse this move. Progressive advocacy groups are not supposed to get along with the conservatives they’re advocating against. Activists on our side seldom get what they came for, and are usually struggling against terrible odds — and that is the fugging point. We seldom get what we want, but we always push for what everyone needs. The view is foreshortened when your shoulder is to the wheel, and sometimes we don’t recognize progress when it happens. We never stop, and 20 years later, we look behind us and maybe say with dim surprise, “Damn, we got some stuff done.” The view is foreshortened when your shoulder is to the wheel, and sometimes we don’t recognize progress when it happens. But what we cannot do is trade in our shovels for some spats and a snazzy seat on the rubber chicken circuit. Shame upon you, “Our Revolution.” Your revolution isn’t just over; you surrendered. God save us from our “friends.” There were 71,621 new COVID infections yesterday, a two-week increase of 151 percent. The president and the media are going back and forth about “messaging” while nihilist Republicans do everything they can to kill off their own voter base (and everyone else) with lies and galling distractions. The Delta variant gains steam, and Democrats haggle over what to cut from vital legislation, with the cool hand of “Our Revolution” pressed fondly against their backs. We are embarked upon dark waters, again. It will be worse in two weeks, because this is COVID, and it’s always worse in two weeks when the virus trends as it does today. This is no time for advocates to seek the low road; it’s already underwater, and no half-assed infrastructure bill can fix it. “Stout hearts” is all I have to offer. I am holding on to mine with both hands, but as Stephen Crane wrote, it is bitter — bitter… “But I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart.” Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

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 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 The final negotiations over the infrastructure bill have ground funding down to a paltry $550 billion, from what began as a $2.25 trillion proposal from President Joe Biden. The bipartisan group of senators overseeing the negotiations cut about $29 billion in new spending from the previous draft, eliminating $20 billion of what little climate spending was left in the bill, E&E News reported. Compared to the previous draft of the bill announced in June, the latest and final draft of the bill removes $10 billion from public transit spending and $5 billion from electric school bus funding. It also effectively cut electric vehicle charging infrastructure in half from the previous draft from $15 billion to $7.5 billion. The cuts are yet another instance of drastic reductions that the bipartisan group has repeatedly made to climate provisions from Biden’s original proposal. Electric vehicle funding fell by nearly 96 percent from the first proposal of $174 billion, and transportation funding in general took a $263 billion cut. The bipartisan group, along with Biden, touted the bill as a success. “This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things,” Biden said in a statement. But, so far, the infrastructure negotiations have done more to frustrate Democratic lawmakers and progressive movements than to give them something to celebrate. Progressives have been saying for months that they wouldn’t support a bill that didn’t sufficiently address the climate crisis, adopting the mantra “no climate, no deal.” The sharp cuts to climate provisions in the bipartisan deal are a sharp contrast from the $10 trillion climate, justice and infrastructure bill that progressives had introduced earlier this year, called the THRIVE Act. The bill aims to reduce emission while boosting justice initiatives over the next decade, and climate advocates have lauded it as one of the only proposals in Washington that comes close to matching the scale of the climate crisis. Though the THRIVE Act has little chance of passing, all hope isn’t lost for climate-focused progressives. Democrats were hoping to tack on climate and other provisions cut from the negotiations onto a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that they could pass through a simple majority vote as long as all Democratic senators were on board. However, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-Arizona) recently announced opposition to that plan, throwing progressive support for watered-down reconciliation and infrastructure bills into question. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) highlighted the enormous sacrifices of bipartisanship. What was gained: “Bipartisanship” What was lost: pic.twitter.com/QxjDXiHb1s — Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) July 30, 2021 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) pointed out that the motivation of the bipartisan group to cut climate provisions from the bill might have come directly from fossil fuel lobbyists. “Exxon lobbyists bragged about how much influence they had in this deal,” she said on Twitter. “This is what that influence looks like,” she said, sharing the E&E News report on the climate provisions being cut. Indeed, an explosive June report from Greenpeace found that Exxon, continuing decades-long practices of fighting climate policy, was “working hard behind the scenes to eliminate the proposed funding” for Biden’s climate policies. The lobbyists had also targeted a number of the conservative Republicans and Democrats in the bipartisan group, including Senators Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Sinema, John Tester (D-Montana), Chris Coons (D-Delaware) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia). Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

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 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 The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, a private Massachusetts residential and day school, has for decades used shock therapy on students with developmental and emotional disabilities to curb aggressive behavior and self-harm. This month, the school won a reprieve from a proposed ban after a federal appeals court concluded that the March 2020 decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was beyond the agency’s authority because it interfered with the practice of medicine. Staff at the center use a graduated electronic decelerator, commonly referred to as the GED, to remotely shock students and older clients through electrodes attached to the skin. The facility is the only one known to use the device, invented by the center’s founder. All those currently approved for the device are 25 or older, though it has been used on teenagers in the past. Prior to last year’s ban, legal and legislative efforts to stop use of the device had fallen short despite incidents that drew international condemnation, including from the United Nations torture investigator, who found that the device violated the U.N. Convention Against Torture. In an incident that led to a state investigation and the resignation of the center’s founder, a former resident posing as a supervisor convinced staff to administer dozens of shocks to two teenagers for alleged misbehavior. Families have also filed suit against the center, including one case in which staff repeatedly shocked a teenager after he allegedly refused to remove his jacket. “The GED is a treatment of last resort, and its recipients are at risk of grievous bodily harm, or even death, without it,” the Judge Rotenberg center wrote in a statement. “With the treatment, these residents can continue to participate in enriching experiences, enjoy visits with their families and, most importantly, live in safety and freedom from self-injurious and aggressive behaviors.” Families often turn to the school after being kicked out of or denied entry to other facilities. Michele and Charles Winters’ severely autistic daughter enrolled at the center in 2010 as a teenager after a facility in New York banned her. She is one of dozens of residents at Judge Rotenberg who receive the two-second shocks from the GED. “We couldn’t handle her at home, we couldn’t keep her safe,” Michele Winters said. Judge Rotenberg staff required her to wear a padded helmet with a face mask to prevent her from banging her head on hard surfaces and biting her hands, behavior that left her bloodied and bruised. Now, more than a decade later, the 27-year-old is among the dozens of clients who are shocked to modify their behavior. Staff began administering the electric shocks to her two years ago after sustained attempts at other methods to stop self-harm failed, her parents said. The batteries connected to the electrodes are stored in a fanny pack she wears on her waist. “On the face of it, it seems cruel and inhumane, but you have to look at what the options are for people who have these violent, self-injurious or aggressive behaviors,” Charles Winters said. While shock therapy is rare among schools, restraints and seclusion are more common — and disproportionately used on students with disabilities. In some cases, restrained children have died. Restraints include restrictive physical holds or devices such as handcuffs or restraint chairs that limit the ability of students to move freely. The federal government defines seclusion as incidents where a student is confined alone in a room or area and prevented from leaving. Schools often call them “time-out rooms.” A 2009 report from the Government Accountability Office found hundreds of cases of alleged abuse and death tied to the use of restraint and seclusion in public schools or private facilities during the prior two decades. In several cases, the teachers and administrators involved in the incidents continued to work with students, sometimes in the same school or district. The U.S. government does not track how many students are injured or killed in restraints. That absence of data is a problem for researchers. “Nobody’s really inviting us in to look at their ugly side,” said Joseph Ryan, a professor of special education at Clemson University who studies the use of restraints in schools and private youth facilities. In Fort Worth, Texas, a 21-year-old autistic student died in March after staff restrained him at a school for students with disabilities. The incident remains under investigation. In May 2020, a teenage resident at Lakeside Academy, a Michigan residential facility for juvenile offenders and children in the foster care system, died after being tackled and restrained by seven staff members for throwing food in the cafeteria. The facility has since closed. There are no federal laws restricting the use of restraints and state laws vary widely, but a 2012 U.S. Department of Education report advised that “restraint or seclusion should never be used except in situations where a child’s behavior poses imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others.” Before his time at Clemson, Ryan taught students with emotional and behavioral disorders in public schools, day schools and a residential treatment center. He now helps public schools and private facilities understand and correct their overuse of restraint and seclusion. When he interviews staff and asks questions about proper procedures, they typically come back with a textbook response, Ryan said. “But then I look at the [incident] reports when the kids were actually restrained,” he said, and few involved students being physically aggressive. Instead, restraints are often used in situations where students refuse to follow directions, Ryan said. The use of seclusion and restraint “often becomes culture within the school,” he said. 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.

President Joe Biden on Thursday urged state and local governments to use financial incentives, in the form of $100 payments, to convince their residents to receive coronavirus vaccines. In May, the Treasury Department authorized governments to use funds derived from the American Rescue Plan in order to create such incentives. But now, the administration is making a direct plea to local governments to follow through. “Treasury stands ready to give technical assistance to state and local governments so that they may use the funds effectively to support increased vaccination in their communities, and Treasury will partner with the Department of Health and Human Services throughout this effort,” a statement from the Treasury Department said.

Environment & Health Chomsky: We Need Genuine International Cooperation to Tackle the Climate Crisis Politics & Elections Conservative Democrats Are Endangering Humanity. Exhibit A: Kyrsten Sinema. Politics & Elections The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy Politics & Elections Trump Pushed Then-DOJ Head Rosen Daily to Probe False Fraud Claims in Late 2020 Politics & Elections Progressives Reject Watered Down Reconciliation Bill in Rebuttal to Sinema Racial Justice Bob Moses Embodied Collective Struggle for Black Freedom and Human Liberation After Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) threw a bomb into the Democrats’ plan to pass a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, progressives are fighting back, saying that they won’t accept a bill that doesn’t include and sufficiently address their priorities. “Progressives have been clear from the beginning: a small and narrow bipartisan infrastructure bill does not have a path forward in the House of Representatives unless it has a reconciliation package, with our priorities, alongside it,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) in a statement on Wednesday. Sinema said on Wednesday that she doesn’t support a $3.5 trillion bill and said she’d work in the coming months to negotiate the bill. But Democrats had wanted to pass the reconciliation bill in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the Senate went into recess in early August, so Sinema’s opposition to the $3.5 trillion proposal as it’s written throws the Democrats’ plan for a loop. The Arizona senator said that she would vote to adopt the budget resolution, which is the first step to getting the reconciliation bill passed. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who has led the reconciliation bill effort, said Wednesday that the Senate has the required 50 votes needed to adopt the resolution. There’s no guarantee, however, that the bill will pass the whole chamber from there as it is — and, with House progressives standing against watering down the bill, there’s no guarantee it will pass at all if Sinema is successful in shrinking it. The potential blocking of the reconciliation package also means that the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed a cloture vote Wednesday night, might be in jeopardy as well. “The votes of Congressional Progressive Caucus members are not guaranteed on any bipartisan package until we examine the details, and until the reconciliation bill is agreed to and passed with our priorities sufficiently funded,” Jayapal said. “The investments we identified months ago are long-standing Democratic priorities, including affordable housing, Medicare expansion, strengthening the care economy, climate action, and a roadmap to citizenship.” The reconciliation bill in its current form contains proposals to address all of these things. Sanders has said that though the bill is a step down from the $6 trillion figure he had originally proposed, the $3.5 trillion bill still contains everything he wants, just for a shorter period of time. Indeed, $3.5 trillion was already a compromise for progressives, many of whom stood behind a $10 trillion infrastructure and climate bill earlier this year. Members of Congress like Representatives Mondaire Jones (D-New York) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) expressed frustration and threatened to pull their support for the bills on Wednesday. “Without a reconciliation package that meets this moment, I’m a no on this bipartisan deal,” Jones said on Twitter. Ocasio-Cortez issued a scathing statement responding to Sinema’s announcement, saying “Good luck tanking your own party’s investment on childcare, climate action, and infrastructure while presuming you’ll survive a 3 vote House margin.” Ocasio-Cortez also pointed out that the bipartisan infrastructure agreement was formed by all white senators. “A lot of times, ‘bipartisan agreements’ are just as defined by who people in power agree to exclude than include,” she wrote. This isn’t the first time progressives have made threats to pull their support for the infrastructure and reconciliation bills. They have been emphasizing for months that they would not support a bill without provisions to address the climate crisis, for instance. They have said that, not only is now perhaps the only time President Joe Biden will get to massively cut emissions, but it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate to potential midterm voters that Democrats deserve to keep their majority in Congress. But the White House is evidently celebrating the bipartisan infrastructure bill anyway, despite the fact that it’s only about a quarter of the size of Biden’s original proposal and excludes vital provisions on climate and raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations to fund the bill. While Biden took a victory lap touting the infrastructure bill Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the items cut out of the infrastructure bill “shiny objects.” But as even just the past weeks have demonstrated, action on climate is anything but trivial, which is why Democrats and progressives have been insistent on keeping addressing climate issues in the bipartisan deal. Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Bob Moses was a quiet political giant. Sometimes he spoke so softly you could barely hear him. But it was always worth your while to listen carefully to every word. I met and talked with Bob many times over a 30-year period, and was always deeply inspired by his wisdom, his grace, his refusal to be rushed or consumed by the urgencies of the moment, and his love of justice. He was consistent in his practice, committed to a clear set of values and courageous in his choices.

Former Oregon Republican state Rep. Mike Nearman has pleaded guilty to official misconduct after he let a violent far right mob into the state Capitol late last year. Nearman must now pay a $2,700 fine, perform 80 hours of community service and is banned from entering the state Capitol grounds for 18 months. The fine is meant to pay for damages done to the building. The Republican was expelled from office in June for allowing the mob into the state Capitol.