Report: Israel “Systematically” Uses Palestinian Children as Human Shields


Israel has killed over 17,500 children in Gaza since October 2023, officials say, with the true toll likely far higher.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

December 19, 2024

A photograph, taken during an embed with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and reviewed by the IDF censorship office prior to publication, shows Israeli soldiers guarding the entrance of a tunnel.Ilia Yefimovich / picture alliance via Getty Images

Israeli forces carried out an “unprecedented assault” on Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in 2024, a children’s rights group has said, including repeatedly using children as human shields amid Israel’s genocide.

Israeli forces have killed over 17,500 children in Gaza since October 2023, according to Gaza health officials, with the true death toll likely far higher as children dying due to disease, starvation, or being trapped under the rubble are going uncounted by officials who have lost access. An estimated 35,000 children have lost one or both parents.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian children have sustained critical injuries or have been left with permanent disabilities as a result of Israeli massacres, as Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) wrote in its end-of-year report.

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Gaza’s health system was already weakened before the genocide due to decades of Israeli occupation, and is now almost completely inaccessible for children needing emergency or long term care — much less services like preventative care.

This year, the risk of polio spreading among children in Gaza emerged due to Israel’s disease campaign, with one 10-month-old paralyzed from the disease and Israel preventing humanitarian groups from finishing their vaccination campaign in north Gaza. Other diseases, like chickenpox and scabies, raged through displacement camps that were overcrowded due to Israel’s mass expulsion campaign.

Many children are undergoing amputation procedures without anesthesia, UNRWA said.

“In 2024, Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza reached catastrophic proportions. Relentless aerial bombardments, ground invasions, and siege tactics deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, leaving children to suffer the most,” DCIP’s report says.

The number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons also reached a record high in 2024, the group said.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed one Palestinian child every four days this year, “an escalation made possible by decades of impunity,” the group said.

Israel’s violence included using children as human shields “systematically” this year, as DCIP has documented throughout the genocide.

This includes an incident in March in which Israeli tanks surrounded a group of Palestinian children waiting in line for aid in Gaza City. Soldiers stripped the children and tied them up, depriving them of food and water and forcing them for an entire day to walk in front of tanks and in front of buildings that the military wanted to enter, as DCIP found.

Israeli forces’ weaponization of starvation, meanwhile, has put children, especially newborns and children with disabilities, at heightened risk, with babies as young as two months old starving to death, the group said; in August, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that Israel killed 210 newborn babies a month on average in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide.

Palestinian Americans File Lawsuit Against US for “Abandoning” Them in Gaza


The US arranges evacuations for others, but is leaving Palestinian Americans to die in Gaza, the lawsuit says.

By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutPublishedDecember 20, 2024

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a Council on Foreign Relations event on December 18, 2024, in New York City.Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Agroup of Palestinian Americans is suing the U.S. government for failing to evacuate American citizens and legal residents stranded in Gaza amid Israel’s genocide, saying that the U.S. is violating constitutional protections afforded to all Americans by discriminating against Palestinians and leaving them stranded.

The group of nine Palestinian Americans, either themselves stuck in Gaza or whose family are stranded there, accuse the government of violating the Fifth Amendment, promising equal protection, “by depriving Plaintiffs of the normal and typical evacuation efforts the federal government extends to Americans who are not Palestinians,” the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs were in Gaza before the U.S. issued a travel advisory against going to Gaza on October 11, 2023, the lawsuit says, and were thus trapped as the White House said that the government had no plans for Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza — despite having arranged charter flights for Israeli Americans to flee Israel shortly after the October 7, 2023, attack.

The U.S.’s evacuation of people from other countries or of other nationalities from war zones but not of Palestinians is evidence of a “discriminatory two-tier system” employed by the government against people of Palestinian origin, the lawsuit says.

All of the plaintiffs are people who are eligible for evacuation but whose requests to leave have been swept under the rug by the Biden administration, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is supporting the lawsuit. Each of them have “tried for months to exhaust non-legal means to escape Gaza,” including with other previous legal actions.


The groups are the latest to join the large number of prominent voices accusing Israel of genocide or genocidal acts.

CAIR says that the State Department has blamed Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing — which happened in May after Israeli forces violated President Joe Biden’s supposed “red line” — but say that the lawsuit requests evacuation through Kerem Shalom, which has been the site of other evacuations, and which remains open.

“The law requires the U.S. government to protect Americans wherever they may be. With every passing day, the danger of our clients dying from Israeli bombardment or the starvation and disease now rampant in Gaza only goes up,” Maria Kari, the case’s lead attorney, said in a statement. “The State Department must do the right thing and save these people from certain death.”

The plaintiffs’ stories are horrific. They include that of the Khalid Mourtaga, from Mississippi, who is trapped in Gaza with untreated Hepatitis A; Sahar Harara, of Texas, whose father was killed by Israel and whose mother, a green card holder, is critically injured; Marowa Abusharia, who lives in New Jersey, whose spouse, stuck in north Gaza, hasn’t met their twin daughters who were born shortly after the genocide began; and Heba Enayeh, whose 17-year-old son, Abdallah, is trapped in Gaza and in need of urgent medical care.

One of the plaintiffs, Salsabeel ElHelou, is hoping for evacuation for her and her three sons, who are 7, 12 and 15 years old. In March, three of their names appeared on the evacuation list — but not that of Almotasem, the eldest. Months later, Almotasem was hit and wounded in an Israeli airstrike, and all of the children now have skin conditions and suffer from malnutrition.

“Defendants have full knowledge of the desperate condition of the Plaintiffs and yet have failed to fulfill their mandatory, non-discretionary duty to evacuate Palestinians from Gaza just like the federal government has evacuated other United States persons of other nationalities,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit is the second filed against the U.S. government this week by Palestinian Americans after a group of five Palestinians sued aiming to stop the U.S.’s weapons transfers to Israel, saying that the U.S. is violating the Leahy Law by continuing to aid Israel’s assault.

The U.S. has consistently shown total indifference toward the lives of Americans if their existence is a supposed affront to Israelis. This week, the State Department implied to members of Congress that they are not independently investigating Israel’s killing of Turkish American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, and are instead relying solely on Israel’s word — despite Israel having a long history of lying to exonerate itself.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.

Appalachian Communities Are Ready to Resist Trump’s Environmental Racism


We must reject fossil fuel expansion disguised as economic progress and embrace sustainable solutions.

By Marcia Dinkins & Patricia M. DeMarco ,

Truthout

December 20, 2024

GenOns Cheswick Power Station, a coal-burning plant, is pictured on June 7, 2021, about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cheswick, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen / Getty Images

GenOns Cheswick Power Station, a coal-burning plant, is pictured on June 7, 2021, about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Cheswick, Pennsylvania.Jeff Swensen / Getty Images

The 2024 elections left the country in emotional turmoil, with deep uncertainty about the future — particularly regarding environmental justice. As Appalachian women and environmental leaders, we understand the weight of this moment, but maintain a steadfast belief in our communities’ resilience and the transformative power of collective action to drive change.

This moment of fear and anxiety calls for unity. Locally in Appalachia, we can ensure that health remains a human right on government agendas. That is why the Black Appalachian Coalition (BLAC) has just launched the Freedom to Breathe campaign in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, a regional initiative that addresses industrial pollution and advocates for the right to clean air and water. The campaign seeks to dismantle inequities and build a trauma-informed movement that confronts the harm caused by racism, sexism, colonialism and environmental injustice, declaring that healing is not optional but fundamental.

The connection between health and the environment is undeniable, yet our communities are burdened by pollution from petrochemical industries driving climate change. Environmental racism forces Black and low-income families to live on the front lines of these injustices while multinational corporations like Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and U.S. Steel profit. We must hold our elected officials accountable and demand action.

With the new Trump administration, we expect a resurgence of fossil fuel industries and rollbacks of environmental protections. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency appointee, Lee Zeldin, who voted against climate provisions and fossil emissions regulations as a congressman, has vowed in a post on X to “restore US energy dominance,” signaling expanded fossil fuel production. We cannot ignore such policies that have dangerous environmental and public health implications.

The effects of climate change are already devastating. Hurricane Helene caused destruction across six states, wiping out entire mountain communities and causing over $53 billion in estimated damages in North Carolina alone. It became the deadliest storm in the United States since Katrina.

Related Story

Report: Climate Crisis Accounts for a Third of Weather-Related Insurance Claims
Since 2000, weather-related disasters tied to the climate crisis have resulted in over $600 billion in economic losses. By Chris Walker , Truthout December 10, 2024

Studies consistently show the risks of living near petrochemical facilities. Over 39 million Americans — disproportionately Black families — live within a mile of such facilities, a legacy of discriminatory housing policies like redlining.

A National Institute of Health study found that pregnancy-related mortality for Black mothers is 41 percent, compared to 13.7 percent nationwide. Additionally, a 2023 study linked oil and gas production to $77 billion in health damages and over 1,000 deaths in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Petrochemical companies are allowed to discharge 500,000 pounds of toxic pollutants annually in the Ohio River Basin, contributing to health disparities and environmental destruction.

Aside from health issues, fossil fuels have environmental and economic consequences, including extended droughts, food insecurity and flooding that can spread hazardous waste into residential areas. These conditions, such as food deserts and rising prices, particularly burden underserved communities.

Now is the time to join a movement that leverages the strength of our collective resilience to fight for healthy, thriving communities. We must organize locally to ensure Black-led and environmental justice-focused organizations receive the funding for transformative solutions.

While the Freedom to Breathe campaign will begin as a regional initiative in Allegheny County, it’s a scalable model that can inspire similar movements across localities nationwide. By addressing the impacts of industry polluters and advocating for sustainable, community-driven solutions, this campaign offers a roadmap for collective action.

Joining local boards and councils that shape public health and environmental policy is a powerful way to amplify community voices. For instance, Allegheny County’s Health Department offers an opportunity for community-driven leadership, with open seats on its Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee for individuals directly impacted by pollution.

Our environmental justice work in 28 states and three countries has repeatedly confirmed that our work in Appalachia carries a broader message that resonates nationally: We must reject fossil fuel expansion disguised as economic progress and embrace sustainable solutions. Retrofitting homes with energy efficient technologies shouldn’t be just for the wealthy. We must advocate for affordable, sustainable housing, critical for improving community health and resilience. We need expanded access to health care and public health funding to address disparities linked to pollution and systemic inequities. These are just a few action items the Freedom to Breathe campaign will organize to create healthier, more equitable communities.

The campaign also supports sustainable and regenerative agriculture initiatives to address food insecurity while restoring soil health and supporting local economies. We must support Black farmers and small-scale growers because they are essential for building a more equitable Appalachia. We’re partnering with schools, faith-based organizations and advocacy groups to amplify community power and secure resources for local initiatives.

BLAC is building a collective voice strong enough to challenge systemic inequities and resilient enough to sustain the fight for justice. But this work requires all of us. Together, we can confront polluters, demand accountability and create a future where everyone has the right to breathe clean air and drink safe water.

A stronger Appalachia means a stronger U.S. Let us act boldly for the future we all deserve.

Marcia Dinkins
Archbishop Marcia Dinkins is the founder and executive director of the Black Appalachian Coalition and Black Women for Change in Ohio.

Patricia M. DeMarco, Ph.D., is a Pittsburgh-based author and environmental policy expert with a doctorate in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh.

Bob Dylan and the creative leap that transformed modern music

Photo by Nikoloz Gachechiladze on Unsplash
A close up of a person's face painted on a wall

The Conversation

December 20, 2024

The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, focuses on Dylan’s early 1960s transition from idiosyncratic singer of folk songs to internationally renowned singer-songwriter.


As a music historian, I’ve always respected one decision of Dylan’s in particular – one that kicked off the young artist’s most turbulent and significant period of creative activity.

Sixty years ago, on Halloween Night 1964, a 23-year-old Dylan took the stage at New York City’s Philharmonic Hall. He had become a star within the niche genre of revivalist folk music. But by 1964 Dylan was building a much larger fanbase through performing and recording his own songs

. 

Columbia Records was on hand to turn Dylan’s Oct. 31, 1964, performance into a live album. GAB Archive/Redferns via Getty Images

Dylan presented a solo set, mixing material he had previously recorded with some new songs. Representatives from his label, Columbia Records, were on hand to record the concert, with the intent to release the live show as his fifth official album.

It would have been a logical successor to Dylan’s four other Columbia albums. With the exception of one track, “Corrina, Corrina,” those albums, taken together, featured exclusively solo acoustic performances.

But at the end of 1964, Columbia shelved the recording of the Philharmonic Hall concert. Dylan had decided that he wanted to make a different kind of music.
From Minnesota to Manhattan

Two-and-a-half years earlier, Dylan, then just 20 years old, started earning acclaim within New York City’s folk music community. At the time, the folk music revival was taking place in cities across the country, but Manhattan’s Greenwich Village was the movement’s beating heart.

Mingling with and drawing inspiration from other folk musicians, Dylan, who had recently moved to Manhattan from Minnesota, secured his first gig at Gerde’s Folk City on April 11, 1961. Dylan appeared in various other Greenwich Village music clubs, performing folk songs, ballads and blues. He aspired to become, like his hero Woody Guthrie, a self-contained artist who could employ vocals, guitar and harmonica to interpret the musical heritage of “the old, weird America,” an adage coined by critic Greil Marcus to describe Dylan’s early repertoire, which was composed of material learned from prewar songbooks, records and musicians.

While Dylan’s versions of older songs were undeniably captivating, he later acknowledged that some of his peers in the early 1960s folk music scene – specifically, Mike Seeger – were better at replicating traditional instrumental and vocal styles.

Dylan, however, realized he had an unrivaled facility for writing and performing new songs.

In October 1961, veteran talent scout John Hammond signed Dylan to record for Columbia. His eponymous debut, released in March 1962, featured interpretations of traditional ballads and blues, with just two original compositions. That album sold only 5,000 copies, leading some Columbia officials to refer to the Dylan contract as “Hammond’s Folly.”
Full steam ahead

Flipping the formula of its predecessor, Dylan’s 1963 follow-up album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” offered 11 originals by Dylan and just two traditional songs. The powerful collection combined songs about relationships with original protest songs, including his breakthrough “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

“The Times They Are A-Changin’,” his third release, exclusively showcased Dylan’s own compositions.

Dylan’s creative output continued. As he testified in “Restless Farewell,” the closing track for “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “My feet are now fast / and point away from the past.”

Released just six months after “The Times,” Dylan’s fourth Columbia album, “Another Side of Bob Dylan,” featured solo acoustic recordings of original songs that were lyrically adventurous and less focused on current events. As suggested in his song “My Back Pages,” he was now rejecting the notion that he could – or should – speak for his generation.
Bringing it all together

By the end of 1964, Dylan yearned to break away permanently from the constraints of the folk genre – and from the notion of “genre” altogether. He wanted to subvert the expectations of audiences and to rebel against music industry forces intent on pigeonholing him and his work.

The Philharmonic Hall concert went off without a hitch, but Dylan refused to let Columbia turn it into an album. The recording wouldn’t generate an official release for another four decades.

Instead, in January 1965, Dylan entered Columbia’s Studio A to record his fifth album, “Bringing It All Back Home.” But this time, he embraced the electric rock sound that had energized America in the wake of Beatlemania. That album introduced songs with stream-of-consciousness lyrics featuring surreal imagery, and on many of the songs Dylan performed with the accompaniment of a rock band. 

Dylan plays a Fender Jazz bass while recording ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ in Columbia’s Studio A in New York City in January 1965. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

“Bringing It All Back Home,” released in March 1965, set the tone for Dylan’s next two albums: “Highway 61 Revisited,” in August 1965, and “Blonde and Blonde,” in June 1966. Critics and fans have long considered these latter three albums – pulsing with what the singer-songwriter himself called “that thin, that wild mercury sound” – as among the greatest albums of the rock era.

On July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan invited members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on stage to accompany three songs. Since the genre expectations for folk music during that era involved acoustic instrumentation, the audience was unprepared for Dylan’s loud performances. Some critics deemed the set an act of heresy, an affront to folk music propriety. The next year, Dylan embarked on a tour of the U.K., and an audience member at the Manchester stop infamously heckled him for abandoning folk music, crying out, “Judas!”

Yet the creative risks undertaken by Dylan during this period inspired countless other musicians: rock acts such as the Beatles, the Animals and the Byrds; pop acts such as Stevie Wonder, Johnny Rivers and Sonny and Cher; and country singers such as Johnny Cash.

Acknowledging the bar that Dylan’s songwriting set, Cash, in his liner notes to Dylan’s 1969 album “Nashville Skyline,” wrote, “Here-in is a hell of a poet.”

Enlivened by Dylan’s example, many musicians went on to experiment with their own sound and style, while artists across a range of genres would pay homage to Dylan through performing and recording his songs.

In 2016, Dylan received the Nobel Prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” His early exploration of this tradition can be heard on his first four Columbia albums – records that laid the groundwork for Dylan’s august career.

Back in 1964, Dylan was the talk of Greenwich Village.

But now, because he never rested on his laurels, he’s the toast of the world.

Ted Olson, Professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Studies, East Tennessee State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

6 charts expose the 'rotten' depravity of US health insurance companies

The charts come from the Commonwealth Fund's biannual survey on the state of health insurance in the U.S.

Michael Moore in 2011 (Wikimedia Commons)

Alex Henderson

December 20, 2024

ALTERNET

On Thursday, December 19, Luigi Mangione — the 26-year-old suspect in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson — was extradited from Pennsylvania to New York City, where he is now facing both federal and state charges.

The killing has set off a great deal of commentary about major problems in the United States' health insurance system. And some scathing critics of health insurance companies — including filmmaker/activist Michael Moore, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and MSNBC's Joy Reid — have made it clear that while they condemn the killing and vehemently oppose vigilante justice, they also condemn insurance practices that cause Americans to go bankrupt or avoid seeking medical care when they desperately need it.



Moore, on his MichaelMoore.com website, slammed United Healthcare and other insurance companies for causing "mass death and misery" and wrote, "Yes, I condemn murder, and that's why I condemn America's broken, vile, rapacious, bloodthirsty, unethical, immoral health care industry."

In a biting article published on December 20, Mother Jones Michael Mechanic points to six charts that, he says, show how "rotten" the health insurance industry can be to its customers.

The charts come from the Commonwealth Fund's biannual survey on the state of health insurance in the U.S.

"Indeed, it’s hard to look at these six charts — five of which are derived from the Commonwealth report — and not conclude that something is rotten in Washington and on Wall Street," Mechanic argues. "The Affordable Care Act, which Republican lawmakers very nearly repealed during the first Trump Administration, has cut the number of uninsured Americans in half, to 26 million last year, or roughly 1 in 12 people.… But when you factor in the number of underinsured Americans and the number of people carrying medical debt, even the current state of health coverage is far from ideal."

Mechanic adds, "The Commonwealth surveys were conducted this spring with 6480 people, ages 19 to 64, who for the most part rely largely on commercial plans obtained through their work or via the ACA exchanges."

The Mother Jones editor goes on to describe the problems that the charts underscore: (1) "About a third of working-age Americans, 19-64, remain uninsured or underinsured," (2) "Insured patients with chronic conditions are avoiding their medications due to high costs," (3) "More than 1 in 5 insured Americans have medical debt," (4) "Nearly half of those with medical debt owe $2000-plus," (5) "Medical debt causes widespread anxiety," and (6) "Insurance profits outpace health care spending."

"It's the sicker folks who face the high out-of-pocket costs," Mechanic laments. "In fact, roughly a quarter of insured people with certain chronic health conditions said they were skipping doses of medications their doctors prescribed, or hadn't gotten prescriptions filled, because of the cost."

Mechanic continues, "Given the above, it shouldn't be surprising that lots of people who thought they were adequately insured have found themselves in debt to hospitals, medical and dental care providers, financial institutions, and bill collectors. The numbers are, of course, higher for uninsured and underinsured people."


For Charts Read Mother Jones' full article at this link.

Historian warns Trump can still usher in fascism 'without there being a fascist system'

Pedestrians walk by as people wait in line outside of Madison Square Garden to attend a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in New York City, U.S., October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

Alex Henderson

December 20, 2024

ALTERNET

When Donald Trump first ran for president in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate, he ran only a marginal campaign. And in February of that year, he dropped out of the race.

But Trump went on win the GOP presidential nomination three elections in a row, and his 2024 campaign was his most successful so far — marking the first time he won both the popular vote and the electoral vote.

Trump was more of moderate back in 2000, expressing center-right views. But he later moved to the far right, and that far-right turn continues to worry historian/author Timothy Snyder.

During a late December interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CDC) Jayme Poisson, Snyder discussed the United States' 2024 election results and the implications for democracy.

Snyder emphasized that "fascism" doesn't necessarily take the form of full-fledged military dictatorship. And democracies, he said, don't necessarily "yield to fascism" because of authoritarians in uniforms.

"I mean, compare it to, you know, the first four years of Mussolini or whatever," Snyder told Poisson. "I mean, I think people can be fascist without having total power, right? I mean, Mussolini had to deal with the king for a while. He had to deal with parliament for a while. You know, Trump also had to deal with Congress for a while. So you can be a, you can be a fascist without there being a fascist system. Right? You can try to get to power, it doesn't mean you're going to succeed getting into power, you know. And I think that's Trump, right. But the most meaningful part of Trump from the first time, which I don't think people necessarily really remember, is all the lying. And if you're a Trump supporter, it's hard to remember that because you probably believe the lies. And if you believe the lies, you can't remember them as lies."

Snyder told Poisson that "a lot of the American passivity about Trump depends on this implicit idea that thanks to the Constitution — thanks to American exceptionalism, thanks to our inherent goodness, thanks to something — we have a durable democratic system and it will go on regardless of what one person does. And that's, I think, wrong."

When Poisson asked Snyder what is "different this time around," the historian responded that "people who would be opposing" Trump "are worn out."

Snyder expressed his concerns about some of Trump's nominees, — especially Kash Patel, his nominee for FBI director. Patel, Snyder warned, has "explicitly said" that he "is going to go after political opponents."

The historian/author pointed out that authoritarians don't necessarily come to power via coups — some are voted into office.

Snyder told Poisson, "People who live in democracies and watch movies, you know, will tend to think that the way authoritarianism comes is because a lot of guys show up with weapons, wearing, you know, black shiny boots and uniforms, and suddenly everything changes. And as a dictator, you can do everything. And that's not how it works."

Snyder continued, "I mean, there are coups. There are people in uniforms. That all matters. But most of the power is still in the people, and people choose to give it away."

Listen to the full CDC interview with Timothy Snyder at this link.

Report: House GOP eyes $2.5 trillion in spending cuts — Social Security, Medicare at risk

House Republicans on Friday presented a proposal during a closed-door meeting to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s directive to raise the debt ceiling. The plan proposes increasing the limit on debt by $1.5 trillion, followed by cutting “net mandatory spending” by $2.5 trillion, according to a report from Punchbowl News co-founder Joe Sherman.

Mandatory spending consists largely of programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which the government by law is required to fund. These programs are often referred to as “entitlements.” It also includes spending on interest on the national debt, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps feed over 40 million participants — including families — each month.

Sherman reported Friday afternoon, amid the impending government shutdown crisis, that “IN THE GOP MEETING — GOP leadership has a slide up that has an ‘agreement’ on the debt limit.”

“The ‘agreement’ says that House Republicans will raise the debt limit by $1.5T in the ‘first reconciliation package’ alongside a promise to CUT $2.5T in ‘net mandatory spending in the reconciliation process.'”

Axios’ Juliegrace Brufke shared what appears to be a photograph of that slide:

A recent, somewhat cryptic remark by President-elect Donald Trump seems to echo Sherman’s and Brufke’s reporting, and that of others: “The United States will cut Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in spending next year through Reconciliation!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website, early Thursday evening.

Adding more details, and referencing “reconciliation,” The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports Friday afternoon: “The spending cuts-for-debt-limit-increase agreement being presented to GOP members includes a plan to cut mandatory spending. Mandatory spending includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, and more.”

“The agreement being eyed would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in net cuts to mandatory spending, done through a reconciliation package, two sources confirmed to The Hill,” Brooks added. “It is not clear which programs would be cut. The reconciliation process is a special procedure that gets around the Senate filibuster, allowing Republicans who will have trifecta control of government to push through their priorities without needing Democratic support.”

Brooks also explained that “Republicans have long been planning to use this process to advance an ambitious legislative agenda that includes extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and addressing border security. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, however, notes that while reconciliation can be used to address most mandatory spending program, the Budget Act prohibits using it to change Social Security.”


The executive editor of The American Prospect, David Dayen, wrote: “They’re coming for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”

“Mandatory spending cuts is Republican swamp speak for gutting your hard-earned Medicare,” commented U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).

“Republicans are planning to rob you of your retirement & health care,” observed U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

ENTITLEMENT

What could this mean?

Bobby Kogan, Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy for The Center for American Progress writes that Republicans “have been open about wanting to gut Medicaid and SNAP. $2.5 trillion in cuts could mean: -cutting Medicaid 32% -cutting Medicaid & SNAP 28% -entirely eliminating SNAP, TANF, SSI, and the Child Care entitlement to states.”

TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, helps “families with children experiencing low-income achieve economic security and stability.”

SSI, also known as Supplemental Security Income, helps “people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources.”

“If the cut fell entirely on Medicaid,” Kogan added, “it would mean on average about 32 million people were kicked off of Medicaid (depending on how they structured the cuts).”

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) remarked, “House Republicans just proposed slashing Medicare and Medicaid. I’ll stay in Washington until Hell freezes over to stop them.”

READ MORE: Why Aren’t More Democrats Speaking Out Against RFK Jr.’s HHS Nomination?

Trump during the campaign promised to cut “entitlements” and promised to never cut Social Security or Medicare.


Watch the videos below or at this link.

 

Top Trump donors who funded anti-migrant 'invasion' ad allegedly hiring undocumented migrants

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Carl Gibson

December 20, 2024
ALTERNET

Two of President-elect Donald Trump's biggest campaign donors are now being accused of flouting immigration law to staff their factories in two states.

According to the Guardian, Dick and Liz Uihlein — who own the Uline company — have been depending on undocumented immigrant labor for their billion-dollar office supply and shipping business. The Uihleins are allegedly knowledgeable of a scheme in which their company shuttles migrants from Mexico to their factories in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin using the B1 worker training visa. However, while that visa expressly prohibits migrants from participating in normal wage-earning labor, the Guardian's sources say those Mexican immigrants have been doing labor expected of typical hourly workers.

"They were not able to staff their warehouses, especially in Pennsylvania. So they looked at Mexico for workforce," a source with direct knowledge told the outlet.

READ MORE: 'Doesn't make sense': Business leaders poised for clash with Trump over immigration

One document the Guardian obtained showed that the migrant workers shuttled from Mexico would be "receiving training in warehouse safety, understanding how to use vehicle-mounted unit devices and understanding how to identify warehouse locations." But another unnamed source confided that the migrants were "actually doing work. Not training."

Wisconsin-based immigration attorney Marc Christopher told the outlet that the B1 visa "does not allow [migrant workers] to obtain wages for labor in the United States, it absolutely does not." He added that it was "not a close call" in its legality and was “absolutely 100% not allowed” under current immigration law. Ira Kurzban, another immigration lawyer, also opined that the scheme was "clearly illegal." The Guardian's sources said the Mexican laborers at the Uihleins' factories are paid substantially less than their American counterparts.

OpenSecrets' campaign finance records show that the Uihleins were the second-largest Republican donors in the 2024 campaign cycle, giving more than $137 million to Republican campaigns and super PACs. The Uihleins ranked even higher than billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who ranked at #4 on the list of top GOP backers.

Restoration PAC — a super PAC funded by Dick Uihlein — attacked Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration in one of its ads, accusing her of enabling an "invasion" of migrants at the Southern border. The Guardian reports that the Uline company's "shuttle" program for migrant workers from Mexico has been in place for at least three years.

Click here to read the Guardian's report in full.

Dozens of death row inmates may see sentences commuted by Joe Biden: report

Daniel Hampton
December 20, 2024 

RAW STORY

Joe Biden. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

Dozens of convicted murderers set to be executed by the federal government could see their sentences commuted by President Joe Biden, according to a report.

People familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that Biden is mulling over commuting most, if not all, of the 40 men facing execution. If commuted, the men would be resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The move would disrupt President-elect Donald Trump's ability to resume swift executions.

The report comes after Pope Francis earlier this month asked for prayers for federal inmates set to face capital punishment. Biden is a devout Catholic and spoke with Francis on Thursday, according to the report.

“Today, I feel compelled to ask all of you to pray for the inmates on death row in the United States,” the Pope said. “Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”

Biden could come to a decision by Christmas, the Journal reported. A few high-profile inmates are on death row.

Dylann Roof was condemned to die following the 2015 Charleston church shooting, in which he shot and killed nine Black church-goers during a prayer service.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a co-perpetrator in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, is also on the federal death row list. In that bombing, three people were killed and more than 260 were wounded.

And Robert Bowers, who was convicted last year in the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, is also on the list.

PELTIER ILLEGALY ARRESTED IN VANCOUVER BC BY RCMP
AND HANDED OVER TO THE FBI

How America lost control and just set the stage for another pandemic

Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak.

Chicken farm, Shutterstock

Amy Maxmen, 

KFF Health News

December 20, 2024

Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack.

But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy workers pumped gallons of electrolyte-rich fluids into ailing cows through metal tubes inserted into the esophagus.

“It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers,” he said.

Nearly a year into the first outbreak of the bird flu among cattle, the virus shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. government failed to eliminate the virus on dairy farms when it was confined to a handful of states, by quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading. Now at least 845 herds across 16 states have tested positive.

Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak.

“We are in a terrible situation and going into a worse situation,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.”

To understand how the bird flu got out of hand, KFF Health News interviewed nearly 70 government officials, farmers and farmworkers, and researchers with expertise in virology, pandemics, veterinary medicine, and more.

Together with emails obtained from local health departments through public records requests, this investigation revealed key problems, including a deference to the farm industry, eroded public health budgets, neglect for the safety of agriculture workers, and the sluggish pace of federal interventions.

Case in point: The U.S. Department of Agriculture this month announced a federal order to test milk nationwide. Researchers welcomed the news but said it should have happened months ago — before the virus was so entrenched.

“It’s disheartening to see so many of the same failures that emerged during the covid-19 crisis reemerge,” said Tom Bollyky, director of the Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Far more bird flu damage is inevitable, but the extent of it will be left to the Trump administration and Mother Nature. Already, the USDA has funneled more than $1.7 billion into tamping down the bird flu on poultry farms since 2022, which includes reimbursing farmers who’ve had to cull their flocks, and more than $430 million into combating the bird flu on dairy farms. In coming years, the bird flu may cost billions of dollars more in expenses and losses. Dairy industry experts say the virus kills roughly 2 to 5% of infected dairy cows and reduces a herd’s milk production by about 20%.


Worse, the outbreak poses the threat of a pandemic. More than 60 people in the U.S. have been infected, mainly by cows or poultry, but cases could skyrocket if the virus evolves to spread efficiently from person to person. And the recent news of a person critically ill in Louisiana with the bird flu shows that the virus can be dangerous.

Just a few mutations could allow the bird flu to spread between people. Because viruses mutate within human and animal bodies, each infection is like a pull of a slot machine lever.

“Even if there’s only a 5% chance of a bird flu pandemic happening, we’re talking about a pandemic that probably looks like 2020 or worse,” said Tom Peacock, a bird flu researcher at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom, referring to covid-19. “The U.S. knows the risk but hasn’t done anything to slow this down,” he added.

Beyond the bird flu, the federal government’s handling of the outbreak reveals cracks in the U.S. health security system that would allow other risky new pathogens to take root, too. “This virus may not be the one that takes off,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the emerging diseases group at the World Health Organization. “But this is a real fire exercise right now, and it demonstrates what needs to be improved.”


A Slow Start

It may have been a grackle, a goose, or some other wild bird that infected a cow in northern Texas. In February, the state’s dairy farmers took note when cows stopped making milk. They worked alongside veterinarians to figure out why. In less than two months, veterinary researchers identified the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus as the culprit.

Long listed among pathogens with pandemic potential, the bird flu’s unprecedented spread among cows marked a worrying shift. It had evolved to thrive in animals that are more like people biologically than birds.

After the USDA announced the dairy outbreak on March 25, control shifted from farmers, veterinarians, and local officials to state and federal agencies. Collaboration disintegrated almost immediately.


Farmers worried the government might block their milk sales or even demand sick cows be killed, like poultry are, said Kay Russo, a livestock veterinarian in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Instead, Russo and other veterinarians said, they were dismayed by inaction. The USDA didn’t respond to their urgent requests to support studies on dairy farms — and for money and confidentiality policies to protect farmers from financial loss if they agreed to test animals.

The USDA announced that it would conduct studies itself. But researchers grew anxious as weeks passed without results. “Probably the biggest mistake from the USDA was not involving the boots-on-the-ground veterinarians,” Russo said.

Will Clement, a USDA senior adviser for communications, said in an email: “Since first learning of H5N1 in dairy cattle in late March 2024, USDA has worked swiftly and diligently to assess the prevalence of the virus in U.S. dairy herds.” The agency provided research funds to state and national animal health labs beginning in April, he added.


The USDA didn’t require lactating cows to be tested before interstate travel until April 29. By then, the outbreak had spread to eight other states. Farmers often move cattle across great distances, for calving in one place, raising in warm, dry climates, and milking in cooler ones. Analyses of the virus’s genes implied that it spread between cows rather than repeatedly jumping from birds into herds.

Milking equipment was a likely source of infection, and there were hints of other possibilities, such as through the air as cows coughed or in droplets on objects, like work boots. But not enough data had been collected to know how exactly it was happening. Many farmers declined to test their herds, despite an announcement of funds to compensate them for lost milk production.

“There is a fear within the dairy farmer community that if they become officially listed as an affected farm, they may lose their milk market,” said Jamie Jonker, chief science officer at the National Milk Producers Federation, an organization that represents dairy farmers. To his knowledge, he added, this hasn’t happened.

Speculation filled knowledge gaps. Zach Riley, head of the Colorado Livestock Association, said wild birds may be spreading the virus to herds across the country, despite scientific data suggesting otherwise. Riley said farmers were considering whether to install “floppy inflatable men you see outside of car dealerships” to ward off the birds.

Advisories from agriculture departments to farmers were somewhat speculative, too. Officials recommended biosecurity measures such as disinfecting equipment and limiting visitors. As the virus kept spreading throughout the summer, USDA senior official Eric Deeble said at a press briefing, “The response is adequate.”

The USDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration presented a united front at these briefings, calling it a “One Health” approach. In reality, agriculture agencies took the lead.

This was explicit in an email from a local health department in Colorado to the county’s commissioners. “The State is treating this primarily as an agriculture issue (rightly so) and the public health part is secondary,” wrote Jason Chessher, public health director in Weld County, Colorado. The state’s leading agriculture county, Weld’s livestock and poultry industry produces about $1.9 billion in sales each year.

Patchy Surveillance

In July, the bird flu spread from dairies in Colorado to poultry farms. To contain it, two poultry operations employed about 650 temporary workers — Spanish-speaking immigrants as young as 15 — to cull flocks. Inside hot barns, they caught infected birds, gassed them with carbon dioxide, and disposed of the carcasses. Many did the hazardous job without goggles, face masks, and gloves.

By the time Colorado’s health department asked if workers felt sick, five women and four men had been infected. They all had red, swollen eyes — conjunctivitis — and several had such symptoms as fevers, body aches, and nausea.

State health departments posted online notices offering farms protective gear, but dairy workers in several states told KFF Health News that they had none. They also said they hadn’t been asked to get tested.

Studies in Colorado, Michigan, and Texas would later show that bird flu cases had gone under the radar. In one analysis, eight dairy workers who hadn’t been tested — 7% of those studied — had antibodies against the virus, a sign that they had been infected.

Missed cases made it impossible to determine how the virus jumped into people and whether it was growing more infectious or dangerous. “I have been distressed and depressed by the lack of epidemiologic data and the lack of surveillance,” said Nicole Lurie, an executive director at the international organization the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, who served as assistant secretary for preparedness and response in the Obama administration.

Citing “insufficient data,” the British government raised its assessment of the risk posed by the U.S. dairy outbreak in July from three to four on a six-tier scale.

Virologists around the world said they were flabbergasted by how poorly the United States was tracking the situation. “You are surrounded by highly pathogenic viruses in the wild and in farm animals,” said Marion Koopmans, head of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. “If three months from now we are at the start of the pandemic, it is nobody’s surprise.”

Although the bird flu is not yet spreading swiftly between people, a shift in that direction could cause immense suffering. The CDC has repeatedly described the cases among farmworkers this year as mild — they weren’t hospitalized. But that doesn’t mean symptoms are a breeze, or that the virus can’t cause worse.

“It does not look pleasant,” wrote Sean Roberts, an emergency services specialist at the Tulare County, California, health department in an email to colleagues in May. He described photographs of an infected dairy worker in another state: “Apparently, the conjunctivitis that this is causing is not a mild one, but rather ruptured blood vessels and bleeding conjunctiva.”

Over the past 30 years, half of around 900 people diagnosed with bird flu around the world have died. Even if the case fatality rate is much lower for this strain of the bird flu, covid showed how devastating a 1% death rate can be when a virus spreads easily.

Like other cases around the world, the person now hospitalized with the bird flu in Louisiana appears to have gotten the virus directly from birds. After the case was announced, the CDC released a statement saying, “A sporadic case of severe H5N1 bird flu illness in a person is not unexpected.”

‘The Cows Are More Valuable Than Us‘

Local health officials were trying hard to track infections, according to hundreds of emails from county health departments in five states. But their efforts were stymied. Even if farmers reported infected herds to the USDA and agriculture agencies told health departments where the infected cows were, health officials had to rely on farm owners for access.

“The agriculture community has dictated the rules of engagement from the start,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “That was a big mistake.”

Some farmers told health officials not to visit and declined to monitor their employees for signs of sickness. Sending workers to clinics for testing could leave them shorthanded when cattle needed care. “Producer refuses to send workers to Sunrise [clinic] to get tested since they’re too busy. He has pinkeye, too,” said an email from the Weld, Colorado, health department.

“We know of 386 persons exposed – but we know this is far from the total,” said an email from a public health specialist to officials at Tulare’s health department recounting a call with state health officials. “Employers do not want to run this through worker’s compensation. Workers are hesitant to get tested due to cost,” she wrote.

Jennifer Morse, medical director of the Mid-Michigan District Health Department, said local health officials have been hesitant to apply pressure after the backlash many faced at the peak of covid. Describing the 19 rural counties she serves as “very minimal-government-minded,” she said, “if you try to work against them, it will not go well.”

Rural health departments are also stretched thin. Organizations that specialize in outreach to farmworkers offered to assist health officials early in the outbreak, but months passed without contracts or funding. During the first years of covid, lagging government funds for outreach to farmworkers and other historically marginalized groups led to a disproportionate toll of the disease among people of color.

Kevin Griffis, director of communications at the CDC, said the agency worked with the National Center for Farmworker Health throughout the summer “to reach every farmworker impacted by H5N1.” But Bethany Boggess Alcauter, the center’s director of public health programs, said it didn’t receive a CDC grant for bird flu outreach until October, to the tune of $4 million. Before then, she said, the group had very limited funds for the task. “We are certainly not reaching ‘every farmworker,’” she added.

Farmworker advocates also pressed the CDC for money to offset workers’ financial concerns about testing, including paying for medical care, sick leave, and the risk of being fired. This amounted to an offer of $75 each. “Outreach is clearly not a huge priority,” Boggess said. “I hear over and over from workers, ‘The cows are more valuable than us.’”

The USDA has so far put more than $2.1 billion into reimbursing poultry and dairy farmers for losses due to the bird flu and other measures to control the spread on farms. Federal agencies have also put $292 million into developing and stockpiling bird flu vaccines for animals and people. In a controversial decision, the CDC has advised against offering the ones on hand to farmworkers.

“If you want to keep this from becoming a human pandemic, you focus on protecting farmworkers, since that’s the most likely way that this will enter the human population,” said Peg Seminario, an occupational health researcher in Bethesda, Maryland. “The fact that this isn’t happening drives me crazy.”

Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the CDC, said the agency aims to keep workers safe. “Widespread awareness does take time,” he said. “And that’s the work we’re committed to doing.”

As Trump comes into office in January, farmworkers may be even less protected. Trump’s pledge of mass deportations will have repercussions, said Tania Pacheco-Werner, director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute in California, whether they happen or not.

Many dairy and poultry workers are living in the U.S. without authorization or on temporary visas linked to their employers. Such precarity made people less willing to see doctors about covid symptoms or complain about unsafe working conditions in 2020. Pacheco-Werner said, “Mass deportation is an astronomical challenge for public health.”

Not ‘Immaculate Conception’

A switch flipped in September among experts who study pandemics as national security threats. A patient in Missouri had the bird flu, and no one knew why. “Evidence points to this being a one-off case,” Shah said at a briefing with journalists. About a month later, the agency revealed it was not.

Antibody tests found that a person who lived with the patient had been infected, too. The CDC didn’t know how the two had gotten the virus, and the possibility of human transmission couldn’t be ruled out.

Nonetheless, at an October briefing, Shah said the public risk remained low and the USDA’s Deeble said he was optimistic that the dairy outbreak could be eliminated.

Experts were perturbed by such confident statements in the face of uncertainty, especially as California’s outbreak spiked and a child was mysteriously infected by the same strain of virus found on dairy farms.

“This wasn’t just immaculate conception,” said Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It came from somewhere and we don’t know where, but that hasn’t triggered any kind of reset in approach — just the same kind of complacency and low energy.”

Sam Scarpino, a disease surveillance specialist in the Boston area, wondered how many other mysterious infections had gone undetected. Surveillance outside of farms was even patchier than on them, and bird flu tests are hard to get.

Although pandemic experts had identified the CDC’s singular hold on testing for new viruses as a key explanation for why America was hit so hard by covid in 2020, the system remained the same. All bird flu tests must go through the CDC, even though commercial and academic diagnostic laboratories have inquired about running tests themselves since April. The CDC and FDA should have tried to help them along months ago, said Ali Khan, a former top CDC official who now leads the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health.

As winter sets in, the bird flu becomes harder to spot because patient symptoms may be mistaken for the seasonal flu. Flu season also raises a risk that the two flu viruses could swap genes if they infect a person simultaneously. That could form a hybrid bird flu that spreads swiftly through coughs and sneezes.

A sluggish response to emerging outbreaks may simply be a new, unfortunate norm for America, said Bollyky, at the Council on Foreign Relations. If so, the nation has gotten lucky that the bird flu still can’t spread easily between people. Controlling the virus will be much harder and costlier than it would have been when the outbreak was small. But it’s possible.

Agriculture officials could start testing every silo of bulk milk, in every state, monthly, said Poulsen, the livestock veterinarian. “Not one and done,” he added. If they detect the virus, they’d need to determine the affected farm in time to stop sick cows from spreading infections to the rest of the herd — or at least to other farms. Cows can spread the bird flu before they’re sick, he said, so speed is crucial.

Curtailing the virus on farms is the best way to prevent human infections, said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, but human surveillance must be stepped up, too. Every clinic serving communities where farmworkers live should have easy access to bird flu tests — and be encouraged to use them. Funds for farmworker outreach must be boosted. And, she added, the CDC should change its position and offer farmworkers bird flu vaccines to protect them and ward off the chance of a hybrid bird flu that spreads quickly.

The rising number of cases not linked to farms signals a need for more testing in general. When patients are positive on a general flu test — a common diagnostic that indicates human, swine, or bird flu — clinics should probe more deeply, Nuzzo said.

The alternative is a wait-and-see approach in which the nation responds only after enormous damage to lives or businesses. This tack tends to rely on mass vaccination. But an effort analogous to Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is not assured, and neither is rollout like that for the first covid shots, given a rise in vaccine skepticism among Republican lawmakers.

Change may instead need to start from the bottom up — on dairy farms, still the most common source of human infections, said Poulsen. He noticed a shift in attitudes among farmers at the Dairy Expo: “They’re starting to say, ‘How do I save my dairy for the next generation?’ They recognize how severe this is, and that it’s not just going away.”

Healthbeat is a nonprofit newsroom covering public health published by Civic News Company and KFF Health News. Sign up for its newsletters here.KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.