Sunday, September 22, 2024

UK

Restore Our Right to Strike – Steve Gillan, POA

19th September 2024Leave a Comment

“In opposition, Tony Blair promised to scrap this pernicious legislation – but in a bitter betrayal he reneged on this promise as Prime Minister.”

By Steve Gillan, POA

Although the POA are not affiliated to any political party, as General Secretary I was relieved to see the back of the Tories at the general election and I am looking forward to the first Labour conference under a Labour government in 15 years.

The past decade and a half have seen billions of pounds robbed from the prison service under the guise of Tory austerity – and the consequences are clear for all to see. Overcrowded, ultra-violent, vermin-ridden – our prisons are completely unfit for purpose. People leave prison more criminalised, more traumatised, more drug-addicted than when they arrive. We simply cannot continue like this.

Many of the problems in our prisons will take major investment to fix but there is one urgently needed change that won’t cost a penny – ending the 30-year ban on prison officers taking any form of industrial action, leaving my members at the mercy of management and ministers to exploit them with impunity, knowing there is no way for their union to fight back apart from costly court action.

This draconian restriction on my members’ basic human rights was introduced via Section 127 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which made it illegal to “induce” a prison officer “to take (or continue to take) any industrial action”. This led to the High Court fining the POA £210,000 in 2019, with the national chair and me threatened by Tory government lawyers with imprisonment, simply for protecting my members from danger.

In opposition, Tony Blair promised to scrap this pernicious legislation – but in a bitter betrayal he reneged on this promise as Prime Minister. So, now is the time for this new Labour government to put right past wrongs as part of its pledge to repeal Tory anti-trade-union laws. Give prison officers back their industrial muscle and we will be able to help rebuild our shattered and demoralised service and drive down reoffending!

Ministers must trust their committed and brave public servants, who risk their lives every day to protect the public, as the Scottish government did in 2015 – sparking not strikes but dramatically improved industrial relations. Prison officers are a disciplined service, they sign the Official Secrets Act and they are loyal to the crown. In other words, they are the last people to engage in industrial conflict, except as a last resort.

At TUC earlier this month, delegates unanimously approved POA’s two motions on restoring the right to strike and the urgent need to build more secure hospitals, because so many prisoners have serious mental health problems that are simply made worse by the prison environment.

This new Labour government may have inherited a ticking time-bomb in our prisons by the Tories but they also inherited as £4 billion prison-build budget, which they have pledged to use. But there is no reason they have to follow the last government’s plan to spend this money on a new generation of privately run mega-prisons – little more than human warehouses, in my opinion. Instead, they could build smaller-scale public prisons and secure hospitals, which are widely recognised to be more effective at promoting rehabilitation.

And more importantly, they should use some of these billions to invest in and improve the prisons we already have. Privatising prison maintenance has proved to be an utter disaster, and procurement is a bad joke, as any governor trying to replace kit can tell you. Same with the canteen of goods prisoners can buy – private companies charging well over the odds to literally a captive audience. Tear up the contracts, bring it all in-house or at least under public control, and end the privatised rip-off in our prisons that is doing so much damage at the heart of our criminal justice system.

A decade-and-a-half of Tory failure has led us to the brink of disaster in our prisons. The POA stands ready to play its part in fixing this but, if Labour is serious about treating workers and their trade unions as part of the solution, not part of the problem, it must give our members back their basic industrial rights and listen to us about urgent priorities across the prison estate. Restoring our right to strike – and the dignity at work that comes with this – is a vital step towards achieving justice, boosting morale and taking back control of our prisons before it’s too late.

I will be speaking about the many prison crises at the Conference fringe meeting at Revolución de Cuba on Monday at 11am, alongside fellow union leaders Mick Lynch, Fran Heathcote and Matt Wrack, Employment Rights Minister Justin Madders and Lord John Hendy from the Institute of Employment Rights, on the subject of how this new government will deliver its New Deal for Working People.

And for the first time, this year the POA will have a stand at Labour Conference (location C10). Please come and say hello and pick up some of conference’s hottest merch, including the new POA bucket hat! More seriously, we have copies of our new briefing on the right to strike, with plenty of ideas on how to support prison officers win back their basic human rights. See you there!

EVENT: How will the Labour Government Deliver a New Deal for Working People?
Trade Union Coordinating Group, Labour List and the Institute for Employment Rights. Supported by Arise – a Festival of Left Ideas.
Monday 23 September, 11 am,
Revolución De Cuba (Casa bar, upstairs)
Dr Jo Grady (UCU), Justin Madders (Minister, invited,) Matt Wrack (FBU) Mick Lynch (RMT) Lord Hendy, Steve Gillian (POA), Fran Heathcote (PCS)

The Pro-Palestine Student Movement Should Unite with the Historic Boeing Workers’ Strike

The Boeing strike is the biggest strike of 2024 so far. The student movement that rose up for Palestine should show solidarity with Boeing workers on strike and fight back against all Zionist bosses. The student walkout of a jobs fair featuring Boeing at Cornell University was an important example of this unity.

Maryam Alaniz September 21, 2024 LEFT VOICE

Photo Credit: Matt Mills Mcknight | Reuters

On September 18, students walked out of a job fair at Cornell University, one of the elite universities that organized an unprecedented student movement in solidarity with Palestine and that also experienced a strike last month. Their motive was to bring attention to the presence of Boeing at the job fair as Boeing is one of the world’s largest aerospace manufacturers and defense contractors aiding the genocide in Palestine. As part of the walkout, students also showed solidarity with the over 33,000 Boeing workers that are currently on strike for better pay and working conditions. They chanted: “We won’t work, we will fight; no more jobs for genocide!”

As we recently wrote on our pages, in addition to offering pitiful wages to their employees compared to the record profits of the company’s superiors, Boeing also plays a key role in supplying weapons to Israel – weapons that allow the state to continue its genocidal attack against Palestine. As the prospect of a regional war seems less and less out of the picture, Israel’s weapons have the potential to harm even more working and oppressed people in surrounding countries like Lebanon.

Therefore by producing weapons that are helping to carry out a genocide, Boeing benefits from the exploitation of workers here and the oppression of workers abroad. In that way, the struggle for Palestinian liberation is tied up to the struggle of Boeing workers against their bosses. The Boeing strike is the largest strike so far in 2024 and comes at a time where more and more workers and youth are showing a willingness to fight within the labor movement. We can see this in the wave of unionizations at workplaces like Amazon and Starbucks and the uptick in strike activity, especially in important sectors, as the UAW strike showed last year.

Even within universities a dynamic new labor movement has emerged and is taking up unionizations, strikes, and experiences with rank and file organizing. Most recently, Cornell workers went on strike to protest unlivable wages and treatment from the school, and many university workers showed solidarity with Palestine throughout the encampment movement. One of the most important actions was the strike organized by the workers throughout the University of California system – one of the largest university systems in the country – to defend students and faculty who rose up in support of Palestine against attacks from their administrators and the police. Through these actions, we see how the unity between the student and labor movement is especially key.

The strategic power of the working class to “shut it down” can be deployed not only to fight for better wages, but also to fight for our democratic rights and against the oppression of other members of our class around the world. Throughout history, labor has played a decisive role in our struggles, even previously in the Seattle region itself, where the current Boeing strike is being held.

In 1919, Seattle workers organized a general strike and rocked the world by organizing a soviet in the form of a General Strike Council which democratically controlled the entire city for several days.

In our current context, the student movement is facing its own struggle with the development of an offensive against the Pro-Palestine movement in the universities, where administrators are taking repressive measures to silence the voices who speak out against the ongoing genocide.

Therefore, it is more important than ever for sectors of the student movement and the labor movement to unite their struggles. We must fight back against common enemies, like the Zionist bosses at Boeing, who super exploit workers and perpetuate oppression against Palestinians. We must also confront the bureaucracies within universities and unions who do everything within their power to hold our struggles back. We can and should impose this unity “from below” and study historical examples like the example of the Seattle soviet and even the recent rank and file assembly at CUNY, to draw inspiration for how we can make our own decisions and move our struggles forward.

As the students at Cornell showed us, students can play a role in building this united struggle against our oppressors and exploiters. Clearly, the student and labor movement are stronger together; we have the power to create more unity and continue showing up for exploited and oppressed workers around the world.

Maryam Alaniz
Maryam Alaniz is a socialist journalist, activist, and PhD student living in NYC. She is an editor for the international section of Left Voice. Follow her on Twitter: @MaryamAlaniz

USA

Workers Strike Boeing, Stopping Production of the 737

Tuesday 17 September 2024, by Dan La Botz

In an angry, determined, yet festive action, with music blaring, airhorns blasting, and fireworks shooting into the sky, 33,000 Boeing workers walked out on strike at plants in Washington, Oregon, and California on September 13, stopping production of the Boeing 737 plane and other aircraft. The Boeing strike by the International Association of Machinists (IAM), the biggest strike of this year so far, is principally over wages and pensions.

Boeing offered workers a 25% wage increase, but 94.6% of workers voted to reject that contract and then 96% voted to strike. The union is demanding a 40% raise and restoration of the pension.

One Boeing worker, Adam Vogel, called the 25% raise “a load of crap. We haven’t had a raise in 16 years.”

Most workers start at a wage of $19 or $23 an hour, and in six years can reach the top wage of $43. The cost of living in Washington State where most Boeing plants are located is 17% higher than the national average and housing costs in Oregon and California are also high.

Striking workers carried hand-made signs that read, “Historic contract my ass” and "Have you seen the damn housing prices?" The song of the hour was, “We’re Not Going to Take It Anymore” by the Twisted Sisters.

Wages are not the only issue. Workers also want their pension plan restored. Ten years ago, Boeing, like most U.S. corporations, terminated the pension plan with a fixed payment and replaced it with a 401(k)-retirement plan based on investments, meaning pension payments can vary depending on investment returns

Boeing is one of the world’s two largest aircraft manufacturers, together with Europe’s Airbus, each selling about 5,500 planes each year. But for five years Airbus has been selling more planes and Boeing has had a series of disastrous problems over the last several years. Two of the company’s 737 Max airliners crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. In January of this year, a door blew out of a Boeing 737 Max. And most recently the Boeing Starliner space capsule could not be used to return two astronauts from space because its thrusters failed. Boeing has not earned a profit for six years.

While on strike — and this could be a long strike — workers will receive a $150 per week strike payment, which is not much. Some analysts predict the strike will last until mid-November. A 2008 strike at Boeing lasted for eight weeks and cost the company about $100 million per day.

Just before the strike, Boeing President Kelly Ortberg, sent a message to workers Wednesday urging them to accept the contract, “For Boeing, it is no secret that our business is in a difficult period, in part due to our own mistakes in the past, I know that we can get back on track, but a strike would put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together.” The IAM membership was unmoved and overwhelmingly rejected the contract.

Boeing, the IAM, and federal mediators have returned to negotiations.

The U.S. government has a big interest in the strike, economically, since Boeing is such a large and important business, but also for other reasons. Boeing produces fighters, bombers, and helicopters for the U.S. military and it works with the military to maintain aircrafts. And Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security (BDS) division produces satellites, spacecraft, rockets, and weapons.

To win this strike, the IAM is counting on the solidarity of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), which has 16,000 members working at Boeing in Washington who have pledge not to do striking machinists’ work. In the past Teamsters union truck drivers have refused to cross picket lines to make deliveries to Boeing. Boeing workers have plunged into the strike with enthusiasm and are determined to win.

Andy Burnham pushes to extend Finnish-style homelessness scheme in Greater Manchester

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead

Yesterday
LEFT FOOT FORWARD

The mayor has set out plans to end homelessness in the region by following Finland’s model.

Addressing a recent conference on homelessness and housing policy in Manchester, Andy Burnham outlined how the city-region will draw from Finland’s approach, which focuses on providing homes without conditions.

Finland introduced its Housing First scheme in 2007 as a response to a severe housing crisis. The initiative prioritises giving individuals immediate access to housing, supported by personalised services, and has since reduced homelessness by 70 percent.

Speaking at the event, Jukka Siukosaari, Ambassador of Finland to the UK, emphasised the success of the scheme, saying: “Our nation has succeeded in going against the trend by actually decreasing the number of people without a place to live. This result is proof of the importance of the home as a starting point when we help people rebuild their lives.”

Since his election as mayor in 2017, Burnham has been committed to addressing rough sleeping and the broader housing crisis in Manchester. Following the success of a Housing First pilot program in Greater Manchester, which supported 430 people with complex housing needs, Burnham is seeking further government funding to expand the initiative beyond its current end date of March 2025.

In light of the second report from the Grenfell Inquiry, Burnham stressed the urgency for systemic change in the UK’s approach to housing.

“Rather than a money-making opportunity, or just a commodity to be bought and sold, we need to see housing as an essential service. Giving everyone a good, safe home would be one of the best investments the country could make, and would take pressure off other public services and public finances.”

Burnham announced plans to make Greater Manchester the first UK city-region to fully embrace a Finnish-style Housing First philosophy. He added:

“The evidence is clear that it works, and when a pilot scheme gets results it shouldn’t end there – it should become the new normal. Housing First has shown that if you give people an unconditional right to safe and secure housing, backed up with personalised support, you set them up to succeed.”

Alongside the Housing First initiative, the Greater Manchester mayor is championing new protections for renters, cracking down on unscrupulous landlords, and setting a target to build 75,000 new homes during the current parliamentary term. The newly formed Housing First Unit will drive these efforts, uniting partners across the city-region to provide a “healthy home for everyone in Greater Manchester by 2038.”

“The growing cost of not solving the housing crisis – both on our communities and on the public purse – is plain to see,” he continued.

Right-Wing Watch

Is the media now the real opposition?

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead

Yesterday

LEFT FOOT FORWARD

The Conservatives' ability to hold Labour accountable has disappeared down the same rabbit hole as the Party itself. As the Tories struggle with their own identity crisis, the press has stepped up to fill the gap.

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“A honeymoon period will be very, very short. Almost non-existent,” said the former Sun editor David Yelland. Some right-wing newspapers may have briefly endorsed Labour during the election, but Yelland, who led the Sun from 1998 to 2003, warned that these outlets would never truly support Starmer. He stressed that Starmer and his team must understand that the two most influential media groups – News UK and Associated Newspapers, the parent company of the Daily Mail – are not their allies.

This became evident immediately after the election when the Sun – despite Starmer’s efforts to cosy up to the Murdoch press by attending the media mogul’s summer party and visiting the Sun HQ, much to the ire of the left – swiftly issued a challenge to the new prime minister. “Better times? Let’s see them … While we wish Labour luck, we will scrutinise every decision and hold their feet to the fire,” wrote the newspaper the day after the election.

And nine weeks into Labour’s leadership, the newspaper has stayed true to that promise.

On September 16, the Sun attacked Starmer and his wife, accusing them of hypocrisy. In a comment piece, assistant editor Clemmie Moodie criticised them for “private jets, cronyism, and free clothes,” eagerly reviving the familiar “champagne socialist” trope often used against Labour figures perceived as wealthy, or hypocritical because they do not live out a ‘socialist’ life as imagined by the likes of Moodie.

The Daily Mail followed with its own sensational headline: “Starmergeddon, after just 68 days,” accompanied by an image of newly freed prisoners celebrating with champagne. The lead article asked, “Who voted for all this?” implying that the country was already descending into chaos after only two months of Labour governance.

These early and relentless critiques from the right-wing press signal that the media, particularly these powerful newspaper groups, may now be acting as Labour’s most vocal and influential opposition. Of course, we would expect the usual right-wing, Tory-loving media to take aim at the new Labour government, recycling the usual attacks – “Labour’s in the pocket of the unions!”, “they’re lying about the ‘black hole,’” etc. But beyond the predictable criticisms, there’s a growing sense that the media in general is taking on a more central role in opposing the government.

The Conservatives, weakened and navel-gazing after years of internal battles and declining public support, seem to have gone AWOL. Consequently, their ability to hold Labour accountable has disappeared down the same rabbit hole as the Party itself. As the Tories struggle with their own identity crisis, the press has stepped up to fill the gap. Publications like the Mail and Express are driving the narrative, scrutinising every move the government makes, but even traditionally more centrist outlets, like The Times newspapers, seem to have adopted a more mocking tone.

The Sunday Times, like The Sun – both owned by Murdoch’s News UK – had endorsed Labour ahead of the general election. In a June 30 editorial, it stated that the Conservatives had “in effect forfeited the right to govern” and that it was “the right time for Labour to be entrusted with restoring competence to government.”

But post-election, the paper’s coverage of the new Labour government seems more exaggerated and critical. On September 15, the newspaper led with a sensational headline: “Starmer breached rules over clothes that donor gave wife,” plastering it on the front page as if it was a major political scandal. While the allegation that the prime minister violated parliamentary rules by failing to declare clothing donations is indeed a legitimate public interest story, the headline appeared unusually tabloid-like for a publication known for its typically serious and measured tone. It seemed more designed to provoke controversy than to provide a balanced account of the situation.

In a commentary piece the following day, the Times Leader called for Starmer to apologise: “Ministers are demanding painful sacrifices by Britain’s pensioners this winter. For most, there will be no one to buy them a warm coat, let alone a designer one. Sir Keir should apologise.”

But did these newspapers take the same moral stance when Boris Johnson, as prime minister, accepted freebies, including the extravagant renovations to his Downing Street flat? On X, author Peter Osborne highlighted this apparent hypocrisy: “Powerful Times leader. I can’t remember any Times leaders making the same point about Boris Johnson’s free holidays, free meals from donors etc. I can remember the Times suppressing Simon Walters’ story about Johnson wanting to make Carrie Symonds his £100,000 pa chief of staff.”

Even the Financial Times, a reputable and respected publication, appears to be following this broader opposition trend. ‘More than half of Britons disapprove of Labour government, poll finds,’ was a recent headline. Polls are of course a legitimate tool for gauging public opinion and reporting such findings is a standard journalism practice, but the FT’s choice to lead with this particular headline simplifies a complex issue into a negative snapshot of public opinion. This editorial decision may be seen as part of a broader shift, with even traditionally neutral or business-focused outlets like the FT leaning into more critical coverage of the Labour government. Whether this is a conscious choice or not, such coverage can substantially shape public perception, especially when it comes from a publication as influential as the FT.

Farage and the press

As the centrist press adopts a more critical stance in its coverage of Labour, seemingly amplifying more minor issues to undermine Starmer’s leadership, the tabloids appear to be rallying behind Farage.

Following the general election, Yelland cautioned that tabloid coverage might increasingly be influenced by the Reform Party in the months ahead. “Farage says he’s coming for the Labour party. He’ll work with the tabloids to control the agenda,” he said. “Most of the tabloids are at least 50 percent pro-Reform now, if not more. Three areas that the right will push are immigration, what they call ‘the war on woke’, and net zero. The tabloids are going to use these tools of the right to oppose the government.”

Farage has said that he aims to become the “real opposition to a Labour government” in the years ahead, and it seems that the right-wing press may be furthering his ambition. This week, the Express ran a headline: “Keir Starmer issued urgent Farage warning as Labour on ‘far shakier ground’ in Red Wall.” The article references a pollster who claims that Farage’s party may have helped deliver an emphatic Tory wipeout, but it could “spell trouble for Labour’s hopes of re-election.” The piece also quotes Reform UK Chairman Zia Yusuf who told GB News that his party is planning a major push in seats currently held by Labour. With Reform targeting key Labour seats, and media outlets amplifying these threats, Farage and Reform could present a significant challenge to Labour in the years ahead.

The rise of far-right media: Paul Marshall buys the Spectator

As the tabloids shift towards Reform and centrist outlets mock Labour, the far-right media is on the march. GB News, created to challenge mainstream UK media, has become a platform for populist right-wing views, focusing on culture wars and immigration, and attacking what it perceives as a disconnected establishment. In an FT article entitled Why GB News is Angrier than Ever, Henry Mance, the FT’s chief features writer, noted: “GB News hoped to reshape British TV news in a post-Brexit world — to provide an alternative to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News, which pride themselves on impartial journalism, but which, to some, are guilty of liberal metropolitan bias. Critics worried it would have the same impact that Fox News did in the US: undermining truth, dragging voters to the right.”

A prominent figure at GB News is Sir Paul Marshall, a hedge fund tycoon, owner of the right-wing news site UnHerd, and a major investor in the channel. Earlier this month, Britain’s media landscape was rocked with the news that Marshall had bought the Spectator, which has always been considered the “house journal” of the Conservative Party, with its editorship often used as a springboard to political prominence, most notably Boris Johnson. The Telegraph remains for sale, and Marshall is believed to be in the running to buy it, as he continues his bid to build an empire of right-wing media outlets. The purchase also led to the dramatic public resignation of the magazine’s chair, Andrew Neil, who expressed concerns that Marshall might not fully grasp the importance of the magazine’s hallmark – editorial independence.

Having been bought by a buyer who has a history of providing a platform for hard-right narratives, where the likes of Lee Anderson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Esther McVey are let off the leash, there is concern that Marshall’s acquisition of the Spectator and possibly the Telegraph will take the outlets even further to the right. As Guardian columnist Zoe Williams writes in a piece about the Spectator, “You only have to look at GB News, in which Marshall is a major investor, to know exactly what makes Marshall tick, and that his project does not set out to excel in ratings and profits, and its impact can’t be measured in those terms.”

This development could pose a real threat to the Labour Party, as these platforms have the potential to amplify opposition voices and shape public opinion in ways that may undermine Labour’s messaging.

But the media’s rightward shift and its bias in marginalising the left is nothing new. The demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn in the media is perhaps the most glaring example. Research by the London School of Economics (LSE) showed that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader. According to LSE, this process of delegitimisation occurred in several ways: through a lack of or distortion of voice; through ridicule, scorn, and personal attacks; and association, mainly with terrorism.

“All this raises, in our view, a number of pressing ethical questions regarding the role of the media in a democracy. Certainly, democracies need their media to challenge power and offer robust debate, but when this transgresses into an antagonism that undermines legitimate political voices that dare to contest the current status quo, then it is not democracy that is served,” wrote LSE.

The rise of populist platforms like GB News and Paul Marshall’s growing media empire further consolidates the right’s control over influential outlets, allowing them to set the narrative and fuel opposition against Labour on topics like immigration, cultural issues, and climate policies. The press, emboldened by its own political agendas and less concerned with traditional impartiality, is stepping into the role of a primary opposition force. With the Conservatives weakened, the media has filled the void, and Labour faces an unrelenting barrage of criticism from across the spectrum, suggesting that in today’s political landscape, the media is indeed the real opposition.

Goodness knows what would happen if Labour actually tried to do anything at all radical, or even slightly socialist!

Right-wing media watch – Press fuels absurd claims about Kamala Harris

Deciding whether to have children is a deeply personal choice and no one else’s concern. One would think that this would be universally understood, but recent events suggest otherwise. A grotesque term, the “childless cat lady brigade,” has been doing the rounds, pushed by Republican figures and their media allies.

This phase originated from Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. After Donald Trump named Vance as his running mate, an old 2021 interview resurfaced in which Vance claimed the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” like Kamala Harris – women, he said, with no “direct stake” in the country’s future.

The remark understandably sparked outrage among most people, but the right-wing media was quick to defend it. Vance had “meant it as a joke” and that it had been “wilfully misinterpreted by Democrats,” claimed Fox News.

This week, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders joined the vile assault. Sanders previously served as press secretary in the Trump White House. During an event in Detroit with Trump this week, Sanders criticised Harris for not having children of her own, saying: “The most important job I have; the greatest title I have is that of being a mom.” She added, “My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”

In response to the smear, a satirical movement has been gaining momentum, with childless women voicing solidarity with Harris. Taylor Swift, who has three cats but no children, recently endorsed Harris, posting a photo of herself with her cat Benjamin Button and signing it “Childless Cat Lady.”

Right-Wing Media Watch might not have picked up on this grotesque smear had it not been reported by the Daily Mail. The tabloid ran a headline this week that read: “Sarah Huckabee Sanders slams Kamala for not having kids after Taylor Swift joins childless cat lady brigade supporting Harris.”

Sadly, this is just the latest in a series of desperate attacks on the vice president. With Harris’s popularity rising, Trump’s camp seems intent on seizing every opportunity for personal attacks. The ugly ‘childless women’ smear followed unfounded accusations that Harris has a drinking problem. The unsubstantiated rumour was reportedly started by Trump campaign insider James Blair on X.

These childish and slanderous tactics are all too familiar with Trump’s campaigns, despite concerns from Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham, who worry that focusing on personal attacks rather than policy may harm Trump’s election chances.

Most sensible observers can see these smears for what they are, a juvenile attempt to tarnish Harris’s reputation by campaign officials mirroring the impulsive immaturity of their leader

Yet, the Daily Mail couldn’t resist joining in, even reporting the baseless claim that Harris appeared drunk during several public appearances, though they admitted there was no evidence of a drinking problem.

They also dredged up a nearly 30-year-old DUI incident involving Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Harris’s VP pick, though it had absolutely no relevance to the story.

One might expect more from a national newspaper than digging up irrelevant scandals to stir controversy. But the absurdity doesn’t stop there. The article entertained suggestions that alcohol was to blame for Harris’s so-called “lunatic” laughter and her occasional off-script “word salads,” even pointing to a speech where she repeated the word “democracy” three times in 30 seconds.

A Vice President emphasising democracy in a speech? Surely it would be more concerning if she didn’t?

Smear of the week – From swans to strays – Trump’s baseless immigrant smear echoes absurd right-wing media myths

Do you remember when the Sun sensationally claimed that asylum seekers in London were poaching and eating swans? In July 2003, the newspaper published a story about the disappearance of swans in Beckton, alleging that the police had caught asylum seekers preparing to roast them. After complaints, the paper issued a small clarification, admitting that no arrests had been made. But they stood by claims that locals had accused Eastern European refugees of killing swans for food.

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) deemed no further action necessary, as the Sun had published a retraction, a decision that was criticised by Presswise, the media ethics charity, as “disgraceful.”

This lack of accountability likely did little to curb right-wingers’ fixation on immigrants and the bizarre notion that they are eating domesticated, or, in this case, protected animals.

Fast forward to today, and this strange narrative has found new life in an even stranger claim from Donald Trump. During his first presidential debate against Kamala Harris, Trump echoed a conspiracy theory promoted by his running mate, J.D. Vance, (him again) stating that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs.

Kamala Harris wasn’t the only one left bewildered by Trump’s comments, anyone watching with a hint of normalcy was similarly stunned. The jokes and memes quickly flooded the internet. A parody song by the South African musician David Scott mocking the former president’s outrageous claim went viral. A video, entitled “Eating the Cats” by Scott’s band Kiffness, used an edited audio clip of Trump’s viral comment, composed in a Reggaeton-beat style. In the satirical song, Scott urges the people of Springfield not to eat his cat and dog and suggests alternative food options.

A flurry of Bart Simpson memes did the rounds. The BBC’s Have I Got News For You X account shared an image of Homer Simpson and his dog writing: “US Presidential debate: After Trump claims people in Springfield are eating dogs, there’s concern about where he’s been getting his news from.”

Jokes aside, just as the Sun’s nonsensical swan story showcased a low point in media accountability, Trump’s baseless claims show how far political discourse has strayed from serious, substantive issues.

It’s a sad commentary on the current state of politics, where misinformation and sensationalism overshadow meaningful discussion.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

Gitmo and Politics

It is always dangerous to human freedom and due process when politics interferes with criminal prosecutions. Yet, present-day America is replete with tawdry examples of this.

The recent exposures of the political machinations of the Chief Justice of the United States in the presidential immunity case is just one sad example of the highest judge in the land determined to change the law, even at the cost of sacrificing good jurisprudence; and this from a jurist who once promised the Senate that he envisioned himself as a mere baseball umpire – just calling balls and strikes. Now, he is a historical revisionist, ruling that the Framers actually wanted an imperial presidency.

His rationale was his understanding of history – not the laws, not precedent, not the Constitution, not morality; a first in modern Supreme Court history.

But this awkward behavior, in which he also engaged when he changed his mind at the last minute and saved Obamacare from constitutional extinction because he was convinced that Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama in 2012, sends messages to those who enforce the law and those who interpret it that due process can take a back seat to politics.

That is happening at the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Here is the backstory.

After the dust settled from the attacks on 9/11 and the federal government responded by assaulting the Bill of Rights at home and innocent Afghani peasants abroad, it declared that the mastermind of the attacks was Osama bin Laden. It never charged bin Laden with any crime, but it dispatched a team of killers to assassinate him in his home, which they did. Then the feds decided that bin Laden was not the mastermind; Mohammed was.

By the time of bin Laden’s death, Mohammed had been captured and had undergone years of torture at the hands of the CIA, and he was incarcerated at the prison camp at Gitmo. He was eventually charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder and was put into the hands of a military tribunal, which Congress had established at the insistence of the George W. Bush administration believing that military men on a military court would administer swift and rough justice.

Then, his lawyers argued successfully to the Supreme Court that conspiracy is not a war crime and thus not triable before a military tribunal. In so ruling, the Court overruled an appellate court decision written by the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice back when he was an appellate judge – another Supreme Court first.

Then Congress changed the format of the tribunals so that they’d follow the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and effectively turned them into federal courts in Cuba with military trappings.

Pre-trial proceedings in the Mohammed case have been conducted on and off since 2012. He is on his second team of defense counsel, as the first team was infiltrated by an undercover FBI agent and his lawyers resigned. Mohammed is being tried by his fourth judge. The first judge ruled that because his confession was made under and as a consequence of torture, it could not be used at trial. But the prosecutors persuaded judges two, three and four to reconsider the decision of judge number one on whether the confession was lawful.

Then, a second team of prosecutors entered the case and they told the fourth judge in the case that if he permitted Mohammed’s confession at trial, Mohammed and his physicians would testify as to the psychological effects of torture, and they could not ethically defend what the CIA did. They also told the judge that they had begun plea negotiations with defense counsel.

Two months ago, the defendants and the government and the judge agreed to a plea agreement and all relevant persons signed it, including the Pentagon official supervising all prosecutions, a retired Army general whose last assignment in her active-duty military career was as the chief judge of the Army Court of Appeals. The plea agreement saved the government’s lawyers from having to defend Bush’s torturers, and it saved the defendants from the death penalty.

Then, after the plea agreement became publicly known, the Secretary of Defense – who is not a lawyer – belatedly overruled the retired general supervising the case and the legal team prosecuting it and the judge trying it and ordered them to rescind the plea agreement because he felt that the American public should learn the evidence in the case. Stated differently, the last thing the Biden administration needs in the midst of a presidential election campaign is to appear less than aggressive in its pursuit of 9/11 justice.

So, here is the legal dilemma now confronting the current judge – who is an active-duty colonel in the Army. All parties and the court have agreed to a plea agreement. But the judge’s boss – the Secretary of Defense – has ordered him to reject it. This is a state of affairs unknown and unheard of in American jurisprudence, where judges don’t have bosses telling them what guilty pleas to accept and what to reject. This has only come about due to Bush’s lust for torture and the post-9/11 Congress’ antipathy to the Constitution and the now fashionable entry of politics into the case.

Gitmo costs half a billion dollars a year. In its 20-plus year existence, it has yet to conduct a trial of any person for 9/11. And the prosecutors who know the case have told their bosses in the Department of Defense that trying the case will expose American troops to vicious retribution because the trial will expose the heinous acts the CIA inflicted upon the defendants.

Under federal law, there are no do-overs once a guilty plea has been entered and accepted. But we have a government of politicians whose fidelity to law and the Constitution is barely an afterthought.

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the US Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

Abbas ‘Postponed’ Democracy – So, Who Speaks on Behalf of the Palestinian People?

In April 2021, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree postponing parliamentary and presidential elections, which were scheduled to take place in May and July respectively.

The then-85-year-old Palestinian leader justified his unwarranted decision as a result of a ‘dispute’ with Israel over the vote of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian city of East Jerusalem.

But that was just a pretense. Though contrary to international law, Israel considers Palestinian East Jerusalem as part of its “eternal and undivided capital’, the cancellation of the elections stemmed from a purely internal Palestinian matter: fears that the outcome of the elections could sideline Abbas and his unelected political apparatus.

Marwan Barghouti, though a member of Abbas’ Fatah party, had decided to throw his hat in the ring, entering the elections under a separate list, the Freedom List. Opinion polls showed that, if Barghouti entered the fray, he could have decisively beaten Abbas. Those numbers are, in fact, consistent with most Palestinian public opinion polls conducted in recent years.

However, Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian figure in the West Bank, is a prisoner in Israel. He has spent 22 years in Israeli prisons due to his leadership of the Second Palestinian Intifada, the uprising of 2000.

Neither Israel nor Abbas wanted Barghouti, known as the Mandela of Palestine, to acquire any more validation while in prison, thus putting pressure on Israel to release him.

One can only speculate regarding the possible outcomes of the canceled May and July 2021 elections should they have taken place as scheduled. A democratically elected government would have certainly addressed, to some extent, the question of legitimacy, or lack thereof, among all Palestinian factions.

It would have also allowed the incorporation of all major Palestinian groups into a new political structure that would be purely Palestinian – not a mere platform for the whims and interests of specific political groups, business classes or hand-picked ruling elites.

That is all moot now, but the question of legitimacy remains a primary one, as the Palestinian people, more than ever before, require a unified, truly representative leadership that is capable of steering the just cause of Palestine during these horrifically difficult and crucial times.

This new leadership could have also understood the changing global dynamics regarding Palestine and would be compelled, per the will of the Palestinian people, to refrain from utilizing growing international support and sympathies with Gaza for financial perks and limited factional interests.

True, elections under military occupation would never meet the requirements of true democracy. However, if a minimal degree of representation was acquired in the now-canceled elections, the outcome could have served as a starting point towards widening the circle of representation to include the PLO and all Palestinians, in occupied Palestine and in the shatat as well.

Palestinians in the shatat, the diaspora, have also confronted the question of legitimacy and representation. However well-intentioned, many of these attempts faced, and continue to face, many obstacles, including the impossible geography, increasing political restrictions and limited funding, among other problems.

As the vacuum of truly representative leadership in Palestine remains in place, Washington and its western allies are left to contend with the question themselves: who shall rule the Palestinians? Who shall govern Gaza after the war? Who are the ‘moderate’ Palestinians to be included in future US-led western schemes and the ‘extremists’ to be shunned and relegated?

The irony is that such thinking, of picking and choosing Palestinian representation, has led, in large part, to the current crisis in Palestine. Segmenting Palestinians according to ideological, geographic and political lines has proved disastrous, not just to the Palestinians themselves but to any entity that is interested in achieving a just peace in Palestine.

The question of representation should be resolved by the Palestinian people and no one else. And, until that task is achieved, we must invest in centering Palestinian voices in every political, legal and social platform that is relevant to Palestine, to the struggle of the Palestinians and to their legitimate aspirations.

Centering Palestinian voices does not mean that any Palestinian is a legitimate representative of the collective Palestinian experience. Indeed, not any Palestinian, regardless of his political views, class orientation, background, and so on can be a worthy ambassador for the Palestinian cause.

Even without organized general elections, we already know so much about what Palestinians want. They want an end to the Israeli occupation, the dismantlement of the illegal settlements, the honoring of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, social equality, end to corruption and democratic representation, among other shared values.

These are not my own conclusions, but the views of the majority of Palestinians as indicated in various opinion public polls. Similar sentiments have been expressed and repeated year after year.

It follows that any true representative of the Palestinian cause should adhere to these ideals; otherwise, he or she either represents the narrow interests of a faction, a self-serving class or merely reflects his own personal views.

Only those who truly reflect the wider collective Palestinian experience and aspiration deserved to be centered, listened to or engaged with. Not doing so would help protect the Palestinian cause of the self-seeking few, who use the Palestinian struggle as an opportunity for personal or factional gains.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. His other books include My Father was a Freedom Fighter and The Last Earth. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

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