THE DAY AFTER TOMMOROW

'Figure something else out': Trump teases run for illegal 3rd term in meeting with House GOP

A NYPD officer stands in front of an image of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump outside Madison Square Garden on the day of Trump's rally, in New York, U.S., October 27, 2024. 

REUTERS/David Dee Delgado TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Carl Gibson

ALTERNET

November 13, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump is already toying with the idea of pursuing a third term in office — in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.

MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire tweeted Wednesday that during a recent meeting with the House Republican Conference, Trump suggested that his second term in the White House may not be his last. This would contradict the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has been elected twice from running for a third time.

"I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, 'He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,'" Trump said.


READ MORE: 'Trump in 2028': GOP-aligned organization calls for abolition of presidential term limits

The 22nd Amendment is explicit in its imposition of term limits on U.S. presidents. When George Washington served out his second term as the first president, he expressed that it was improper for anyone to serve more than two four-year terms in the nation's highest office, and that others who served after him should follow suit.

In 1799, Connecticut Governor John Trumbull — who was military secretary during the Revolutionary War — asked Washington to run for president a third time. Washington responded that he feared if he did so, he would be "charged... with concealed ambition," and that he had "ardent wishes to pass through the vale of life in [retirement], undisturbed in the remnant of the days I have to sojourn here."

But former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke with the two-term tradition, and won two more terms as president in 1940 and 1944, before dying in office in 1945 just months after he was elected to his fourth term. While Roosevelt was immensely popular after guiding the nation through the Great Depression and World War II and successfully argued that America needed stable leadership to get through the war, Congress sought to prevent future presidents from remaining in office for more than two terms by passing the 22nd Amendment through both chambers in 1947.

If Trump were to seek a third term, he would have to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which requires both two-thirds of the House and Senate along with two-thirds of state legislatures. The only amendment in U.S. history to have been repealed is the 18th Amendment, which established prohibition of alcohol. And that repeal only came about with the ratification of the 21st Amendment in 1933.

READ MORE: Revealed: Trump's Project 2025 agenda aims for 'total control' of the federal government

It's unlikely that an anti-22nd Amendment repeal effort would succeed, particularly with enough time to grant the 78 year-old Trump the ability to run for a third time. The most recent 27th Amendment took 202 years to ratify after it was first proposed in 1790, which concerned pay increases for members of Congress.

Still, some Trump loyalists have posited the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. Earlier this year, writer Peter Tonguette of the American Conservative — one of the 100-plus advisory groups supporting Project 2025 — proposed that Trump should be free to run for a third term, and framed it as a pro-democracy initiative.

""If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?" Tonguette argued. "As with Prohibition, it is simply a matter of finding the will to get rid of a bad idea that needlessly limits Americans’ freedom."

READ MORE: 'Essence of authoritarianism': Expert warns Project 2025 would create Trump 'autocracy'

Hey GOP! No One Voted to Cut Social Security



Let there be no doubt: Trump and the Republicans will try to cut our earned benefits. But just as a grassroots movement around the country succeeded in saving the Affordable Care Act during Trump’s first term, we can save Social Security and Medicare.

"Donald Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security and Medicare," writes Lawson. "Based on Trump’s long record of working to cut and undermine our earned benefits, we don’t trust that promise for one second. But we plan to make him keep it."
(Photo: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for MoveOn)

Alex Lawson
Nov 13, 2024

Common Dreams


No one voted to cut Social Security. No one voted to cut Medicare. And no one voted for higher drug prices.

Donald Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security and Medicare. Based on Trump’s long record of working to cut and undermine our earned benefits, we don’t trust that promise for one second. But we plan to make him keep it.

There’s a good reason Trump didn’t campaign on cutting Social Security: Ninety-two percent of Americans think that’s a terrible idea.

What will Trump do once he’s actually in the White House? During his first term, he tried to cut Social Security every single year. He appointed an unqualified crony, Andrew Saul, to head the Social Security Administration. And he surrounded himself with advisors who had long records of working to cut and privatize Social Security.

Now, Trump has a new advisor, Elon Musk. He just put Musk in charge of a commission to slash $2 trillion of federal spending. That is essentially impossible without cutting Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid. Indeed, incoming Vice President JD Vance has specifically said that Musk will target Social Security.

We are never going to stop fighting to protect and expand Social Security.

Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. It’s no surprise that Musk and his fellow billionaires want to cut our earned benefits rather than pay their fair share in taxes.

Trump’s top priority is to extend the tax cuts he gave the ultra-wealthy in his first term. Then, Republicans will turn around and claim that we “can’t afford” Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans in Congress have already telegraphed what those cuts could look like. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), a caucus that counts over 80 percent of House Republicans as members, released a budget proposal earlier this year that makes massive cuts to Social Security. That includes raising the retirement age to 69, and decimating benefits for the middle class.

The RSC budget would also repeal Medicare’s power to negotiate lower drug prices. That means seniors and people with disabilities would have to turn over more of their hard-earned Social Security checks to Big Pharma.

In case anyone doubted that Republicans are serious about passing these cuts into law, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (who angrily chased me down the street last year after I confronted him about his support for Social Security cuts) just pledged to cut health care benefits through reconciliation—meaning that Republicans would only need 50 votes in the Senate.

Trump and Republicans will try to cut our earned benefits. But just as a grassroots movement of Americans around the country succeeded in saving the Affordable Care Act during Trump’s first term, we can save Social Security and Medicare.

Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. It’s no surprise that Musk and his fellow billionaires want to cut our earned benefits rather than pay their fair share in taxes.

Here’s how:Hold Every Republican Accountable: Republicans will have only a slim majority in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Every member of the House, and one-third of the Senate, is on the ballot in 2026. We will target every Republican in a competitive district with protests and billboards saying: Hands off our Social Security and Medicare!

Keep Democrats Unified: There’s nothing Republicans want more than bipartisan cover for benefit cuts. Democrats must stand united and refuse to give it to them. We are calling on every Democrat in Congress to stand strong against even one penny of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Refuse To Go Behind Closed Doors: Republicans want to create a closed-door, fast-track commission to cut benefits without political accountability. We’ve beaten back this type of commission before, and we’re prepared to do so again. Any changes to Social Security must happen through regular Congressional order, in the light of day.

We are never going to stop fighting to protect and expand Social Security. Social Security has stood strong for nearly a century. It has survived wars, depressions, and pandemics. And with your help, it will survive Donald Trump.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Alex Lawson
Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, the convening organization of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition -- a coalition made up of over 340 national and state organizations representing over 50 million Americans.
Full Bio >

New GOP senate leader is a former lobbyist who has taken aim at Social Security

Like ‘clockwork,’ the GOP’s hypocritical ‘budget hawks’ are back with a vengeance: columnist

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C., 

Gage Skidmore

Jake Johnson 

 COMMON DREAMS

November 14, 2024

Senate Republicans on Wednesday elected Sen. John Thune of South Dakota—a former corporate lobbyist and close ally of Sen. Mitch McConnell—as the leader of their conference for the upcoming term, when the GOP will have a 53-seat majority.

Republican lawmakers chose Thune over Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who was favored by allies of President-elect Donald Trump.

"Senators have received angry phone calls from constituents demanding to know how their representatives plan to vote, following MAGA world's embrace of Scott," The Washington Post reported. The leadership election was conducted via secret ballot.

In a statement Wednesday, Thune said he is "extremely honored to have earned the support" of the Senate GOP conference and stressed that "this Republican team is united behind President Trump's agenda."

"Our work starts today," Thune added.

Before winning election to the Senate in 2004, Thune worked as a lobbyist for several sectors including the railroad industry. The Lever reported last year that as part of his lobbying work for the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern (DM&E) Railroad, Thune "helped the company procure a $230 million loan from the Federal Railroad Administration."

"In 2015, Thune reprised his advocacy for the rail industry, leading an effort to repeal an Obama administration regulation requiring improved, electronic braking systems on some hazmat trains," the outlet added. "The following year, he received the first-ever 'Railroad Achievement Award' presented by the Association of American Railroads, the industry's main lobbying group."

Thune is also "one of the biggest recipients of oil and gas money in Congress," the youth-led Sunrise Movement noted Wednesday following his election as leader of the incoming GOP Senate.

Over the course of his Senate career, Thune has received more than $1.16 million in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, according to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.

Thune's top contributor between 2019 and 2024 was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the right-wing pro-Israel lobbying group.

"Thune has called for taking the debt limit hostage to force cuts to Social Security."

Thune will take the reins of the Senate GOP conference as the party readies another round of tax cuts for the rich and large corporations—one of Trump's top priorities. Thune is a leading advocate of repealing the estate tax, a move that would benefit a small number of wealthy Americans.

Congress is also barreling toward another potentially damaging fight over the debt ceiling, which is set to be reinstated on January 2, 2025.

Thune has previously expressed support for leveraging the debt limit—and the threat of a catastrophic default—to secure steep cuts to federal spending and possible changes to Social Security such as raising the retirement age, which would slash benefits across the board. Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, voiced alarm over Thune's debt ceiling stance following his election as Senate Republican leader on Wednesday.

"Thune has called for taking the debt limit hostage to force cuts to Social Security," Nancy Altman, the group's president, said in a statement.

Beware the Fascist-Clown: 

Working Class Anxiety in an Age of Climate Catastrophe

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held a press conference from inside trash hauler at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport on October 30, 2024 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Much of the working class, feeling neglected and sidelined by the Democratic Party for decades, are increasingly prepared to allow Trump to twist and turn their grievances into shapes that fit a fascist agenda.

William E. ConnollyThomas Dumm
Nov 13, 2024

Common Dreams

We now live during the time of the fasci-clown. In post-election analyses, all the discussions of the appeal of his racism and patriarchy capture important things. But they may not speak starkly enough to why these sentiments run so deep and cut so broad a swath, though for different reasons, through both the white donor class and so much of the working class. Neither do they explain how and why growing segments of the populace laugh so much at Trump's fascist humor. Dressing up and clowning as a "garbage man" illustrates only one recent instance of that conjunction.

The donor class knows, and much of the working class senses, that neoliberal capitalism cannot survive in its old form for much longer. Knowing that, the donor class intends to capture as much wealth and power as it can in the time left to it, prepared to support a transition from neoliberalism to fascism if that is what it takes. Elon Musk is a perfect exemplar here, turning Twitter into a propaganda machine, becoming the fasci-clown’s Goebbels, and informally assuming the role of his economic lieutenant, preparing to impose punishing austerity in the name of a restoration of a pre-New Deal government. So much of the working class, feeling neglected and sidelined by the Democratic Party for decades, are increasingly prepared to allow Trump to twist and turn their grievances into shapes that fit a fascist agenda.

Why? Filtering into the sense of extreme entitlement of the superrich and desperation of growing segments of the working class-- sliding into those intensities in ways electoral polls do not directly capture--is a sense that the old alternatives are not working and cannot be sustained into the indefinite future. Workers, for instance, probably do not truly believe that climate wreckage is a liberal farce. Many sense that it is real, but that attempts to really reckon with it would leave them in the lurch. So they laugh at the clown's outrageous jokes, hateful comments about women, race, transgender people and immigration, and allow the fasci-clown to twist their grievances into support for his themes.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler, the fascist, malignant narcissist, and vicious humorist, summarized in two sentences the essence of his campaign to become Fuhrer:

"It belongs to the genius of a great leader to make even adversaries far removed from one another to belong to a single category, because in weak and uncertain characters the knowledge of having different enemies can only too readily lead to the beginning of doubt in their own right." And: "If he suspects they do not seem convinced by the soundness of his argument, repeat it over and over with constantly new examples."

The irony, just lurking below the rhetorical surface, is that neoliberal capitalism, in both the past and today, fosters the climate wreckage that helps to drive refugees north; and it will increasingly do so in the future.

For Hitler, writing after the massive German defeat in WWI, high inflation, and the return of hardened soldiers from battle with no jobs, Jews became the "red thread" to which he tied, through constant repetition, military defeat, social democracy, and communism. He thus condensed multiple adversaries into one enemy. For Trump, living during a time when imperial instabilities and climate wreckage create more and more refugees heading from southern to northern states, immigrants of color become the new red thread. The stagnation of the working class, the problems facing large cities, the "uppity-ness" of women of color, the snarky-ness of the liberal snowflake, and the loss of "black jobs," are all tied to the red thread of immigration. As you intensify opposition to immigration by, first, treating immigration as something insidious as such, and, second, linking it to everything else you oppose, you thereby loosen the rhetorical reins previously restraining public attacks on women, Blacks, Democrats, cities, and secularists. They are all now placed on the same line of associations, with resentments to any one magnified by those felt against others. A brilliant, cruel campaign.

The irony, just lurking below the rhetorical surface, is that neoliberal capitalism, in both the past and today, fosters the climate wreckage that helps to drive refugees north; and it will increasingly do so in the future. That is the truth that Trump and his followers must resist and shout down whenever it rears its ugly head. That is one reason racism must be intensified by the fasci-clown. This core truth must never be acknowledged: America works to produce the immigration it increasingly abhors.

But what about us? That is, what of those of us on the democratic left who have resisted Trump, supported Harris, and oppose the regime the fasci-comic seeks to impose? We participate, in at least one way, in the very condition we resist. As neoliberal capitalism morphs toward fascist capitalism during the second Trump term, we too have failed to come up with an alternative that could both work and attract droves from the working and middle classes to it.

This core truth must never be acknowledged: America works to produce the immigration it increasingly abhors.

As productive capitalism forges a future it cannot sustain in the face of growing climate wreckage, as many flirt with fascist capitalism to avoid facing this truth, nobody really believes in the alternative models of rapid growth and mastery over nature supported by classical social democracy and communism either. The danger of fascist capitalism, indeed, is tied to the failure of other familiar critical traditions to respond in a credible and sufficient way to the time of climate wreckage. This failure insinuates itself inside climate denialism and casualism today.

Such a failure encourages many to deny climate wreckage, that is, to embrace fascist tendencies. It may also encourage others to pretend that it can be resolved within either old forms of productive capitalism or one of the twentieth century alternatives to it. So, we critics, too are caught in a bind. We insist that immigration is good economically, by which we mean that it will lead to greater economic growth, when the truth is that the pursuit of that growth is at the heart of our current crisis. Is our failure connected in some subliminal sense to the growing attractions of many others to Big Lies today, to lies that growing numbers embrace without necessarily believing?

Our sense—though we cannot prove it—is that growing attractions to, and tolerances for, fascist capitalism within the working classes is tied to a larger intellectual failure to show how to evolve a political economy that curtails the future scope of climate wreckage while speaking to real grievances and anxieties of the working class writ large. Unless and until that happens it will not be that hard for fasci-clown leaders to attract the billionaire class and capture large segments of the working class. Fascist humor flourishes when no other responses to deep grievances appear credible.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


William E. Connolly


William E. Connolly is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Stormy Weather: Pagan Cosmologies, Christian Times, Climate Wreckage (Fordham, 2024)

Full Bio >
Thomas Dumm
Thomas Dumm is William H. Hastie '25 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.
Full Bio >

This Is America: Turning Slander, Plunder, Sadism Into Honor

Harris supporters react to election results at Howard University.
(Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images)

Abby Zimet
Nov 12, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Goddamn. This is a gutting one. Amidst our grief and shock at the ascendancy of a racist, vengeful, malevolent sociopath in cognitive decline who "represents everything we should aspire not to be" - but hey at least he's not a black woman - comes the awful realization, after years of telling ourselves as a country we were better than this, that we're not. We are tired, bitter, vanquished. But now that the country has failed us, say sages tougher than us, we cannot fail each other.

It's dumbfounding, of course. With eyes (if not minds) wide open, after years of seeing the cruelty, vulgarity, bullying, incompetence and mean-spirited braggadocio, a majority of the electorate decided to bring him back. There is no ignoring the result, that ghastly map of a blood-red sea with modest, hopeful pockets of blue. He won the Electoral College, the (rare) popular vote by several million, inexplicably more Latinos, Blacks, young people that anyone had envisioned. Despite his long history of carnage and neglect, his insane clown makeup, his terrible campaign of insults, fascism, misogyny, babbling, and Harris' admirable one of real plans, swing state focus, broad coalition from Beyonce to Cheneys - none of it mattered. People just didn't like her laugh. They didn't believe she worked at McDonalds. They thought butter was too expensive. They worried their gymnastic daughter would have to compete against boys - so unfair! And she's a woman of color (who probably slept her way to power), a bridge too far. Better to go with the wolf who straight-up asserts, "I'm going to eat you." Admiring sheep: "He tells it like it is."

"Who Are We?" asks a disconsolate Robert Reich. After years of saying "America is better than Trump, I'm no longer sure," he writes. But the roots of our failures go back far further than his sordid arrival: "This darkness has always been in us." Trump, the ugly consequence of racial, social and economic changes, has given us "an unsparing view of our country in our time" - one that reflects via our politics the deep flaws of our culture, and en route gives us the grotesque likes of Musk, Scott, Cruz, Bannon, Don and RFK Jr., and vomit-inducing headlines like, "J.D. Vance Congratulates Stephen Miller On Appointment to Top White House Job." Yes, it's part of an era of global and American anti-incumbency. Still, George Conway argues, most dispiritingly it's "what Americans chose for themselves," with the only possible saving grace Trump's incompetence. "The system was never perfect," he writes, "but it inched toward its own betterment, albeit in fits and starts. But in the end, the system the Framers set up - and indeed, all constitutional regimes, however well designed - cannot protect a free people from themselves.”

As a grim result, writes Charlie Pierce, the majority of our fellow-citizens (who voted) "will get exactly what they want." They will get attacks on women, trans kids, political dissent, a free press. They'll get a vicious attempt at mass deportation and chaos for millions of families, soaring inflation and national debt, global isolation, sixth-grade invective, 200% tariffs its author will still not understand, violent vengeance against opponents and dreaded "others," pardons for rioters, he end of accountability for felons and, possibly, Social Security. "We have decided that science and learning don’t count as much as misogyny and racism," Pierce adds. "We have traded engaging in the work of self-government for entertaining ourselves with a freak show." And all for a wannabe king who will - irony alert - giddily preside over the 250th anniversary of our toppling of a monarchy. A few years ago, Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, made a video for a song about the carnage caused by our guns; you can add to guns the symbolic ravages of our racism, imperialism, capitalism and their attendant brutality, and still, This Is America.

- YouTube

www.youtube.com


Meanwhile, notes Dem advisor Adam Parkhomenko after Monday's news Trump named Stephen Miller deputy chief of Nazi policy, "All the shit we warned everyone about is coming true, and it has not even been a week." In fact, within 24 hours of the win by a serial rapist and Jeffrey Epstein confidant, women were facing crass hate campaigns. Many echo the venom of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who sneered, "Your body, my choice. Forever." Or thug Jon Miller, who scoffed, “Women threatening sex strikes like LMAO, as if you have a say." Outside Texas State University, triumphant MAGA fans toted signs that read, "Homo Sex Is Sin" and "Types of Property: Women, Slaves, Animals, Cars, Land." Trump lawyer Mike Davis, who's proposed throwing journalists in gulags and dragging dead political opponents through the streets, darkly warned New York A.G. Letitia James, who won a $454 million judgment against Trump for fraud, against "daring to continue your lawfare. "Listen here, sweetheart," he snarled. "We're not messing around this time, and we will put your fat ass in prison."

The next obvious targets, perhaps yet more vilely, are people of color, especially young vulnerable ones. In a text campaign and hate crime spewing from some 25 states, Black students from college age to middle school have received messages claiming they'd been chosen as "house slaves" and were due to appear at "plantations." "Greetings, Samuel. You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation," read one. "Be ready at 12 sharp...Our executive slaves will come get you in a brown van. You are in Plantation Group W." The recipients in at least 10 states and D.C. ranged from students at historically Black colleges to high-schoolers in New York and Massachusetts to middle schoolers in Pennsylvania. “This is mandatory,” the message read. “Sincerely, Trump Administration." Defending their "commonsense mandate for change," Trump officials say they had nothing to do with the racist attack. But the NAACP still called them on it. "The unfortunate reality of electing a President who historically has embraced and at times encouraged hate," they charged, " is unfolding before our eyes."

More well-publicized horrors await. Trump promised a blank check for rounding up millions of immigrants, even U.S.- born children who've never been to the ravaged countries their parents fled. To facilitate this atrocity, he's appointed dead-eyed ghoul, Project 2025 architect and "devil on earth" Tom Homan as Border Czar. "Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?" Homan's asked on 60 Minutes. "Of course there is," he responds with brutal alacrity. "Families can be deported together." A gleeful prison-industrial complex sees the upcoming carnage as "an unprecedented opportunity"; their stocks are soaring in anticipation of at least $400 million in tracking, transporting and detaining millions of new victims, and greedy kingpins like Musk Bezos have joined on bended knee. The rest of us, meanwhile, grieve. Choking back tears, Jimmy Kimmel declared the election "a terrible night" for pretty much everyone, even MAGA fans who don't know it yet: "I never thought leopards would eat MY face," sobs the guy who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party. Who knew?

The night was perhaps most painful for women - "It is an awful thing, how much this country hates women" - especially Black women for whom it "affirmed the worst of what many believed about their country": That America would rather elect a racist, rapist, liar, convicted felon, "the world's worst man," than let a woman lead. Hell, they don't even trust us with our own bodies: "This is, it turns out, who we are." "Our biggest mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do," wrote Rebecca Solnit, "to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it." She cites MAGA's angry masculinity - cue ludicrous Trump-as-Rambo memes - a media that failed to explicate the climate crisis matters more than a trans girl playing softball, and a social media run by rich white men that "arose like a school of sharks" to spread hate and lies. All overseen by Dorothy Thompson's standard Nazi: "He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature...He is inconsequent and voluble, ill-poised, insecure. He is the very prototype of the Little Man." Whose devastation we now must grapple with, and endure.

We

We are feeling our way through the sadness and horror, seeking a way forward. We are weary, hopeless, soul-scorched. Everything sucks. We need time to process. But not, experts say, too much time. In his book On Tyranny, historian Timothy Snyder warns of the Russian strategy of “internal emigration," turning away from politics or resistance in powerless despair, leaving the vulnerable among us to suffer first and worst. His mantra: “Do not obey in advance.” Do what heals or feeds you. Consider Raymond Carver's "small good thing," and do it. Here in Maine, we've done a lot of walking and talking with friends in the woods or by the ocean, usually with dogs, who these days, as all days, seem much happier than the rest of us. Community is key; we are going to need each other. Michael Moore just emerged: "Silence. Thinking. Then acting. In that order." From one sage, "Remember that living your life with purpose in a country that wants you to fade away is a radical act." Also, remember that on Nov. 26, the president-elect is due to be sentenced in a New York courtroom on 34 felony counts. What a time to be alive..

"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” 

– Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Greenland extends detention of anti-whaling activist Watson for three more weeks

A court in Greenland has once again extended the detention of Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson while Denmark decides whether to extradite the prominent activist to Japan. Watson's next hearing is scheduled for December 2.


Issued on: 13/11/2024 - 
By:  NEWS WIRES
Protesters in France have demanded Paul Watson's release. © Grégoire Campione, AFP


A Greenland court on Wednesday extended the detention of US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson for three more weeks, pending a decision on his possible extradition to Japan, police said.

It was the fifth extension of Watson's detention since he was arrested in July in Nuuk, capital of the Danish autonomous territory.

"The court in Greenland has today decided that Paul Watson shall continue to be detained until December 4, 2024 in order to ensure his presence in connection with the decision on extradition," Greenland police said in a statement.

For "practical reasons", Watson's next hearing would be held on December 2, it said.

The 73-year-old activist was detained on July 21 on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010 and injuring a whaler.

Watson, who featured in the reality TV series "Whale Wars", founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

He was arrested when his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, docked to refuel in Nuuk on its way to "intercept" a new Japanese whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.

Watson's lawyer Julie Stage had told AFP before the hearing that she did not expect the Greenland court to order his release.

She and the defence team appealed Wednesday's ruling to Denmark's supreme court, as it has done for all of the previous rulings.

"The more time that passes, the greater the sense of injustice," Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, told AFP ahead of the hearing.

"In 10 days, it will be four months since he was jailed, which corresponds to the maximum sentence he would have been handed if he had been convicted," she said.
Danish decision pending

The Danish justice ministry has not said when it will announce its decision on the extradition request.

It recently received two reports it had been waiting for – from the Greenland police and the Danish prosecutor general – before making a decision.

If Denmark refuses his extradition, "there would no longer be any reason for detention and (Paul Watson) would be released as soon as possible," Mariam Khalil, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told AFP.

If Denmark agrees to Japan's extradition request, Watson's lawyers would lodge an appeal.

Tokyo accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers' activities during a Sea Shepherd clash with the Shonan Maru 2 vessel on February 11, 2010.

Watson's lawyers insist he is innocent and say they have video footage proving the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown. The Nuuk court has refused to view the video.


06:42PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24

In September, Watson's lawyers contacted the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, claiming that he could be "subjected to inhumane treatment" in Japanese prisons.

In a rare public comment on the case, Japan's Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya recently said the extradition request was "an issue of law enforcement at sea rather than a whaling issue".

Watson hopes to be freed to return to France, where he had been living since July 2023 and where his two young children go to school.

He requested French citizenship last month.

Watson's legal woes have attracted support from members of the public and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only three countries that still allow commercial whaling.

(AFP)

Fifth Greenland hearing for anti-whaling activist Watson

By AFP
November 13, 2024

Camille BAS-WOHLERT

A Greenland court will decide Wednesday whether to further extend US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson’s time in custody pending a decision on his extradition to Japan, where he is wanted over an altercation with whalers.

“The public prosecutor has requested an extension of the custody period,” the prosecutor in charge of the case, Mariam Khalil, told AFP in an email.

Wednesday’s hearing will be Watson’s fifth since his arrest in July in Nuuk, capital of the Danish autonomous territory.

The 73-year-old activist was detained on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010 and injuring a whaler.

Watson, who featured in the reality TV series “Whale Wars”, founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

He was arrested on July 21 when his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, docked to refuel in Nuuk on its way to “intercept” a new Japanese whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.

Watson’s lawyers said they expected the court to keep him in custody.

“We don’t expect the Greenland court to change direction,” said one of Watson’s lawyers, Julie Stage.

She and the defence team have appealed the Nuuk court’s previous rulings to Denmark’s supreme court.

“The more time that passes, the greater the sense of injustice,” said Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, who has travelled to Nuuk for each of Watson’s hearings.

“In 10 days, it will be four months since he was jailed, which corresponds to the maximum sentence he would have been handed if he had been convicted,” she said.

– Danish decision pending –

The Danish justice ministry has not said when it will announce its decision on the extradition request.

It recently received two reports it had been waiting for — from the Greenland police and the Danish prosecutor general — before making a decision.

“The ministry of justice is reviewing the extradition request and the two statements, and the ministry will, on that basis, make a decision in the case,” it said in a statement to AFP.

If Denmark refuses his extradition, “there would no longer be any reason for detention and (Paul Watson) would be released as soon as possible after this decision was brought to the attention of the Greenland police,” Khalil, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told AFP.

If Denmark were to agree to Japan’s extradition request, Watson’s lawyers would lodge an appeal.

Tokyo accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers’ activities during a Sea Shepherd clash with the Shonan Maru 2 vessel on February 11, 2010.

Watson’s lawyers insist he is innocent and say they have video footage proving the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown. The Nuuk court has refused to view the video.

In September, Watson’s lawyers contacted the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, claiming that he could be “subjected to inhumane treatment” in Japanese prisons.

The defence team has argued that the crime of which Japan accuses him does not even carry a jail sentence in Greenland, a point on which the prosecution disagrees.

In a rare public comment on the case, Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya recently said the extradition request was “an issue of law enforcement at sea rather than a whaling issue”.

Watson hopes to be freed to return to France, where he had been living since July 2023 and where his two young children go to school.

He requested French citizenship last month.

Watson’s legal woes have attracted support from members of the public and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only three countries that still allow commercial whaling.

ISLAMOPHOBIC ZIONIST DEMS

No Thanks to These 52 Dems, House Defeats Bill Enabling Trump Assault on Nonprofits

"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) arrives for a House hearing on September 20, 2023.
(Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS  


Legislation that would have handed President-elect Donald Trump sweeping power to investigate and shutter news outlets, government watchdogs, humanitarian organizations, and other nonprofits was defeated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a coalition of progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers mobilized against it, warning of the bill's dire implications for the right to dissent.

But 52 Democratic lawmakers—including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)—apparently did not share the grave concerns expressed by the ACLU and other leading rights groups, opting to vote alongside 204 Republicans in favor of the bill.

One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined 144 Democrats in voting no.

The measure ultimately fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve legislation under the fast-track procedure used by the bill's supporters, but progressives wasted no time spotlighting the Democrats who supported the measure.

"If you're looking for a handy list of Democrats who have no fucking clue what is about to hit and need their spines stiffened ASAP, this is a good place to start," wrote Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the advocacy group Indivisible.


Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who vocally opposed the legislation, wrote that "these 52 Democrats voted to give Trump the power to shut down any nonprofit he wants."


"The NAACP, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, no organization would be safe," Tlaib added. "Shameful."





If passed, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act would grant the Treasury Department—soon to be under the control of a Trump nominee—the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by deeming them supporters of terrorism.

The bill could be revived in the next Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control.

Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, toldThe Intercept late Tuesday that "we will continue our sustained opposition."

It is already illegal under U.S. law to provide material backing for terrorism, and the executive branch has significant authority to target groups it considers terrorist-supporting.

"This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."


The ACLU noted ahead of Tuesday's vote that while the bill contains "a 90-day 'cure' period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process."


"The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations," the group said. "This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as 'support,' making it virtually impossible to clear its name."

Opponents of the bill warned that Palestinian rights organizations would be uniquely imperiled if it passed.

"This bill dangerously weaponizes the Treasury against nonprofit organizations and houses of worship—Christian, Jewish, or Muslim—that dare to support Palestinian and Lebanese human rights or criticize Israel's genocidal actions," said Robert McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"Allowing such sweeping, unchecked power would set a chilling precedent, enabling the government to selectively target and suppress voices of dissent under the guise of national security," McCaw added. "This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."

Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), a Palestinian American, echoed that sentiment following Tuesday's vote and condemned the legislation's 52 Democratic supporters.

"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," Romman wrote on social media. "This is no longer business as usual. To agree to give him this kind of power is beyond egregious."

Cori Bush Calls On Biden to Protect Reproductive Rights With ERA

"President Biden has two months," said the congresswoman.


Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) speaks to reporters on October 22, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Nov 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

With just over two months to go until U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to take all the action he can to protect reproductive rights from Republican leader who has bragged about his role in ensuring Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Biden "must immediately direct the archivist of the United States to certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment which can protect access to abortion care and contraception," said the Missouri Democrat, who co-chairs the Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Bush's call comes more than a year after the congresswoman and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced the ERA Now Resolution, urging Colleen Shogan, the archivist of the United States, to certify state ratifications of the amendment and publish it in the Federal Register, which would formally cement it as part of the U.S. Constitution.

First introduced 101 years ago, the ERA would guarantee legal equality for women and men in the U.S. It could push judges to overturn anti-abortion rights laws on the basis that they violate a constitutional right to gender equality. In Utah, a state-level ERA has successfully blocked an abortion ban.

Since first being proposed, the ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states for ratification. Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it in 2020, meeting the threshold for it to become law.

"Today the ERA has met all the constitutional requirements to become the 28th Amendment—all that's standing in the way is some paperwork," said Bush in July on the anniversary of the ERA's introduction. "As Republicans and the Supreme Court's extremist majority continue to attack access to abortion care, contraception, and LGBTQ+ rights, the ERA is needed now more than ever to protect our communities. I'm urging the archivist to fulfill her ministerial duty by certifying and publishing the Equal Rights Amendment and affirming it as the 28th Amendment."



The overturning of Roe in 2022 paved the way for at least 21 states to ban or restrict abortion care. Republicans in Congress have proposed a nationwide 15-week abortion ban. Trump has claimed he would not sign a national ban but Vice President-elect JD Vance has expressed support for one.

"There is always the possibility of a national ban," Brittany Fonteno, president of the National Abortion Federation, toldThe Cut on Wednesday.


In her July statement, Bush said that "one hundred and one years of advocacy have brought us to this moment, and we refuse to wait a minute longer to cement constitutional gender equality as the law of the land in St. Louis, Missouri, and across the nation."

As Trump Forfeits US Climate Leadership, We the People Still Have a Role to Play

Many of us can join in a genuinely global citizens’ fight for rapid action.

Tony Chang (L) and Sal Miranda install no-cost solar panels on the rooftop of a low-income household on October 19, 2023 in Pomona, California.
(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Bill Mckibben
Nov 13, 2024

The Crucial Years

Those of us of a certain age grew up believing that America was the central nation on this planet—because, in the decades after World War II, it clearly was. We also believed that the course of history would move others in our direction, and that what did or didn’t happen in Washington would determine what did or didn’t happen on planet Earth. We believed, I think, that America had hit on the formula for political and economic success, that somehow our constitution had marked us out for leadership.

Most of those beliefs seem a little silly now. Clearly our political architecture—our Electoral College, our filibusters, and so on—has some deep flaws. Clearly we are not magically resistant to authoritarianism—indeed we’ve now embraced a flavor of it. And clearly America is not going to play the commanding role in helping solve the climate crisis, the greatest dilemma humans have ever encountered. For the next few years the best we can hope is that Washington won’t manage to wreck the efforts of others—and that some parts of this big nation will demonstrate what’s still possible. And that many of us can join in a genuinely global citizens’ fight for rapid action.

That Donald Trump lost in 2020 was, it turns out, of great importance: it gave the U.S. four years to help break renewable energy out of its “alternative energy” niche.

This all seems quite clear as the world’s nations gather these next two weeks in Baku, the oil-soaked capital of Azerbaijan, for 2024’s edition of the global climate talks. America is represented by John Podesta, the stalwart representative of the Democratic political structure that came crashing down on election day. (I mean, he was chief of staff to Bill Clinton). Podesta put on a brave face at a press conference as the talks began:
“Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” he said. “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country. This fight is bigger, still, because we are all living through a year defined by the climate crisis in every country of the world.”


More specifically, he promised that the U.S. would not “revert back to the energy system of the 1950s. No way.”

Which is true—but we also, clearly, won’t be leading the charge into this century’s clean energy transition. As the leading climate scientist Michael Mann put it in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the day after the election, “the United States is now poised to become an authoritarian state ruled by plutocrats and fossil fuel interests. It is now, in short, a petrostate.” (Not unlike the petrostate of Azerbaijan, whose lead climate negotiator was discovered last week to be using his role as host of the climate talks to negotiate new fossil fuel deals).

But—and here’s the interesting and good news—this fight for oil and gas and coal will be a rearguard action. That Donald Trump lost in 2020 was, it turns out, of great importance: it gave the U.S. four years to help break renewable energy out of its “alternative energy” niche. In those years the price of solar power and wind power dropped below the price of energy from coal and gas and oil, and as a result everything has begun to change.

If you want a fact to cheer you up—and I sure do—here’s one. It took humanity 68 years from the invention of the solar cell in 1954 to reach one terawatt of installed solar capacity. We passed that mark in 2022—and then we installed the second terawatt in two years since. To meet the goals set by climate scientists we need to roughly double the pace of solar installation again through the end of the decade: so, a terrawatt a year. Is that doable? We currently have the factory capacity to produce 1.1 terrawatts a year worth of panels. It’s a matter of finance and execution.

Most of that factory capacity, of course, is in China, and it is China that will now unambiguously be in the lead. There will be other players (here’s a good account of how India is trying to build its solar capacity) but the action shifts pretty powerfully from Washington to Beijing, which has bet big on this energy transition. One imagines that its diplomats are now the unrivaled key players in climate talks like the one in Baku, though the phalanx of other big, growing nations (Brazil, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and so on) will play important roles. Crucially, most of these are fossil fuel importers, and have every reason to move speedily in the direction of sun and wind; it’s possible that in terms of international negotiations things may get somewhat easier without the drag of the U.S. on the proceedings. (Which is why, comically, Exxon is asking the Trump administration to stay in the Paris talks).

And what of the U.S.?

Well, it’s a big country, and much of it is still in rational hands. As the World Resources Institute put it
Both Republican-led and Democratic-led states are seeing the benefits of wind, solar, and battery manufacturing and deployment thanks to the billions of dollars of investments unleashed by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Governors and representatives in Congress on both sides of the aisle have come to recognize that clean energy is a huge moneymaker and a job creator. President Trump will face a bipartisan wall of opposition if he attempts to rip away clean energy incentives now.


That fight over the fate of the IRA will be a huge battle, but perhaps more important globally is the fact that America—because of those decades after WWII—has most of the world’s capital. It rests, above all, in pension funds, and it could be the thing that finances that terrawatt-a-year build out. I imagine the Trump administration will cut back sharply on American contributions to the International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions—and that may mean that as other nations gain more influence, those institutions will have more ability to use their relatively small amounts of money to “de-risk” those crucial investments. That could be critically important in helping, say, retired schoolteachers in Seattle build the solar farms that Senegal requires and that will help us all.

And America remains the world center of zeitgeist. Which means that the fact that California and Texas (the twin capitals of American dynamism, and the fifth and eight largest economies on earth) are rapidly moving toward clean energy will help. Maybe even New York—10th largest economy on earth—might show some spunk; Gov. Kathy Hochul is apparently trying to revive the congestion-pricing scheme for Manhattan that she killed eight months ago. The genie will keep trying to climb out of the bottle, even as MAGA does it best to drag it back by its heels.

And it means that there’s lots of work for the rest of us, as we try to build a global movement behind speeding up this energy transition. That will be the chief work of this newsletter in the months and years ahead. There’s real global momentum, and we can, and will, figure out ways to add to it.

America, after all, is where the solar cell was born. It was mostly in America’s labs that we came to understand the science of climate change. And, crucially, it was America that really gave birth to the environmental movement. We—American people, if not our national government—still have a key role to play.

US Labor Board Bans Captive Audience Meetings to Ensure 'Truly Free' Worker Choice

"Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights," said the chair of the National Labor Relations Board.


Workers attend an office meeting in this stock photo.
(Photo: Luis Alvarez/DigitalVision via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Nov 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

In a decision that advocates say will likely be reversed during the second administration of Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ruled that employers cannot force workers to attend anti-union speeches.

The NLRB's 3-1 decision in Amazon.com Services, LLCmeans that workers will no longer have to take part in so-called "captive audience meetings," which employers often use as a union-busting tool and a form of coercion. The agency explained that such meetings violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act "because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees."

"However, the board made clear that an employer may lawfully hold meetings with workers to express its views on unionization so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept," the NLRB added.

NLRB Chairperson Lauren McFerran, a Democrat, said in a statement that "ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National Labor Relations Act."

"Captive audience meetings—which give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or discharge—undermine this important goal," McFerran added. "Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights under the act, while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner."

In April 2022, the NLRB's general counsel office issued a memo asserting that captive audience meetings are illegal. At least 11 states have banned such meetings. Other states are in various stages of considering or enacting bans or restrictions on them.

Workers' rights advocates hailed Wednesday's decision, although labor journalist Hamilton Nolan quipped on social media that employees should "enjoy this brief shining period before the Trump NLRB reverses this decision."

However, More Perfect Union producer Jordan Zakarin argued that Democrats can protect this "monumental win for labor" for "the next few years" if "they finally confirm" President Joe Biden's nomination of Joshua Ditelberg—a Republican lawyer who has represented companies including Amazon, Airbnb, and UnitedHealth—to fill the fifth NLRB seat.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)—a Washington, D.C.-based, pro-union think tank—U.S. employers spend an estimated $433 million per year on union-busting consultants.

"This reality makes it harder for workers to fight for their collective bargaining rights because they do not know the extent of their companies' investments in union-busting, a figure that could empower them at the negotiating table when employers claim they can't afford to increase pay and benefits," EPI said last year.