'Troublemakers' Block Amazon HQ Over Plan to Link Data Centers With Gas Pipeline


"Amazon is breaking its Climate Pledge by powering new data centers with fracked gas," said one member of the new activist group. "So we came to demand that they honor the pledge."


Members of the Troublemakers activist group block an entrance to Amazon's headquarters in Seattle on March 27, 2024.
(Photo: The Troublemakers)

BRETT WILKINS
Mar 27, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

A recently formed group of climate activists on Wednesday shut down entrances to Amazon's downtown Seattle headquarters to protest the tech titan's plans to link some of its data centers with an upgraded fracked gas pipeline.

Members of the Troublemakers—who describe themselves as "an ever-growing community of people who are committed to taking action for life on Earth"—blockaded the doors to the Day 1 Building on 7th Ave. in opposition to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) plan to connect three data centers near Boardman, Oregon to TC Energy's Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) XPress Project.

As Common Dreamsreported last October, GTN XPress, which has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, would upgrade compressor stations in Kootenai County, Idaho; Sherman County, Oregon; and Walla Walla County, Washington. TC Energy plans to boost the 60-year-old pipeline's capacity by 150 million cubic feet of fracked gas by increasing the conduit's pressure.


"The decision to use fracked gas from the GTN XPress adds to Amazon's carbon emissions problems," the Troublemakers said in a statement. "Amazon's 2022 carbon emissions totaled 71.27 million metric tons, marking an 18% rise from 2020 and a 40% surge since 2019, the year Amazon unveiled its Climate Pledge. This alarming trend is in stark contrast to the global imperative to halve emissions by 2030."

The group wrote in a March 19 letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy:
Amazon prides itself on innovation. Using fossil fuel is not innovation... It is relying on a dying technology that is killing the planet. Utilizing GTN XPress would increase Amazon's carbon footprint and contribute greatly to climate change... We urge you to publicly commit to financing solar or wind projects to provide clean energy for Amazon's operations, and reject the GTN XPress.

The Troublemakers are calling on Amazon to:Publicly renounce the plan to connect to GTN XPress;
Commit to not powering AWS data centers with fossil fuels; and
Commit to using 100% renewable energy in each operation while funding wind and solar generation, storage, and distribution.

"We see Amazon's greenwashing every time we pass by Climate Pledge Arena," said Troublemaker Valerie Costa, who was referring to the home of the Seattle Kraken and Seattle Storm professional sports franchises. "Until Amazon drops its plan to buy fracked gas from GTN XPress, we'll keep showing up. Every fossil fuel project in the [Pacific Northwest] will be met with fierce resistance."

Leonard Sklar, a scientist and Troublemaker, asserted that "Amazon is breaking its Climate Pledge by powering new data centers with fracked gas. So we came to demand that they honor the pledge."

"We know they have the power to be 100% renewable energy," he added, "and that's what this moment requires."

'Enough Is Enough': Ireland Joins ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel

"What  we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale," said one top Irish official.


Palestinian and South African flags are seen at a January 13, 2024 protest for Gaza in Dublin, Ireland.
(Photo: Stringer/Andalou via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS
Mar 27, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Citing Israel's "blatant" human rights violations in Gaza, Ireland's second-highest-ranking official said Wednesday that the country will join the South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Irish Tánaiste Micheál Martin—the equivalent of a deputy prime minister in other parliamentary nations—said that Ireland decided to intervene in the case after analyzing the "legal and policy issues" pertaining to the case under review by the United Nations' top court.

"It is for the court to determine whether genocide is being committed," Martin—who also serves as Ireland's foreign and defense minister—said in a statement. "But I want to be clear in reiterating what I have said many times in the last few months; what we saw on October 7 in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale."

Martin continued:
The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population.

The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough. The U.N. Security Council has demanded an immediate cease-fire, the unconditional release of hostages, and the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale. The European Council has echoed this call.

South Africa's case—which is supported by over 30 countries, the Arab League, African Union, and others—incisively details Israel's conduct in the war, including the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children; the wounding of tens of thousands more; the forcible displacement of 90% of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million people; and the inflicting of conditions leading to widespread starvation and disease. The filing also cited numerous genocidal statements by Israeli officials.

On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government and military to prevent genocidal acts. Palestinian and international human rights defenders say Israel has ignored the order.

A draft report released this week by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.

"The situation could not be more stark; half the population of Gaza face imminent famine and 100% of the population face acute food insecurity," said Martin. "As the U.N. secretary-general said as he inspected long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to enter Gaza during his visit to Rafah at the weekend: 'It is time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: surge or starvation.' I echo his words today."

In a St. Partick's Day White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—a staunch supporter of Israel—Irish Toaiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, who announced earlier this month that he would soon step down, said that "the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that's unfolding before our eyes in Gaza."

"And when I travel the world, leaders often ask me why the Irish have such empathy for the Palestinian people," he added. "And the answer is simple: We see our history in their eyes—a story of displacement, of dispossession and national identity questioned and denied, forced emigration, discrimination, and now hunger."

'Horrifying' Footage Shows IDF Killing Two Gazans, Burying Their Bodies With a Bulldozer

"When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment," said one analyst.

A screengrab from video footage broadcast by Al Jazeera shows Israeli forces burying the bodies of two Palestinians with a bulldozer.
(Photo: Al Jazeera)

JAKE JOHNSON
Mar 28, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric.

The footage shows one of the men walking in the direction of an Israeli military vehicle with both hands raised. Despite the absence of any clear evidence that the man posed a threat, Israeli forces shot him from a short distance away. Another man is seen on the ground not far behind.

Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum said the killings took place near where World Central Kitchen recently dropped off food aid.

The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.

"Probably certain words should be invented for this sort of thing," Marwan Bishara, AI Jazeera's chief political analyst, said in response to the footage. "I am not sure we have the sufficient vocabulary to describe this sort of twilight zone of Israel's fantasy of being the world's most moral army."

"It's a fantasy that meets the reality of a genocide," Bishara added. "An attempt to kill or destroy much of Palestine and Palestinians and hide the evidence and lie about it. When the Israeli army can do these things and get away with it, it can only then do more of it knowing that it will not meet any punishment."

Watch:

Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides "vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities" and spotlights the "unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis."

"The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior," said Falk. "It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment."

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, whose board Falk chairs, has documented numerous examples of Israeli soldiers conducting close-range field executions in Gaza since October 7, when Israel launched its latest assault following a Hamas-led attack.

In less than six months, Israeli forces have killed more than 32,500 people in Gaza and sparked one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history.

The video footage emerged just days after the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The U.S., Israel's leading arms supplier, abstained from the vote and falsely claimed the measure was "nonbinding."

The Israeli government, for its part, immediately signaled that it would disregard the resolution, just as it has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice.

Sophie McNeill, a human rights campaigner, called the footage released Wednesday "horrifying" and demanded that the International Criminal Court "urgently prioritize investigating and charging all those carrying out war crimes in Gaza."

"There just so happened to be a camera here in this moment. What are we not seeing?" McNeill asked. "This impunity must end."

Draft UN Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide

"Israel's genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure."


The bodies of victims of the October 31, 2023 Israeli bombing of the

 Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip are lined up outside the Indonesian 

Hospital in Gaza City.
(Photo: Fadi Alwhidi/Anadolu via Getty Images)



BRETT WILKINS
Mar 25, 2024
COMMON DREAMS'

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.

The advance unedited version of the report—entitled Anatomy of a Genocide—concludes that Israel's far-right government and military "have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people."

"The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group," the draft report states, enumerating Israeli actions that violate Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: "Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to group members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

"Israel has de facto treated an entire protected group and its life-sustaining infrastructure as 'terrorist' or 'terrorist-supporting,' thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable," the paper continues. "In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition. This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroying the fabric of life in Gaza, and causing irreparable harm to its entire population."




Israel rejected the report as "an obscene inversion of reality."

According to Palestinian and international humanitarian officials, Israel's 171-day Gaza onslaught has killed at least 32,333 Palestinians, most of them women and children, while wounding nearly 75,000 others and displacing around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people. Thousands more Palestinians are missing and believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings. Disease and deadly starvation caused and exacerbated by Israel's siege and blockade of Gaza are spreading rapidly.

"Israel's genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler-colonial process of erasure," the draft report asserts. "For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group—demographically, culturally, economically, and politically—seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources."

Referring to the flight and ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, the paper contends that "the ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all. This is an imperative owed to the victims of this highly preventable tragedy, and to future generations in that land."

"The ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all."

The draft report urges U.N. member states to "enforce the prohibition of genocide in accordance with their... obligations" under international law. In January, the U.N.'s International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel was "plausibly" perpetrating genocide in Gaza and ordered the country's government to "take all measures within its power" to prevent genocidal acts. Human rights defenders say Israel has ignored the order.

"Israel and those states that have been complicit in what can be reasonably concluded to constitute genocide must be held accountable and deliver reparations commensurate with the destruction, death, and harm inflicted on the Palestinian people," the publication argues.

The draft report recommends measures including:Immediate implementation of an arms embargo on Israel, as it appears to have failed to comply with the binding measures ordered by the ICJ;

Immediate referral of the situation in Palestine to the International Criminal Court in support of its ongoing investigation;

Ensuring that Israel, as well as states who have been complicit in the Gaza genocide, acknowledge the colossal harm done, commit to nonrepetition, with measures for prevention and full reparations, including the full cost of the reconstruction of Gaza;
Deploying an international protective presence to constrain the violence routinely used against Palestinians in the occupied territories; and
Ensuring that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is properly funded to enable it to meet the increased needs of Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel on Monday informed the U.N. that it will no longer allow UNRWA convoys carrying food aid into northern Gaza, even as the Palestinians are starving to death, a move that one humanitarian campaigner called a "death sentence."

State Department Spokesman Urged to Resign Over 'Despicable' Attack on UN Expert


One critic described Matthew Miller's attack on United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese as a "Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."


U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller speaks to reporters during a press briefing on March 25, 2024.
(Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON
Mar 28, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

U.S. State Department Matthew Miller faced calls to resign Thursday after he accused a United Nations special rapporteur of engaging in antisemitism—an attack that came days after the human rights expert presented a report concluding that Israel's assault on Gaza has met the threshold of genocide.

Asked about the report during a press briefing on Wednesday, Miller said the U.S. has "for a longstanding period of time opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive."

"And when it comes to the individual who holds that position, I can't help but note a history of antisemitic comments that she has made that have been reported," Miller added, pointing to comments that Francesca Albanese—the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories—"made in December that appeared to justify the attacks of October 7."



It's not entirely clear which comments Miller was referencing.

In an interview with Jewish News Syndicate in December, Albanese was asked whether Palestinian militants' killing of Israeli soldiers on October 7 was a violation of international law. Albanese, an Italian attorney and academic, said that "killing a soldier is a tragedy under international law, but when there is an armed conflict, like in this case, killing a soldier is not illegal."

But Albanese stressed in the interview that the Hamas-led attacks on Israeli civilians—including the taking of hostages—were "not legitimate resistance."

"These are crimes and cannot be justified," she added.

Miller's attack on Albanese Wednesday—which echoed earlier attacks on the special rapporteur by U.S. officials and lawmakers—sparked immediate backlash and calls for his resignation.

"Matthew Miller should be forced to resign for trying to endanger the life of a U.N. official with falsehoods," Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, said in a statement. Albanese said earlier this week that she has faced threats following the publication of her report accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.


Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, called the State Department spokesman's remarks a "truly despicable, Trumpian smearing of a principled human rights expert."

"Note the lack of substantive rebuttals of her careful analysis, and the resort to ad hominem attacks," Talbot wrote on social media. "Not the sign of a confident administration."

"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians."

The Israeli government has similarly attempted to cast Albanese as an antisemite, drawing pushback from human rights organizations and academics who say the claim is a baseless attempt to discredit her work.

"Israel has a long history of weaponizing false charges of antisemitism to attack and undermine those fighting for human rights for Palestinians—and U.N. officials and experts have been among the most consistent victims of those attacks," Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Common Dreams.

"Almost 15 years ago Richard Falk," Bennis added, "an internationally respected Princeton professor of international law who had just been appointed special rapporteur, was not only denied access to the occupied Palestinian territory to carry out the terms of his U.N. mandate, but was also arrested and jailed by Israeli authorities."

"Since then every special rapporteur has been similarly excluded, their mandate and their work undermined, and their commitment to international law and human rights attacked as antisemitic," she said. "Francesca Albanese has been among the bravest of these SRs, maintaining her commitment to calling out all violations of international law relevant to her mandate—including when Israel has violated international covenants against apartheid and now, against genocide."

Albanese's 25-page report, which she delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday, argues that "the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group."

"There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups' members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," the report states. "Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials."

Amnesty International praised the report as "a crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action."

The Biden State Department has publicly rejected genocide accusations against Israel as "meritless" and said it has not found Israel's military to be in violation of international law during its monthslong war on Gaza—an assessment that conflicts with the findings of leading human rights organizations and U.N. experts.

Intel Brags of $152 Billion in Stock Buybacks Over Last 35 Years. So Why Does It Need an $8 Billion Subsidy?


What’s to stop the chip-making giant from shoveling taxpayer grants into more stock buybacks?

An illustration of INTEL and the US dollar is being displayed in Suqian City, Jiangsu Province, China, on February 17, 2024. The Biden administration is currently negotiating to provide more than $10 billion in subsidies to Intel Corp., which may include loans and direct grants.
(Photo Illustration by Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

LES LEOPOLD
Mar 27, 2024

Common Dreams

Intel, the largest chip maker in America, with 2023 revenues of $54 billion, has just been awarded an $8.5 billion grant from the federal CHIPS and Science Act, plus $11 billion in favorable loans.

In addition to badly needed microchips, Intel produces totally useless stock buybacks. On its website the company proudly proclaims to have spent $152 billion on stock buybacks since 1990. That’s not a typo: $152,000,000,000. Which is why I call it "Stock Buybacks Я Us."

Intel took $152 billion of its revenues, some portion of which could have been used for R&D and building new microchip facilities in the U.S. as well as paying workers more, and instead funneled it to its largest Wall Street stockholders and corporate executives, enriching the top fraction of the top one percent.

A company repurchasing its own shares sees earnings per share rise because there are fewer shares in circulation. Share prices rise, though nothing new is made, and the largest stockholders, including top Intel executives, cash out with eye-popping profits. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger hauled in $179 million in 2021, most of it coming from stock-related compensation.

How can you tell if such a large company is using CHIPS money or other money to conduct its buybacks? You can’t.

Stock buybacks are a form of stock manipulation, which is why they were outlawed by the Securities and Exchange Commission after the Great Depression, up until deregulation in 1982, that limited buybacks to two percent of profits. Now it’s all the buybacks your corporation can eat, with nearly 70 percent of all corporate profits going to this form of stock manipulation.

So, why are we giving Intel another $8 billion?

National security is at risk, we are told. Semi-conductors are far too important to our defense and to our economy to be produced overseas, especially in or anywhere near China, our communist enemy de jure. If we don’t bribe Intel to build here, the argument goes, they just might go elsewhere. They are in business to produce profits (and stock buybacks) not national security.

But the biggest selling point, as always, from politicians of both parties, is Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! The White House calculates that Intel will generate 20,000 temporary construction jobs and 10,000 more permanent manufacturing jobs because of this grant.

But what’s to stop Intel from shoveling taxpayer grants into more stock buybacks?

Not much. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) writes:
“While the legislation specifically prohibits the use of CHIPS funds for stock buybacks and dividend payments, these restrictions do not explicitly prohibit award recipients from using CHIPS funds to free up their own funds, which they can then use for those purposes.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is already worried that BAE Systems, a much smaller CHIPS recipient, but also a buyback recidivist, has not said it would refrain from stock buybacks for the duration of its CHIPS money.

Intel hasn’t made that pledge either. In fact, Intel’s website states it still has authorization to conduct another $7.24 billion in stock buybacks.

How can you tell if such a large company is using CHIPS money or other money to conduct its buybacks? You can’t.

Doesn’t the CHIPS Act prohibit Intel from conducting mass layoffs?

Not a chance.

Intel could very well increase jobs in some locations while cutting jobs in other locations. And there is evidence that they are doing that right now.

As the CHIPS Act was moving through Congress in 2022, strongly lobbied for by CEO Gelsinger, Intel laid off approximately 2,000 employees in California. Now, the company says, it “is working to accelerate its strategy while reducing costs through multiple initiatives, including some business and function-specific workforce reductions in areas across the company."

What that word salad means is that by the time Intel creates 10,000 new manufacturing jobs, it will have laid off more workers than that. And they know there’s nothing the government will do about it.

Why are most politicians so gutless about preventing mass layoffs?

That’s a longer story that I cover in Wall Street’s War on Workers. Simply put, our political system refuses to acknowledge that mass layoffs are the ruination of working people.

By the time Intel creates 10,000 new manufacturing jobs, it will have laid off more workers than that. And they know there’s nothing the government will do about it.

More than 30 million working people have suffered through mass layoffs since 1996. Last year there were more than 260,000 jobs lost in the highly prosperous tech sector, with another 50,000 so far this year. In January 2024, there were 82,000 layoffs across the economy. Many of those workers will suffer greatly both from financial loss and deterioration of their health. (For those worried about the catastrophic impact of artificial intelligence, the Challenger Report claims AI killed only 381 jobs in January 2024.)

It should be a no-brainer for the government to make a simple regulation:
If you are supping at the taxpayer trough, you can’t conduct compulsory layoffs of taxpayers. All your layoffs must be voluntary. That is, you have to buy workers out. No forced layoffs!

Most elected leaders believe that regulating corporations about how they can and can’t destroy jobs is blasphemy, an attack on sacred capitalist freedoms, something that only the Communists would do! In addition to the ideological blowback, the political establishment actually buys the corporate line that halting mass layoffs would make corporations uncompetitive, which is total nonsense.

Here’s a telling piece of evidence.

In 2021, Siemens Energy, the German-based company with 90,000 employees globally, decided to stop making equipment used in oil extraction and fracking. In Germany, 3,000 workers were to lose their jobs, and another 1,700 in the U.S.

In Germany, companies must live within a legislated system of codetermination, meaning that half the seats on a company’s board of directors are held by worker representatives, and labor-management committees run the day-to-day operations of each facility. (As an aside, this system was urged upon German businesses by the U.S. after WWII, because we believed unionized workers were less likely than their bosses to cozy up to fascists.)

The political establishment actually buys the corporate line that halting mass layoffs would make corporations uncompetitive, which is total nonsense.

In Germany, the workers used their power to persuade Siemens management to agree to no forced layoffs. On top of that, Siemens agreed not to shut down six facilities and instead put other production lines in them.

In the United States? All 1,700 workers lost their jobs AND the president of Siemens USA was invited to the infrastructure bill signing ceremony. In honor of the legislation she had the gall to say, “This is a historic moment in America – one that sets the stage for decarbonizing the economy, boosting U.S. manufacturing, creating jobs, and increasing equity.”

Moral of the story: In addition to fabricating hypocritical public statements, global corporations have incredible flexibility and resources to modify production, employment, wages, and working conditions. “No forced layoffs” would not put Siemens or Intel or any other global corporation out of business. Instead, there might be a microscopic dip in stock buybacks!

Every single company that is getting a CHIPS grant has the capacity to modify its operations to avoid forced layoffs, just as Siemens has done in Germany. In fact, every company that gets a federal contract should agree to do the same, as well as forswearing stock buybacks.

There’s only one way out of this non-stop shakedown: expand labor unions and build a powerful mass movement.

The second moral of the story: Wall Street and corporate America are so accustomed to getting their way that they will only pursue national goals when they are bribed. No matter how rich, no matter how large their stock buyback scams, they want our tax dollars with no strings attached. And very few politicians have the nerve to resist.

There’s only one way out of this non-stop shakedown: expand labor unions and build a powerful mass movement. Until we, the people, rise up and demand it, no one will derail the Wall Street gravy train that runs from our pockets to theirs via stock buybacks and pink slips.

And we wonder why so many Americans think the system is rigged and that democracy isn’t working for us.

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


LES LEOPOLD is the executive director of the Labor Institute and author of the new book, “Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It." (2024). Read more of his work on his substack here.
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Cori Bush Demands Repeal of 'Zombie Statute' Weaponized by Anti-Abortion Zealots

"The Comstock Act must be repealed," said the Missouri Democrat


Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on March 12, 2024.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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JAKE JOHNSON
Mar 27, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Rep. Cori Bush on Tuesday called for the repeal of a long-obsolete law that anti-abortion activists, lawmakers, and judges have worked to revive as part of their nationwide assault on reproductive rights.

"The Comstock Act must be repealed," Bush (D-Mo.) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors aiming to curtail access to mifepristone—a medication used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions.

"Enacted in 1873, it is a zombie statute, a dead law that the far-right is trying to reanimate," Bush warned. "The anti-abortion movement wants to weaponize the Comstock Act as a quick route to a nationwide medication abortion ban. Not on our watch."

Bush's office said she was the first member of Congress to demand the law's repeal since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the summer of 2022.

The Comstock Act, which hasn't been applied in a century and was repeatedly narrowed following its enactment, prohibits the mailing of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that "may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion." Legal experts have described the dormant law as the "most significant national threat to reproductive rights."

Given that "virtually everything used for an abortion—from abortion pills, to the instruments for abortion procedures, to clinic supplies—gets mailed to providers in some form," a trio of experts wrote earlier this year, the anti-abortion movement's "interpretation of the Comstock Act could mean a nationwide ban on all abortions, even in states where it remains legal."

"Enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."

The Biden Justice Department has argued that the Comstock Act "does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully."

But the law has nevertheless been cited with growing frequency by far-right advocacy groups and judges following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

In 2023, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, invoked the Comstock Act in a decision suspending the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of mifepristone. In 2021, the FDA said it would allow patients to receive abortion medication by mail—which Kacsmaryk claimed the Comstock Act "plainly forecloses."

That case, which has massive implications for abortion rights nationwide, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justices Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas "repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act," The Washington Postreported, "pressing lawyers about whether the 1873 federal law should apply to abortion drugs sent through the mail today."

The justices' comments raised concerns that they could try to resurrect the Comstock Act in their coming ruling in the mifepristone case.


"While the Biden administration has issued guidance saying that the federal government will not enforce the laws," the Post noted, "a future administration seeking to restrict abortion could choose to do so."


Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has expressed support for a national abortion ban.

Jezebel's Susan Rinkunas wrote Tuesday that "enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."

"We definitively have one lawmaker on board," Rinkunas added, referring to Bush. "Who's next?"

Alabama Mercedes-Benz Workers Accuse Company of Union-Busting in NLRB Complaint

"It's just plain retaliation from Mercedes, but I'm not going to be intimidated," said one worker.


An employee uses a robotic arm to help lift internal parts for a Mercedes-Benz C-Class at the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International factory in Vance, Alabama on June 8, 2017.
(Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY
Mar 26, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

A month after the United Auto Workers announced that a majority of workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama had signed union cards, employees struck a defiant tone Tuesday as they filed official complaints of union-busting by the company with the National Labor Relations Board.

Workers detailed the illegal disciplinary measures management has taken against them for taking leave and objecting to anti-union materials that have been shown in captive-audience meetings since most of the plant's 6,000 workers indicated they want to join the UAW.

"Since we started organizing, I put in my [Family and Medical Leave Act] leave with management multiple times and every time they said they lost the paperwork," Lakeisha Carter, who works in the company's battery plant, told the UAW. "It's just plain retaliation from Mercedes, but I'm not going to be intimidated."



The U.S. Department of Labor last month recovered $438,625 in back pay, unpaid bonuses, and damages for two people who had formerly worked at the plant in Vance, finding that management had illegally fired the workers when they requested FMLA-protected leave to care for a family member and recover from a serious health condition.

After winning new contracts for workers at the Big 3 automakers last fall following an historic "stand-up strike," the UAW has launched campaigns at non-unionized plants owned by Mercedes, Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Toyota, convincing more than 10,000 autoworkers so far to sign union cards.

Another battery plant worker, Taylor Snipes, told the UAW that managers at the company were forcing him and his coworkers "to attend meetings and watch anti-union videos that are full of lies."

After he objected, Snipes was called into a meeting and "immediately fired for having his phone on the factory floor," even though he had been given permission to have his phone with him so he could be in touch with his child's daycare center.


"I told management that it was suspicious that I was being called into the office on the same day that I spoke up in anti-union meeting," said Snipes. "My manager said the two had nothing to do with one another, but then proceeded to aggressively interrogate me about why I support having a union."

UAW President Shawn Fain met with Mercedes workers in Alabama on Sunday.



"Unlike previous drives, the workers are in command," said Luis Feliz Leon of Labor Notes. "They are the collective force that will either press on to a union victory or a defeat."

Experts Warn of Toxins in GM Corn Amid US-Mexico Trade Dispute

"The Mexican government is both wise and on solid ground in refusing to allow its people to participate in the experiment that the U.S. government is seeking to impose."

Farmer Arnulfo Melo shows harvested corn from his organic field in Milpa Alta, Mexico, on October 18, 2021, months after the Mexican government banned genetically modified corn for human consumption.
(Photo: Rodrigo Arangua/AFP via Getty Images)


JESSICA CORBETT
Mar 26, 2024
COMMON  DREAMS

Friends of the Earth U.S. on Monday released a brief backing Mexico's ban on genetically modified corn for human consumption, which the green group recently submitted to a dispute settlement panel charged with considering the U.S. government's challenge to the policy.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced plans to phase out the herbicide glyphosate as well as genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered (GE) corn in 2020. Last year he issued an updated decree making clear the ban does not apply to corn imports for livestock feed and industrial use. Still, the Biden administration objected and, after fruitless formal negotiations, requested the panel under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

"The U.S. government has not presented an 'appropriate' risk assessment to the tribunal as called for in the USMCA dispute because such an assessment has never been done in the U.S. or anywhere in the world," said agricultural economist Charles Benbrook, who wrote the brief with Kendra Klein, director of science at Friends of the Earth U.S.

"The U.S. is, in effect, asking Mexico to trust the completeness and accuracy of the initial GE corn safety assessments carried out 15 to 30 years ago by the companies working to bring GE corn events to market."

The group's 13-page brief lays out health concerns related to GM corn and glyphosate, and the shortcomings of U.S. analyses and policies. It also stresses the stakes of the panel's decision, highlighting that "corn is the caloric backbone of the Mexican food supply, accounting, on average, for 50% of the calories and protein in the Mexican diet."

Blasting the Biden administration's case statement to the panel as "seriously deficient," Klein said Monday that "it lacks basic information about the toxins expressed in contemporary GMO corn varieties and their levels. The U.S. submission also ignores dozens of studies linking the insecticidal toxins and glyphosate residues found in GMO corn to adverse impacts on public health."

The brief explains that "since the commercial introduction of GE corn in 1996 and event-specific approvals in the 1990s and 2000s, dramatic changes have occurred in corn production systems. There has been an approximate fourfold increase in the number of toxins and pesticides applied on the average hectare of contemporary GE industrial corn compared to the early 1990s. Unfortunately, this upward trend is bound to continue, and may accelerate."

The U.S. statement's assurances about risks from Bacillus thuringiensis or vegetative insecticidal protein (Bt/VIP) residues "are not based on data and science," the brief warns.

"The U.S. is, in effect, asking Mexico to trust the completeness and accuracy of the initial GE corn safety assessments carried out 15 to 30 years ago by the companies working to bring GE corn events to market," the document says. "The Mexican government is both wise and on solid ground in refusing to allow its people to participate in the experiment that the U.S. government is seeking to impose on Mexico."

"The absence of any systematic monitoring of human exposure levels to Bt/VIP toxins and herbicides from consumption of corn-based foods is regrettable," the brief adds. "It is also unfortunate that the U.S. government rejected the Mexican proposal to jointly design and carry out a modern battery of studies able to overcome gaps in knowledge regarding GE corn impacts."

"The U.S. government's case against Mexico has no more scientific merit than its sham GMO regulatory regime, and should be rejected by the USMCA dispute resolution panel."

Friends of the Earth isn't the only U.S.-based group formally supporting the Mexican government in the USMCA process. The Center for Food Safety sent a 10-page submission by science director Bill Freese, an expert on biotech regulation, to the panel on March 15. His analysis addresses U.S. regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) along with the risks of GM corn and glyphosate.

"GMO regulation in the U.S. was crafted by Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, and is a critical part of our government's promotion of the biotechnology industry," Freese said last week, referring to the company known for the glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup. "The aim is to quell concerns and promote acceptance of GMOs, domestically and abroad, rather than critically evaluate potential toxicity or allergenicity."

His submission notes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "does not require a GE plant developer to do anything prior to marketing its GE crop or food derived from it. Instead, FDA operates what it calls a voluntary consultation program that is designed to enhance consumer confidence and speed GE crops to market."

"When governmental review is optional; and even when it's conducted, starts and ends with the regulated company's safety assurance—what's the point?" Freese asked. "Clearly, it's the PR value of a governmental rubber stamp."

"The Mexican government's prohibition of GM corn for tortillas and other masa corn products is fully justified," he asserted. "The U.S. government's case against Mexico has no more scientific merit than its sham GMO regulatory regime, and should be rejected by the USMCA dispute resolution panel."

In a Common Dreams opinion piece last week, Ernesto Hernández-López, a law professor at Chapman University in California, pointed out that Mexico's recent submission to the panel also "offers scientific proof and lots of it," including "over 150 scientific studies, referred to in peer-review journals, systemic research reviews, and more."

"Mexico incorporates perspectives from toxicology, pediatrics, plant biology, hematology, epidemiology, public health, and data mining, to name a few," he wrote. "This clearly and loudly responds to American persistence. The practical result: American leaders cannot claim there is no science supporting the decree. They may disagree with or dislike the findings, but there is proof."

The Biden administration's effort to quash the Mexican policy notably comes despite the lack of impact on trade. While implementing its ban last year, "Mexico also made its largest corn purchase from the U.S., 15.3 million metric tons," National Geographicreported last month.

Kenneth Smith Ramos, former Mexican chief negotiator for the USMCA, told the outlet that "right now, it may not have a big economic impact because what Mexico is using to produce flour, cornmeal, and tortillas is a very small percentage of their overall imports; but that does not mean the U.S. is not concerned with this being the tip of the iceberg."

'Collapse of Political Ambition': EU Shelves Nature Restoration Law

THANKS TO REVANCHIST LANDLORDS

KULAKS BY ANY OTHER NAME

"To let this go now means we go into European elections saying the European system is not working, we do not protect nature, we do not take climate seriously," said Ireland's environmental minister. "That would be an absolute shame."


Environmental activists protest in Brussels in support of the European Union's Nature Restoration Law on May 31, 2023.
(Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY
Mar 26, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Environmental ministers in the European Union on Monday warned that the bloc's credibility on heading off the global biodiversity and climate emergencies is in peril following the European Council's decision to remove the historic Nature Restoration Law from its agenda after the proposal lost key support.

"We inspired others, yet now we risk arriving empty handed at COP16 [the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference]," Virginijus Sinkevičius, E.U. commissioner for environment, oceans, and fisheries, said in a statement. "Backtracking now is... very difficult for me to accept."

The law, first introduced in 2022 and approved by European Parliament last month, faced one final hurdle to passage with the planned Council vote, but recent protests by farmers over the new nature restoration requirements helped push some previous supporters to reverse their positions on Monday.

The Nature Restoration Law, which supporters said they still intend to try to pass before E.U. elections in June, would require member states to adopt measures to restore at least 30% of habitats by 2030, working up to 90% by 2050. Member states would be required to take action to reverse pollinator populations, restore organic soils in agricultural use, increase development of urban green areas, and take other steps to protect biodiversity.

Since the farmer protests began in France and started spreading to other countries including Spain, Belgium, and Italy, policymakers have offered concessions including delayed implementation of another set of biodiversity rules calling for the agriculture industry to keep 4% of farming land free of crop production to regenerate healthy soil. The European Commission also shelved an anti-pesticide law in February in response to the protests.

As countries announced their new opposition to the Nature Restoration Law in recent days, some ministers suggested the demonstrations contributed to their decision.

Anikó Raisz, Hungary's minister of state for environmental affairs, said the law would "overburden the economy" and cited concerns about the "sensitive situation" in the agriculture sector. Italy also said it was concerned about the biodiversity rules' impact on farmers.

The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) accused far-right Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, who has dismissed European climate policies, of being behind the "unexpected and clearly politically motivated change in Hungary's position."

Hungary's opposition "was left unchallenged by Sweden, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Italy—who continue to either abstain or oppose," and "has now put the [Nature Restoration Law] in jeopardy again, giving Hungary's President Viktor Orbán the green light to further his own agenda and hold E.U. decision-making hostage," said WWF.

Eamon Ryan, Irish minister for the environment, accused other policymakers in the bloc of "buckling" before the farmer protests, which continued Tuesday, ahead of June elections.

"The biggest risk is the collapse of political ambition and will," Ryan said. "To let this go now means we go into European elections saying the European system is not working, we do not protect nature, we do not take climate seriously. That would be an absolute shame."



BirdLife Europe called on the E.U. the continue its efforts to pass the Nature Restoration Law before the session ends this summer.

"The E.U.'s reputation hangs in the balance in this critical year of E.U. elections," said the group. "Failure to make the law a reality also undermines the E.U.'s credibility and leadership on its international commitments to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises."

Sinkevičius was among the leaders who said they planned to continue negotiations on the law, saying he was "optimistic" that "the member states can bring it over the finish line."



"This is definitely not the end of the story," Alain Maron, Belgium's minister for climate change, environment, energy, and participative democracy, told reporters at a press conference Monday. He added that the Belgian presidency of the European Council "will work hard in the next few weeks to find possible ways out of this deadlock, and get the file back on the agenda for adoption in another council."

Grave 'Threat to Journalists' Remains as UK Court Delays Assange Extradition Ruling

"The Biden administration should take the opportunity to drop this dangerous case once and for all," said the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hold placards outside of the United Kingdom's High Court in central London on March 26, 2024.
(Photo: Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON
Mar 26, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The United Kingdom's High Court ruled Tuesday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot immediately be extradited to the United States and gave the Biden administration three weeks to provide "assurances" that the publisher's First Amendment rights will be protected and that he won't face the death penalty.

If the U.S. does not provide the requested assurances, Assange will be allowed to pursue a limited appeal of his extradition. Should the U.S. submit assurances by the April 16 deadline, a hearing will be held on May 20 to determine whether they are "satisfactory."

Assange, whose health has deteriorated badly during his five years in a high-security London jail, faces 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and a possible 175-year prison sentence in the U.S. for publishing classified information—a common journalistic practice. WikiLeaks disclosures exposed grave U.S. and U.K. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Press freedom and human rights groups say the extradition of Assange to the U.S. would set a dangerous precedent and pose a dire threat to journalism everywhere.

Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday that "we are glad Julian Assange is not getting extradited today."

"But this legal battle is far from over, and the threat to journalists and the news media from the Espionage Act charges against Assange remains," said Timm. "Assange's conviction in American courts would create a dangerous precedent that the U.S. government can and will use against reporters of all stripes who expose its wrongdoing or embarrass it. The Biden administration should take the opportunity to drop this dangerous case once and for all."

"It's long past time for the U.S. Justice Department to abandon the Espionage Act charges and resolve this case."

The U.S., which has been aggressively pursuing Assange's extradition for years, previously provided the U.K. government with assurances that Assange would not be held at a supermax prison that's notorious for its inhumane treatment of inmates.

Human rights groups have said such assurances from the U.S. government are "inherently unreliable" and should not be taken seriously by British authorities.

"While the U.S. has allegedly assured the U.K. that it will not violate Assange's rights, we know from past cases that such 'guarantees' are deeply flawed—and the diplomatic assurances so far in the Assange case are riddled with loopholes," noted Simon Crowther, legal adviser at Amnesty International.

"The U.S. must stop its politically motivated prosecution of Assange, which puts Assange and media freedom at risk worldwide," Crowther said Tuesday. "In trying to imprison him, the U.S. is sending an unambiguous warning to publishers and journalists everywhere that they too could be targeted and that it is not safe for them to receive and publish classified material—even if doing so is in the public interest."

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, echoed that message, saying in a statement that "prosecuting Assange for the publication of classified information would have profound implications for press freedom, because publishing classified information is what journalists and news organizations often need to do in order to expose wrongdoing by government."

"It's long past time for the U.S. Justice Department to abandon the Espionage Act charges and resolve this case," said Jaffer.