Posts tagged with 'The Progressive'
Weekly Diaspora: Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Crusade Continues
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by Catherine Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Though Arizona’s SB 1070 went into effect without its most controversial provisions, the legislation’s stated intent
—attrition through enforcement—is nevertheless gaining traction among anti-immigrant legislators across the nation. In the wake of the law’s enactment, other states are coming out in support of Arizona, some developing policy modeled after SB 1070. Others even hope to alter the U.S. constitution to deny “birthright citizenship” to children of undocumented immigrants.
Arizona stands firm against injunction
After federal judge Susan Bolton blocked numerous elements of SB 1070, Arizona governor Jan Brewer wasted no time and swiftly filed an appeal against the injunction.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, for his part, has assured the public that he intends to continue enforcing state and federal immigration laws through “crime sweeps” and immigration status checks. After Arizona’s 287(g) agreement expired last year, effectively stripping local law enforcement of the right to detain individuals on suspicion of their immigration status, Arpaio similarly refused to comply, brazenly maintaining his immigration enforcement campaign.
Jamilah King of ColorLines reports that on the day that SB 1070 went into effect, Arpaio and hundreds of deputies arrested 50 protesters before completing their 17th immigration raid. Those arrested included clergy, journalists, and attorneys. Local civil rights leader Salvador Reza – a particularly outspoken critic of Arpaio’s contentious enforcement tactics, was also taken into custody, as was former state Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez. (more…)
Weekly Mulch: How Reid’s Energy Bill Undermines Senate Climate Efforts
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced a limited energy bill that responds to the oil spill and promotes energy efficiency. Reid’s action is a signal that the Senate will not pass climate legislation before November, although Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said that a climate bill could come up in the lame-duck session following the election.
“The Senate’s climate bill is officially dead,” Kate Sheppard writes at Mother Jones. “And given that Democrats will almost certainly hold fewer seats in Congress next year, major action on the climate is unlikely to be revived anytime soon.”
Since 2009, expectations for a bill regulating carbon emissions have steadily declined. After this latest failure in the Senate, the best near-term hope for addressing climate change comes from the Environmental Protection Agency, which still has the power to regulate carbon emissions.
At the Washington Independent, Andrew Restuccia reports that Sen. Reid’s bill will likely hold oil companies more financially accountable for spills by lifting the cap on their liability for economic damages and will nudge homeowners towards energy efficiency. (more…)
Special Report: Israel Attacks Gaza-Bound Flotilla; World Responds.
By Amanda Anderson, Media Consortium blogger
At approximately 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, the Freedom Flotilla, an international aid convoy headed for the Gaza strip, was attacked in international waters about 40 miles off the coast of Gaza by Israeli commandos. The convoy consisted of six ships with almost 700 international humanitarian activists on board. The commandos landed on the flotilla’s lead ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara.
As Gershom Gorenberg states in the American Prospect, “Activists who were on board say the Israeli commandos fired before being attacked; the Israeli military says the soldiers were defending themselves from a mob.” Either way, at least 9 people have been killed.
Esther Kaplan takes a look at the mainstream media’s coverage of the event, and it isn’t pretty. “In some cases, we saw misinformation and an almost gleeful boosterism,” Kaplan writes.
Was this really an act of nonviolence?
Were those aboard the Freedom Flotilla trying to enforce a negative public opinion of Israelis? Or were they just trying to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip? Going back to the Prospect: “Before and after the raid, Israeli officials referred to the flotilla as a ‘provocation’ intended to harm Israel. That’s probably true — and only raises the question of why Israel allowed itself to be provoked.”
The Progressive’s Matthew Rothschild thinks otherwise. He states; “With this assault, Israel may finally have lost any hope of finding its moral compass or restoring its reputation. The invasion of Gaza seventeen months ago was a war crime. The embargo of Gaza is [also] a war crime—an act of collective punishment causing astronomical levels of poverty, malnutrition, and joblessness.”
While sifting through all the accounts of the Flotilla attack, it’s important to remember that we are only getting one perspective. But, as prisoners are slowly released, their testimonies reveal the other side of the story. As Seth Freed Wessler writes in RaceWire, “Those who have been released describe horrific treatment, and say that shots were fired from Israeli helicopters even before soldiers boarded the ships.”
For more information on the attack, visit the following links:
- Response in Israel to aid ship attack in The Real News Network
- Israeli Forces Attack Boats Bearing Aid to Gaza in Care2
- Richard Falk, Huwaida Arraf & Norman Finkelstein on the Freedom Flotilla for GRITtv
The world responds
Could the Flotilla incident be the last straw for relations between Israel and Turkey? According to Talking Points Memo, that could just be the case:
“Separate from everything to do with what happened in the water off Gaza yesterday, the implications for Israel’s relationship with Turkey seem profound and perhaps irremediable… This isn’t the first blow up in Israel-Turkey relations. Turkish opposition to the Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead) has been at the center of the dispute going back to 2008.”
The Southern blockade of the Gaza strip, which is maintained by Egypt and not Israel, was opened in response to the Flotilla incident, and new reports show that this section of the border may stay that way. Also from Talking Points Memo, “An Egyptian security source told Reuters: ‘Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to allow humanitarian and medical aid to enter the Strip. The border will remain open for an unlimited time,’ the source said, letting Palestinians enter and leave Egypt.”
In the United States, a group of Nobel Peace Price winners joined together to condemn the attack, calling Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza illegal under international law and “one of the world’s greatest human rights violations.” President Barack Obama’s signature was conspicuously absent from this document.
But, as Medea Benjamin writes for AlterNet, “President Obama is a constitutional lawyer. He must understand that the blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law. So is attacking civilian boats in international waters. The Israeli government must be held accountable for its actions. Global leaders, including its most revered members such as Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi, have come out on the side of justice and law. So must President Obama.”
For more information on the international responses to this incident, visit the following links:
- Democracy Now! details the call to lift the blockade of the Gaza strip
- UN Security Council, Short of Resolution, Condemns Israel in Inter Press Service
What will happen next?
Will such widespread disapproval of Israel’s action lead to the end of the blockade? Maybe this event will change relations between the U.S. and Israel. The Minnesota Independent reports that Teachers Against Occupation (TAO) released a statement saying, “Israel’s criminal actions cannot be permitted to continue. The United States directly supports Israeli atrocities with billions of dollars of military and economic aid every year. All of our Senators and Congressional representatives have supported this aid. This must stop. We call for an immediate end to U.S. ties to Israel.”
This post is a special report on the flotilla attack and features links to the best independent, progressive reporting by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. For more updates, follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Pulse: SCOTUS Nominee Kagan a Cipher on Choice
by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
On Monday, President Barack Obama nominated solicitor general Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Kagan’s nomination has raised eyebrows among progressives. Despite a long career in legal academia, Kagan has published very little. She seems to have studiously avoided taking a stand on almost any controversial issue. Ruth Conniff of the Progressive calls the Kagan pick “a triumph of the bland.”
“Partial Birth Abortion” ban
As a White House aide, Kagan wrote a memo urging President Bill Clinton to support a ban on so-called “partial birth abortion.” At the time, the House had passed a sweeping late-term abortion ban with no exceptions for the life and health of the mother. Clinton asked Kagan whether he should throw his support behind a more moderate Senate version of the same bill. She recommended a “compromise”—a ban with a maternal health exemption. In the end, Congress passed the extreme version and Clinton vetoed it.
Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones characterizes the memo as “more indicative of a political strategy than a legal argument.” In other words, Kagan was giving strategic advice to the president about what would be politically feasible, not legal advice about the government’s powers to regulate abortion. Kagan argued that the president should support the “compromise” position even though the Justice Department thought it was unconstitutional, according to Jodi Jacobson of RH Reality Check.
At TAPPED, Monica Potts argues that the memo gives us little indication of how Kagan would vote on abortion as a justice.
No Harriet Miers
There’s no question that Kagan is possessed of a formidable intellect. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones quotes one of her former law school students, Elie Mystal, sharing his experience with Kagan on the blog Above the Law:
Like Frodo on Weathertop, there are some wounds that never fully heal. Professor Kagan massacred me intellectually, and brutalized my pride. I got some form of a B in her class (I honestly don’t remember if there was a modifier — I’ve tried to suppress those memories). Kagan was a frightening professor for those who wanted to match wits with the brightest legal minds in the world. For people like me, people who just wanted to get through law school with minimal mental damage, Kagan was nothing short of terrifying.
That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.
Kagan has never been a judge, but that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker in itself. As Steve Benen points out at the Washington Monthly, over a third of the 111 justices of the Supreme Court have had no previous judging experience.
A missed opportunity
Scott Lemieux argues in the American Prospect that Obama is wasting a rare political opportunity to confirm a more liberal justice. Right now, the Democrats still have a sizable, though not filibuster-proof, majority in the Senate. Lemieux argues that Obama is almost certain to get another Supreme Court pick before the end of his term. Then again, he points out, the Democrats are likely to lose Senate seats in the midterm elections.
If Obama were ever going to get a strong liberal on the bench, this would have been the time. No date has been set for a confirmation hearing. Kagan is in Washington today, courting lawmakers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: Boycotting Arizona
by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
Anti-immigrant fervor could be more costly than Arizona lawmakers expected. Thanks to SB 1070, a new law that requires immigrants to carry papers at all times to prove their legal status, the state has become the focal point of the national immigration debate. The bill and the buzz surrounding it illustrates a desperate need for a federal fix to the broken immigration system.
President Barack Obama publicly condemned the measure shortly before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill on April 23, while human rights groups and immigration reform supporters are threatening national boycotts and lawsuits.
SB 1070 makes it possible for local police to racially profile Latinos by allowing them to check a person’s immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they might be undocumented. It elicits memories of South Africa under apartheid, when blacks were forced to carry passbooks or otherwise risk incarceration. For a good historical perspective of immigration in Arizona, check out Jessica Pieklo’s blog for Care2. (more…)
Weekly Pulse: The Pill at 50 and Oklahoma’s Extreme Ultrasound Law
by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Fifty years ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill. Needless to say, the repercussions of this medical and public policy breakthrough are still being felt today.
Catherine Epstein of the Women’s Media Center thinks it’s significant that we celebrate the date a U.S. government agency approved the Pill, as opposed to the anniversary of its invention. The Pill has been at the center of a power struggle from the very beginning:
The pill has been under ideological fire since the first tiny tablet hit a woman’s palm. And the impact it’s had on women’s autonomy and freedom has been – as decades have passed – nearly equal to the fear (and subsequent restriction) it’s instilled in those who believe in curtailing reproductive rights. (more…)
Weekly Mulch: Cochabamba Summit Offers New Approach to Combating Climate Change
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
On Monday, climate activists, nonprofit leaders, and governmental officials will gather in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to look for new ideas to address climate change. The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, organized by leading social organizations like 350.0rg, “will advocate the right to “live well,” as opposed to the economic principle of uninterrupted growth,” as Inter Press Service explains. In the absence of real leadership from the world’s governments, the conferees at Cochabamba are looking for solutions “committed to the rights of people and environment.”
The United States certainly isn’t stepping up. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), were supposed to release their climate legislation next week, just in time for Earth Day. But yesterday the word came down that the release was being pushed back by another week, to April 26. (more…)
Weekly Pulse: Nebraska’s Sweeping Abortion Ban on Collision Course with Supreme Court
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Yesterday, Nebraska’s Republican governor Dave Heineman signed a sweeping new law that criminalizes almost all abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation and another bill that forces women to undergo extensive mental health assessment prior to obtaining an abortion before 20 weeks.
Intimidating providers
Monica Potts of TAPPED explains that the laws are meant to have a chilling effect on all abortion providers in Nebraska. In the wake of last year’s assassination of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Nebraska began providing late-term abortions. According to Potts, the new abortion legislation is probably designed to run Dr. Carhart out of town.
An anti-choice Catch-22
Robin Marty of RH Reality Check notes the glaring contradictions between the two Nebraska abortion laws: Before 20 weeks of gestation, the state is so concerned about a woman’s health that they will force her to seek a mental health assessment to spare her the trauma of an ill-advised abortion. It seems that Nebraska legislators think women are so fragile that they can’t decide on their own whether an abortion will be unduly upsetting. Yet, after 20 weeks, a woman is not entitled to a “life of the woman” exemption even if a doctor determines that she is likely to commit suicide if she is forced to continue her pregnancy. (more…)
Weekly Pulse: Massa Backs Off Health Care Conspiracy, Glenn Beck Apologizes to the Entire Country
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) punked conservative talk show host Glenn Beck yesterday by recanting his earlier allegations that House Democrats forced him out of office because he refused to vote for health care reform. Massa resigned on Monday amidst allegations that he sexually harassed one or more male staffers.
Adele Stan has a nice recap of the implosion of Massa’s political career at AlterNet. Massa initially said he was stepping down because he had cancer. Then the news broke that the House Ethics Committee was probing allegations that Massa sexually harassed a male staffer. (more…)
Weekly Audit: Just Who is Obama fighting for?
By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger
Progressives have waited a year for President Barack Obama to roll up his sleeves and fight for serious financial reform. Last week, he finally jumped in the ring, telling weak-kneed Senators to stand up to Wall Street and endorsing a critical ban on risky securities trading.
But while it was good to see Obama start throwing financial punches against the banks, this week he also started throwing them at workers. His recent rhetoric on implementing a spending freeze to reduce the deficit is an economic catastrophe in the making. It indicates that Obama is willing to sacrifice jobs to try and win over Republicans. (more…)