Tag Archives: action

Trump’s status on the Paris Agreement? It’s complicated.

by e0knk4m Posted on May 3, 2017

In 2012, Katherine Miller was frustrated that Americans weren’t really talking about issues of sustainable food and nutrition. She realized that chefs were in a position to restart those discussions. Restaurants, after all, are home to intimate and weighty discussions, all of it centered around food.

Miller decided to use her experience coaching community advocates to show chefs how to start conversations and discuss important issues with patrons and politicians alike. She founded the Chef Action Network to connect chefs with politicians and local organizations and, along with food education and advocacy group James Beard Foundation, organized a series of policy boot camps for chefs to sharpen their conversation skills.

After training ’em up, Miller puts chefs — prominent local business owners in their own right — in touch with representatives who will listen to their voices on issues like antibiotic overuse and catch limits. She also helps chefs get involved at the local level. In January, JBF partnered with NRDC and Nashville Mayor Megan Barry on the Food Saver Challenge, an initiative that aims to help Music City reduce waste.

Miller is hopeful that chefs can dish out common ground. “In a time when Americans have stopped talking to each other, chefs and restaurateurs are setting the table for all of us to have difficult conversations.”

Meet all the fixers on this year’s Grist 50.

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Trump’s status on the Paris Agreement? It’s complicated.

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Left Hook: A Brief History of Nazi Punching in America

by BookerTom7 Posted on April 17, 2017

Mother Jones

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Long before the New York Times wondered, “Is it O.K. to punch a Nazi?,” far-right extremists were confronted by militant anti-fascists. These groups’ roots go back before World War II, when radicals battled nascent fascists and Nazis in the streets of Europe. The rise of violent white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in the 1980s sparked the American “antifa” (anti-fascist) movement. Street squads like Anti-Racist Action and Fuck Shit Up took a nod from their European predecessors and responded with their own brand of extremism. A timeline of the American anti-fascist movement:

One of five anti-KKK marchers killed in Greensboro, North Carolina. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

1979

Members of the Ku Klux Klan open fire on a “Death to the Klan” march in Greensboro, North Carolina, killing five people.

1981

The Dead Kennedys release “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.”

1982

In Southern California, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) forms in response to the growing white power movement.

1983

The Baldies, a multiracial street crew, forms in Minneapolis. They dish out “righteous violence” to members of the Twin Cities’ racist skinhead gangs.

1988

Members of the Baldies join up with other young activists to launch a nationwide network of anti-fascist groups called Anti-Racist Action (ARA). Members commit to confronting right-wing extremists face-to-face: “Whenever fascists are organizing or active in public, we’re there…Never let the Nazis have the street!”

Late 1980s

Fuck Shit Up (FSU), a.k.a. Friends Stand United, which the FBI later classifies as a street gang, expels neo-Nazis and racist skinheads from punk shows in Boston. (In 2011, its founder, Elgin James, released Little Birds, a movie loosely based on his life—and went to prison for extortion.)

1993

A SHARP member shoots and kills a 21-year-old white supremacist in Portland, Oregon.

1998

White supremacists murder two ARA members—a white man and a black man who were best friends—in the desert outskirts of Las Vegas.

1999

A follower of Matt Hale, the neo-Nazi leader of the World Church of the Creator, goes on a three-day murder spree across Illinois and Indiana. His victims include a Korean student shot in Bloomington, Indiana, which becomes a hotbed of anti-racist organizing.

Matt Hale Tim Boyle/Getty Images

2002

ARA and a Boston anarchist group skirmish with white supremacists who turn out for a speech by Hale in York, Pennsylvania. (Hale is currently serving a 40-year sentence for soliciting the murder of a federal judge.)

Police clear out anti-racist protesters in Toledo, Ohio. J.D. Pooley/AP

2005

More than a dozen neo-Nazis try to march through a predominately African American neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio. Hundreds, including ARA members, shut down the march. Protesters throw bricks at cops, destroy police cars, and set buildings on fire.

2007

A 25-year-old man is beaten to death outside a punk show in Asbury Park, New Jersey, after reportedly refusing to take off a Confederate flag T-shirt. An alleged FSU member is arrested but not charged.

2009

Holocaust denier David Irving’s tri-state-area book tour is disrupted by ARA members. They also hack into and release Irving’s personal emails. In Chicago, an ARA member tries to infiltrate the National Socialist Front and is stabbed.

Mark Peterson/Redux

2011

Hundreds of protesters, including members of ARA and the New Black Panthers, clash with neo-Nazis in Trenton, New Jersey.

2012

Members of the Hoosier Anti- Racist Movement (HARM) and ARA attack white supremacists at a restaurant in Tinley Park, Illinois, leaving three people hospitalized. The Tinley Park Five are later convicted for their roles in the assault.

2013
Followers of a white nationalist group led by Matthew Heimbach protest a talk by an anti-racist author in Terre Haute, Indiana. They are allegedly beaten by HARM members wielding padlocks inside socks.

Feb. 2016

Ku Klux Klan members and antifas fight in Anaheim, California. Klansmen stab three people.

April 2016

The Bastards Motorcycle Club, an anti-racist motorcycle gang from South Carolina, confronts KKK members in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

June 2016

Antifas and anti-racists spar with white nationalists outside the California state Capitol in Sacramento. Fourteen people are injured, including seven with stab wounds.

“Alt-Right” godfather Richard Spencer is sucker punched on Inaguration Day Australian Broadcasting Cooperation

Jan. 20, 2017

White nationalist and “alt-right” godfather Richard Spencer is punched in the head by an unidentified man on the streets of Washington, DC, on Inauguration Day. He responds by suggesting alt-right vigilante squads for protection; the internet responds with “Nazi punching” memes. That night, an anti-fascist demonstrator is shot in Seattle by a Trump supporter during a protest of a speech by then-Breitbart troll Milo Yiannopoulos.

Feb. 1, 2017

Antifa and “black bloc” protesters violently shut down a talk by Yiannopoulos at the University of California-Berkeley.

Apr. 15, 2017

Pro-Trump supporters hold a “Patriots Day” rally in downtown Berkeley. They are confronted by antifascist counterdemonstrators and fighting breaks out. Police report 20 arrests and at least 11 injuries.

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Left Hook: A Brief History of Nazi Punching in America

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It’s Official: The Trump Administration Will Soon Solicit Bids for a New Border Wall

by PaulinaNesmith Posted on February 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it will soon begin soliciting bids “for the design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico.” Bidding begins March 6. The official posting says the administration will select the companies to potentially build the new structure sometime in April.

The solicitation appears to correspond to President Trump’s highly publicized pledge to build a new border wall along the US-Mexico border. “We’re going to build a wall, don’t worry about it,” Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. “We’re building the wall. We’re building the wall. In fact, it’s going to start soon. Way ahead of schedule, way ahead of schedule.”

The official post soliciting bids for the border wall is available online here.

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It’s Official: The Trump Administration Will Soon Solicit Bids for a New Border Wall

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Exxon just decided to keep a big chunk of its tar sands in the ground.

by LeilaniHelmer3 Posted on February 23, 2017

Democratic Party insiders will vote for a new chair this weekend. The winner will get the tough job of trying to rebuild a damaged party.

Ten people are in the running, but the victor is likely to be one of the top two contenders: Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison or former Labor Secretary Tom Perez. Ellison backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary last year, and Sanders is backing Ellison in this race. In 2012 and 2015, Ellison and Sanders teamed up to push a bill to end subsidies for fossil fuel companies.

Climate activist (and Grist board member) Bill McKibben argues that Ellison, a progressive who is “from the movement wing,” would help the party regain credibility with young people.

A coalition of millennial leaders endorsed Ellison this week, including a number of activists from climate groups. “We want a chair who will fight to win a democracy for all and overcome the profound crises of our time — from catastrophic climate change to systemic racism, historic economic inequality to perpetual war,” they wrote.

350 Action, the political arm of climate group 350.org, endorsed Ellison earlier this month:

And Jane Kleeb, a prominent anti-Keystone activist and a voting DNC member, is backing Ellison too:

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Exxon just decided to keep a big chunk of its tar sands in the ground.

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Police Are Evicting Standing Rock Protesters. Watch the Heartbreaking Live Footage.

by JeseniaYnh Posted on February 23, 2017

Mother Jones

At around 3 p.m. today, North Dakota State Police, with the help of the National Guard and Wisconsin state police, began evicting protesters from the main #NoDAPL protest camp near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. After weeks of blizzards, flood warnings, exhaustion, and uncertainty caused by president Trump’s executive order reversing the Army Corp of Engineer’s previous decision to halt the pipeline project, many activists have left the camps. As of today, only about 100 activists remain.

While an ABC news crew is embedded with the police, the main source of information about events on the ground is independent media and protesters themselves, who have been intermittently livestreaming the day’s events, which have included arrests, fires, and meetings with representatives of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. Below are eight live feeds showing the action as it unfolds on the ground.

Johnny Dangers:

Unicorn Riot:

Waniya Locke:

Indigenous Rising Media:

Ernesto Burbank:

Digital Smoke Signals:

Buzzfeed:

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Police Are Evicting Standing Rock Protesters. Watch the Heartbreaking Live Footage.

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Paul Ryan Says the GOP Will Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood

by AnnettaBernhard Posted on January 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the process to dismantle Obamacare will include stripping all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but he did not provide much further detail.

His remarks come two days after a Republican-led House investigative panel released a report that recommended the health care provider be defunded. The investigative panel—created to examine allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit—was then disbanded, because it was not reauthorized for a new Congress. Planned Parenthood was never found guilty of any wrongdoing at the state or federal level, despite multiple GOP-led investigations.

Democrats immediately denounced the move. “I just would like to speak individually to women across America: This is about respect for you, for your judgment about your personal decisions in terms of your reproductive needs, the size and timing of your family or the rest, not to be determined by the insurance company or by the Republican ideological right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “So this is a very important occasion where we’re pointing out very specifically what repeal of the Affordable Care Act will mean to women.”

The measure to cut funding will appear in a special fast-track bill expected to pass Congress in February, during a session that allows legislation to bypass filibuster. The bill would need only a simple majority of senators to pass, rather than a 60-vote supermajority. Should the measure pass, according to the Washington Post, the largest women’s health care organization in the country would lose 40 percent of its funding. Planned Parenthood received $528 million in federal funding in 2014, and the government is its largest single source of funding.

A federal law known as the Hyde Amendment forbids the use of any federal funds for abortions. The money Planned Parenthood receives is for preventative screenings, birth control, and general women’s health care for their 2.5 million patients.

Rep. Diane DeGette (D-Colo.) promised that Democrats would “stand against this with every fiber of our beings.”

A similar measure passed the House and the Senate in 2015 but was repealed once it reached President Barack Obama’s desk. Obama has long supported the preservation of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. In December, he issued a rule that barred states from withholding funds from Planned Parenthood based on the fact that they provide abortion care.

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he opposes continuing federal funding for Planned Parenthood, so a presidential veto would be unlikely. Similarly, Vice President-elect Mike Pence has been staunchly anti-abortion throughout his political career—he signed a measure to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana during his tenure as governor, and he was successful in slashing funding for the provider in his state.

Reacting to Ryan’s proposal, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action fund, told reporters, “It’s likely no accident that this attack was launched the day after Vice President-elect Mike Pence, a long-time opponent of Planned Parenthood, held a closed-door meeting with Speaker Ryan and the Republican leadership.”

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Paul Ryan Says the GOP Will Vote to Defund Planned Parenthood

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How Trump’s Deportation Plans Could Damage Our Economy

by Leatha5457 Posted on December 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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In 2012, President Barack Obama issued an executive order establishing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to apply for two-year work permits and exemptions from deportation. They initially were able to renew their DACA status for a second two-year period, which was later expanded to three years. The immigration plan that President-elect Donald Trump issued during his campaign for presidency calls for ending DACA, describing it as “illegal executive amnesty.” Now, a new report by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center outlines the possible economic effects that could occur if the Trump administration follows through on its proposed elimination of DACA.

As of June 2016, DACA has granted thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children the ability to get jobs legally, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Of the 741,546 people in the program, 87 percent are currently employed. A June 2015 survey of the economic and educational effects of DACA by a political scientist from the University of California-San Diego and the National Immigration Law Center showed that DACA both improved the lives of recipients and was good for the US economy. The higher wages that DACA recipients earn have translated into increased tax revenue and economic growth for the United States. According to a September 2016 study by the Center for American Progress, ending DACA would mean a $433 billion reduction of the nation’s GDP over a decade.

This week, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national nonprofit resource center that provides legal trainings and other resources for immigrant rights, has published a report using data on the program until June, 2016 that outlines the possible economic effects on Social Security and Medicare, and the costs to employers, if DACA is completely abolished.

The total contributions to Social Security and Medicare would be reduced by a little more than $24 billion over a decade—$19.9 billion would be lost to Social Security and there would be a $4.6 billion drop to the overall contributions to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. (FICA requires contributions from both employees and employers for Social Security and Medicare, so the reduction of a significant number of employees overall would also mean a drastic drop in contributions.) Also, employers could potentially suffer. About 645,145 DACA recipients would lose their employment authorization, and those layoffs would cost employers at least $3.4 billion in recruitment and training costs for replacing those employees.

Trump has not backed off the idea of ending DACA. But he told Time that he would have a plan for undocumented immigrants “that’s going to make people happy and proud.”

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How Trump’s Deportation Plans Could Damage Our Economy

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Here’s What the Biggest Police Union Wants From Trump

by JosefinGSU Posted on December 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump didn’t earn too many endorsements from unions during his presidential campaign, but one enthusiastically supported him. The national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which boasts more than 330,000 members and is the country’s largest police union, announced in September that it would be backing Trump because he “understands and supports” its priorities. (The organization declined to make a formal endorsement in the 2012 presidential election but in 2008 backed John McCain.) Trump’s rhetoric on safety and law and order seemed to align with the right-leaning union. “Our members believe he will make America safe again,” the group explained when it announced its support. About a week after Election Day, it offered the president-elect a list of its priorities for the first 100 days of his administration.

The policy ideas, released through the union’s official website with little fanfare, includes more than a dozen proposals. Many involve aggressively dismantling the modest reforms suggested by the Obama administration in a 2015 plan called President’s 21st Century Task Force on Policing, such as increasing the use of body cameras nationwide and implementing a national database on police use of force. The FOP also wants Trump to bring back racial profiling in federal agencies by lifting or changing the 2003 ban put in place by the Bush administration. The union suggests he should cut off some or all federal aid to “sanctuary cities” and bring an end to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), using its database to deport the individuals who had been protected by being included in it. Using police officers to participate in the deportation of undocumented immigrants was an idea Trump suggested in his immigration speech in Phoenix, Arizona, last August. Several large cities have indicated they will not use police officers or relinquish their status as sanctuary cities to help deport immigrants.

The Fraternal Order of Police’s resistance to change and embrace of Trump and his policies is directly at odds with police officers of color and other cops who believe law enforcement agencies need to reform to better serve all Americans. The Blacks in Law Enforcement of America opposed the FOP’s endorsement of Trump, writing, “Is this endorsement the result of a few individuals who may stand to benefit from a so-called law and order candidate who knows nothing about the Criminal Justice System and is opposed to necessary reform of the institution?” Civil rights groups have criticized the FOP’s priorities. “The FOP’s agenda for Trump’s first 100 days is abhorrent,” the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, DC, wrote on Twitter. Changing the way police officers serve their communities has been a high priority for many politicians and activists alike and some gains have been made, but if the FOP’s proposals can further influence the Trump administration, police reform may get a lot more difficult.

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Here’s What the Biggest Police Union Wants From Trump

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Our Food System Relies on Immigrants. Here’s How One Waiter Is Coping With Trump’s Election.

by FerneBlubaugh Posted on November 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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Enrique Diaz, 24, leads a busy life. He works 50 to 60 hours a week as a waiter at a restaurant in Lower Manhattan and takes classes at John Jay College for Criminal Justice, where he’s close to earning a bachelor’s degree in forensic psychology. On November 8, Diaz suddenly got a new challenge: contending with an incoming president who wants to purge him—and his family—from the country.

Enrique Diaz

President-elect Donald Trump ran on a platform of bare-knuckled xenophobia, insulting Muslims and Mexicans and vowing to expel 11 million undocumented immigrants. Since the election, he has reiterated those sentiments, declaring he would assemble a “deportation force,” appointing white nationalist Steve Bannon as his chief White House strategist, and tapping a notorious immigrant-basher, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), as attorney general.

As I noted in this pre-election post, the Trump program amounts to a direct attack on the very people who feed us. The entire food system, from farm fields to meat-packing floors to restaurants, is shot through with immigrants, large numbers of whom are undocumented.

To get an idea of what it feels like to work in the food system while being targeted by the incoming administration, I interviewed Diaz for Bite podcast.

He moved to Brooklyn at eight years old, when his parents migrated from Mexico City without papers. Still living in Brooklyn, he currently has a two-year work permit under a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy created by a 2012 Obama administration executive order. DACA is intended to protect the approximately 1.7 million people in Diaz’ circumstances: undocumented young adults who migrated to the United States before their 16th birthday. DACA doesn’t offer a path to citizenship; it allows people who quality to apply for work permits and gain temporary protection against deportation.

Trump has vowed repeatedly, including on his campaign website, to rescind DACA “immediately.” So in addition to juggling 12-hour restaurant shifts and college classes, Diaz—whose brother also has DACA status —now has to contend with a promised immigration crackdown.

I talked to Diaz about his experience on Election Day, which started with a stint volunteering as a translator at a Brooklyn polling booth, and also about how the Trump victory went over with his fellow immigrants at work and at home with his family. “I’m afraid, I’m terrified,” Enrique said. “But I can’t show it at home”—he feels like he should maintain a calm face for his parents. Such stress reverberates through the food system.

Bite is Mother Jones‘ podcast for people who think hard about their food. Listen to all our episodes here, or subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, or via RSS.

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Our Food System Relies on Immigrants. Here’s How One Waiter Is Coping With Trump’s Election.

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If this Republican donor loves clean energy, then why did he back fossil-fuel friendly candidates?

by BrainWatkin415 Posted on November 17, 2016

Many have agreed that President-elect Donald Trump has some questionable ideas when it comes to climate policy. Today, we get to add anthropomorphized gym sock O’Reilly and known cup goblin Starbucks to that list!

On Wednesday’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor, he advised Trump on a number of items to consider as he prepares to take office. On this list:

“Finally, President-Elect Trump should accept the Paris treaty on climate to buy some goodwill overseas. It doesn’t really amount to much anyway, let it go.”

Well, the thing is, it does actually amount to a lot.

Here’s a confusing screenshot, because this action item appears under the heading “What President Obama Failed to Do,” when President Obama did, in fact, succeed in accepting the Paris Agreement.

On Thursday morning, a coalition of 365 major companies and investors submitted a plea to Trump to please, come on, just support the goddamn Paris Agreement, because to do otherwise would be a disastrous blow to the United States’ economic competitiveness. The list includes Starbucks (the nerve!!!!), eBay, Kellogg, and Virgin.

Anyway, Trump’s whole “refusing to acknowledge climate change” thing seems like a bad look.

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If this Republican donor loves clean energy, then why did he back fossil-fuel friendly candidates?

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