Sanders Pitches $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill to Thousands at Indiana Town Hall

 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/28/sanders-pitches-35-trillion-spending-bill-thousands-indiana-town-hall

"Never in our lifetime has there been a piece of legislation which goes as far as this does to address the long-neglected needs of the working class and the middle class of this country."

JULIA CONLEY

August 28, 2021

Addressing more than 2,300 people in West Lafayette, Indiana Friday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders made the case for the $3.5 trillion spending plan to invest heavily in human infrastructure, explaining how the proposed budget currently being written by Senate and House committees following passage in the House is "the most consequential legislation for working people since the New Deal."

The event was one of two town halls the Senate Budget Committee chairman is holding in Republican and swing districts this weekend, aimed at talking directly with working people who stand to gain from the legislation and its investments in child care subsidies, free community college tuition, paid family and medical leave, and a transformation of the U.S. energy system in a push to rapidly shift away from planet-heating fossil fuel production while creating jobs. 

While the chair of the Senate Budget Committee typically works within the halls of Congress, the senator said ahead of the event, "I think really, the function of a budget chairman is to get out among the people."

 

Sanders drew applause as he opened the event by describing the Civilian Climate Corps, plans for funding "more low-income affordable housing than at any other time in this country," the inclusion of a "massive investment in home healthcare," and other provisions in the bill.

 

"What is fair to say about this legislation, which again, is going to be funded by demanding that the wealthy and corporations start paying their fair share of taxes," said the senator, "is that never in our lifetime has there been a piece of legislation which goes as far as this does to address the long-neglected needs of the working class and the middle class of this country."

 

Sanders then invited several community members to talk to the crowd about how their lives had been improved by President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan, which included investments that would be continued in the spending bill.

 

After receiving unemployment assistance and the child care tax credit in the relief package, single father Cody Kenney said, he was able to afford hockey equipment for his son, which he had never been able to buy during his own childhood in a trailer park.

 

"Having that to provide for my son and...having dignity around other parents really affected my life and my kid's life," Kenney said. "When I received the pandemic unemployment assistance I was able to provide... This was the first time I had any type of government invest in me."

 

Mary McCloskey, a single mother, also said the enhanced unemployment assistance that Sanders fought to include in Covid-19 relief legislation last year helped sustain her family. 

 

"When more than 2,300 people come out in the middle of the hottest summer on record in West Lafayette, Indiana to hear Bernie Sanders talk about the $3.5 trillion Senate reconciliation bill, you're doing something right," tweeted Misty Rebik, the senator's chief of staff.

 

Watch the whole town hall event below:

 

'Not What Ending a War Looks Like': Biden Vows New Strikes in Retaliation for Kabul Blast

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/28/not-what-ending-war-looks-biden-vows-new-strikes-retaliation-kabul-blast



The Pentagon reported that Friday's drone strike killed two ISIS-K targets, while an elder in Jalalabad said several civilians had been kiiled.



JULIA CONLEY

August 28, 2021


Even as he planned to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by August 31, President Joe Biden said Saturday that the drone strike that was launched Friday night in retaliation for an attack claimed by ISIS-K "was not the last."

"We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay," the president said in a statement Saturday afternoon. "Whenever anyone seeks to harm the United States or attack our troops, we will respond. That will never be in doubt."

The Pentagon said the drone strike killed two "planners and facilitators" of the explosion outside Kabul's airport, but according to The Guardian, in addition to targets related to the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an elder in Jalalabad reported that three civilians were killed and four were wounded in the U.S. strike.

The bombing on Thursday killed as many as 170 civilians and 13 U.S. service members, and prompted calls from anti-war groups and lawmakers including Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) for the U.S. to refrain from taking further military action in Afghanistan as two decades of the U.S.-led war there comes to an end.

Following the U.S. retaliatory strike on Friday, Ariel Gold of CODEPINK pointed out that even if no civilians were killed as the Pentagon is reporting, "these drone strikes help ISIS recruit."

"This is not what ending a war looks like," said CODEPINK of the president's threats of even more military action in the coming days, as he warned that more attacks are expected near the airport in Kabul in the next 36 hours.


In addition to the U.S. drone strikes, BBC correspondent Secunder Kermani reported that according to eyewitnesses, many people who were killed in Thursday's attack were shot by U.S. troops.


The New York Times reported Saturday that investigators in Afghanistan are examining where the gunfire came from during Thursday's attack.

Experts Warn of 'Potentially Catastrophic' Destruction as Hurricane Ida Reaches New Orleans

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/29/experts-warn-potentially-catastrophic-destruction-hurricane-ida-reaches-new-orleans



The storm is expected to be one of the strongest ever to hit Louisiana, rivaling Hurricane Laura in 2020.



JULIA CONLEY

August 29, 2021


This is a developing story and may be updated.

Weather experts on Sunday said their worst-case-scenario predictions about Hurricane Ida, which damaged homes and knocked down trees in Cuba on Friday, appeared to be coming true as the tropical cyclone made its way towards New Orleans with winds rushing at 150 miles per hour.
The hurricane made landfall Sunday afternoon in southeastern Louisiana, driving thousands of people to evacuate on Saturday.

The National Hurricane Center warned the storm could bring "potentially catastrophic" damage from winds and a "life-threatening" storm surge in the coastal area, with destruction from flooding and other effects extending more than 100 miles inland.

Meteorologists recorded 150mph peak winds, putting the storm two miles per hour short of a Category 5 hurricane.

If the peak winds remain as strong as they were at sea when the storm reaches land, according to the Washington Post, Hurricane Ida will be among the strongest hurricanes ever to hit Louisiana.

Forecasters expressed anguish on social media and in weather reports as they watched the storm approach New Orleans on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall.


"Worst case scenario unfolding for Louisiana," said Tom Di Liberto, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "Absolutely sick to my stomach seeing this."

The expected ocean surge could inundate areas with up to 16 feet of water in some places. New Orleans was expected to see more than a foot of rainfall. The National Weather Service warned that "extremely dangerous flash flooding" could result if the city gets more than 15 inches of rain, which could overwhelm its system of nearly 100 pumps.

Locals who hadn't evacuated on Saturday were cautioned to shelter in place on Sunday morning, as the approaching storm's winds had already made highway travel perilous.

Meteorologists are typically hesitant to connect a single extreme weather event to the climate crisis, but as Discover Magazine reported Saturday, the planetary emergency fueled by fossil fuel extraction is "supercharging" storms like Ida.



"Monster storms cause enormous damage not only because of their winds," wrote Tom Yulsman, director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and a blogger for the magazine. "They also dump unimaginable amounts of water. And research shows that thanks to climate change, they've been getting wetter."

Yulsman continued:


That's happening for a number of reasons. First, a warmer atmosphere can carry more moisture. Research shows that for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture. So far, the globe has warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.

On Twitter, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe said the question of whether the climate crisis "causes" hurricanes like Ida is "the wrong question."

"The right one is, 'How much worse did climate change make it?" Hayhoe said.


"Given that science has already showed that a warmer ocean and other aspects of climate change are leading to much faster intensification of hurricanes," Hayhoe added, "the question today is not, to paraphrase climate scientist Kevin Trenberth, how could climate change affect this event—but rather how could it NOT, as it is occurring over the massively altered background conditions of our 1.1C warmer planet."

Inside US Afghanistan pullout, CIA opium ratline, pipeline conflict, new cold war

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiF3TQZSxhs

ONLY THOSE TAKING ACTION AGAINST CLIMATE VIOLENCE ARE LABELED ‘TERRORIST’

By Janine Jackson,
Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting.

August 28, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/only-those-taking-action-against-climate-violence-are-labeled-terrorist/




Floods, fires, ice caps melting, hurricanes—all attest to the violence of human-caused climate disruption. It’s undeniable and undeniably fatal, and the only question for historians will be not what mysterious “factors” prevented humans from responding, but which political structures prevented the humans that wanted to respond meaningfully from doing so. When those books are written, at least a chapter will be devoted to cases like that of Jessica Reznicek, the activist now facing eight years in federal prison for damaging equipment at the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa.

In 2016, Reznicek, with fellow activist Ruby Montoya, set fire to heavy machinery, delaying construction for weeks on the pipeline that would move a half-million barrels of crude oil a day under the Missouri River and Lake Oahe, the reservoir that is the primary water source for the Standing Rock Reservation. Listeners will know of longstanding protests against the threats pipelines like Dakota Access present for water, land and communities—as well as the global climate. The pipeline violates Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights, and contributes to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, exacerbated by the so-called “man camps” set up near pipeline projects.

Reznicek’s sentence was doubled by the labeling of her property damage as “terrorism,” and the Des Moines Register (7/22/21) contrasts her eight years to the three years and change given to an Iowa man who defrauded the government of more than $1.3 million in federal loans intended for Covid relief.

Years from now, corporate media may note that Reznicek’s imprisonment came the same week the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a new report that the planet faces climate catastrophe unless drastic efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gases. They will probably not note their own complicity in reporting on pipelines like Dakota Access as “controversial,” while silently abiding that only one side of the controversy is labeled “terrorist” and goes to prison.

EDUCATION SHOULDN’T BE A DEBT SENTENCE

By Nick Marcil,
In These Times.

August 28, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/education-shouldnt-be-a-debt-sentence/


My Debt Is Symptomatic Of Capitalism.

It Should Be Canceled.

When you look at a student like myself, you don’t know that I am working multiple jobs, that I have gone without health insurance at some points, that I’ve been living at home with my parents for more than a year. You also do not know about my family’s medical debt, or about my father’s periods of unemployment, or that my mother’s job as a preschool aide isn’t enough to cover the gaps.

Even though I have mowed my former mailman’s lawn for eight summers to help afford school, even though I secured two “free” years of campus housing through my job as a resident assistant and received numerous scholarships, awards and assistance, I still graduated from a state school with $17,000 in debt. I carry this debt from my bachelor’s degree as I go into my second year of graduate school.

This debt acts like a ball and chain tied to the back of my mind. It limits my decisions. Before the Covid-19 moratorium on loan payments (which started March 2020), that $17,000 made me feel wrong about going out to eat, going to a bar or buying a video game. It pushed me to look at all of my “free time” as time I need work. Each lawn I mow is $15 an hour toward payments.

Certainly the moratorium helped; I stopped my payments after two months and use my “extra” money to pay off medical bills and for car repairs. I have been saving toward moving out of my parents’ house. I am less stressed now that huge chunks of my rather small bank balance stopped disappearing. I know that extra layer of stress is likely to return in October, when the moratorium is set to end.

My debt is something society expects me to pay because my parents did not have enough money to pay for my education. But instead of seeing this debt as just something of my own that only I could fix, I’ve started to see it as something symptomatic of capitalism.

This spring, I decided to take action against my debt by joining the local chapter of a national debtors’ union, the Debt Collective, which has more than 10,000 members, including 1,500 students currently striking, and has raised money to abolish more than $1 billion of student debt. It has been a relief to talk with others who see that a public institution — a public good — should not be designed to put individuals in debt for education; that people are in debt not because they live outside their means, but because they don’t receive the means to live; that the system has been designed to limit who goes to college, limit dissent and promote free market ideals.

I firmly believe my debt, along with all student debt, should be canceled. Not just forgiven, but canceled.

I never expected President Joe Biden or the Democratic Congress to do this on their own. Biden has the authority to deal with federal student debt but refuses to act. The Democrats in Congress will do as they have always done — find a means-tested way to do what they think will appease enough people. It was only due to the power of student loan activists and mounting public pressure that the moratorium was put into place. Those in power respond to one thing: power. That is why I am joining the Debt Collective in September in Washington, D.C., to demand Biden cancel all student debt.

I feel lucky my debt isn’t more; the average debt from a bachelor’s degree for the class of 2019 was $28,950. The average comprehensive cost to attend a four-year public institution — in-state — for the 2020- 2021 school year was $26,280.

We must ask why it is that, in parts of the country, higher education used to be free and now costs tens of thousands of dollars. The answer is that America now treats education as a business rather than a public good. At a Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Board of Governors meeting in July, I heard one trustee say, “I know there are some who do not believe an educational institution is a business; yes, it is. We produce goods and services, a product that people pay for.”

This business mentality is especially destructive to those in poverty and people of color, who start out with various disadvantages because of the racial wealth and income gap. In my home state of Pennsylvania, public university costs, on average, 32% of the median white income and 54% of the median Black income, as of 2017. Nationwide, Black women disproportionately owe more in student loans than any other group, at over $40,000 on average.

I have seen so many fellow students saddled with debt simply because they wanted to learn and needed a place to live. This debt is something that can only be solved collectively, because it affects more than any one individual. It affects my parents because I need to live with them; it affects others when I drive with a broken taillight because I’m worried about spending money; it affects society in general, tricking us into thinking individual competition against each other (to make more money to pay off our debt and “get ahead”) is the only solution.

Debt is harmful not only financially, but emotionally and in relationships. When we have an education system built on debt, we are indebting students to pay for faculty salaries — a reality that weighs on several faculty members I’ve talked with. Debt also complicates family relationships and support systems, as when a student needs a Parent Plus loan or leans on family to keep up with their bills to stay enrolled.

Education shouldn’t be a debt sentence. Instead of treating education as a business, we need a free and liberatory higher education system that all can attend.

Creating a National Progressive Coalition at the National Justice Roundtable

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VqJWGeF6PU