Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Some California Democrats want an arms embargo on Israel. How far will they push Kamala Harris?

By Sameea Kamal


In summary

The Gaza war has divided California Democrats for months. Now, some of them are pushing the national party at the Chicago convention to support an arms embargo on Israel.


CHICAGO — What will Kamala Harris do about the Gaza war if she’s elected president? To some Californians watching, the best indicator might be what she’s doing now.

The vice president seemed to take a stronger stance against Israel’s military response since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 — calling for a ceasefire before President Joe Biden did and skipped Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress in July. After meeting him, said she pressed him for a ceasefire and pledged not to stay silent about the humanitarian crisis.

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Thousands Kick Off DNC With Protest in Chicago Over Gaza

By Julia Conley 

"For Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue," said one marcher.

What's expected to be the biggest protest march during this week's Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago Monday afternoon, with demonstrators demanding that Vice President Kamala Harris support an end to unconditional U.S. military support for Israel amid its assault on Gaza, now in its tenth month.

Thousands gathered in Union Park before beginning their march to the United Center, where the convention is taking place.

Protesters carried signs and banners reading, "End State Violence From Chicago to Gaza" and "Dems' Silence = Israel's Violence."

Organizers—who hoped to see 15,000 people in the streets—have expressed alarm in recent months over the Chicago Police Department's aggressive response to pro-Palestinian protests, with a legal coalition last week expressing concern about Police Superintendent Larry Snelling's intimidating comments about arresting protesters and other issues, and city officials have clashed with organizers about the route the march will take.

But threats of arrest did not deter groups including Jewish Voice for Peace from joining the march, with the local chapter saying its members would "make clear our commitment to freedom and safety for all people, from Chicago to Gaza" and as they demanded an "arms embargo now."

Organizers of the Uncommitted movement, which emerged during the Democratic primary season to pressure President Joe Biden to end his support for Israel's assault on Gaza, continue to press the Harris-Walz campaign to break with the administration's position.

While Harris initially indicated to the group a willingness to discuss support for an arms embargo earlier this month, a top adviser for the Democratic nominee said soon after that the vice president does not support ending weapons transfers to Israel.

"For Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue," sociologist Eman Abdelhadi told Democracy Now! at the march. "We have spent 10 months watching our people die every day, and to ask us to simply just wait and hope that some change will happen... It's just offensive and it's completely insensitive."

As the protesters assembled on Monday, journalist Mehdi Hasan warned in a column in The Guardian that Harris should see agreeing to the demand for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and an arms embargo not as a risk, but as "a moral, geopolitical, and—for the Democrats—electoral no-brainer."

"Biden may want to continue sending more and more weapons to an Israeli government accused of war crimes at the international criminal court and of genocide at the international court of justice," wrote Hasan, "but Harris should take a different stance—a bolder stance, a stance that is more in line with her party's base, as well as with the American public at large."

This article originally appeared in Common Dreams on August 20th, 2024

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Move over, presidential race. These state governments also are up for grabs.

By Kevin Hardy 

Thousands of state lawmakers are on the ballot, and control of some statehouses hangs in the balance.

The presidential race gets the hype, but the nearly 6,000 state legislative races across the country in November’s elections could reshape power dynamics in some states.

While Republicans are primed to maintain their national advantage in statehouse control, several legislative chambers could flip, said Ben Williams, associate director of elections and redistricting at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Monday, August 19, 2024

#ActforHumanity and end violence against aid workers on World Humanitarian Day

 By United Nation's News Centre

UNRWA staff are supporting children in Gaza.
© UNRWA
 
UNRWA staff are supporting children in Gaza.
  Print 
19 August 2024 Humanitarian Aid

With the number of aid workers killed in the line of duty reaching record highs, the UN and partners are demanding greater accountability as countries commemorate World Humanitarian Day on Monday. 

Last year was the deadliest so far, with 280 aid workers killed in 33 countries - an “outrageously high number”said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Friday, August 16, 2024

Most of Gaza's 40,000 dead are women and children, says UN rights chief

By United Nations|Peace & Security


As the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza passes the dark milestone of 40,000, UN rights chief Volker Türk called on Thursday for an end to the killing “once and for all” and the release of all hostages while negotiators prepared to meet in Qatar to renew efforts to halt the conflict and avert a wider war. 

“Most of the dead are women and children. This unimaginable situation is overwhelmingly due to recurring failures by the Israeli Defense Forces to comply with the rules of war,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement.

Press Amplifies GOP Attack Line: Walz Too Slow to Use Force Against BLM

By Ari Paul 

As the Democrats headed toward their convention with momentum for the Kamala Harris and Tim Walz ticket, newspapers have collectively found an August scandal. Major press outlets are amplifying Republican claims that Walz, as governor of Minnesota, let the Twin Cities burn during the 2020 George Floyd uprising. By spotlighting these charges, corporate media are assisting GOP attempts to portray  themselves as the party of law and order against a tide of anarchic anti-police chaos.

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Police use of drones sparks discussion over public safety vs. privacy rights

 By William J. Ford

Lawmaker says issue could be topic when Maryland General Assembly convenes in January

The ACLU’s Jay Stanley acknowledges that he’s paid “to think about the ways this could go wrong” – but he said he’s thought of 10 issues that communities should be concerned about before they let their local police use drones to respond to calls.

Drone supporters said that they understand the concerns, but that police use of drones can help departments stretch their resources and improve their response times, while installing safeguards to protect peoples’ privacy rights. 

Harris unveils plan to curb price gouging, boost child tax credit, tackle rent hikes

By Jennifer Schutt 

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris released her first detailed economic policy proposal Friday, laying out how she’d like to ease rent increases, boost first-time home buyers, end grocery price gouging and bolster the child tax credit.

The Harris campaign’s announcement said the proposals, most of which would need approval from Congress, would “address some of the sharpest pain points American families are confronting and bolster their financial security.”

“Vice President Harris has made clear that building up the middle class will be a defining goal of her presidency,” the announcement stated. “She will deliver for Americans who are demanding a new way forward towards a future that lifts up all Americans so that they can not just get by, but get ahead.”

Harris will campaign later Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina, ahead of the Democratic National Convention beginning Monday, as both campaigns focus on a handful of swing states.

The economic plank of her plan seeks to curb the expenses that often come with building a family by expanding the child tax credit to the $3,600 per child that existed under the COVID-19 spending law that Democrats approved during the first months of the Biden administration. That provision has since expired.

Harris proposes increasing that credit to $6,000 for families that have children under a year old.

The maximum child tax credit is currently $2,000 per qualifying child for an individual making less than $200,000 annually or a couple filing jointly that makes less than $400,000.

There are several qualifications to receive a child tax credit, including that the child was under the age of 17 at the end of the year and that they are a U.S. citizen, U.S. national or U.S. resident alien.

The Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, would expand “to cover individuals and couples in lower-income jobs who aren’t raising a child in their home, cutting their taxes by up to $1,500,” according to the announcement.

Harris also pledged that no one making less than $400,000 annually would see an increase in new taxes, matching a promise that President Joe Biden has made throughout his time in the Oval Office.

Grocery price gouging

The proposal says that if elected, Harris would seek Congress’ passage of a law to implement a ban on price gouging on groceries and other food as well as establish “rules of the road” that would bar companies from “excessive profits on food and groceries.”

Rising prices on groceries have been a major pain point for consumers, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday made the case that prices are too high for American families, laying the blame for inflation at the feet of the Biden-Harris administration and insisting he’s the only person able to get prices back down.

To implement her grocery gouging plan, Harris proposes providing the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general with new authority to “impose strict new penalties” on companies that price gouge.

“Many big grocery chains that have seen production costs level off have nevertheless kept prices high and have seen their highest profits in two decades,” the proposal states. “While some food companies have passed along these savings, others still have not.”

“Price fluctuations are normal in free markets, but Vice President Harris recognizes there is a big difference between fair pricing and the excessive prices unrelated to the costs of doing business that Americans have seen in the food and grocery industry,” it says.

A Harris administration would also address “unfair mergers and acquisitions” that can contribute to higher prices on food and groceries, the Harris plan says.

Expansion of drug pricing controls

Harris hopes to expand a price ceiling for insulin that Democrats established in their signature climate change, health care and tax package known as the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA.

That section of the law, which only applies to Medicare, caps the price of insulin per month at $35. Harris’ proposal looks to expand that to “everyone” while setting the maximum out-of-pocket cost for other prescriptions at $2,000.

The plan would increase the pace that Medicare is allowed to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will also work with states to cancel medical debt for millions of Americans and to help them avoid accumulating such debt in the future, because no one should go bankrupt just because they had the misfortune of becoming sick or hurt,” according to the proposal.

Boosting home building

The economic plan released Friday includes numerous changes that could ease the increasing costs of renting and purchasing a home for the first time.

Harris would seek to bolster home building throughout the country by 3 million units during the next four years by taking “down barriers that stand in the way of building new housing, including at the state and local levels.”

A Harris-Walz administration would call on Congress to create a tax incentive for construction companies that build “starter homes” that would then be sold to first-time home buyers.

The announcement says the new tax incentive would “complement the Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit that encourages investment in homes that would otherwise be too costly or difficult to develop or rehabilitate.”

Harris’ proposal calls for up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers who have paid rent on time for at least two years.

The proposal says that if implemented, the down payment financial aid would go out to more than 4 million people over four years.

Harris also pressed lawmakers to address the rising cost of rent by approving two bills that have been introduced in Congress, but haven’t gained any ground.

One bill would reduce the incentive for large firms to buy more than 50 single-family rental homes. The legislation would bar those companies “from deducting interest or depreciation on those properties,” according to a summary of the measure.

The second rental proposal asks Congress to approve a bill that would “crack down on companies that help landlords increase rents in already high-priced markets,” according to a summary.

“Vice President Harris knows that our nation’s housing affordability crisis is making it hard for tens of millions of Americans to make ends meet while putting the American Dream of homeownership out of reach for too many working families,” the proposal states. “That’s why she will launch an urgent and comprehensive four-year plan to lower housing costs for working families and end America’s housing shortage.”

The Harris-Walz campaign is holding hold a bus tour in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area on Sunday, just ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

Harris; her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz; second gentleman Doug Emhoff; and first lady of Minnesota Gwen Walz will all participate in the tour of Allegheny and Beaver counties.


This article originally appeared in Pennsylvania Capital-Star on August 16th, 2024

Please support the news you can use and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website for more news!   

Take a look at my brief bio about my writing life and on social media:

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Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Federal government pays $2 billion for farmer discrimination; Va. farmers net $28 million

By Jared Strong 

Tens of thousands of farmers or would-be farmers who say they suffered discrimination when they applied for assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will get one-time payments that total about $2 billion from the federal government. The agency said 408 farmers in Virginia will receive a total of $28,451,840.

“While this financial assistance is not compensation for anyone’s losses or pain endured, it is an acknowledgement,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last week in a call with reporters.

'Sickening Beyond Words': Biden Approves Another $20 Billion in Weapons for Israel

By Jake Johnson

"Authorizing billions of dollars in new arms transfers effectively provides Israel a carte blanche to continue its atrocities in Gaza," said one critic.

The Biden administration on Tuesday approved roughly $20 billion in additional U.S.-made weapons for Israel's military as the death toll from its catastrophic assault on Gaza neared 40,000, with dozens killed over just the past 24 hours in Israeli attacks across the besieged enclave.