Tag: united states

Since the United States was founded on our lands in 1776, these policies and practices have had a devastating impact on the territories and rights of the Original Nations and our relatives from both north and the south of US borders. For us, Daca is not an immigration crisis. It is a human rights crisis. As Indigenous Peoples, we know our history and we know our relatives. The US-Mexico border is not an indigenous border. Similarly, to citizens of the Onondaga Nation – part of the Six Nation Haudenosaunee Confederacy, what you call the Iroquois – the US-Canadian border runs through traditional lands that we view as one inseparable nation. Far from ancient history, the doctrine to this day underlies the law and policy related to Indigenous land rights and human rights in US courts and across the world. As we have sought justice in the US courts for this illegal theft of our land, the courts refused to hear the case, citing the Doctrine of Discovery and claiming “it would be too disruptive” to the “justified expectations” of non-native people now living on our lands. Why Democrats should support open borders | Reece Jones Read more To be clear, the Onondaga Nation explicitly stated we do not want to “deport” people from our lands, the way we have been displaced historically. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) proclaims: “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.” In the spirit of responsibility for caretaking the land for future generations, we call upon leadership from all sectors of society to live up to the ideals of democracy and decency, of human rights and justice and act immediately to protect Dreamers and their families, and to recognize, respect and guarantee basic dignity and inherent human rights of all peoples, including Indigenous Peoples’ equal right of self-determination.

This week the US supreme court may have given the Koch Brothers yet another tool to help them achieve something they have been dreaming of for decades: weakening the power of public-sector unions. The aim of the plaintiff’s case is to eliminate “fair share fees”, dividing public sector workers and limiting their power in numbers. A 10-page fundraising letter from the Koch-backed State Policy Network, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, says that by undermining unions, they can ensure “the permanent collapse of progressive politics”. They also want to weaken the movements that working people support. Unions are a political and economic pillar of the progressive community, providing a venue for millions of working people to make a difference on the issues they care about. If the US supreme court undermines the power of unions with its decision on Janus, working people will end up with fewer resources and less collective power. Such a ruling could further tilt the balance of political power in favor of the polluters who prioritize their profits over clean air, clean water and a livable climate. This attack on the ability of public sector unions to operate comes at a time when the environmental, climate and labor movements are working in closer solidarity than ever before. Over the past few years, unions like Service Employees International Union and United Steelworkers have closely allied with environmental groups on the Paris climate accord and the Clean Power Plan, and have fought for clean air and clean water in cities from Flint to Los Angeles. Union members turned out in record numbers for the People’s Climate March.

Oil has occupied a central place in the American economy for the past century — powering houses, automobiles, factories and everything in between. But for the first time oil and gas companies are openly grappling with a less-than-certain future where climate change and related advances in other energy sources make them less dominant. In its annual energy outlook released last week, BP said that it expected oil demand to peak in the next two decades as renewable energy grows and consumers purchase hundreds of millions of electric vehicles. In an outlook released in February, Exxon Mobil projected a peak in demand for gasoline in the coming decades and acknowledged that some of its assets “may not be attractive investments” as a result of the shifting energy market. Exxon Mobil projects 400% growth in wind and solar power by 2040 while BP says renewable energy will make up 40% of growth in energy production in the same period. In some cases, oil companies will shift some of their refineries from making gasoline to making other petroleum products. That posture has changed as the science of climate change has become increasingly undeniable and countries across the globe push the energy sector away from fossil fuels. Despite a burst of environmental deregulation and climate change skepticism from President Donald Trump, most large oil and gas companies today acknowledge climate change and try to push for policy solutions that will still leave them a signifiant role in the energy future. “The global trend is happening no matter what the regulator would do.” But the growing acknowledgment of climate change and the coming evolution of the energy sector is a business decision. More than 20 of the country’s biggest utilities and oil and gas companies lack measured consideration of the risks of climate change, according to the report.

Donald Trump’s embrace of gun control measures long opposed by the National Rifle Association and at odds with party orthodoxy, has at least one Republican senator hopeful that Congress can break decades of gridlock on the issue and pass consequential reform. Break the Cycle: Gun Violence in America $15976 raised so far $0 $100K goal It’s time to end America’s gun violence epidemic. The Guardian is seeking contributions to fund Break the Cycle, our in-depth series to challenge the orthodoxy that gun control is simply too difficult. Make a contribution Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican of Pennsylvania and the author of a bill to expand background checks, said the president’s support of a stronger background check measure could help convert Republicans who helped to twice block its passage. During a televised meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday, Trump repeatedly endorsed legislation first introduced by Toomey and Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, that would expand background checks to weapons purchased at gun shows and online. Toomey admitted the bill still did not have enough support to pass the Senate, but said that could change with a serious lobbying effort by the president, who maintains strong support from the conservative voters most likely to oppose such legislation. Also on Thursday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to ban bump stocks, an attachment that allows a semi-automatic rifles to mimic the rapid-fire speed of an automatic gun. Trump called for a “terrific” bill that would expand background checks on gun purchases while also endorsing measures that would bolster security on school campuses, restrict young people from purchasing certain weapons, and remove guns from the hands of the mentally ill without a court order. During one exchange, he singled out Toomey, saying he was afraid of the NRA because the background bill does not include legislation to raise the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. Toomey told Fox and Friends that he had demonstrated his willingness to buck the NRA in 2012, when he introduced the Manchin-Toomey bill, which the gun lobby strongly opposed.

The list of nominees is one to watch in the coming years. EMILY's List, the political group that supports pro-choice, Democratic women running for office — and one of the most powerful forces in the party, has nominated six women in state and local office for its annual Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award. The lawmakers hail from across the US — from Washington state to Boston, and they embody a diverse array of young, ambitious talent in a year when the Democratic Party has seen an unprecedented surge in women running for office. The nominees will benefit from the added national exposure and access to EMILY's List donors and consultants. Foxx "walks in a room and people take notice," Prado said. A strong advocate for mental health care and women's rights, Colorado state representative Faith Winter recently teamed up with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, to advocate for the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, a federal paid family leave proposal reintroduced by Gillibrand last year. Prado said. Reeves, who faced significant adversity as a child growing up in poverty, calls herself "a product of the American Dream." The daughter of immigrants herself, Romero was the first Latina elected to the council. State Rep. Cora Faith Walker is a former health care lawyer who has advocated for early childhood education and criminal-justice reform in Missouri.

Government played a key role in creating these identities. “Without much thought given to what they were doing, [policy makers] created and legitimized for civil society a new discourse of race, group difference and rights. Added to the two familiar races, black and white, were three incongruous pan-ethnic categories. If you don’t think of yourself that way, the government will do it for you. There’s a box on the census for “some other race,” but the bureau explains: “When Census 2010 data were edited to produce the estimates base, respondents who selected the Some Other Race category alone were assigned to one of the OMB mandated categories.” For people who tick multiple boxes—permissible since 2000—OMB has instructed the Census Bureau to “allocate” responses that “combine one minority race and white” to “the minority race.” As Mr. Hollinger puts it, “thus the federal government quietly reinserted into the tabulation of the census the principle of hypodescent”—the technical term for the old segregationist one-drop rule—“that the opportunity to make ‘more than one’ was publicly said to repudiate.” Until the Trump administration stopped it last month, the census was preparing to add in 2020 yet another vast pan-ethnic grouping—“Middle East or North Africa”—for residents with ancestry anywhere between Morocco and Iran. Mr. Hollinger has proposed to do away with the pan-ethnic groups altogether and “count instead those inhabitants who identify with descent communities from specific countries.” The 2020 census starts down that path by adding a “write-in area” for countries of descent for both whites and blacks, as well as Hispanics, but will still divide them under the pan-ethnic umbrellas. Such revisions “would indicate that the census and the government are not interested in group characteristics in the third generation and beyond,” Mr. Glazer wrote. Mr. Hollinger’s solution is to include a box labeled simply “African.” As Mr. Glazer puts it, “this is the group that has suffered from prejudice, discrimination, and a lower caste status since the origins of the republic.” The Commerce Department must submit 2020 census questions to Congress by the end of next month. Mr. Trump could instruct agencies to report back on their progress after, say, six months. Mr. Gonzalez is a senior fellow at Heritage and author of “A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans.”

When the Founders first wrote and passed what we know call the Second Amendment, they viewed the Constitution in an entirely different way than most people do today. Most laws were passed at the state and local levels, and state constitutions determined the limits of those laws, including gun laws. Following the passage of the 14th Amendment—which reads, in part, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”—some courts began determining that at least some of the federal Bill of Rights applies to the states as well. For most issues, Americans are willing to accept such a model. Either left-wing states and their citizens will have to continue living in a nation in which guns are constitutionally protected, or they’ll have to change the Constitution to ban most or all types of guns from being owned. Unfortunately for gun advocates, left-wingers don’t need an amendment to gut the Constitution of its firearms protections. After all, liberals already have four justices on the bench who would likely approve of a law creating radical restrictions on gun rights, and the Court’s swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, is 81 years old. The United States needs a new amendment governing gun rights, and the only amendment that would likely have any chance of being approved would be one that returns the Second Amendment to the position the Founders envisioned, when it only applied to federal law. This, coupled with clarifying language that makes it more difficult for federal authorities to restrict gun rights, would permit states to issue stricter gun bans, assuming their state constitutions allow it. But it would also ensure citizens in states where guns are valued—which, by the way, is most states—are guaranteed from ever having their gun rights taken from them by a Supreme Court controlled by left-wing justices.

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The overtly political 2018 Winter Olympics closed Sunday night very much as they began, with humanity’s finest athletes marching exuberantly across the world stage as three nations with decades of war and suspicion among them shared a VIP box — and a potential path away from conflict. Senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. presidential adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump sat in two rows of seats behind the Olympic rings, meant to represent a competition of peace and international unity. “You have shown our sport brings people together in our very fragile world. Thrilled athletes marched into the arena around the world’s flags, relaxed after showing their athletic best to themselves and to the world. North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China are neighbors with deep, sometimes twisted histories that get along uneasily with each other in this particular geographic cul-de-sac. What followed was a strong dose of athletic diplomacy: two weeks of global exposure for the Korean team, particularly the women’s hockey squad, which trained for weeks with North and South side by side getting along, taking selfies and learning about each other. Kim, President Donald Trump’s daughter and Moon sat in close proximity as the Olympics’ end unfolded before them and the statement was released in Seoul. The developments Sunday both inside and outside the VIP box were particularly striking given that Kim Yong Chol, now vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee, is suspected of masterminding a lethal 2010 military attack on the South. The U.S. women’s hockey team and men’s curlers, both of which claimed gold. What’s next for the games?

US companies are distancing themselves from the National Rifle Association as the gun lobby comes under increasing pressure following the mass shooting in Florida last week. The car rental firm had offered discounts to NRA members. The move came after Best Western and Wyndham Hotels, which had offered discounts to NRA members, confirmed they had cut ties with the group after a social media campaign using the hashtag #BoycottNRA targeted them and others. Insurer Chubb has also dropped cover for NRA Carry Guard insurance, which insures gun owners for legal and other costs if they shoot someone and claim self-defense. Pressure group Everytown for Gun Safety, which has been pressing for Chubb to end the coverage for months, applauded the move. On Friday, one of the survivors of the shooting, 17-year-old David Hogg, who has become a powerful voice in the push for stricter gun laws, joined the debate and urged FedEx to stop its relationship with the NRA. Wyndham “is no longer affiliated with the NRA”, the hotel group said on Twitter. In an email to the Guardian, the chain said it ended its relationship “late last year”. Best Western, which has recently offered perks to NRA members, tweeted that it “does not have an affiliation with and is not a corporate partner of the National Rifle Association”. Other companies that have announced they have severed ties include Enterprise Rent–A–Car, which owns Enterprise, Alamo and National, and First National Bank of Omaha, which announced it would end a Visa credit card it offered with NRA branding.

In its first year in office, the Trump administration introduced a solitary new environmental rule aimed at protecting the public from pollution. It was aimed not at sooty power plants or emissions-intensive trucks, but dentists. About 5 tons of mercury, a dangerous toxin that can taint the brain and the nervous system, are washed away from dental offices down drains each year. In Trump’s first day in the White House, the administration told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw an Obama-era plan that would require dentists to prevent this mercury from getting into waterways. But in June, the rule was unexpectedly enacted. If they keep showing the same disregard for the law, their attempt to repeal all these environmental regulations will go badly for them.” The reversal of Obama’s environmental legacy has been spearheaded by Scott Pruitt, who heads the EPA, the agency he repeatedly sued as Oklahoma attorney general. Pruitt, who accused Obama of “bending the rule of law” and federal overreach, has overseen the methodical delay or scrapping of dozens of rules curbing pollution from power plants, pesticides and vehicles. Then, in December, a federal court told the EPA it couldn’t delay a new standard for dangerous levels of lead in paint and dust. And on Thursday, a federal court told the department of energy it must implement four energy efficiency regulations it was looking to scuttle. They have been reckless and not followed the basic requirements of the law.” The EPA now faces a fresh wave of opposition as it looks to craft replacements for major Obama rules such as the clean power plan, which sought to limit emissions from coal-fired power plants, and the waters of the US rule, which greatly expanded clean water protections.