Thursday, August 29, 2019  Sanders and Warren Back Legalization of Injection Sites for Drug Users Mike Ludwig, Truthout Last week, Democrats Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren came out in support of legalizing safe drug consumption sites. Research shows the sites are highly effective at preventing overdose deaths and the spread of disease, while increasing entry into addiction treatment. Advocates say the sites are a real public health solution to the opioid crisis, but the Trump administration is actively working to prevent cities from establishing them.
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Amazon Fires Will Have Global Consequences. The UN Must Act. Marjorie Cohn, Truthout We must act internationally to save the precious Amazon rainforest. The UN Security Council should find that the fires in the Amazon pose a "threat to the peace" and order member states to refrain from entering into trade agreements with Brazil until it accepts international economic and physical assistance in extinguishing the fires. The future of our planet is at stake.
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EPA Moves to Loosen Methane Rules as Trump Opens Alaskan Rainforest William Rivers Pitt, Truthout Trump has reportedly called to open up Alaska's 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest to logging, energy and mining projects, and has begun erasing environmental protections like the one that has defended Tongass for 20 years. On Thursday, his administration announced it intends to roll back regulations on the release of methane by the oil and gas industry. U.S.-style capitalism heeds no stop signs. It exists to plunder and to despoil for profit.
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Voters Say Touchscreen Machines Switched Votes in Nine Mississippi Counties Igor Derysh, Salon Machine voting errors have recently been reported in nine counties in Mississippi, sparking new concerns about paperless voting as the U.S. heads into the 2020 election. Twelve percent of all ballots are projected to be cast on voting machines, which are susceptible to hacking. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked all election security bills that have come his way.
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Pan-African Social Ecology Illustrates Liberation in Direct Democracy Clara Mejia-Gamboa, Truthout In his forthcoming book, Pan-African Social Ecology, lifelong organizer and grassroots historian Modibo Kadalie offers key insights for movements looking to fundamentally integrate issues of race, empire and direct democratic organizing into their political practice. He argues in favor of dismantling the nation-state and in its place, building up an engaged citizenry ready to determine the conditions of their lives in intimate connection with others.
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Greta Thunberg Arrives in NYC to Fight "Biggest Crisis Humanity Has Ever Faced" Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Following weeks of anticipation, Swedish climate justice activist Greta Thunberg arrived on the shores of Lower Manhattan Wednesday afternoon after a 15-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in an emissions-free yacht. Thunberg is kickstarting a months-long tour of the Americas, and for her first action, she will be joining New York students climate-striking outside the UN Friday morning.
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For Incarcerated Workers, Summer Heat Can Be a Death Sentence Ella Fassler, In These Times Incarcerated workers are especially vulnerable to hazardous heat conditions, because there are few labor protections in prisons. Federal labor standards apply to incarcerated workers in federal prisons, but not in state prisons, leaving most imprisoned laborers unprotected. It is well-documented that heat-related illnesses are a general problem for people in prisons, even when they are not working.
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These Companies Promised to Be Socially Responsible While Pushing ALEC's Agenda Donald Shaw, Sludge Just days before their CEOs endorsed a socially and environmentally ethical pledge for corporations to work for all Americans, a dozen major corporations sent lobbyists to the American Legislative Exchange Council's annual retreat to work in secret with lawmakers on bills to promote fossil fuels, bust unions and promote partisan gerrymandering. Lobbyists from Anthem, Chevron, FedEx, Pfizer and others attended the meeting.
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Southern State Governments Hobble Census Outreach Efforts Olivia Paschal, Facing South With the 2020 census just months away, only three states in the U.S. South have allocated any state funding to encourage participation. Adequate resources are especially a concern for the hard-to-count communities across the Black Belt, the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta, rural Texas and parts of Appalachia, where significant undercounts could have dire effects on the federal resources flowing to those communities.
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In Case You Missed It
Beto O'Rourke Built His Career on Driving Out Low-Income Mexican Communities Susie Aquilina, Truthout The El Paso shooting was the culmination of the overt racism directed at the Latino community over the years, but it was also part of the ongoing, systematic effort by the city's wealthy to drive out low-income Mexicans. Former Congressman and El Paso City Council member Beto O'Rourke is best remembered for working to transform the city's downtown by demolishing traditionally immigrant neighborhoods.
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Coup-Like Suspension of Parliament Sends U.K. Hurtling Toward Brexit Sasha Abramsky, Truthout This week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the constitutionally extraordinary step of asking Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament from mid-September to mid-October. Johnson's hope is that the suspension will give Parliament too little time to debate and vote on blocking a "No-Deal" Brexit, which would allow Britain to go crashing out of the E.U. even without a negotiated exit strategy with its European partners.
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