Monthly Archives: October 2020

Unions Representing Hundreds of Thousands of Workers Prepare for General Strike If Trump Subverts Election Results

“Paired with people in the streets, a strike could help stop a GOP coup.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-30-2020

Protests during Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Photo: Ted Eytan/flickr/CC

Dozens of labor unions have resolved to consider a general strike after Nov. 3 should President Donald Trump refuse to accept the results of the election or sabotage the counting of ballots, with organizers calling a work stoppage “the most powerful tool the movement has” to protect democracy.

The 100,000-member Rochester-Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation in New York was the first union federation to adopt a resolution this month stating that it would prepare for and hold “a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 presidential elections.” Continue reading

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‘We Will See Them in Court’: Howls of Protest and Lawsuit Promised as Trump Takes Wolves Off Endangered Species List

“Let’s learn from history: Removing legal protections is a disaster for gray wolves.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-29-2020

“The largest canine native to North America, gray wolves were once common throughout more than two-thirds of the lower 48 states,” before being “nearly wiped out in the mid-20th century due to habitat loss and deliberate eradication efforts,” Environment America explained in a statement released on Thursday, October 29, 2020. Photo: Spinus Nature Photography/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Immediately following the Trump administration’s decision to remove endangered species protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states—a move that wolf recovery and biodiversity advocates condemned as unlawful as well as “premature and reckless“—a coalition of conservation groups on Thursday promised to mount a legal challenge to the delisting effort.

“Let’s learn from history,” said Alex Peterson, a conservation advocate for Environment America, in a statement. “Removing legal protections is a disaster for gray wolves.” Continue reading

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‘One Word for This: Vandalism’: Six Days Before Election, Trump Finalizes Plan for ‘Catastrophic’ Attack on Largest National Forest

“Destructive development in the country’s largest national forest—such as extractive logging and expansive road building—will be catastrophic for generations to come,” warned Greenpeace.

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-28-2020

Tongass National Forest. Photo: joshy_in_juneau/flickr/CC

Cue the chainsaws and bulldozers.

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced its finalized plan to gut protections for the nation’s largest national forest, Alaska’s Tongass, opening the carbon sink to clear-cut logging and irreparable ecological destruction.

The change—at total odds with public opinion—means 9.3 million acres of the wild public lands, home to the planet’s largest intact temperate rainforest, are exempted from the Clinton-era Roadless Rule, which prevented industrial activity. Continue reading

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As Trump Says ‘Must Have Vote Total’ on Nov. 3, Nearly 400 ‘Protect the Results’ Rallies Planned to Fight Election Night Theft

“We think the likelihood of activation is high,” the Protect the Results coalition says.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-27-2020

In the face of increasing signs that President Donald Trump will try to prematurely declare victory on Election Night next Tuesday—even before millions of valid mail-in and absentee ballots are counted—momentum is building for a massive grassroots counter-offensive across the country to make sure that every vote is counted and any effort by the GOP to steal the election is thwarted.

Less than two weeks after progressive advocacy groups Stand Up America and Indivisible announced that they, along with a coalition of 135 national and state organizations, are organizing “Protect the Results” demonstrations for Nov. 4, the number of planned events had more than doubled by Tuesday. Continue reading

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Watchdog Fights Back as Facebook Attempts to Shut Down Research Exposing ‘Political Disinformation’ in Ad Practices

“Rather than combat the rampant disinformation and hate on its platform, Facebook has decided to go after the people who are helping voters understand who is trying to influence their votes.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-26-2020

In response to Facebook’s attempt to cancel a NYU research project that has been collecting data about the company’s ad-targeting practices, Common Cause has launched a petition imploring the social media giant to “shut down disinformation on their platform—instead of trying to shut down the advocates and academics who are trying to expose it.” (Photo: Legal Loop)

In response to Facebook’s attempt to shut down a New York University research project that has been collecting data about the social media corporation’s ad-targeting practices, progressive advocacy group Common Cause has launched a petition drive imploring the technology behemoth to “let the program continue and instead shut down the rampant disinformation on the platform.”

After researchers at the NYU Ad Observatory recruited more than 6,500 volunteers to collect data about the ads Facebook shows them by using a specially designed browser extension, the social media giant informed the university in a mid-October letter that the project violates the site’s rules against bulk data collection, according to reporting from The Hill late last week. Continue reading

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‘Victory for Humanity’: Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons to Take Effect as Honduras Becomes 50th Nation to Ratify

The United States has not ratified the treaty and the Trump administration is actively urging nations to withdraw from it.

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-25-2020

“This is a new chapter for nuclear disarmament,” Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), said in a statement. (Photos: ICAN/Aude Catimel)

The global movement working to abolish nuclear weapons celebrated a “historic milestone” Saturday after Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, pushing the agreement over the threshold required to enter into force.

Honduras’ ratification sets the stage for the international treaty to take effect on January 22, 2021 despite the refusal of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and other powerful nuclear-armed nations to sign on to the agreement (pdf), which requires that signatories “never under any circumstances… develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” Continue reading

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Constitutional Law Experts Endorse Democrats’ Bill to Create 18-Year Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices

They called it “a critical piece in prescribing how our country’s leaders can work to depoliticize the Supreme Court and its confirmation process.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-23-2020

Constitutional law experts on Friday endorsed a bill that would create 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court Justices. (Photo: Matt Wade/flickr/cc)

Over two dozen constitutional law experts on Friday endorsed legislation recently introduced by a trio of House Democrats that would establish 18-year term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The endorsement letter (pdf) signed by professors and scholars across the country, along with a former U.S. senator and a former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, comes as the Senate GOP is trying to confirm right-wing Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s third nominee to the high court, before the November general election. Continue reading

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Quietly Signed Trump Order Denounced as ‘Declaration of War’ Against Federal Employees

The order sets up Trump’s “cronies to burrow into permanent jobs in the U.S. government,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-23-2020

Photo: AFGE

After years of complaining that career federal employees are part of the “deep state” and aim to undermine his administration, President Donald Trump this week took a major step toward remaking the federal government as one without nonpartisan civil servants—signing a little-noticed executive order that would strip potentially hundreds of thousands of government employees of their job security.

Under the order, signed late Wednesday, career federal employees could be fired with little or no cause, lose their right to due process, and potentially lose union representation. Continue reading

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Saudi Arabia, Belarus Among Countries Joining US-Led Coalition Claiming Women Have ‘No International Right to Abortion’

“This administration doesn’t seem content to stop until it has fully trampled on the rights, autonomy, and dignity of women and girls everywhere.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-22-2020

Protest against changes in abortion law in Poland,. Photo: Zorro2212/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Further distancing itself from longtime U.S. allies regarding reproductive rights, the Trump administration on Thursday joined 32 countries in signing a declaration claiming that pregnant people have “no international right to abortion.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the virtual signing ceremony for the so-called “Geneva Consensus Declaration” after the administration formed an international coalition comprised of countries where abortion care is banned or severely restricted, to counter the United Nations’ support for reproductive rights. Continue reading

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‘Vote These Monsters Out’: Trump Officials Weigh Deep Funding Cuts to Covid-19 Relief, Newborn Screenings in Democrat-Led Cities

“Besides shameless graft, Trump’s central agenda is tormenting the people who didn’t vote for him.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-21-2020

Screenshot: ABC news go

Documents obtained by Politico reveal that the Trump White House is weighing millions of dollars in federal funding cuts to Covid-19 relief, newborn screenings, and other crucial healthcare programs in Democrat-led cities, a move critics decried as politically motivated “retribution” that could have a devastating impact on poor and sick Americans amid the ongoing pandemic.

Politico reported late Tuesday that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has “identified federal grants covering… nearly 200 health programs that could be in line for cuts as part of a sweeping government-wide directive the administration is advancing during the final weeks of the presidential campaign and amid an intensifying pandemic Trump has downplayed.” Continue reading

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