Monthly Archives: April 2022

Biden Takes ‘Critical First Step’ to Fix Landmark Environmental Law Gutted by Trump

Leave a reply

“The Biden administration cannot stop here,” said one advocate, calling on the White House “to ensure we tap NEPA’s full potential to address the unprecedented environmental challenges we face now.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 4-19-2022 by Common Dreams

While welcoming the White House’s move Tuesday to repair some of the damage that the Trump administration did to a federal law known as “the Magna Carta of environmental legislation,” green groups also urged President Joe Biden to go even further.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized its “phase 1” rule for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), reaffirming that federal agencies reviewing infrastructure projects such as highways and pipelines must consider all relevant environmental impacts, including those that are climate-related. Continue reading →

Share Button

Thousands of Sutter Health Nurses Stage 1-Day Northern California Strike

Leave a reply

“We’re tired of being ignored and left without the resources we need to care for our patients,” explained California Nurses Association.

By Brett Wilkins  Published 4-18-2022 by Common Dreams

Nurses and healthcare workers at Sutter Health’s Solano Medical Center in Vallejo, California participate in a one-day strike on April 18, 2022. (Photo: California Nurses Association/Twitter)

Thousands of nurses at 18 Northern California Sutter Health hospitals and medical facilities on Monday began a one-day strike to protest what their union called the healthcare provider’s refusal to address “proposals about safe staffing and health and safety protections” amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

More than 8,000 members of California Nurses Association (CNA)—a National Nurses United (NNU) affiliate—and CNA-affiliated Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union are participating in the action, according to NNU. Continue reading →

Share Button

Legacy of Jim Crow still affects funding for public schools

Leave a reply
School funding inequities persist along racial and economic lines.
David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Derek W. Black, University of South Carolina and Axton Crolley, University of South Carolina

Nearly 70 years ago – in its 1954 Brown v. Board decision – the Supreme Court framed racial segregation as the cause of educational inequality. It did not, however, challenge the lengths to which states went to ensure the unequal funding of Black schools.

Before Brown, Southern states were using segregation to signify and tangibly reinforce second-class citizenship for Black people in the United States. The court in Brown deemed that segregation was inherently unequal. Even if the schools were “equalized” on all “tangible factors,” segregation remained a problem and physical integration was the cure, the Court concluded. Continue reading →

Share Button

French Elections: Tens of Thousands Marched Saturday Against Far-Right Le Pen

Leave a reply

A new poll out Saturday by Ipsos Sopra/Steria shows Macron leading with 55.5 percent versus 44.5 percent for Le Pen

By Common Dreams  Published 4-16-2022

Antifascist march in Paris on 4-16-2022. Photo: @Ange_Anonymous/Twitter

Tens of thousands of anti-far right protesters marched across France on Saturday as opponents of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen seek to form a united front to prevent her from winning ahead of next weekend’s presidential run-off.

Macron, a centrist, defeated Le Pen in 2017 when voters rallied behind him in the run-off to keep her far-right party out of power. Continue reading →

Share Button

Denied Bail, Scientist Emma Smart Goes on Hunger Strike After Arrest at Climate Protest

Leave a reply

“What kind of world do we live in when scientists are forced to put themselves into positions of arrest and hunger strike to be heard?” asked Smart’s husband.

By Jake Johnson  Published 4-15-2022 by Common Dreams

Scientist Emma Smart is arrested during a protest against climate inaction at the U.K. government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy in London on April 13, 2022. (Photo: Andrea Domeniconi/Extinction Rebellion)

Scientist Emma Smart went on a hunger strike Thursday after she was denied bail by London authorities while awaiting a court hearing on charges of “criminal damage,” which were filed after Smart and others glued scientific papers and themselves to a U.K. government building to protest destructive climate policies.

Smart, an ecologist, was arrested alongside fellow scientists earlier this week as they took part in a global nonviolent mobilization aimed at pressuring world leaders to stop expanding fossil fuel production in the face of intensifying climate chaos. Continue reading →

Share Button

New GOP Laws ‘Will Devastate Abortion Access Across Large Parts of the Nation’

Leave a reply

“Florida has been a critical haven for abortion access in the South, and this ban will decimate abortion access for Floridians and the entire region,” one group said after the governor’s signature.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 4-14-2022 by Common Dreams

Photo: Adam Fagen/flickr/CC

After Florida’s GOP governor on Thursday signed a 15-week abortion ban inspired by a contested Mississippi law that could soon reverse Roe v. Wade, pro-choice advocates warned of impacts across the region, given that the Sunshine State has long been “an oasis of reproductive care in the South.”

With Gov. Ron DeSantis’ support, Florida’s law is set to take effect this summer. His signature came after Republican state legislators in Kentucky on Wednesday overrode their Democratic governor’s veto of a similar bill and GOP Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday signed a near-total abortion ban. Continue reading →

Share Button

Biden EPA Unveils ‘First-Ever’ Blueprint to Protect Endangered Species From Pesticides

Leave a reply

One campaigner expressed hope that the agency “will back up its words with concrete actions” to address “historic wrongs.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 4-13-2022 by Common Dreams

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said a new agency plan “serves as the blueprint for how EPA will create an enduring path to meet its goals of protecting endangered species and providing all people with safe, affordable food and protection from pests.” (Photo: TumblingRun/Flickr/cc)

Environmental campaigners on Tuesday cautiously embraced the Biden administration’s historic new blueprint to guard endangered species from pesticides as a much-needed step forward while also calling for more concrete moves to protect wildlife, people, and the planet.

Welcoming the Environmental Protection Agency’s “first-ever comprehensive workplan” on the topic, Center for Biological Diversity environmental health director Lori Ann Burd said in a statement that “I’m encouraged that the EPA has finally acknowledged the massive problem it created by refusing, for decades, to consider the impacts of chemical poisons on our most vulnerable plants and animals.” Continue reading →

Share Button

‘Dangerous and Unprecedented’: Florida GOP Gives DeSantis Power to Draw Congressional Map

Leave a reply

“The Florida Legislature’s decision to cede this decennial process of redrawing lines for congressional districts to Gov. DeSantis is undemocratic,” said the ACLU.

By Jake Johnson  Published 4-12-2022 by Common Dreams

Ron DeSantis speaking with attendees at the 2018 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.. Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Florida’s GOP-controlled Legislature on Monday effectively handed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis control over the process of drawing the state’s congressional map for upcoming U.S. House elections, a move that voting rights advocates decried as an “unprecedented and dangerous” abdication of responsibility.

Caving to pressure from the right-wing governor’s office, Florida’s state Senate President Wilton Simpson (R-10) and state House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R-65) said in a joint statement that “at this time, Legislative reapportionment staff is not drafting or producing a map for introduction during the special session.” Continue reading →

Share Button

Buffalo Cops Who Shoved 75-Year-Old Peace Activist to Ground Cleared of Wrongdoing

Leave a reply

The arbitrator asserted that Martin Gugino was “definitely not an innocent bystander.”

By Andrea Germanos  Pubished 4-11-2022 by Common Dreams

Police officers in Buffalo, New York walk by the motionless body of 75-year-old Martin Gugino, whose head cracked on the concrete after being attacked by pushed over by officers during a June 2020. (Photo: Screengrab/WBFO)

Two Buffalo, New York police officers were cleared of any wrongdoing on Friday related to their actions knocking an elderly peace activist to the ground, causing him a fractured skull and weeks in the hospital, amid protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd nearly two years ago.

The arbitrator’s decision stems from officers Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe’s actions toward then-75-year-old Martin Gugino at a June 4, 2020 Black Lives Matter protest outside City Hall. Continue reading →

Share Button

Oklahoma state officials resist Supreme Court ruling affirming tribal authority over American Indian country

Leave a reply
Large portions of Oklahoma are governed, at least in part, by tribal jurisdiction.
crimsonedge34 via Wikimedia Commons

Kirsten Matoy Carlson, Wayne State University

It’s unusual for someone to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit one of its decisions. It’s very rare for that to happen almost immediately after the ruling was issued. But in the two years since the court’s ruling in a key case about Native American rights, the state of Oklahoma has made that request more than 40 times.

State officials have also repeatedly refused to cooperate with tribal leaders to comply with the ruling, issued in 2020 and known as McGirt v. Oklahoma. Local governments, however, continue to cooperate with the tribes and show how the ruling could actually help build connections between the tribal governments and their neighbors. Continue reading →

Share Button