Monthly Archives: February 2023

Critics Slam ‘Reprehensible’ Iowa Bill to Expand Child Labor

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“This is just crazy,” said the president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “A kid can still lose an arm in a work-based learning program.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 2-7-2023 by Common Dreams

Teen Job Fair. Photo: Fleet & Family Support Centers/flickr/CC

Labor advocates on Tuesday decried a business-backed bill introduced by Republican state lawmakers in Iowa that would roll back child labor laws so that teens as young as 14 could work in previously prohibited jobs including mining, logging, and animal slaughtering—a proposal one union president called dangerous and “just crazy.”

Senate File 167, introduced by state Sen. Jason Schultz (R-6) would expand job options available to teens—including letting children as young as 14 work in freezers and meat coolers and loading and unloading light tools, under certain conditions. Continue reading →

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‘Grim’ Report Warns 40% of US Animals at Risk of Extinction

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“We are currently experiencing and causing the Sixth Extinction—the mass extinction of species across the planet,” said the head of NatureServe, which also found a third of plants nationwide are under threat.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 2-5-2023 by Common Dreams

The Utah prairie dog (Cynomys parvidens) is listed as imperiled by NatureServe. (Photo: James Marvin Phelps/NatureServe)

Underscoring the need for humanity to overhaul its relationship with nature, 34% of plants species and 40% of animal species across the United States are at risk of extinction while 41% of U.S. ecosystems could collapse, according to an analysis published Monday by the nonprofit NatureServe.

“For 50 years, the NatureServe Network has been collecting the information necessary to understand biodiversity imperilment in the United States. This new analysis of that data, a first in 20 years, makes crystal clear the urgency of that work,” said the group’s vice president for data and methods, Regan Smyth. Continue reading →

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Civil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that’s still shaping American politics

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A group of voters lining up outside the polling station, a small Sugar Shack store, on May 3, 1966, in Peachtree, Ala., after the Voting Rights Act was passed the previous year.
MPI/Getty Images

 

Julian Maxwell Hayter, University of Richmond

For nearly 60 years, conservatives have been trying to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. As a scholar of American voting rights, I believe their long game is finally bearing fruit.

The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder seemed to be the death knell for the Voting Rights Act. Continue reading →

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Brazil’s Indigenous peoples survived Bolsonaro. Now Lula has won, what next?

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Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies devastated Indigenous communities. After four years of trauma, they can breathe again

By Sarah Shenker.  Published 2-3-2023 by openDemocracy.

Indigenous women in Brazil have led protests during Bolsonaro’s rule.. Photo: Survival International

The news broke on 28 October 2018. Through the crackle and hiss of the radio, we made out one sentence: “Jair Bolsonaro has been elected president of Brazil.”

It was a long way from Brasília to Maçaranduba, an Indigenous community in the Amazon rainforest, but the significance of the news was clear. Some of our Awá and Tenetehar friends paced up and down, others held their heads in their hands. One let out a visceral scream, before reaching for a bottle of sugarcane spirit. Continue reading →

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ACLU Sues CIA, DOJ, and NSA for Records About Warrantless Spying on Americans

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The legal group argues that information about the surveillance program “is key as Congress considers reauthorizing Section 702—the law used to defend this unconstitutional spying.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 2-3-2023 by Common Dreams

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee Screenshot: C-SPAN

The ACLU on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against top U.S. intelligence agencies that have failed to respond to public records requests for information about a “sweeping law that authorizes the warrantless surveillance of international communications,” including those of Americans.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, targets the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Department of Justice (DOJ), National Security Agency (NSA), and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Continue reading →

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‘Death Sentence for Women and Families’: US Court Blocks Domestic Violence Gun Ban

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“There is no real doubt that the 5th Circuit’s decision is going to lead to more abusers murdering their wives and girlfriends,” said one gun control advocate. “It will also increase mass shootings.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 2-2-2023 by Common Dreams

People participate in a March 24, 2018 “March for Our Lives” protest for gun control laws in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (Photo: Peter Cedric Rock Smith/flickr/cc)

The right-wing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday struck down a federal law barring people with domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms, a ruling that gun control advocates said will cost lives.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based appellate court said in its decision that the overturned law is an unconstitutional impediment to the right to bear arms. The judges based their ruling on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down that state’s limits on carrying concealed guns in public. Continue reading →

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Advocates Cheer Revival of Bill to ‘Restore Critical Protections’ to Arctic Refuge

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“We need a law on the books that will affirm these lands are not for sale, preserve the wilderness of the Coastal Plain, and uphold the sovereignty of Arctic Indigenous peoples,” said Sen. Ed Markey, one of the bill’s lead sponsors.

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 2-1-2023 by Common Dreams

A polar bear rests on a barrier island in the Beaufort Sea in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo: YangTS/flickr/cc)

Indigenous, climate, and conservation advocates on Wednesday welcomed the reintroduction of congressional legislation to restore protections and prevent fossil fuel development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), along with Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), reintroduced the Arctic Refuge Protection Act, the continuation of legislative efforts dating back to the 1980s to protect the critical wilderness and its inhabitants. Continue reading →

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Wife of Chief Justice Causes Latest Ethics Concerns at US Supreme Court

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“It’s clear that the ultraconservative justices in particular cannot be trusted to hold themselves to the same ethical standard as other federal judges,” said one advocate, calling for congressional action.

By Jessica Corbett.  Published 1-31-2023 by Common Dreams

Swearing in of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Photo: White House

Fresh calls for federal lawmakers to pass new ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court mounted after The New York Times on Tuesday revealed that a former colleague of Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife raised concerns to Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice.

After her husband joined the nation’s top court, Jane Sullivan Roberts left her job as a law firm partner to work as a legal recruiter. Though Roberts is now the managing partner of the Washington office of Macrae Inc., she and Kendal Price, the author of a letter obtained by the Times, worked as recruiters for the global firm Major, Lindsey & Africa. Continue reading →

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