Monthly Archives: July 2023

Voting Rights Groups Raise Alarm About House GOP Introducing ‘Big Lie Bill’

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One critic warned the legislation would “increase the influence of billionaires, corporations, and secret money in our elections while putting up barriers for eligible voters to vote.”

By Jessica Corbett Published 7-10-2023 by Common Dreams

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.). Photo: Congressman Bryan Steil/Facebook

Voting rights advocates across the United States on Monday responded with alarm to Republicans introducing what its backers called “the most conservative election integrity bill to be seriously considered” in the U.S. House of Representatives in decades.

Dubbed the “Big Lie Bill” by critics, the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act is spearheaded by Committee on House Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and includes nearly 50 standalone bills from the chamber’s GOP members.

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Egypt Announces Regional Summit as UN Warns of ‘Full-Scale Civil War’ in Sudan

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News of the upcoming meeting in Cairo followed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ warning that an ongoing armed conflict in Sudan could destabilize “the entire region.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 7-9-2023 by Common Dreams

Internally displaced people in South Sudanese province of Upper Nile. Photo: UNMISS

Egypt announced Sunday that it plans to host a summit of Sudan’s neighbors on July 13 to discuss how they might help broker an end to the 12-week battle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—an ongoing conflict that has exacerbated humanitarian crises in North Africa.

News of Thursday’s meeting in Cairo came after United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned—in a Saturday statement issued by his deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq—that intensified fighting between the two factions “has pushed Sudan to the brink of a full-scale civil war, potentially destabilizing the entire region.”

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‘Nothing Short of Outrageous’: Attorneys for Youth Climate Plaintiffs Blast Biden DOJ

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“It is our hope and expectation that the courts will see through the DOJ’s tactics and ensure that this constitutional case gets to trial immediately,” said a lawyer with Our Children’s Trust.

By Jessica Corbett Published 7-7-2023 by Common Dreams

The 21 youth plaintiffs in the constitutional climate case Juliana v. United States pose for a photo in New York City. (Photo: Our Children’s Trust)

Nearly eight years since 21 young Americans launched a landmark federal climate lawsuit against the U.S. government, their lawyers this week called out President Joe Biden’s administration for trying to get the case dismissed using recycled arguments.

In a Friday statement responding to the U.S. Department of Justice’s most recent push to have Juliana v. United States dismissed, Andrea Rodgers, one of the Our Children’s Trust attorneys for the youth plaintiffs, charged that “the DOJ’s conduct throughout the course of this case has been nothing short of outrageous.”

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Years Behind Schedule, US Destroys Last Chemical Weapons Stockpile

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“Honestly, I never thought this day would come,” said the head of the citizens advisory commission overseeing the destruction.

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

U.S. Army troops in protective gear destroy 155mm projectile shells containing deadly VX nerve agent at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Kentucky in May 2021. (Photo: U.S. Army)

The White House announced Friday that the United States has destroyed what remains of its once-massive military chemical weapons arsenal, while vowing to “prevent the stockpiling, production, and use” of the internationally banned weapons of mass destruction.

“For more than 30 years, the United States has worked tirelessly to eliminate our chemical weapons stockpile. Today, I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the final munition in that stockpile—bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

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World’s 500 Richest People Added $852 Billion to Their Wealth in First Half of 2023

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“They can afford to pay their fair share in taxes.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 7-7-2023 by Common Dreams

Elon Musk at a Neuralink presentation. Photo: Steve Jurvetson/flickr/CC

The 500 richest people on the planet collectively added $852 billion to their fortunes in the first half of 2023 due in large part to a record-breaking rally in the U.S. stock market.

According to a Bloomberg analysis of its Billionaires Index, the world’s richest people added an average of $14 million per day to their wealth over the past six months, “the best half-year for billionaires since the back half of 2020, when the economy rebounded from a Covid-induced slump.”

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Wisconsin Gov. Uses Line-Item Veto to Boost Education Funding for 400+ Years

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“This is how you’re supposed to legislate,” said Nina Turner.

By Jessica Corbett Published 7-5-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Governor Tony Evers/Twitter

Among the dozens of Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ line-item vetoes for state Republicans’ two-year budget on Wednesday was a move to boost funding for public education for the next four centuries.

The budget approved by Wisconsin lawmakers hiked the revenue limit for school districts—or how much they can raise from state aid and local property taxes—by $325 per student “for the 2023-24 school year and the 2024-25 school year.” Evers, a former public school teacher and administrator, turned that into “for 2023-2425.”

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‘Catastrophic’: Israeli Forces Unleash Humanitarian Disaster in Jenin

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Israeli bulldozers, said one eyewitness in the occupied West Bank refugee camp, “turned our streets into crumbs” as thousands flee amid destruction of critical infrastructure.

By Jon Queally. Published 7-4-2023 by Common Dreams

Innocent people who were taken out of the camp where they were exiled, regardless of children, the old, the sick or women. Photo: Vildan Ergün/Twitter

Thousands of people who live in Jenin in the occupied West Bank are reportedly fleeing the poverty-stricken refugee camp as Israeli military forces Tuesday continued to batter the city’s water, power, and healthcare infrastructure.

Muhammad Abu Talal, a resident of the camp, told Middle East Eye on Tuesday—a day after a large-scale assault by the IDF left at least 10 Palestinians dead and scores more wounded—that the refugee camp’s “streets are all dug up and uprooted” by bulldozers used by the Israeli forces.

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On Eve of July 4th, Bishop William Barber Unveils ‘Moral Declaration for America’

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“It is time for people with a moral conscience to wield every ounce of influence and power they have towards justice and to force this nation to be true to what it said on paper.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 7-3-2023 by Common Dreams

Bishop William J. Barber II at the Democracy Awakening rally at U.S. Capitol on April 17, 2016. Photo: Becker1999/flickr/CC

Bishop William Barber, founding director of Yale’s Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, penned an open letter on Monday decrying recent decisions by far-right Supreme Court justices and the complicity of political leaders who have “watched our democracy being slowly chipped away.”

Addressed to President Joe Biden, Congress, and the U.S. public, Barber’s “Moral Declaration for America” was released on the eve of July 4, which marks 247 years since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

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Biden Administration Poised to Supply Ukraine With Banned Cluster Bombs

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An official announcement is expected very soon.

By Common Dreams. Published 7-1-2023

Allegedly out of date NATO CBU-87 cluster bomb used in bombing of Yugoslavia; in 1999. Photo: Petar Milošević/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The Biden administration is considering providing Ukraine with cluster bombs and may announce this decision in early July, NBC News reports.

“We have been thinking about DPICM for a long time,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday at the National Press Club. “Yes, of course, there’s a decision-making process ongoing.”

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Any incident at Ukraine nuclear plant ‘would be deliberate act by Russia’

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Ukrainian nuclear experts say an accident at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant would be “almost impossible”

By Kateryna Farbar. Published 6-28-2023 by openDemocracy

The IAEA Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhya (ISAMZ) arrives at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant i September 2022. Photo: IAEA Imagebank/flickr/CC

An accident at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would be “almost impossible” and any damage would be a deliberate act by Russian forces, Ukrainian nuclear personnel have told openDemocracy.

Russia has occupied the plant, in the city of Enerhodar, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Its forces are currently preparing to damage the occupied plant, Ukrainian officials claim, in order to stop Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the country’s southeast.

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