Author Archives: MNgranny

About MNgranny

MNgranny has been an activist since the age of 17. After earning a BA in Mass Communications and enjoying a 30 year career, she is now disabled and dedicates her life to that activism. Her experiences include volunteering in community service organizations and taking leadership roles throughout her academic and professional life. She is also a survivor of rape and domestic violence, a published author and a master naturalist. She is also a professional member of the United States Press Association. She has focused for the last several years and specializes in Kurdish history, culture and politics.

Over Apple’s Objections, Oregon Governor Signs Nation’s Strongest Right to Repair Law

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“Oregon becomes the first state to ban ‘parts pairing,’ which let companies like Apple decide when and how you replace parts.”

By Julia Conley. Published 3-27-2024 by Common Dreams

Genius bar. Photo: Christian Rasmussen/flickr/CC

In a move that advocates said will save Oregon residents money while supporting small businesses and reducing waste of electronic devices, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek on Wednesday signed the Right to Repair Act, a law that passed earlier this month despite Apple’s lobbying efforts.

The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), applauded the signing of the bill, which requires manufacturers to provide Oregonians and small repair businesses with access to the parts, tools, and information needed to fix personal electronics and household appliances.

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Federal Court Rules Major Wyoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale Illegal for Ignoring Climate Impacts

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“This is a huge victory for the protection of our public lands,” said Friends of the Earth.

By Julia Conley Published 3-25-2024 by Common Dreams

Aerial view showing typical drilling activity in the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field of Wyoming. Photo: SkyTruth/flickr/CC

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will have to reevaluate the wildlife and public health impacts of a major 2022 oil and gas lease sale in Wyoming after a federal judge ruled Friday that the agency had overlooked “what is widely regarded as the most pressing environmental threat facing the world today” when it moved forward with leasing 120,000 of federal land.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in Washington, D.C. that the BLM did not halt the lease sale even after it acknowledged that oil and gas drilling on the federal lands could result in the same negative environmental and social impacts as the addition of hundreds of thousands of cars to U.S. roads each year.

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Legislative inaction and dissatisfaction with one-party control lead to more issues going directly to voters in ballot initiatives, with 60% of them in six states

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By Thom Reilly, Arizona State University. Published 3-21-2024 by The Conversation

Photo: Stewart Butterfield/flickr/CC

Recent polls show Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with their system of representative democracy, in which they choose candidates to represent their interests once in office.

When available, voters have bypassed their elected representatives and enacted laws by using direct democracy tools such as ballot initiatives and veto referendums. Ballot initiatives allow citizens or legislatures to propose policies for voter approval, while veto referendums permit challenges to legislative action.

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New CDC Data Reveals ‘National Embarrassment’ of For-Profit Healthcare

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“Our leaders must act to kick insurance companies to the curb and enact Medicare for All now,” said one advocate.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 3-21-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: March for Medicare for All/Facebook

Single-payer advocates on Thursday pointed to new federal life expectancy data—which shows Americans live shorter lives than people in any other major most-developed nation—as the latest proof of the need to enact a Medicare for All-type universal healthcare program.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. life expectancy was 77.5 years in 2022, an increase of 1.1 years from the previous year. The leading U.S. causes of death in 2022 were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, and Covid-19.

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US Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce ‘Unconstitutional and Extreme’ Border Law

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“Allowing this law to be implemented as the case makes its way through the legal process needlessly puts people’s lives at risk,” said one campaigner. “We remain committed to the fight to permanently overturn S.B. 4.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 3-19-2024 by Common Dreams

Migrants who crossed the border illegally, surrender near El Paso, TX U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo by Mani Albrecht

Rights advocates on Tuesday blasted the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court for allowing Texas to enforce Senate Bill 4, a contested law empowering local and state authorities to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.

“Today’s decision is disappointing and threatens the integrity of our nation’s immigration laws and bedrock principles of due process,” said Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “But it is only preliminary and turned on the specific posture of the case. We’ll continue to fight against S.B. 4 until it is struck down once and for all.”

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‘North Sea Fossil Free’: Activists in 6 Countries Protest ‘Unhinged’ Oil and Gas Development

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“Going full steam ahead with new North Sea oil and gas is a sure fire route to the worst climate scenarios,” one campaigner said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 3-16-2024 by Common Dreams

The “oil slicks” performance artist group demonstrates the impacts of a potential oil spill on Scotland’s Moray Firth as part of a North Sea-wide day of action on March 16, 2024. Photo: Extinction Rebellion Scotland/X

Climate activists in six North Sea countries came together on Saturday to carry out acts of civil disobedience in protest of their governments’ continued fossil fuel development.

Demonstrators in the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands blockaded roads, ports, and refineries; dropped banners; and held solidarity concerts as part of the North Sea Fossil Free campaign to demand that their governments align their plans for the shared body of water with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

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GOP Leaders Push Judiciary to Ignore Policy Designed to End ‘Judge Shopping’

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“Look who just came out and said it: We’re against the fair and impartial administration of justice,” said one civil rights attorney.

BY Julia Conley. Published 3-15-2024 by Common Dreams

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaking at CPAC in 2014. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

Republican lawmakers on Thursday signaled they want to stop judges from following a new judicial policy unveiled this week that’s aimed at curbing what one journalist called “one of the most outrageous aspects of the American legal system.”

In a letter to the chief justices of U.S. district courts across the country on a new rule regarding the practice of “judge shopping,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) joined Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) in advising the judges that “Judicial Conference policy is not legislation.”

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Report Exposes US Corporations That Pay Their Execs More Than They Pay in Taxes

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“Both kinds of corporate misbehavior—underpaying taxes and overpaying executives—ultimately make working families the victim through smaller paychecks and diminished public services.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 3-13-2024 by Common Dreams

Elon Musk at TED2013: The Young, The Wise, The Undiscovered. Wednesday, February 27, 2013, Long Beach, CA. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Top executives at dozens of major, profitable U.S. businesses received more in total compensation in recent years than their companies paid in federal taxes, underscoring the twin outrages of skyrocketing CEO pay and rampant corporate tax dodging.

A report published Wednesday by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) identifies 35 profitable U.S. corporations that paid their top executives more than they paid the federal government in taxes between 2018 and 2022. The list of companies includes Ford, Netflix, NextEra Energy, and Tesla—whose CEO, Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world.

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Biden 2025 Budget Would Offer ‘Welcome Relief,’ But Not Enough

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One expert said that enacting his reforms “will begin to reverse the 40-year one-way ratchet of falling taxes for the wealthy and corporations and instead invest in workers and families.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 3-11-2024 by Common Dreams

Photto: U.S. Secretary of Defense/flickr/CC

On the heels of delivering the latest State of the Union speech and signing a package of funding bills, U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday unveiled his budget blueprint for fiscal year 2025, a proposal praised by congressional Democrats and progressive advocates who want him to go even further.

The $7.3 trillion budget comes as the divided Congress is still sorting out funding for the current fiscal year. Given those divisions—and that the Republican House majority is already advancing its own budget resolution for the fiscal year that begins in October—the Democratic president’s plan is widely seen as a statement of priorities going into the November election.

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Migrant Drownings in Pacific Soared 3,200% After Trump Raised Border Wall: Study

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The Trump administration nearly doubled the height of the border barrier as part of its “zero tolerance” immigration agenda.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 3-8-2024 by Common Dreams

Border Field State Park / Imperial Beach, San Diego, California. Photo: Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons/CC

The number of migrants drowning in the Pacific Ocean while attempting to enter the United States from Tijuana, Mexico skyrocketed by 3,200% after the Trump administration dramatically increased the height of the border barrier extending into the southern California sea, a study published Thursday revealed.

The study—published in JAMA, the American Medical Association’s journal—found that 33 people drowned while trying to swim across the southern border between 2020-23, compared with just one death in the previous four years. Researchers tied the soaring fatalities to the Trump administration’s decision to raise the height of the border wall from 17 feet to 30 feet as part of its “zero tolerance” immigration agenda.

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