Friday, November 22, 2024

Top News | Christian Nationalism Marches on With 'Bible-Infused' Texas Curriculum



Friday, November 22, 2024

■ Today's Top News 


Christian Nationalism Marches on With 'Bible-Infused' Texas Curriculum

"What we're seeing here in Texas with these lessons is a larger national push to promote the idea that American identity and Christian identity are woven together, are one in the same," said one professor.

By Jessica Corbett



Critics Say 'History of Enabling Sexual Abuse' Makes McMahon Unfit for Top Education Post

"This is someone accused of ignoring rampant sexual abuse under her watch," said one advocate. "It's an insult to survivors and a blatant attack on the safety of students nationwide."

By Julia Conley



Dems Rip Musk-Ramaswamy Plan for Spending Cuts as Illegal 'Power Grab'

"The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous," said the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

By Jake Johnson



Amid Fears That World War III Has Already Begun, Russia Strikes Ukraine With New Missile

“I really believe the situation is very dangerous,” said one Russian politics expert during a week in which the two countries exchanged strikes.

By Eloise Goldsmith



Critics Call COP29 Climate Finance Draft 'Slap in the Face' by Rich Nations

"This is a shameful failure of leadership," said one Oxfam campaigner. "There is only one option for those grappling with the harshest impacts of climate collapse: trillions, not billions, in public and grants-based finance."

By Jessica Corbett



As Biden and Trump Teams Attack ICC, Tlaib Says Netanyahu 'Must Be Arrested'

"Today's historic arrest warrants cannot bring back the dead and displaced," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, "but they are a major step towards holding war criminals accountable."

By Jake Johnson


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■ More News


UN Program's 2025 Outlook Warns 343 Million Acutely Food Insecure


Trump's New Attorney General Pick: A Corporate Lobbyist Who Did Wall Street's Bidding

"We should expect an Attorney General Bondi to let corporate wrongdoers off the hook," said one consumer advocate.

President-elect Donald Trump's choice to succeed Matt Gaetz as his nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Justice is a registered lobbyist who has worked on behalf of Amazon, Uber, and other corporate giants.

Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, has lobbied for the same firm as Susie Wiles, Trump's chief of staff pick, according to Senate filings. Bondi also reportedly has ties to the lawyer who represented Trump confidant Elon Musk and Tesla in a federal securities fraud case.

Bondi, who helped represent Trump during his first impeachment trial and took part in the effort to reverse the results of the 2020 election, currently serves as chair of the Center for Litigation at the America First Policy Institute, a far-right think tank that's playing a central role in the presidential transition and in crafting Trump's agenda.

Trump's selection of Bondi to lead the Justice Department prompted renewed scrutiny of her record as Florida's top prosecutor, particularly her favorable treatment of big banks and other firms implicated in the foreclosure crisis.

The American Prospect's David Dayen, the author of an acclaimed book on Wall Street foreclosure fraud, noted Friday that Bondi's victory in Florida's 2010 attorney general election was aided in part by donations from Lender Processing Services and other firms that were facing investigations launched by the office of Bondi's predecessor.

In 2011, Dayen recounted, Bondi fired two attorneys in Florida's Economic Crimes division, June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, after freezing them out of a national probe of foreclosure fraud despite their extensive knowledge of the issue.

"There's a lot out there about Bondi, including her soliciting a $25,000 contribution from Trump and subsequently scotching an investigation into his fake university, while lying about how many complaints from former students at the university she received," Dayen wrote. "She also became a lobbyist with Trump-whisperer Brian Ballard after her stint as attorney general of Florida ended, seeking sweetheart treatment for clients like Amazon, GM, and Uber."

"But the firing of Clarkson and Edwards, which is detailed further in my 2016 book Chain of Title, is the most emblematic example of Bondi's extreme willingness to do the bidding of anyone who pays her," Dayen added. "The conversion of corporate donations into protection for that corporation, even if it meant firing her own staff, was done without so much as the bat of an eyelash."

"We should expect an Attorney General Bondi to serve as a Trump loyalist and attack dog at the expense of the department's independence and integrity."

Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizenpointed to Bondi's failed legal push to overturn the Affordable Care Act as further evidence that she is "a manifestly unqualified candidate for attorney general."

"Not being Matt Gaetz does not qualify you to be attorney general of the United States," said Weissman. "We should expect an Attorney General Bondi to let corporate wrongdoers off the hook. As Florida attorney general, Pam Bondi sued to overturn the Affordable Care Act, sued to block the ACA ban on health insurance companies price gouging people with preexisting conditions, and opposed efforts to reduce homeowners' mortgage loans in negotiations with financial institutions that had engaged in fraud and misconduct."

"We should expect an Attorney General Bondi to spread false claims about voter fraud and to undermine the Department of Justice's historic commitment to protecting voting rights," he added. "Bondi echoed Donald Trump's false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election and has brought lawsuits to restrict voting access.

"We should expect an Attorney General Bondi to serve as a Trump loyalist and attack dog at the expense of the department's independence and integrity," Weissman continued. "In short, we should expect an Attorney General Bondi to lead a Department of Injustice. Americans deserve better."


Georgia Fires Entire Maternal Mortality Panel After Reporting on Abortion Ban Deaths

"This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm," said one journalist. "Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."

Georgia officials fired everyone on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after ProPublica reported that the panel found the deaths of two women whose care was restricted by the state's abortion ban were preventable, the news outlet revealed Thursday.

ProPublica first exposed the committee's findings for Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller in September, sparking a flood of criticism directed at abortion care restrictions and the primarily Republican politicians who impose them. Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running for the White House, even traveled to Atlanta to pay tribute to the two women.

"They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."

Thurman and Miller's stories, as the news outlet acknowledged Thursday, "became a central discussion" in not only the presidential contest—ultimately won by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who has bragged about the role he played in reversing Roe v. Wade—but also ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in 10 states, seven of which succeeded.

In a November 8 letter obtained by ProPublica, Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey wrote that an "investigation was unable to uncover which individual(s) disclosed confidential information" despite state law and confidential agreements signed by panel members barring such disclosures.

Toomey explained that the committee was immediately "disbanded," a replacement panel will be formed through a new application process, and additional procedures are under consideration regarding confidentiality, oversight, and organizational structure.

ProPublica reported that the office of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp—who appointed Toomey—declined to comment and referred questions to the health department, whose spokesperson also declined to comment, saying that the letter, "speaks for itself."

As the outlet detailed:

Reproductive rights advocates say Georgia's decision to dismiss and restructure its committee also could have a chilling effect on the committee's work, potentially dissuading its members from delving as deeply as they have into the circumstances of pregnant women's deaths if it could be politically sensitive.

"They did what they were supposed to do. This is why we need them," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, one of the groups challenging Georgia's abortion ban in court. "To have this abrupt disbandment, my concern is what we are going to lose in the process, in terms of time and data?"

Other reproductive rights advocates and journalists were similarly critical in response to the new reporting from ProPublica—which has also covered the deaths of two women in Texas: Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.

"Women died because they received no life-saving care as they were having miscarriages in Georgia and the state responded by simply eradicating the committee that investigated deaths of pregnant women," declared writer and organizer Hannah Riley.

The National Institute for Reproductive Health, an advocacy group, asserted that "when anti-abortion politicians find FACTS inconvenient, they dismantle the systems meant to hold them accountable."

New York magazine senior correspondent Irin Carmon, whose forthcoming book is about pregnancy in the United States, similarly said: "This is how they cover up what abortion bans do—fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price."

Jessica Valenti, author of the newsletter Abortion, Every Day and the book Abortion, also argued that Georgia officials fired the panel members because "they didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women."

"I wrote about this in my book—this is how they cover up our deaths," Valenti continued. "In Idaho, they disbanded the Maternal Mortality Review Committee altogether; in Texas, they put a well-known anti-abortion activist on there to skew the data."

"I guarantee you that when Georgia replaces those seats on the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, they're going to put anti-abortion activists on there," she added. "Just watch."



Bolsonaro and 36 Others Indicted in Brazil Over Right-Wing Coup Attempt


■ Opinion


US Complicity at a Crossroads: ICC Arrest Warrants Demand Accountability

Their entanglement in Israel’s war makes U.S. leaders vulnerable to legal accountability not just for aiding and abetting crimes, but for direct complicity in their commission.

By Raed Jarrar


ExxonMobil Plans to Keep an Entire Generation on the Hook for Its Climate Destruction

Public pensions must exit Exxon to protect workers' savings and retirement.

By Allie Lindstrom


The Democratic Party Is Toast If It Doesn’t Earn Back the Trust of the Working Class

The task of inspiring, persuading, and motivating working-class voters requires showing that you are in their corner by consistently naming and picking visible fights with powerful culprits.

By Jonathan Smucker


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