UPDATE: The Obama administration just ordered construction of the pipeline to stop! Congratulations to Standing Rock and all those who have raised their voices in solidarity. Thanks to Carol van Strum for the heads up.
San Francisco protesters march on the offices of Citibank to protest the bank’s role in financing the Dakota Access pipeline. Image from Democracy Now! website.
Protests continue at Standing Rock. Image from Democracy Now! website.
As the Obama administration begins a new push to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership, known as the TPP, more than 200 of the country’s leading economists and legal scholars have written a letter urging Congress to reject the 12-nation trade pact, citing its controversial investor-state dispute settlement. Critics say the so-called ISDS regime creates a parallel legal system granting multinational corporations undue power. “This is an agreement so repugnant that members of Congress do not want to vote for it,” says Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
The show continues coverage of the standoff at Standing Rock, where on Saturday the Dakota Access pipeline company unleashed dogs and pepper spray on Native Americans seeking to protect a sacred tribal burial site from destruction. Just a few hours before the attack, Democracy Now! interviewed Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard about another attack against her tribe more than 150 years ago. On September 3, 1863, the U.S. Army massacred more than 300 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in what became known as the Whitestone massacre. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard is also one of the founders of the Sacred Stone camp, launched on her land on April 1 to resist the Dakota Access pipeline.
In Washington, D.C., a federal judge has ruled that construction on sacred tribal burial sites in the path of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline can continue. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order that halts construction only between Route 1806 and Lake Oahe, but still allows construction to continue west of this area. The ruling does not protect the land where, on Saturday, hundreds of Native Americans forced Dakota Access to halt construction, despite the company’s security forces attacking the crowd with dogs and pepper spray. This part of the construction site is a sacred tribal burial ground. Stephanie Tsosie, associate attorney with Earthjustice who helps represent the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in its lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers over the Dakota Access pipeline, offers an update.
We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
Billy Bragg doing his thing. Image: video still
During the Democratic National Convention, Amy Goodman and Juan González hosted a fiery debate between the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich about the presidential race. Hedges has endorsed Dr. Jill Stein. Reich is backing Hillary Clinton, after endorsing Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Reich served in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet as labor secretary from ’93 to 1997. He now teaches at University of California, Berkeley.
Today’s holiday special continues with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, who’s been reporting on Donald Trump for decades. Johnston first covered Trump in the 1980s while he was working as bureau chief for Philadelphia Inquirer in Atlantic City. David Cay Johnston later covered Trump at The New York Times. Johnston’s new biography of Donald Trump has just been published; it’s called “The Making of Donald Trump.”
Finally, legendary folk singer and activist Billy Bragg performs “There is Power in a Union” in the Democracy Now! studio.
We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
A cracked brick, at that. Image from Democracy Now! website.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump traveled to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who once compared Trump to Hitler and Mussolini. The Mexican president came under fire for inviting Trump to meet with him in Mexico, a move many critics saw as legitimizing Trump’s positions. Amy Goodman spoke to Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program of the Center for International Policy.
Hours after traveling to Mexico City, Trump gave a major speech on immigration in Phoenix, Arizona, where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed to build a massive wall along the Mexican border and to begin deporting millions of immigrants as soon as he takes office, if elected in November. During the fiery speech, he vowed to deport 2 million people within his first hour in office. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, Trump’s new deportation plan would target more than 6 million individuals for immediate removal.
The Brazilian Senate has voted to impeach the country’s democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff from office in what many are calling a coup. The vote was 61 to 20. Rousseff denounced the decision, saying there’s no constitutional justification for her impeachment. In an unexpected twist, the senators voted 42 to 36 to allow Rousseff to maintain her political rights, meaning she can continue to stand in elections and hold public office in the future. Irate opposition senators vowed “to appeal to the Supreme Court” to reverse the decision.
Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment ends 13 years of rule by the Workers’ Party in Brazil and brings to power President Michel Temer for the remaining two years of Rousseff’s term. Temer is deeply unpopular and currently under investigation himself, accused of receiving illegal campaign contributions linked to the state oil company Petrobras.
President Obama has appointed seven members to a federal control board that will run the finances of Puerto Rico’s nearly bankrupt government for at least the next five years and restructure nearly $70 billion in debt. The board is made up of three Democrats and four Republicans who will not only approve any budgets created by the island’s politicians, but also attempt to negotiate with the island’s nearly 20 creditors.
On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters in Puerto Rico blocked a street in front of a hotel where bankers and business executives were gathering for a conference hosted by the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce. Meanwhile, a new report from the ReFund America Project has revealed firms like UBS, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital have collected $1.6 billion in underwriting fees from Puerto Rico since 2000 just for refinancing bonds to pay interest and fees on older bonds.
We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
Bresha’s mother Brandi called her daughter “my hero.” Image: video still
A young girl who shot dead her abusive father now may face life in prison, sparking national outcry over the treatment of domestic violence survivors. On July 28, 14-year-old Bresha Meadows allegedly killed her father, Jonathan Meadows, with a bullet to his head as he slept. Only two months earlier, Bresha had run away from home, telling relatives that she was scared for her life ”because her father was beating her mother and threatening to kill the whole family.”
Bresha’s father reportedly made life for his family a living hell, routinely attacking his wife—Bresha’s mother—breaking her ribs, puncturing her blood vessels, blackening her eyes and slashing her body. Jonathan Meadows’ siblings have denied allegations of domestic violence. His brother told Fox 8 News, “This has nothing to do with abuse,” and his sister Lena Cooper called his death “cold and calculated.” For more, freelance journalist Victoria Law, whose recent article for Rewire is “What Bresha Meadows, Arrested for Shooting Her Father After Reported Abuse, Faces Next,” Bresha Meadows’s aunt, Martina Latessa, and Bresha’s lawyer Ian Friedman, join the show.
You can find more information on how to #freebresha at the Free Bresha campaign blog here.
In Florida, State Attorney Angela Corey has been defeated in her re-election bid. Corey had faced widespread criticism for her handling of several prominent cases, including the killing of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin by white neighborhood watch vigilante George Zimmerman and the case of Marissa Alexander, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing what she maintains was a warning shot at her abusive husband.
Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida won closely watched primaries after being challenged by a pair of Republicans who had embraced Donald Trump. McCain beat Kelli Ward, a doctor and former state senator. Rubio defeated millionaire developer Carlos Beruff. Rubio will now face Democrat Patrick Murphy in November in what is expected to be one of the most expensive Senate races this year.
On Tuesday, Murphy easily defeated Congressmember Alan Grayson, who lost several key endorsements after being accused by his ex-wife of domestic abuse. In other Florida election news, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz defeated progressive challenger Tim Canova, who was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. Shortly before midnight, Canova told reporters: “I’ll concede that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a corporate stooge.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald looks at the foreign policies of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. “You have President Obama, who himself has been very militaristic—he has bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries in the last seven years—and yet Secretary Clinton’s critique of his foreign policy is, in every case, that he’s not aggressive enough, he’s not militaristic enough,” Greenwald said. “And in Syria, in particular, they seem to really be itching to involve the U.S. a lot more directly and a lot more aggressively in that conflict.”
Greenwald says Democrats have adopted a “Cold War McCarthyite kind of rhetoric” by accusing many its critics of having ties to Russia. “It’s sort of this constant rhetorical tactic to try and insinuate that anyone opposing the Clintons are somehow Russian agents, when it’s the Clintons who actually have a lot of ties to Russia, as well,” Greenwald said. “I mean, the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton helped Russian companies take over uranium industries in various parts of the world. He received lots of Russian money for speeches.”
We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
If Martin Shkreli is defending you, you’ve probably gone very wrong somewhere. Image: video still
The pharmaceutical giant Mylan has announced it will launch a cheaper generic version of its life-saving allergy shot EpiPen amid public outcry over its alleged price gouging. However, consumer advocates say the cost of the generic drug is still prohibitively expensive and triple the price of what EpiPen cost in 2007 when Mylan acquired the product. The company increased the price of its allergy injector by some 400 percent in less than a decade, sparking a national conversation about the monopoly power of pharmaceutical companies.
Across the United States, millions of children and adults rely on the pocket-sized EpiPen to counteract fatal allergic reactions from common occurrences such bee stings and peanut consumption. For more, Amy Goodman spoke with Ashley Alteman, who runs a website called SmashleyAshley.com, where she has just posted an open letter to Mylan CEO Heather Bresch.
In 2007, the wholesale price of the EpiPen in the U.S. was $57. Less than a decade later, the life-saving drug now costs over $300. Each EpiPen reportedly contains only $1 worth of medicine. Mylan has a near monopoly in the U.S., and the company has seen its profits from the EpiPen alone skyrocket to $1 billion a year. Meanwhile, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch’s total compensation has spiked from around $2.5 million in 2007 to almost $19 million today. In response to the price hikes, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and its allies will deliver a petition signed by approximately 600,000 people to Mylan’s headquarters in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, today demanding further price cuts. Peter Maybarduk, director of the Global Access to Medicines Program at Public Citizen, had this to say:
Mylan wants to talk about coupons and patient assistance programs and this new, absolutely bizarre move of introducing a generic version of its essentially generic own product. … The one thing it won’t do, the one thing Mylan refuses to do, is have plain talk about price and just reduce the price. That would be the simplest, most effective thing to do to ensure that everyone who needs an EpiPen can get one and that the cost burden that we all share, paying into our healthcare system, is reduced.
California lawmakers voted Monday to pass a law requiring prison time for those convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious victim. This comes after news that California Judge Aaron Persky will no longer hear criminal cases, following outrage over lenient sentences he handed down to sex offenders. Persky became the subject of a recall campaign after he sentenced Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner to a six-month prison term for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Judge Persky said he was concerned a longer prison sentence would have a “severe impact” on Turner. Turner is white, and Judge Persky has since given a harsher sentence to a Latino man who committed a similar crime.
Turner is set to be released from Santa Clara jail on Friday, after serving only half of his six-month sentence. More than 1 million people have signed a petition demanding Persky be removed from the bench. But supporters of Judge Persky caution that efforts to recall a jurist based on his use of judicial discretion may have unintended consequences, leading to less care in sentencing and a negative impact on people of color. Today’s show hosts a debate. Michele Landis Dauber is a Stanford law professor who is leading the recall campaign against Aaron Persky. Sajid Khan is a public defender in San Jose, California, who leads the effort in support of Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky.
Hackers based outside the United States have reportedly infiltrated two state election databases, raising fresh concerns about cybersecurity in the lead-up to the presidential elections. According to a new investigation by Yahoo News, FBI’s Cyber Division released a “flash” alert earlier this month and warned election officials across the nation to take new measures to bolster the security of their computer systems. Sources familiar with the document told Yahoo News that Arizona and Illinois were the two states compromised by the hacks. The Illinois hack reportedly caused more damage, forcing officials to shut down the voter registration system for 10 days in July after the hackers managed to download personal data on up to 200,000 state voters.
We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
Dilma Rousseff is due to take the stand at her impeachment trial. Image from Democracy Now! website.
Embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is slated to testify today at her impeachment trial—a trial that many are calling a coup by her right-wing political rivals. Rousseff has denounced the proceedings and called for early elections to unite the country. Rousseff’s impeachment stems from accusations she tampered with government accounts to hide a budget deficit. She was suspended earlier this year and has maintained her innocence, accusing her political opponents of spearheading the proceedings to shield themselves from prosecution and undo years of progressive policies.
The Brazilian group Transparency Brazil says 60 percent of Brazilian lawmakers are currently under criminal investigation or have already been convicted of crimes ranging from corruption to election fraud. Rousseff’s opponents now need 54 votes, or two-thirds of the 81-seat Senate, to convict her of violating budget laws. Her impeachment would end 13 years of left-wing Workers’ Party rule in Brazil and bring to power interim President Michel Temer for the remaining two years of Rousseff’s term. Temer is also deeply unpopular and currently under investigation himself, accused of receiving illegal campaign contributions linked to the state oil company Petrobras.
Earlier this month, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders strongly denounced the impeachment of Brazil’s democratically elected president. In a statement posted on his Senate website, Sanders laid out his position as “calling on the United States to take a definitive stand against efforts to remove Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff from office.” He added, “To many Brazilians and observers the controversial impeachment process more closely resembles a coup d’état.” The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald joins the show from Rio. His most recent piece is headlined “Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the Clinton Foundation?”
Questions surrounding Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation continue to grow. On Sunday, Democratic National Committee interim chairperson Donna Brazile defended Clinton’s meetings as secretary of state with Clinton Foundation donors, saying, “When Republicans meet with their donors, with their supporters, their activists, they call it a meeting. When Democrats do that, they call it a conflict.”
Donna Brazile’s comments come in response to an Associated Press investigation revealing that while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, more than half of the private citizens she met with during the reporting period had donated to the Clinton Foundation. The AP investigation comes after a three-year battle to gain access to State Department calendars. The analysis shows that at least 85 of 154 people Hillary Clinton had scheduled phone or in-person meetings with were foundation donors.
We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
What is Turkey’s real motivation for intervening in Syria? Image from Democracy Now! website.
As the United States backs a Turkish military incursion into Syria targeting ISIS-held areas along the border, Turkey says it’s also concerned about Syrian Kurdish militias at the border who are backed by the United States. Today’s show looks at the conflict, how it relates to the recent thwarted coup attempt, and the government’s subsequent arrests of journalists on terrorism charges with an acclaimed scholar who has followed the region closely for years: Vijay Prashad. He is a professor of international studies at Trinity College and columnist for the Indian magazine Frontline. His new book is “The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution.”