Sanders rips Trump for ‘stirring up fear and hatred’ with speech guests

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) criticized President Trump’s decision to invite families of people killed by undocumented immigrants to Tuesday night’s address to a joint session of Congress.

“The murder of anyone is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to all families who lose a loved one to violence,” Sanders wrote in a post on Facebook two hours before Trump was set to speak.

“But let’s be clear about what Donald Trump is doing tonight in inviting family members who saw a loved one murdered by an undocumented immigrant.”
Two of Trump’s guests, Jessica Davis and Susan Oliver, are the widows of California police officers who were shot in 2014 by a convicted felon who had previously been deported to Mexico, according to the Los Angeles Times. The third guest, Jamiel Shaw Sr., is the father of a teen killed by a gang member who was in the U.S. illegally.

Sanders questioned why Trump did not invite the families of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian immigrant who was killed in Kansas last week, or the families of the black parishioners killed in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.

Cory Booker Joins Bernie Sanders In Backing Drug Re-Importation Bill

Back in mid-January, while Democrats were still recovering from the shock of the presidential election, 13 Democrats cast a dead-of-night vote that in previous years would have gone largely unnoticed.

It was against an amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that directed a Senate committee to write legislation allowing for the re-importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. Perhaps the most prominent of the baker’s dozen was Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who just the day before had given controversial and impassioned testimony against Attorney General-nominee Jeff Sessions, at the time a fellow senator from Alabama.

The backlash caught Booker and his colleagues by surprise, and in many ways it presaged the furious energy that would soon be unleashed by progressives against both Trump and elected Democrats unwilling to stand up to him. It was a sign that things had changed in Washington and that standard operating Democratic procedure would no longer be acceptable.

The memo has been received. On Tuesday, Booker will join with Sanders at a press conference on Capitol Hill to announce his support for a drug re-importation bill.

Bernie Sanders Electrifies J Street With Emotional Message On Israel — And Trump

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking with affection of his life in Israel decades ago, told a rapturous J Street conference that one could sharply criticize the Israeli government’s policies and be pro-Israel.

Sanders, I-Vt., speaking Monday in his first Middle East policy speech since ending his bid last June for the Democratic presidential nomination, also blasted President Donald Trump for retreating from a commitment to a two-state solution and not speaking out forcefully against anti-Semitism and bigotry.

Sanders’ recollection of his time in Israel was rare – he barely addressed it during his presidential run, and indeed has not been as expansive about his life on kibbutz since he first ran for Congress in 1990.

He laced his call to urge Israel to adopt more progressive policies with appeals to progressives to embrace Israel as a Jewish homeland.

“Now, as many of you know, I have a connection to the State of Israel going back many years,” Sanders said, addressing the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group’s annual conference.

“In 1963, I lived on a kibbutz near Haifa,” he said. “It was there that I saw and experienced for myself many of the progressive values upon which the State of Israel was founded. I think it is very important for everyone, but particularly for progressives, to acknowledge the enormous achievement of establishing a democratic homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of displacement and persecution, and particularly after the horror of the Holocaust.”

Sen. Sanders to speak at Johnson State commencement

Sen. Bernie Sanders will deliver the keynote speech at Johnson State College’s 2017 commencement in May.

“Senator Sanders’ ongoing commitment to social justice, environmental sustainability, and access to higher education resonates with our own college community’s values, and I am thrilled he will be able to share this day with us,” Johnson State College President Elaine C. Collins announced on Tuesday.

https://youtu.be/DCQdEvmWz1A

Betsy DeVos sparks ire by linking historically black colleges with ‘school choice’

Tuesday 28 February 2017 15.28 EST Last modified on Tuesday 28 February 2017 15.55 EST

Betsy DeVos, the controversial newly appointed secretary of education, is facing scorn on Capitol Hill and around the country after releasing a statement that compared the emergence of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), amid pervasive and overt racial exclusion, with the battle for “school choice”.

In a statement tied to a listening session with HBCU leaders, DeVos said HBCUs “are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality”.

“HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” the statement said.

DeVos appeared to by trying to make the point, popular with conservatives, that when schools operate in a marketplace, they tend to fill the otherwise unserved needs of students.

To many the intended argument didn’t survive the contradiction of associating HBCUs, born out of necessity when black Americans were almost uniformly barred from existing universities by racist admittance policies, with the idea of “choice”.

Tibetan women’s soccer players denied US visas for Texas tournament

Fifteen players of a Tibetan women’s soccer team have been refused US visas as guests of a Texas tournament, raising questions about what policy Donald Trump will take toward the contested region.

The team, Tibet Women’s Soccer, had planned to take part in this spring’s Dallas Cup tournament for young players, and was invited by organizers to stay with local players in the tradition of several previous diversity programs, including a Catholic-Protestant team from Ireland and a Muslim-Jewish team from Israel.

On Friday, however, the players were told by US embassy officials in Delhi that they did not merit permission to take the 10-day trip.

“What they said is we don’t have strong reasons to go to Dallas,” said Jamyang Chotso, a team captain. “But I think this is not the reason for them to reject us. [We] think the reason is they think we might run away when we reach there.”

Latest Trump executive order aims to dismantle Obama’s clean water rule

Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aimed at unraveling one of Barack Obama’s signature environmental policies designed to protect American waterways from pollution.

The president’s move marked the first step toward fulfilling his pledge on the campaign trail to roll back Obama-era regulations, which include a 2015 rule designed to curb the flow of pollution into major bodies of water, wetlands and ponds by expanding the requirement of permits to pursue any actions that might cause them harm.

Trump, who cannot simply repeal the entire rule with the stroke of a pen, declared Obama’s policy “a massive power grab” and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to formally review it. The action also bolstered the position of Trump’s new EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, who wishes to dismantle the rule and sued the Obama administration over it in 2015 while serving as the attorney general of Oklahoma.

Doctors could prescribe houses to the homeless under radical Hawaii bill

One day last month, Stephen Williams asked a passerby for help and then collapsed on the sidewalk. When the ambulance arrived in downtown Honolulu, his temperature was well over 104F.

A life-threatening staph infection had entered his bloodstream. Williams, who lives on the dusty streets of Chinatown, spent seven days hooked to an IV, treatment that can cost $40,000, according to the hospital that admitted him. But Williams didn’t pay: the bill was covered by government dollars in the form of Medicaid. Over the past four years, he has been to the hospital for infections 21 times, he said, a consequence of psoriasis flare-ups in a humid climate and unsanitary conditions.

Cases such as these have prompted a groundbreaking new proposal in Hawaii. Instead of prescribing medication to homeless patients like Williams, what if doctors could prescribe something else that might ameliorate their health problems more effectively? The prescription would be housing.

With this aim in mind, a state senator, Josh Green, has introduced a bill to classify homelessness as a medical condition. Green, who is also a physician, said the idea originated in his own work in the emergency room, where he saw many homeless patients arrive for treatment of basic conditions at great expense, but no real long-term benefit. “I’m really just applying a band-aid,” he said of his medical work. “But these problems require intensive long-term support.”

‘Shell knew’: oil giant’s 1991 film warned of climate change danger

The oil giant Shell issued a stark warning of the catastrophic risks of climate change more than a quarter of century ago in a prescient 1991 film that has been rediscovered.

However, since then the company has invested heavily in highly polluting oil reserves and helped lobby against climate action, leading to accusations that Shell knew the grave risks of global warming but did not act accordingly.

Shell’s 28-minute film, called Climate of Concern, was made for public viewing, particularly in schools and universities. It warned of extreme weather, floods, famines and climate refugees as fossil fuel burning warmed the world. The serious warning was “endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists in their report to the United Nations at the end of 1990”, the film noted.

“If the weather machine were to be wound up to such new levels of energy, no country would remain unaffected,” it says. “Global warming is not yet certain, but many think that to wait for final proof would be irresponsible. Action now is seen as the only safe insurance.”

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But, despite this early and clear-eyed view of the risks of global warming, Shell invested many billions of dollars in highly polluting tar sand operations and on exploration in the Arctic. It also cited fracking as a “future opportunity” in 2016, despite its own 1998 data showing exploitation of unconventional oil and gas was incompatible with climate goals.