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Playing Role of Pesticide ‘Cheerleader,’ EPA Rebukes Calif. With Ban on Warning Labels for Roundup
Playing Role of Pesticide ‘Cheerleader,’ EPA Rebukes Calif. With Ban on Warning Labels for Roundup
“It’s the Environmental Protection Agency, not the pesticide protection agency.”
“It’s a little bit sad,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, “the EPA is the biggest cheerleader and defender of glyphosate.” (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was accused of being a pesticide “cheerleader” last week after the agency said it would not approval labels that say that glyphosate—the active ingredient in Roundup and other weedkillers—is known to cause cancer.
In a statement released Thursday announcing the move, the EPA dug in on its assertion that glyphosate does not cause cancer, though critics have said that is “an industry-friendly conclusion that’s simply not based on the best available science.”
The new guidance takes aim at California’s 2017 move, in adherence with its Proposition 65, to add glyphosate to its list of chemicals known to cause cancer and require warning labels. The state cited the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer 2015 assessment that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
The EPA, however, said those labels provided consumers with false information.
“We will not allow California’s flawed program to dictate federal policy,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in the statement.
The EPA also sent a letter to manufactures on Aug. 7 saying that “pesticide products bearing the Proposition 65 warning statement due to the presence of glyphosate are misbranded” under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).
The letter, signed by Michael Goodis, head of EPA’s registration division in its Office of Pesticide Programs, said EPA would not approve labeling with that warning, and that “EPA requests the submission of draft amended labeling that removes such language within ninety days of the date of this letter.”
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Privacy Advocates Celebrate as Massachusetts City Becomes Second in US to Ban Facial Recognition Technology
Privacy Advocates Celebrate as Massachusetts City Becomes Second in US to Ban Facial Recognition Technology
“The city is sending a bold statement that it won’t sit by idly while the dystopian technology further outpaces our civil liberties protections and harms privacy, racial and gender justice, and freedom of speech.”
A display shows a facial recognition system for law enforcement during the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 1, 2017. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Civil liberties advocates around the country celebrated after Somerville, Massachusetts on Thursday became the second city in the United States to bar local government—including law enforcement—from using facial recognition technology.
“Facial recognition can be used to track our every movement, supercharge racial profiling and discrimination, target political dissidents, and control nearly every aspect of our lives.”
—Evan Greer, Fight for the Future
By approving the ordinance, Somerville is “joining a growing nationwide movement to bring the technology under democratic control,” Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Program, said in a statement to the news website Wicked Local North of Boston.
“The city is sending a bold statement that it won’t sit by idly while the dystopian technology further outpaces our civil liberties protections and harms privacy, racial and gender justice, and freedom of speech,” Crockford added.
BREAKING: Somerville just became the first East Coast city to ban government use of face recognition technology.
The Massachusetts city joins a growing nationwide movement to bring the technology under democratic control before it further harms our civil liberties and privacy. https://twitter.com/onekade/status/1144413996486987786 …Replying to @onekade
Wicked Local reported that the ACLU of Massachusetts—which launched a “Press Pause on Face Surveillance” campaign earlier this month to highlight mounting concerns about how the technology can be used and abused—worked on the ordinance with Ben Ewen-Campen, the Somerville City Council member who introduced it.
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The Declare a ‘Climate Emergency’ Movement Grows as Scotland Joins
The Declare a ‘Climate Emergency’ Movement Grows as Scotland Joins
Also, UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched a bid to declare a climate emergency in the United Kingdom.
A banner is hung across a roadway while people participate in direct action with Extinction Rebellion on April 17, 2019 in New York City. The activists are demanding governments to declare a climate emergency. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon became the first world leader to declare a “climate emergency” on Sunday.
The Scottish leader told delegates to a party conference in Edinburgh she was inspired after meeting young climate activists.
Ms. Sturgeon said: “A few weeks ago, I met some of the young climate change campaigners who’ve gone on strike from school to raise awareness of their cause. They want governments around the world to declare a climate emergency. They say that’s what the science tells us. And they are right.”
“So today, as first minister of Scotland, I am declaring that there is a climate emergency. And Scotland will live up to our responsibility to tackle it.”
The Scottish first minister said she was declaring the emergency because the science showed global warming was worsening. Scotland’s Green Party has recently criticized Sturgeon’s government for moving too slowly on climate change.
Also, this weekend, UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched a bid to declare a climate emergency in the United Kingdom. Members of Parliament will vote this Wednesday on whether to declare an environmental and climate emergency following mass protests over political inaction in addressing the crisis. Labour will force a Commons vote on the issue, one of the key demands of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement, whose activists took over London in recent weeks. Corbyn said he hoped other countries would follow if the UK Parliament became the first in the world to declare a climate emergency.
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With Youth Climate Actions Backed by Leading Experts, Latest Round of Protests Highlights Call for Bold and Urgent Action
With Youth Climate Actions Backed by Leading Experts, Latest Round of Protests Highlights Call for Bold and Urgent Action
“We can change it all if we want it all, and we do.”
Protesters hold signs at the YouthStrike4Climate student march on April 12, 2019 in London. Students are protesting across the U.K. due to the lack of government action to combat climate change. (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
The latest round of weekly climate strikes took place in cities across the globe on Friday as a group of experts said that the youthful protesters deserve the support of the international community, and backed their call for “rapid and forceful action.”
London was among dozens of U.K. cities where #FridaysforFuture actions took place. One of the protesters there was 21-year-old Cameron Joshi, who told the Guardian:“The global system of trade benefits them, not us, it’s built for consumption. But they’re fucking afraid of us.”
And they should be, he said.
“They fear us because they know if we get our shit together we can change the world. We’re at an absolutely seminal point in history, years of consumerism, capitalism, and environmental murder, and we can change it all if we want it all, and we do.”
Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who spearheaded the school strike for climate campaign, took to Twitter to share images of many of the protests:
Students from Istanbul made their first school strike for climate today. New students are on the way 12.04.2019
#fridaysforfuture#schoolstrikeforclimate@GretaThunberg#iklimdegisikligi#iklimkrizi
Der Demo-Zug von #fridaysforfuture in #Potsdam ist jetzt am Landtag angekommen. @PNN_de @F4F_Potsdam
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Researchers Warn Arctic Has Entered ‘Unprecedented State’ That Threatens Global Climate Stability
Researchers Warn Arctic Has Entered ‘Unprecedented State’ That Threatens Global Climate Stability
“Never have so many Arctic indicators been brought together in a single paper.” And the findings spell trouble for the entire planet.
The Yukon River winds through western interior Alaska in early April. (Photo: UAF/Todd Paris)
A new research paper by American and European climate scientists focused on Arctic warming published Monday reveals that the “smoking gun” when it comes to changes in the world’s northern polar region is rapidly warming air temperatures that are having—and will continue to have—massive and negative impacts across the globe.
The new paper—titled “Key Indicators of Arctic Climate Change: 1971–2017“—is the work of scientists at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen (GUES).
“The Arctic system is trending away from its 20th century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but beyond the Arctic.” —Jason Box, GUES
“The Arctic system is trending away from its 20th century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but beyond the Arctic,” said Jason Box of the GUES, lead author of the study. “Because the Arctic atmosphere is warming faster than the rest of the world, weather patterns across Europe, North America, and Asia are becoming more persistent, leading to extreme weather conditions. Another example is the disruption of the ocean circulation that can further destabilize climate: for example, cooling across northwestern Europe and strengthening of storms.”
John Walsh, chief scientist at AUF’s research center, was the one who called arctic air tempertures the “smoking gun” discovered during the research—a finding the team did not necessarily anticipate.
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Amid Blackouts and Food Shortages, Pence Unveils New Sanctions Targeting Venzuelan Oil Exports to Cuba
Amid Blackouts and Food Shortages, Pence Unveils New Sanctions Targeting Venzuelan Oil Exports to Cuba
Peace advocacy group CodePink says, “Reminder: sanctions are an act of war. #HandsOffVenezuela.”
Residents carry water that they had to obtain from a natural source from the hill El Avila after the water supply was suspended following a nationwide blackout occurred March 10, 2019 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo: Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images)
Despite Venezuela’s worsening humanitarian crisis fueled by political unrest and economic sanctions, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence announced new sanctions targeting the government and companies that transport oil to Cuba as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Recognizing that “oil is the lifeblood” of the Venezuelan government, Pence said in Houston on Friday that the United States is sanctioning 34 vessels owned or operated by Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA)—the state-run oil company—and two international businesses and a vessel that have recently shipped crude oil to Cuba, a key ally of Maduro.
“Cuba is a major importer of crude oil from Venezuela,” the U.S. Treasury Department noted in a statement Friday, “and in return, sends assistance to Venezuela in the form of political advisers, intelligence and military officials, and medical professionals, all of whom are used to ensure Maduro’s hold on power.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez immediately spoke out against the sanctions. “I strongly reject new measures of economic piracy adopted by Washington to damage #Venezuela and steal its resources,” he tweeted in Spanish on Friday. “They will fail.”
“These measures are an act of extraterritoriality, interference, and imperial arrogance,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez added on Saturday.
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Bold New Campaign Highlights How ‘Nature Can Save Us’ From Climate and Ecological Breakdown
Bold New Campaign Highlights How ‘Nature Can Save Us’ From Climate and Ecological Breakdown
“The protection and restoration of these ecosystems can help to minimize a sixth great extinction, while enhancing local people’s resilience against climate disaster.”
A new campaign launched Wednesday calls for “drawing carbon dioxide out of the air by protecting and restoring ecosystems.” (Photo: Nicholas Tonelli/Flickr/cc)
A group of activists, experts, and writers on Wednesday launched a bold new campaign calling for the “thrilling but neglected approach” of embracing nature’s awesome restorative powers to battle the existential crises of climate and ecological breakdown.
Averting catastrophic global warming and devastating declines in biodiversity, scientists warn, requires not only overhauling human activities that generate planet-heating emissions—like phasing out fossil fuels—but also cutting down on the carbon that is already in the atmosphere.
In a letter to governments, NGOs, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Natural Climate Solutionscampaign calls for tackling these crises by not only rapidly decarbonizing economies, but also by “drawing carbon dioxide out of the air by protecting and restoring ecosystems.”
Along with stopping fossil fuel emissions, we badly need to restore natural systems. Important new effort spearheaded by @GeorgeMonbiot https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/03/let-nature-heal-climate-and-biodiversity-crises-say-campaigners …4708:58 AM – Apr 3, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacyLet nature heal climate and biodiversity crises, say campaignersRestoration of forests and coasts can tackle ‘existential crises’ but is being overlookedtheguardian.com
“By defending, restoring and re-establishing forests, peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes, natural seabeds, and other crucial ecosystems, very large amounts of carbon can be removed from the air and stored,” the letter says. “At the same time, the protection and restoration of these ecosystems can help to minimize a sixth great extinction, while enhancing local people’s resilience against climate disaster.”
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‘Most Destructive Pathogen Ever’ Has Created Zombie-Like Apocalypse for World’s Amphibians
‘Most Destructive Pathogen Ever’ Has Created Zombie-Like Apocalypse for World’s Amphibians
“If it were a human pathogen, it’d be in a zombie film.”
A fungal disease which humans have helped to spread among amphibians has led to the decline of 500 species over the past 50 years. (Photo: Centophobia/Flickr/cc)
A terrifying new study details the havoc being wrought by what scientists call “the most destructive pathogen ever” recorded on earth, finding that with help from unwitting humans a “silent killer” has caused major declines of frogs, salamanders, and hundreds of other amphibian species.
Chytridiomycosis, or chytrid fungus, has killed off 90 species over the past 50 years while leading to huge losses of 501 kinds of frogs, toads, salamanders, and other amphibians, according to researchers from a number of worldwide universities. Nearly 125 of those species have declined by at least 90 percent due to the rapid spread of the pathogen.
“We’ve known that chytrid’s really bad, but we didn’t know how bad it was, and it’s much worse than the previous early estimates.” —Ben Scheele, ecologist
The report, published in Science on Thursday, offers disturbing new information about a disease which scientists first detected in 1998—but whose power they didn’t grasp until now.
“We’ve known that chytrid’s really bad, but we didn’t know how bad it was, and it’s much worse than the previous early estimates,” Ben Scheele, an ecologist at Australian National University and lead author of the study, told National Geographic.
Chytrid fungus kills amphibians by eating away the skin of its hosts, leaving amphibians unable to breathe and quickly going into cardiac arrest. The pathogen is easily spread and rapidly destructive to the 695 species it infects.
“If it were a human pathogen, it’d be in a zombie film,” biologist Dan Greenberg told National Geographic.
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‘The American People Do Not Want Endless War’: Sanders, Warren, and Ocasio-Cortez Back Pledge to Bring Post-9/11 Conflicts to a Close
‘The American People Do Not Want Endless War’: Sanders, Warren, and Ocasio-Cortez Back Pledge to Bring Post-9/11 Conflicts to a Close
“Congress must reassert its constitutional authority over the use of force and responsibly end these interventions,” said the Vermont senator.
“The United States has been in a state of continuous, global, open-ended military conflict since 2001,” the new pledge reads. (Image: Common Defense)
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were among the first members of Congress to sign a new pledge vowing to end America’s “forever wars.”
“We’re watching our friends who we served with now on their eighth and ninth deployments. We’re seeing our kids now will be old enough to enlist and having to have hard conversations about that.”
—Alexander McCoy, Common Defense
“The United States has been in a state of continuous, global, open-ended military conflict since 2001,” reads the pledge, which the veterans group Common Defense launched on Monday. “Over 2.5 million troops have fought in this ‘Forever War’ in over a dozen countries—including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Niger, Somalia, and Thailand.”
The five other lawmakers who joined Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and Warren as the first supporters of the “End the Forever War” pledge were: Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).
“I pledge to the people of the United States of America, and to our military community in particular, that I will (1) fight to reclaim Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight of U.S. foreign policy and independently debate whether to authorize each new use of military force, and (2) act to bring the Forever War to a responsible and expedient conclusion,” the document states.
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Evidence of Human-Caused Climate Crisis Has Now Reached ‘Gold Standard’-Level Certainty, Scientists Say
Evidence of Human-Caused Climate Crisis Has Now Reached ‘Gold Standard’-Level Certainty, Scientists Say
“There’s a one-in-a-million chance humans are NOT warming the planet.
A new report offers “gold standard”-level certainty that humans are contributing to the climate crisis, leading to rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and extreme weather events. (Photo: Christopher Michel/Flickr/cc)
Most Americans now recognize the scientific community’s consensus that human activity is fueling the climate crisis, according to polls—but for those who are still unconvinced of the conclusion reached by 97 percent of climate scientists, a new study makes an even more definite assertion.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California found that the information available can now be classified as “five-sigma”—a standard in the scientific community meaning that there is a one-in-a-million chance that the same data would be observable if humans were not causing the planet to grow warmer through activities like fossil fuel extraction. The classification represents a “gold standard” level of certainty.
There’s a one-in-a-million chance humans are NOT warming the planet.#climate#climatechange https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1QE1ZU?__twitter_impression=true …
“The narrative out there that scientists don’t know the cause of climate change is wrong,” Benjamin Santer, who led the study, told Reuters. “We do.”
Scientists applied the same “five-sigma” measure to research confirming the existence of the Higgs boson subatomic particle in 2012, a finding that was received with applause from the science community and the press.
The report, which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change, builds on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 2013, which found that it was “extremely likely” that humans were causing the climate crisis—with a 95 percent chance.
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Warning ‘Every Option Is On the Table,’ Pompeo Stokes Fears of Military Force in Venezuela
Warning ‘Every Option Is On the Table,’ Pompeo Stokes Fears of Military Force in Venezuela
Comments from secretary of state come day before Vice President Mike Pence heads to the Colombian capital for an emergency summit.
People hold posters during a demonstration by Venezuelans against foreign intervention under the slogan #VenezuelaQuierePaz (Venezuela Wants Peace) at United States Embassy on February 18, 2019 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Photo: Franco Fasuli/Getty Images)Unrest and fears of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela continued on Sunday as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated the Trump administration’s warning that “every option is on the table” and that it would galvanize a “global coalition to put force behind the voice” of those calling for the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro.
Pompeo made the comments on “Fox News Sunday” hours after he tweeted that the “U.S. will take action against those who oppose the peaceful restoration of democracy in #Venezuela,” an apparent reference to those who do not back a regime change to opposition leader and self-declared acting president Juan Guaido.
On possible military option in #Venezuela, @SecPompeo tells Chris: Every option is on the table, we’re going to do the things that need to be done to make sure that the Venezuelans people’s voice, that democracy reigns & that there’s a brighter future for the people of Venezuela.
Guaido, as Bloomberg reported Sunday,
said that he’ll meet Monday with officials from countries in the region backing his push to topple Maduro and announce the next steps afterward. While he didn’t specify what those steps could be, he did say in a series of tweets that “all options” are being considered.
Shortly thereafter, Senator Marco Rubio [R-Fla.], who’s helped spearhead the U.S. position on Venezuela, posted a tweet showing Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega under arrest in the U.S. in what was a not-so-subtle threat to take Maduro out militarily.
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With Trump Pushing Regime Change in Venezuela, Critics Warn News Outlets Failing US Viewers Once Again
With Trump Pushing Regime Change in Venezuela, Critics Warn News Outlets Failing US Viewers Once Again
“If the US had a major state TV network it would sound exactly like this. 100% pure, uncritical cheerleading.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks about Venezuela before the arrival of President Donald Trump during a rally at Florida International University on February 18, 2019 in Miami, Florida. President Trump is scheduled to speak about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Ahead of a speech in Miami on Monday in which President Donald Trump promoted the ouster of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, progressive media critics continued their warnings that corporate news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and others are carrying water for the White House’s regime change policy in the country despite interventionist failures like the invasion of Iraq in 2002, the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011, and the long U.S. history of backing bloody coups and civil wars in Latin America going back to the 1980s.
“The self-aggrandizing ‘factchecking’ brigade that emerged to confront the Trump administration is suddenly nonexistent as it rolls out a transparent, cynical PR strategy to delegitimize a Latin American government it’s trying to overthrow.”
—Adam Johnson, media critic
Leading the charge is journalist Adam Johnson, a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and host of the Citations Needed podcast, who recently warned that the “same U.S. media outlets that have expressly fundraised and run ad campaigns on their image as anti-Trump truth-tellers have mysteriously taken at face value everything the Trump White House and its neoconservative allies have said in their campaign to overthrow the government of Venezuela.”
According to Johnson, “The self-aggrandizing ‘factchecking‘ brigade that emerged to confront the Trump administration is suddenly nonexistent as it rolls out a transparent, cynical PR strategy to delegitimize a Latin American government it’s trying to overthrow.”
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Cuba Warns US Moving Special Forces Closer to Venezuela Under Guise of ‘Humanitarian Intervention’
Cuba Warns US Moving Special Forces Closer to Venezuela Under Guise of ‘Humanitarian Intervention’
“It is worth recalling that similar behaviors and pretexts were used to by the U.S. during the prelude to wars it launched against Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel visited Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in May of 2018. (Photo: EFE/El Nuevo Diario)
As Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro urges the international community to condemn an ongoing U.S.-backed effort to overthrow him and calls for peaceful negotiations with critics led by self-declared “Interim President” Juan Guaidó, the Cuban government—which supports Maduro—claimed on Thursday that the Trump administration is moving special forces closer to Venezuela “in preparation for a military adventure under the guise of a ‘humanitarian intervention.'”
In a lengthy statement denouncing the steps President Donald Trump and his allies have taken to oust Maduro—particularly National Security Advisor John Bolton and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.)—the Cuban government said:
Between February 6 and 10 of 2019, several military transport aircraft have flown to the Rafael Miranda Airport in Puerto Rico, the San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican Republic, and other strategically located Caribbean Islands, most certainly without the knowledge of the governments of those nations. These flights took off from U.S. military facilities where Special Operation Troops and U.S. Marine Corps units operate. These units have been used for covert operations, even against leaders of other countries.
Pointing to a draft resolution that the Trump administration recently introduced at the U.N. Security Council that expresses concern about the humanitarian conditions of Venezuela, Cuba concluded:
[T]he U.S. intends to fabricate a humanitarian pretext in order to launch a military attack on Venezuela and, by resorting to intimidation, pressure, and force, is seeking to introduce into this sovereign nation’s territory alleged humanitarian aid…
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Unhinged Mike Pence Warns of ‘New Holocaust’ as Team Trump Tries to Rally EU Leaders for War With Iran
Unhinged Mike Pence Warns of ‘New Holocaust’ as Team Trump Tries to Rally EU Leaders for War With Iran
“Can someone remind me how things turned out the last time the U.S. pushed flimsy evidence of a nuclear weapons program in the Middle East and tried to bully its allies into supporting its policy?”
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a U.S.-led summit about the Middle East in Warsaw, Poland on Thursday. (Photo: VP/Twitter)
Speaking at a U.S.-led conference about the Middle East in Warsaw, Poland on Thursday, Vice President piled on the potent anti-Iran sentiment surrounding the conference by demanding that European Union (EU) allies withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump ditched last year, and accused Iran of plotting a “new Holocaust.”
“Instead of recognizing the U.S.’ failed Iran policy, Pence is doubling down in his search for an excuse to go to war.”
—NIAC
Pence accused Iran of being “the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world” and “the greatest threat to peace and security in the Middle East” while attempting to shame European leaders over their recent “effort to create mechanisms to break up our sanctions…against Iran’s murderous revolutionary regime.”
His speech was met with a mix of frustration and alarm:
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‘Exactly What I Was Worried About’: Warren Warns New Big Bank Merger Will Increase Risk of Another Crash
‘Exactly What I Was Worried About’: Warren Warns New Big Bank Merger Will Increase Risk of Another Crash
“We can’t let banks become too big to fail again: American families will suffer.”
“Gigantic banks wrecked our economy, but the Fed told me they are rubber-stamping nearly every proposed bank merger,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on Twitter. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
In response to news that SunTrust and BB&T are attempting to merge in a deal that would create the sixth largest bank in the United States, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) declared that this is precisely the kind of financial sector consolidation she was warning about last year as congressional Democrats and Republicans teamed up to ram through a major bank deregulation bill.
“Two of the country’s biggest banks—SunTrust and BB&T—are merging to form one of the biggest banks in the country. That’s exactly what I was worried about a year ago after Congress passed its big bank deregulation bill,” wrote the Massachusetts senator and likely 2020 presidential candidate, referring to the legislation that critics took to calling the “Bank Lobbyist Act.”
As Common Dreams reported, 17 Senate Democrats and 33 House Democrats voted for the legislation, which President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
Warren went on to express concern that the merger—which, if approved, would be the largest since the 2008 financial crisis—could set the stage for another economic meltdown.
“Gigantic banks wrecked our economy, but the Fed told me they are rubber-stamping nearly every proposed bank merger,” Warren wrote on Friday. “SunTrust and BB&T are probably next. We can’t let banks become too big to fail again: American families will suffer.”
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