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"A Dark Day for the People of Puerto Rico": U.S. Senate Moves to OK "Colonial Control Board"
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote as soon as today to set up a federally appointed control board with sweeping powers to run Puerto Rico’s economy to help the island cope with its crippling debt crisis. The bill, known as PROMESA, passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 297 to 127. In the Senate, Robert Menendez has led the opposition to the bill. On Tuesday, he waged a four-hour filibuster to protest the bill.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, before we move on with the rest of the show, there is a major vote on Puerto Rico in the U.S. Senate today.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, there is. The Senate will—looks like, will finally vote on what to do on the so-called PROMESA bill. This is the bill that both the Obama administration and Republicans in the House passed, you know, got through the House, initially, a couple of weeks ago, which would establish a means for Puerto Rico to restructure its $72 billion in debt, but would also impose a financial control board—what I and other people call a colonial control board—over the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved this week to have a cloture vote, which will occur today, because McConnell wants to prevent any amendments on the Senate floor from those who might have problems with the current bill. So he wants to—he’s going to go for a 60-vote cloture vote and then proceed to have a vote on the full bill, because they’re trying to rush to get this bill through before the July 1 deadline, in a few days, when Puerto Rico is sure to default on a huge portion of its debt. It has to pay about $2 billion on July 1.
So, yesterday, Senator Bob Menendez did a filibuster. For four hours, he grabbed the Senate floor and continued to condemn the bill, to condemn the efforts to prevent the Senate from having any kind of amendments. But in the process, he also really—for anybody who watched it on C-SPAN, you got a real lesson on what is the problem and why people are calling this a colonial control bill. For instance, Menendez said that, contrary to what the Obama administration has been saying and what many Republicans in Congress have been saying, the people of Puerto Rico are completely opposed to this bill. There was a recent poll, showed that 69 percent of Puerto Rican voters on the island are opposed to the PROMESA bill, the very bill that the Senate is about to pass, and 54 percent are opposed to any kind of outside control board running the affairs of Puerto Rico for the next five to 10 years there. And so, there’s huge opposition on the island to the bill, and yet the Congress is moving forward.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of liberal Democrats that are supporting this bill; some liberal organizations, like Jubilee USA, astonishingly, has come out in favor of the bill, because they’re all insisting that this is the only way, as bad as the bill is and the problems that it has, it’s the only way for Puerto Rico to be able to restructure its debts and to avoid a rush to the courthouse by bondholders. But what Menendez made clear is that there’s going to be a rush to the courthouse anyway, because as the bill passes, the bondholders, many of them, are going to go to court to challenge the constitutionality of the bill. So it’s not as if there’s not going to be legal challenges on July 1. But Menendez went on for four hours. Bernie Sanders participated for a short time in the filibuster. So did Maria Cantwell. But for the most part, it seems that there’s a sufficient number of Democrats and Republicans that will vote to approve this bill today.
AMY GOODMAN: Where did a key player, a key progressive in the Democratic Party, come down? And that is Elizabeth Warren, who was out on the campaign trail this week.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Elizabeth Warren has not said anything. She was critical, initially, of the bill. Elizabeth Warren has not said anything about this. My sense is that she’s going to vote for it, as well, unfortunately. There’s still a possibility that Bernie Sanders or Menendez could launch another filibuster today in the debate over the cloture vote, the final debate, or the bill itself. But it seems unlikely at this point. And it’s astonishing to me how so many liberals in this country, who rail about American aggression abroad, are being so silent over this absolute imposition of colonial control by the United States government over the affairs of Puerto Rico. And Jack Lew, the secretary of treasury, spent almost all day yesterday basically meeting with Democratic senators to convince them, to pressure them to support this bill. So it’s going to be a really dark day for the people of Puerto Rico, who are completely opposed to this bill, if the Senate votes today to approve it.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll of course continue to follow this, the issue of Puerto Rico so key. ... Read More →
Meet the Attorney Who Just Won the Historic Abortion Rights Case at the Supreme Court
On Monday, in the most significant victory for abortion rights in a generation, the Supreme Court struck down provisions of a sweeping anti-choice law in Texas. In a 5-3 ruling, the justices rejected provisions requiring abortion clinics to meet the costly standards of hospital-style surgery centers and mandating that doctors obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The impact of Monday’s landmark ruling is already reverberating throughout the country. On Tuesday, justices rejected bids by Mississippi and Wisconsin to revive admitting privileges requirements similar to the one in Texas. Meanwhile, Alabama’s attorney general has announced his state will stop trying to defend its own admitting privileges requirement in wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling. We speak with Stephanie Toti, who argued the landmark Texas abortion case before the Supreme Court.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We continue our coverage of the most significant victory for abortion rights in a generation. On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of a sweeping anti-choice law in Texas. Justice Anthony Kennedy joined Stephen Breyer and all three women on the court in rejecting the restrictions as an undue burden on access to abortion. The Supreme Court ruled against provisions requiring abortion clinics to meet the costly standards of hospital-style surgery centers and mandating that doctors obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Already, about half of Texas’s more than 40 abortion clinics have closed. If the court had allowed the provisions to go into full effect, advocates warned it would have left Texas with about 10 clinics clustered in four metropolitan areas.
AMY GOODMAN: The impact of Monday’s landmark ruling is already reverberating throughout the country. On Tuesday, justices rejected bids by Mississippi and Wisconsin to revive restrictions on abortion doctors matching those struck down in Texas. Meanwhile, Alabama’s attorney general has announced his state will stop trying to defend its own admitting privileges requirement for doctors who perform abortion, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
Well, for more, we’re joined right now by Stephanie Toti. She is the lead counsel in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court case to protect abortion access. She just won her first-ever case before the Supreme Court on Monday. Stephanie Toti is senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Stephanie Toti, welcome to Democracy Now! You were 37 years old when you argued this case. What was it like to be in the Supreme Court, and your reaction on Monday when you heard the Supreme Court’s decision?
STEPHANIE TOTI: It was a thrill to be in the Supreme Court. It was such an incredible opportunity. I was so grateful for the opportunity and to be able to represent all of the women throughout Texas whose rights and whose health were going to be at risk if these—if these laws were upheld. And so, Monday’s decision was incredibly gratifying. It’s a historic victory for women, for reproductive rights and also for science.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, when you were arguing the case back on March 2nd, did you have any sense then of how the justices might be leaning? I know it’s always hard to gauge by the questions that the justices put forth, but was that a surprise for you, the final vote?
STEPHANIE TOTI: It wasn’t a surprise. We were very hopeful about our chances of victory, because the evidence in the case was so strong. It so clearly demonstrated that these laws were a sham. They do nothing to promote women’s health. And there was absolutely no credible evidence to support them. And so, it was great that the justices recognized that and held that we need to have credible evidence before we’re going to restrict somebody’s constitutional rights.
AMY GOODMAN: So how did you prepare? I mean, this is your first-ever—how were you chosen? How were you involved in this case, to begin with? And how did you prepare for this case?
STEPHANIE TOTI: I’ve been at the Center for Reproductive Rights for about a decade now. And I was lead attorney on this case at the trial, I followed it through to the appeals court, so I stayed with the case when it went to the Supreme Court. There was a lot of intense preparation. I’ve had many arguments, you know, in the lower federal courts, in the state courts.
AMY GOODMAN: But don’t, in a lot of cases, when it goes to the Supreme Court, they choose a Supreme Court expert, they hand it over to another lawyer?
STEPHANIE TOTI: Yes, that does happen sometimes. But the plaintiffs in this case, I think, felt strongly that they would like me to represent them in court. And I think it was meaningful to a lot of people to have a woman of reproductive age there at the court arguing this case. And, you know, the public support that I’ve gotten has been really amazing and very surprising to me, actually, but it’s been very nice.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about now the impact, just in a couple of days, in other states, in terms of the decision of the court? What are you seeing and hearing?
STEPHANIE TOTI: Well, we’ve—already, three more laws have fallen, two because the Supreme Court declined to grant certiorari, so the court declined to take those cases, and one because the Alabama attorney general has decided no longer to defend Alabama’s TRAP law, recognizing that it’s unconstitutional. So, those are great developments, and we are very hopeful that in the coming days and weeks the other laws will start to fall like dominoes, all of the copycat laws around the country. And there are many of them.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read from Justice Stephen Breyer’s opinion for the majority. He wrote, quote, "[A]bortions taking place in an abortion facility are safe—indeed, safer than numerous procedures that take place outside hospitals and to which Texas does not apply its surgical-center requirements. ... Nationwide, childbirth is 14 times more likely than abortion to result in death, but Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in the patient’s own home," unquote. Breyer also noted a colonoscopy, a procedure that typically takes place outside a hospital setting, has a mortality rate 10 times higher than an abortion. And the mortality rate for liposuction, another outpatient procedure, is 28 times higher than the mortality rate for abortion. So, talk about the significance of the decision and these two particular regulations that they struck down—the surgery-style center you have to have and having admitting privileges at the local hospital.
STEPHANIE TOTI: Well, what’s so galling about these laws is that they—they are a sham. They are not designed to promote women’s health. And those statistics that you just read demonstrate that abortion is among the safest procedures that a patient can have in an outpatient setting. If the state of Texas really believed that either one of these requirements was necessary or beneficial for patient health, then it would have applied it across the board to all procedures that you have in an outpatient setting, including those procedures that are far more complex and risky than abortion. But it did not. This was just an effort to target abortion for special regulation to make it impossible for women to access the procedure. And that has a real harm. So women all across the state were being delayed in their ability to access abortion. Because of partial implementation of the law prior to Monday’s decision, about half the clinics in Texas had closed. So, from—we went from more than 40 clinics before the law took effect to 19 that were operating on Monday. And as a result, in some parts of the state, women were having to wait two to three weeks just to get an initial appointment at an abortion clinic, and that’s a really long time to have to wait for such time-sensitive healthcare.
AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear, this isn’t like same-sex marriage, right, where the Supreme Court makes a ruling, and it’s law across the land?
STEPHANIE TOTI: Well, the court’s ruling certainly is the law across the land. So, going forward, all abortion restrictions will have to be judged by an evidence-based standard. And in all cases, if the burdens that the law impose aren’t justified by significant benefits, then the law will be held unconstitutional. But it’s got to be a case-by-case determination. So it’s not that all admitting privileges laws or surgery center laws across the country are automatically invalid. This decision now creates a presumption that they’re unconstitutional, but we still need to go into court, state by state, and ask the court to strike down each individual law.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, well, obviously, those who are opposed to a woman’s right to choose are not going to stand down; they’re going to continue to pursue their—the advocates are going to continue to pursue their cause. Where do you see the battles—the next battles that you’re going to have to be facing?
STEPHANIE TOTI: Well, that’s absolutely right. I mean, this struggle is going to continue. There is—there has been a relentless onslaught of anti-choice legislation in recent years that have created obstacles all over the country for women trying to access safe and legal abortion care. But what Monday’s decision does is sends a very strong statement that women have a constitutional right to make decisions about their health and their pregnancies, and that they should be able to effectuate those decisions with respect and with dignity, and they shouldn’t have to face unnecessary obstacles in doing that.
AMY GOODMAN: Stephanie, can you talk about the sexism you faced, that you have talked about, in this case, in dealing with opposition counsel, etc.? You had a co-counsel on this case?
STEPHANIE TOTI: Yes. I mean, there is a great team of lawyers working on this case, including our partners from Morrison & Foerster, and Alex Lawrence was my second chair at the oral argument. He’s a partner at that firm.
AMY GOODMAN: And you told Glamour, let’s see, "I had an amazing co-counsel, Alex Lawrence. But because he’s a slightly older male, our adversaries would always presume [that] he was the decision-maker." You said, "Whenever we needed to negotiate something, they would always go to him and he would always refer the question back to me."
STEPHANIE TOTI: Right. That’s absolutely right. And, you know, I think that’s a constant battle. You know, as a woman in the legal profession and as someone who’s spent a lot of her career in the nonprofit sector, I think it’s constantly—you know, folks aren’t used to seeing people with that profile in a position of power. And I think that’s why it was—it was really great that I did have the opportunity to argue this case, because I think it sends a message to other women and young women that these opportunities are available to them.
AMY GOODMAN: And the moment you heard the decision on Monday, where were you standing? I’m sure you will remember it forever. And what were you waiting for, and what did you hear?
STEPHANIE TOTI: So, on Monday, I was gathered in the conference room at my office with a number of my colleagues, watching SCOTUSblog, waiting for Lyle. And when we got word of the decision, it was just—there was so much joy, so much elation, just knowing what is at stake in this case and, you know, the health and the rights of so many millions of women. So, it was just—it was a tremendous thrill to get the decision. But then, immediately, you know, we wanted to read it carefully. There’s more than a hundred pages of opinion. So then we—you know, we went into another room where it was quiet, with our highlighters, and got to work, you know, digesting the decision.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, congratulations, Stephanie Toti, lead counsel in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court case to protect abortion access, the case that will go down in history. Stephanie Toti won her first-ever case before the Supreme Court, senior counsel at Center for Reproductive Rights.
When we come back, a major case in Florida, the killing of Víctor Jara, the killer brought to justice. We’ll speak with the great singer’s widow and his daughter. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Who Is Getting Rich Off the $1.3 Trillion Student Debt Crisis?
We continue our conversation looking at student debt. A stunning 42 million people now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. A new investigative report published by Center for Investigative Reporting peels back the layers on this trillion-dollar industry. The article, titled "Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt Crisis," follows what happened after the federal government relinquished direct control of the student loan program and opened it up to banks and profit-making corporations. We speak to Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist James Steele and Saul Newton, who was profiled in the article. Saul dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point because of rising costs and student debt.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We end today’s show looking at a common but crippling affliction: student debt. A stunning 42 million people now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. A new investigative report published by the Center for Investigative Reporting peels back the layers on this trillion-dollar industry. The article, titled "Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt Crisis," follows what happened after the federal government relinquished direct control of the student loan program and opened it up to banks and profit-making corporations.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the article’s authors, veteran investigative reporter, Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Jim Steele, joins us now.
Welcome back to Democracy Now! Lay out what you found.
JAMES STEELE: What we found was that, if you go back to Lyndon Johnson, the whole idea of the student loan program was to provide a way for people—poor, minorities, so forth—to give them a way to go to college, and it was to provide the loans. And it was administered largely by the federal government, though banks were involved. But by the late 1990s, through the privatization of Sallie Mae and the signal that sent, they turned over this extremely important function, largely, to private industry—Sallie Mae, banks, other financial institutions, private equity companies—not just the issuing of loans, but also the servicing of the loans and, maybe more importantly, those that collected delinquent loans. I mean, the complaints you hear over and over again from students, former students, is the harassment, the kind of pressure they’re put under—the whole idea that is to collect money, not to figure out a way for them to pay loans that they’ve taken out.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And by the late 1990s, you’re talking—this is when Bill Clinton was president, and the Gingrich Congress?
JAMES STEELE: The Gingrich Congress. Bill Clinton had, actually, a pretty good idea to turn the program largely over to the federal government to issue the loans—something that later happened in the Obama administration. But when the Gingrich revolution came in in '94, they reversed that. And they technically saved Clinton's program, but they did it in such a way, with the privatization of Sallie Mae and the message they sent, about "this is where we want to go, we don’t want government involved any more than it has to be in our loans"—the whole message was clear as a bell: Private industry should take this over; the federal government, government, should not. And that was the impetus back in the late 1990s.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more who Albert Lord was?
JAMES STEELE: Albert Lord was a fellow who was a lifelong fellow at Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae originally was a public-private partnership—the federal government, the banks. But it was overseen, fairly significantly, by the federal government for many, many years. But after the privatization of Sallie Mae, Lord became CEO, and he took it to a totally different level. They bought servicing companies, they bought companies that collected the delinquent loans, they began issuing private loans, they began issuing federal loans—things that they could not do beforehand. It became a colossus of the student loan industry. In the minds of a lot of students, they thought it was still part of the federal government. But it wasn’t. It was a private company, making hundreds and hundreds of—actually, billions of dollars in profits over the years. Lord himself did very well, hundreds of millions of dollars. He made so much money—and this is the thing that astonished us when we looked at this—he made so much money, he was able to build his own private golf course. Now, I’m not talking about a private club, where any of us could like put in an application, maybe be turned down. I’m talking about your own private golf course in southern Maryland, near Annapolis—I mean, that’s the kind of money he made—so he and his buddies could play golf there, at will.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, the rise of private loan—the loan industry coincided with the rise of more for-profit colleges, as well, right? So there were all of these institutions that were basically being fueled by loans.
JAMES STEELE: Absolutely. And the whole message with the privatization of Sallie Mae was: We want the private industry involved in this process. So, sure enough, private equity companies, hedge funds, others began buying the for-profit colleges. And I think we all know how that worked out. So much of the really bad debt is from that sector of the industry.
AMY GOODMAN: Jim Steele, I want to bring in someone you wrote about: Saul Newton, founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce. He dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point because of rising costs and student loan, and joined the Army in order to qualify for the GI Bill.
Saul Newton, welcome to Democracy Now! You were making online payments for your student loans from Afghanistan?
SAUL NEWTON: That’s correct. First, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be on. Yes, while I was—while I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011, I also had to make sure that I was making my monthly student loan payments to protect my financial future.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how much student debt you amassed?
SAUL NEWTON: Yeah. So, I started in—I started college in 2007. And I had always wanted to go to college, but I knew that financially it would be a hardship. So I chose to go to a smaller state university, public university, because I knew that the financial obligation would be less. But over the course of two years, my yearly tuition bill rose $1,600. And so, while I was going to school, I was also working multiple jobs, trying to make ends meet. But I was drowning. And so, in 2009, I decided to drop out of college, join the Army, so that I could qualify for the GI Bill. And by that point, I had just over $10,000 in student loan debt. And so, I did that. I enlisted in the Army. About six months after I enlisted, I was deployed to Kandahar in Afghanistan. And before I deployed, I called my student loan servicer, and I said, you know, "I’m serving on active duty in the military. I’m about to deploy. Is there anything that’s available for me?" And they told me, "No." So I just accepted that and made sure that every month, after I went out on a patrol or after I got done with work for that day, I made my way over to a small wooden shack with a satellite connection to get onto the internet and pay my student loan bill.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jim Steele, the whole—can you talk about what the average debt is that American students are coming out of college with? And also, this whole issue that the loan companies will let you not pay off the principal, because you’re constantly accumulating more interest that you owe, so if you wait four or five years, the debt just grows.
JAMES STEELE: That’s the heart of this, in many ways. I think the average debt right now is probably around $35,000. All the data on this is not always the best data, and it seems like the data is behind where people really are. So it’s roughly around $30,000, probably a little higher. That’s undergraduate; graduate is much, much higher than that. But here’s what goes on. If you put your loan in forbearance, meaning, for some reason or another—you’ve lost your job, you’re sick—you can’t make a payment, it’s in forbearance. But the interest begins to accumulate. So we talked to many, many students, who had actually once had, let’s say, $50,000 of debt by the time they left college, now owe $90,000 and $100,000, but during that period may have paid $50,000 or $60,000, because of the interest and the penalties, things of that sort. So the interest is such a crucial factor. This is why it’s $1.3 trillion overall. It’s past credit card debt. It’s the great go-go growth industry of the whole debt collection field.
AMY GOODMAN: What needs to be done to reform the industry?
JAMES STEELE: Well, one of the things—a principal thing has to be, certainly, more oversight by the Department of Education. They’ve fallen down on this job. There’s actually a pilot program in Treasury Department right now to take this back, bring some of this back to government, where the incentive of the people who are collecting the bills is not to earn a profit, which is the way it is now. Privatization profit making works great in many fields, but it’s not working well in this field to the interests of these students. So that’s one of the principal things. The Department of Education has just consistently fallen down in overseeing its duties there. Servicemen are a perfect example of this—all kinds of complaints about improper representation of what they’ve had. And the Department of Education did an internal study and said, "Oh, yes, we’re doing a pretty good job on it." Their own inspector general, a few months, came back and said, "You’ve done a horrible job on this. You’re not performing your proper mission here." So, that’s, I think, a key thing. Probably getting the companies out of that field, turning a lot of this back over to the government, I know that’s an anathema in America, but that’s probably part of the solution.
AMY GOODMAN: Saul Newton, have you paid off your debts?
SAUL NEWTON: I’m very close to paying off the student loans that I accumulated before I joined the Army. I’ve got about $1,000 left in principal to pay off.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to continue this discussion post-show, and we’re going to post it online at democracynow.org. Saul Newton, thanks for joining us, founder and executive director of Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce, dropped out of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point because of rising costs and student debt, joined the Army and paid his student debt online from Afghanistan. And we’re going to link to your amazing piece, Jim. Thanks so much for joining us, investigative reporter, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His recent article for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting is titled "Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt Crisis." ... Read More →
Former Chilean Army Officer Found Liable for 1973 Murder of Víctor Jara After U.S.-Backed Coup
In Florida, a jury has found former Chilean army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for the murder of legendary folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in September 1973. In the days after dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in a U.S.-backed coup, Víctor Jara was rounded up, tortured and shot more than 40 times. Barrientos has lived in the United States for more than two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. The Jaras sued him under a federal civil statute known as the Torture Victims Protection Act, which allows U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. The Guardian newspaper called the verdict "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom." We speak to Víctor Jara’s widow Joan, his daughter Manuela Bunster and Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, which represented the Jara family.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: "Te Recuerdo Amanda," "I Remember You, Amanda," by Víctor Jara. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In Florida, a jury has found former Chilean army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for the murder of legendary folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in September 1973. In the days after dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in a U.S.-backed coup, Víctor Jara was rounded up, tortured and shot more than 40 times.
In 2013, on the 40th anniversary of Víctor Jara’s murder, his wife and daughters filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. court against the former military officer Pedro Barrientos, who has lived in the United States for more than two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. The Jaras sued him under a federal civil statute known as the Torture Victims Protection Act, which allows U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. Chilean prosecutors have indicted Barrientos and another officer with Jara’s murder, and Chile is seeking his extradition so he can be tried on criminal murder charges.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, in a landmark legal victory Monday, an Orlando court ruled Barrientos is liable for the killing of Víctor Jara, and awarded the Jara family $28 million in damages. The Guardian newspaper called the verdict, quote, "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom," unquote.
In a moment, we’ll be joined by Víctor Jara’s daughter and widow Joan. But first I want to turn to our 2013 interview with Joan Jara, talking about the day Víctor disappeared.
JOAN JARA: We were both at home with our two daughters. There was somehow a coup in the air. We had been fearing that there might be a military coup. And on that morning, together, Víctor and I listened to Allende’s last speech and heard all the radios, the—who supported Salvador Allende, falling off the air as, one by one, being replaced by military marches.
Víctor was due to go to the technical university, his place of work, where Allende was due to speak to announce a plebiscite at 11:00, and Víctor was to sing there, as he did. And he went out that morning. It was the last time I saw him. I stayed at home, heard of the bombing of the Moneda Palace, heard and saw the helicopter’s machine gun firing over Allende’s residence. And then began the long wait for Víctor to come back home.
AMY GOODMAN: And how long did you wait?
JOAN JARA: I waited a week, not knowing really what had happened to him. I got a message from him from somebody who had been in the stadium with him, wasn’t sure what was really happening to him. But my fears were confirmed on the 11th of September—well, I’m sorry, on the 18th of September, Chile National Day, when a young man came to my house, said, "Please, I need to talk to you. I’m a friend. I’ve been working in the city morgue. I’m afraid to tell you that Víctor’s body has been recognized," because it was a well-known—his was a well-known face. And he said, "You must come with me and claim his body; otherwise, they will put him in a common grave, and he will disappear."
So then I accompanied this young man to the city morgue. We entered by a side entrance. I saw the hundreds of bodies, literally hundreds of bodies, that were high piled up in what was actually the parking place, I think, of the morgue. And I had to look for Víctor’s body among a long line in the offices of the city morgue, recognized him. I saw what had happened to him. I saw the bullet wounds. I saw the state of his body.
And I consider myself one of the lucky ones, in the sense that I had to face at that moment that—what had happened to Víctor, and I could give my testimony with all the force of what I felt in that moment, and not that horror, which is much worse, of never knowing what happened to your loved one, as what happened to so many families, so many women, who have spent these 40 years looking for their loved ones who were made to disappear.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Víctor Jara’s widow, Joan Jara, speaking in 2013 on Democracy Now! She joins us live now from Orlando, Florida, along with Víctor Jara’s daughter, Manuela Bunster. And in San Francisco, we’re joined by Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, the law firm that represented the Jara family.
Joan, let’s begin with you. Your reaction on Monday to the court decision?
JOAN JARA: Well, it was almost incredule—
AMY GOODMAN: Joan, if you could respond to the decision in the court on Monday?
JOAN JARA: Yes, well, I can only say it was with happiness, incredulity, casi. But we lived with—all these years with gradually losing more and more the hope of justice for Víctor. It was wonderful here in the United States, in an American court, to find this unanimous verdict.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Manuela Bunster, your reaction, after so many years, of finding some measure—not full measure, but some measure—of recognition and justice for what happened to your father?
MANUELA BUNSTER: Well, as Joan says, it’s—I think, I mean, for us, it’s still difficult to weigh, really, how this is going to affect our lives in the future, because, I mean, we’ve lived with the sense of impunity and a pain within, you know, in relation to the—not knowing the truth of what happened with Víctor. And so, it’s been—we’re still—I mean, we are happy, but calm, because also—I mean, there’s a lot to do still, you know, in relation to justice for Víctor and for other victims of the stadium. But, you know, we received it. We’re very grateful, really.
AMY GOODMAN: Joan Jara, how did you learn that it was Barrientos who was responsible for your husband, for Víctor Jara’s murder, right in the midst of the coup of September 11th, 1973, in Chile?
JOAN JARA: Yes, well, it has been only gradually. And during this trial, I learned many things about what happened in the stadium. And that, in itself, is a wonderful progress to justice in Chile, because other people will be able to find a certain amount of justice for their loved ones who were killed there. But I must say that during the trial there was so much evidence against Barrientos, so much evidence and so much lying on the part of the people who were defending him and the witnesses—I mean, incredible, just easily proved lies, which were quickly dismissed and overcome by our lawyer, our wonderful lawyer.
MANUELA BUNSTER: Well, he’s been—Barrientos, we’ve known about him for years now, around seven years, I should say. Many conscripts have—I mean, he’s been denying having been in Chile Stadium, and he’s been, you know—the evidence presented in this, in this trial, and also all the previous investigations that have been going on in Chile, have put them in the stadium, with a command responsibility in the stadium. And this has been confirmed, you know? And no officers who have command responsibility in a situation like that, during that week, that specific week, you know, just after the coup in Chile, can say they didn’t know anything and that they—I mean, they’ve been constantly denying everything that happened in the stadium. And also, basically, he’s been denying having even been there in that week.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we’re also joined by Dixon Osburn, the executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, who tried the case against Pedro Barrientos. Dixon Osburn, could you tell us who was Barrientos? What was his role? And what were you able to establish in the trial?
DIXON OSBURN: Yes, and good morning. Barrientos was a former lieutenant under Pinochet. And what—what we were able to show in the court was in direct contradiction to what Barrientos claimed, which is that he didn’t know Víctor Jara, that he had never been in the stadium. We had one of the conscripts who testified, very chillingly, that Barrientos bragged—not just once, but many times—that he’s the one who shot and killed Víctor Jara. We had other conscripts who identified Barrientos as being in Chile Stadium and having command responsibility there, performing a wide variety of duties, and therefore having responsibility over the events at Chile Stadium. We had civilians. We had a former student from the university where Víctor taught who identified that Víctor was assaulted, beaten badly at the university when the military laid siege to it. And we had another witness who identified Víctor’s body tossed outside of Chile Stadium. So, through and through, we presented more than a dozen witnesses and significant evidence of what transpired in the days following the Pinochet coup, and specifically what happened to Víctor Jara.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, in 2012, I got a chance to travel to Spain and interview Francisco Etxeberria, the forensic specialist who exhumed the bodies of both ousted President Salvador Allende of Chile and singer Víctor Jara to determine the nature of these deaths. I asked him to tell us what he discovered about Víctor Jara’s murder.
ETXEBERRIA: [translated] What happened in the case of Víctor Jara is that he was at a university in Santiago, arrested there, and witnesses confirm that. Then we believe he was brought into a locker room. The military knew who he was. He was a popular person. He ended up with a single bullet wound through the back of the head and with over 50 broken bones throughout his body that we determined were caused by what looked like machine gun fire. After he died, they fired many, many shots at him and then dragged the body out into the streets where people would find it and think perhaps that it had been a gunfight between the authorities and others.
What happened to Víctor Jara is similar to what happened to other people who "disappeared" in that period of time. The bodies were found in the streets and brought into the morgue, where they were identified. This was very common at the early stages of the dictatorship. Later, probably due to their international political reputation, "the disappeared" were still being killed, but the bodies were hidden in mass graves, mines, throwing them into the sea, and other places.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Francisco Etxeberria, the forensic specialist who exhumed the bodies of both Salvador Allende, the president who died in the palace, September 11, 1973, and Víctor Jara. Dixon Osburn, can you talk about how significant this case is in Florida? And what will happen to Barrientos?
DIXON OSBURN: It’s a very significant case. This is the first time that the Jara family has had their day in court, and for a court—a jury of six individuals was able to find somebody liable and responsible for the torture and murder of Víctor Jara. I think this is not only significant for the family, as they have said, but for so many victims and survivors who are continuing to look for truth and justice in what happened under the Pinochet coup.
What happens next for Barrientos? Now, this was a civil lawsuit; it’s not a criminal lawsuit. What the jury found is that he was liable, and they awarded damages. The next step will be to enforce that judgment to the extent that we can.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But what about the criminal case in Chile? If Chile has been seeking his extradition, why has the U.S. government not extradited him?
DIXON OSBURN: That’s a good question for the U.S. government. No, we certainly urge the U.S. government to move forward with extradition at this point. As you correctly noted, Chile has indicted him. They’ve requested it. The U.S. government has moved forward on other extradition requests. So we hope that the U.S. government will take this request very seriously and move forward.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Joan Jara, what is your next plan, as you head back to Chile?
JOAN JARA: Well, to go on as one has been going for 40 years, is to seek justice for all the victims. I mean, this trial has revealed, in a very special way, what has been hidden for years, because there has been a veil over the history of what happened in the Chile Stadium. And it is our job to force this—the request to get together with the relatives of other victims to continue the search for justice for all, and to know, from moment to moment, what happened in the stadium.
AMY GOODMAN: Well—
JOAN JARA: It has been—yeah, it’s been extraordinary how all this has been hidden for so long, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Joan Jara and Manuela Bunster, thank you so much for being with us, joining us from Orlando, where the decision was handed down on Monday, responsibility for the death of your husband, your father, Víctor Jara. And, Dixon Osburn, thanks so much for joining us from the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco.
When we come back, who got rich off student debt crisis? We’ll be speaking with the legendary reporter Jim Steele. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, Víctor Jara, singing "The Right to Live in Peace." This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. ... Read More →
Headlines:Turkey: 41 Killed in Triple Suicide, Gun Attack at Istanbul Airport
A triple suicide bombing and gun attack targeting Turkey’s main airport in Istanbul has killed 41 people and left 239 other injured. Authorities said three attackers arrived at the airport’s international terminal by taxi and blew themselves up after opening fire. The airport is the 11th busiest in the world. A witness described the attack.
Osman Uçar: "I was getting my three suitcases wrapped while I heard the blast. The police told us to lie down. The wrapping machine’s steel case protected us from getting caught in the crossfire. They were shooting at the police, and the police were shooting at them. Someone next to us got shot. Then we saw the bomb in the x-ray explode. Everybody around it died in that blast. I got up and looked through the window to see the shooting."
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the initial probe pointed to the self-proclaimed Islamic State. We’ll have more on the attack after headlines.
TOPICS:
Turkey
Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Revive Anti-Choice Laws in Mississippi, Wisconsin
One day after handing down the most significant victory for abortion access in a generation, the Supreme Court has dealt another victory for reproductive rights. The court rejected attempts by Mississippi and Wisconsin to revive anti-choice measures requiring abortion doctors to hold admitting privileges at local hospitals. The law in Mississippi had threatened to close the state’s only remaining abortion clinic. The court’s decision came after the justices struck down Texas’ admitting privileges requirement and another provision requiring abortion clinics to meet the standards of hospital-style surgery centers. We’ll have more on the significance of the decisions with Stephanie Toti, the attorney who argued the landmark Texas abortion case before the Supreme Court, later in the broadcast.
TOPICS:
Supreme Court
Abortion
Jeremy Corbyn Loses No-Confidence Vote Among Labour MPs
In Britain, Parliament members with the opposition Labour Party have passed a no-confidence motion against leader Jeremy Corbyn. The vote against Corbyn was 172 to 40. Corbyn has faced a coup within his own party following Britain’s vote to exit the European Union. But Corbyn’s supporters say his rivals are using the Brexit vote as a pretext to oust him over his left-leaning stances. Tuesday’s no-confidence vote against Corbyn is not binding, but Labour leaders are expected to mount a bid to replace him.
TOPICS:
Jeremy Corbyn
Britain
Trump Likens TPP Trade Deal to Rape: "That's What It Is"
On the U.S. campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump touted Britain’s vote to leave the EU as he called for a rejection of so-called free trade deals. Trump likened the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to rape, saying it was "done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country. That’s what it is." Speaking earlier in the day in Monessen, Pennsylvania, Trump vowed to withdraw from the TPP.
Donald Trump: "I want you to imagine how much better our future can be if we declare independence from the elites who led us from one financial and foreign policy disaster to another. Our friends in Britain recently voted to take back control of their economy, politics and borders."
TOPICS:
TPP
Donald Trump
Sanders: Dems Should Oppose TPP, Embrace Progressive Agenda to Defeat Trump
Donald Trump attacked Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for her shifting stance on the TPP, which she ultimately opposed amid a wave of popular protest. Critics say theTPP will boost corporate power at the expense of health and environmental regulations. But the committee drafting the Democratic Party’s platform voted not to oppose the trade deal. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Bernie Sanders urged Democrats to oppose the TPP as part of a broader progressive agenda to defeat Donald Trump. Invoking the Brexit vote, Sanders wrote, "The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States." Sanders’ warning comes as a new poll finds 71 percent of Americans believe the economy is "rigged."
TOPICS:
Bernie Sanders
TPP
New York: Progressive Zephyr Teachout Wins Democratic Congressional Primary
Here in New York, progressive favorite Zephyr Teachout has won the Democratic primary for New York’s 19th Congressional District. Teachout has focused her message on tackling inequality, taking on Wall Street and combating political corruption. She and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had endorsed each other in their respective campaigns. In 2014, she mounted a grassroots primary campaign to challenge New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, winning more than a third of the vote.
TOPICS:
New York
Senate Democrats Block Zika Funding Bill Laden with GOP Measures
Senate Democrats have blocked a bill providing funding to combat the mosquito-borne Zika virus, after Republicans loaded it with measures to block funding for Planned Parenthood, take money away from Obamacare, roll back parts of the Clean Water Act and allow the Confederate flag to fly at veterans’ cemeteries. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted, "I didn’t think the GOP could write 1 bill to hurt women, vets, Obamacare, PP, AND clean water all at once—but they did it. #Zika." Tuesday’s vote ensures there will be no legislation to address the crisis this month while Congress is in recess.
6 Democrats Stage Protest to Demand Gun Control
Meanwhile, House Democrats continued their protest calling for gun control in the wake of the Orlando massacre that killed 49 people at an LGBT nightclub. Less than a week after lawmakers staged a sit-in to call for a vote on gun reform, six Democrats stood and demanded recognition during a procedural session Tuesday. The lawmakers, including New York Congressmember Eliot Engel, shouted as Republican Congressmember Andy Harris gaveled the session to a close.
Rep. Andy Harris: "Pursuant to section 3(b) of House Resolution 797, the House stands adjourned until 9 a.m. on Friday, July 1, 2016."
Democrats have attempted to force a vote on a measure to prevent people on the no-fly list from purchasing guns, a step criticized by civil liberties groups who say the list is biased and sweeps up innocent people.
TOPICS:
Gun Control
House Republicans Release 800-Page Report on Benghazi Attacks
House Republicans have released an 800-page report into the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. While the report criticizes the Obama administration’s actions leading up to the attack, it does not appear to contain any new revelations that could threaten the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attack. On the campaign trail in Denver, Colorado, Tuesday, Clinton blasted the report as a waste of resources.
Hillary Clinton: "I understand that after more than two years and $7 million spent by the Benghazi committee out of taxpayer funds, it had to today report it had found nothing, nothing to contradict the conclusions of the independent accountability board or the conclusions of the prior multiple earlier investigations carried out on a bipartisan basis in the Congress. So while this unfortunately took on a partisan tinge, I want us to stay focused on what I’ve always wanted us to stay focused on, and that is the important work of diplomacy and development."
TOPICS:
Libya
U.N. Secretary-General Calls Israeli Blockade of Gaza "Collective Punishment"
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. He spoke during a visit to the region, where he met with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "The closure of Gaza suffocates its people, stifles its economy and impedes reconstruction efforts. It is a collective punishment for which there must be accountability."
TOPICS:
Gaza
Israel & Palestine
Israel
United Nations
California Voters to Consider Marijuana Legalization in November
California voters will decide in November whether to legalize recreational marijuana. Secretary of State Alex Padilla said proponents of legalization have submitted more than enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot. If the initiative passes, one in six Americans would live in a state where selling marijuana is legal.
TOPICS:
California
Marijuana
California: Oakland Bans Coal Shipments, Quashing Plans for Massive Terminal
And as California reels from scorching heat and deadly wildfires, the city of Oakland has taken a step against the fossil fuel industry, a main driver of climate change. On Monday, Oakland city officials voted unanimously to ban the transport and storage of large shipments of coal, quashing plans for what would have been the largest coal shipment facility on the West Coast. The facility in West Oakland would have sent coal from the western United States abroad to China and other markets. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement, "Oaklanders know that it’s a false choice to say we have to pick between jobs and this community’s health and safety. We can, and we will, do both."
TOPICS:
Coal
California
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SPEAKING EVENTS
A triple suicide bombing and gun attack targeting Turkey’s main airport in Istanbul has killed 41 people and left 239 other injured. Authorities said three attackers arrived at the airport’s international terminal by taxi and blew themselves up after opening fire. The airport is the 11th busiest in the world. A witness described the attack.
Osman Uçar: "I was getting my three suitcases wrapped while I heard the blast. The police told us to lie down. The wrapping machine’s steel case protected us from getting caught in the crossfire. They were shooting at the police, and the police were shooting at them. Someone next to us got shot. Then we saw the bomb in the x-ray explode. Everybody around it died in that blast. I got up and looked through the window to see the shooting."
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the initial probe pointed to the self-proclaimed Islamic State. We’ll have more on the attack after headlines.
TOPICS:
Turkey
Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Revive Anti-Choice Laws in Mississippi, Wisconsin
One day after handing down the most significant victory for abortion access in a generation, the Supreme Court has dealt another victory for reproductive rights. The court rejected attempts by Mississippi and Wisconsin to revive anti-choice measures requiring abortion doctors to hold admitting privileges at local hospitals. The law in Mississippi had threatened to close the state’s only remaining abortion clinic. The court’s decision came after the justices struck down Texas’ admitting privileges requirement and another provision requiring abortion clinics to meet the standards of hospital-style surgery centers. We’ll have more on the significance of the decisions with Stephanie Toti, the attorney who argued the landmark Texas abortion case before the Supreme Court, later in the broadcast.
TOPICS:
Supreme Court
Abortion
Jeremy Corbyn Loses No-Confidence Vote Among Labour MPs
In Britain, Parliament members with the opposition Labour Party have passed a no-confidence motion against leader Jeremy Corbyn. The vote against Corbyn was 172 to 40. Corbyn has faced a coup within his own party following Britain’s vote to exit the European Union. But Corbyn’s supporters say his rivals are using the Brexit vote as a pretext to oust him over his left-leaning stances. Tuesday’s no-confidence vote against Corbyn is not binding, but Labour leaders are expected to mount a bid to replace him.
TOPICS:
Jeremy Corbyn
Britain
Trump Likens TPP Trade Deal to Rape: "That's What It Is"
On the U.S. campaign trail, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump touted Britain’s vote to leave the EU as he called for a rejection of so-called free trade deals. Trump likened the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to rape, saying it was "done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country. That’s what it is." Speaking earlier in the day in Monessen, Pennsylvania, Trump vowed to withdraw from the TPP.
Donald Trump: "I want you to imagine how much better our future can be if we declare independence from the elites who led us from one financial and foreign policy disaster to another. Our friends in Britain recently voted to take back control of their economy, politics and borders."
TOPICS:
TPP
Donald Trump
Sanders: Dems Should Oppose TPP, Embrace Progressive Agenda to Defeat Trump
Donald Trump attacked Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for her shifting stance on the TPP, which she ultimately opposed amid a wave of popular protest. Critics say theTPP will boost corporate power at the expense of health and environmental regulations. But the committee drafting the Democratic Party’s platform voted not to oppose the trade deal. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Bernie Sanders urged Democrats to oppose the TPP as part of a broader progressive agenda to defeat Donald Trump. Invoking the Brexit vote, Sanders wrote, "The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States." Sanders’ warning comes as a new poll finds 71 percent of Americans believe the economy is "rigged."
TOPICS:
Bernie Sanders
TPP
New York: Progressive Zephyr Teachout Wins Democratic Congressional Primary
Here in New York, progressive favorite Zephyr Teachout has won the Democratic primary for New York’s 19th Congressional District. Teachout has focused her message on tackling inequality, taking on Wall Street and combating political corruption. She and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had endorsed each other in their respective campaigns. In 2014, she mounted a grassroots primary campaign to challenge New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, winning more than a third of the vote.
TOPICS:
New York
Senate Democrats Block Zika Funding Bill Laden with GOP Measures
Senate Democrats have blocked a bill providing funding to combat the mosquito-borne Zika virus, after Republicans loaded it with measures to block funding for Planned Parenthood, take money away from Obamacare, roll back parts of the Clean Water Act and allow the Confederate flag to fly at veterans’ cemeteries. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted, "I didn’t think the GOP could write 1 bill to hurt women, vets, Obamacare, PP, AND clean water all at once—but they did it. #Zika." Tuesday’s vote ensures there will be no legislation to address the crisis this month while Congress is in recess.
6 Democrats Stage Protest to Demand Gun Control
Meanwhile, House Democrats continued their protest calling for gun control in the wake of the Orlando massacre that killed 49 people at an LGBT nightclub. Less than a week after lawmakers staged a sit-in to call for a vote on gun reform, six Democrats stood and demanded recognition during a procedural session Tuesday. The lawmakers, including New York Congressmember Eliot Engel, shouted as Republican Congressmember Andy Harris gaveled the session to a close.
Rep. Andy Harris: "Pursuant to section 3(b) of House Resolution 797, the House stands adjourned until 9 a.m. on Friday, July 1, 2016."
Democrats have attempted to force a vote on a measure to prevent people on the no-fly list from purchasing guns, a step criticized by civil liberties groups who say the list is biased and sweeps up innocent people.
TOPICS:
Gun Control
House Republicans Release 800-Page Report on Benghazi Attacks
House Republicans have released an 800-page report into the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. While the report criticizes the Obama administration’s actions leading up to the attack, it does not appear to contain any new revelations that could threaten the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attack. On the campaign trail in Denver, Colorado, Tuesday, Clinton blasted the report as a waste of resources.
Hillary Clinton: "I understand that after more than two years and $7 million spent by the Benghazi committee out of taxpayer funds, it had to today report it had found nothing, nothing to contradict the conclusions of the independent accountability board or the conclusions of the prior multiple earlier investigations carried out on a bipartisan basis in the Congress. So while this unfortunately took on a partisan tinge, I want us to stay focused on what I’ve always wanted us to stay focused on, and that is the important work of diplomacy and development."
TOPICS:
Libya
U.N. Secretary-General Calls Israeli Blockade of Gaza "Collective Punishment"
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. He spoke during a visit to the region, where he met with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "The closure of Gaza suffocates its people, stifles its economy and impedes reconstruction efforts. It is a collective punishment for which there must be accountability."
TOPICS:
Gaza
Israel & Palestine
Israel
United Nations
California Voters to Consider Marijuana Legalization in November
California voters will decide in November whether to legalize recreational marijuana. Secretary of State Alex Padilla said proponents of legalization have submitted more than enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot. If the initiative passes, one in six Americans would live in a state where selling marijuana is legal.
TOPICS:
California
Marijuana
California: Oakland Bans Coal Shipments, Quashing Plans for Massive Terminal
And as California reels from scorching heat and deadly wildfires, the city of Oakland has taken a step against the fossil fuel industry, a main driver of climate change. On Monday, Oakland city officials voted unanimously to ban the transport and storage of large shipments of coal, quashing plans for what would have been the largest coal shipment facility on the West Coast. The facility in West Oakland would have sent coal from the western United States abroad to China and other markets. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement, "Oaklanders know that it’s a false choice to say we have to pick between jobs and this community’s health and safety. We can, and we will, do both."
TOPICS:
Coal
California
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Sotomayor "Tells It Like It Is" & Slams Racial Profiling, Illegal Search and Seizure in Scathing Dissent
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