Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is trying his best to provide cover for the right-wing’s horrible record in dismantling family and social services by pitching a “pro-family” social spending program. Too bad Rubio’s plan includes a child tax credit program that gives no benefits to parents earning less than $30,000, a parental leave program that forces parents to ‘borrow’ from their Social Security benefits at retirement, docking checks until you die, or docking checks for only five years of retirement. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“Late last month, Marco Rubio released what he described as a “pro-family framework following the Dobbs decision.” The actual content of the framework is recycled policies Rubio put out many years ago, but they perhaps deserve a second look, especially in light of Rubio’s new framing of them as pro-life benefits.
The Rubio framework has two main welfare benefits in it, the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and a parental leave program, which I will discuss in order below.”
The religious feelings of the clerk took priority over the woman’s being equal to a man and able to determine her own sexual / medical needs. This is what the SCOTUS has created, a place where the Christian religion which views women as inferiors who must submit to the rules of the males, she is basically own by men. It strips women of the rights of life, liberty, and happiness and any equality rights of the constitution. Thomas made a mistake because many think mixed race marriages like his are against their religion. But think on this, in the TYT video I posted a woman was denied the right to birth control her doctor prescribed and a company was losing sales due to the religious beliefs of one woman in the pharmacy that refused to fill or sell the medications the doctor prescribed. Women welcome to the discriminations trans people have experience for years. But what this comes down to is these religious people feel they have a right to push their religion on to other people and the religious person has the right to regulate the personal behavior of the other person. They really feel they have the right to tell you how to have sex, when you can have sex, and also tell you who you can have sex with. Think of that. They feel their religion allows them the right to tell you, to control your sexual activity when they are not even involved. It creates a ruling religious class that all people are required to obey. Will dress standards for modestybecoming next, will religious people be able to tell others that the skin they are showing in public offend their religious moral convictions and require they change or go inside? The US Christian Taliban. Hugs
Walgreens says the employee followed company policy. But what about people who need access to condoms?
A woman named Jessica Pentz has shared her story of an employee of a Walgreens drugstore refusing to sell her a box of condoms. The employee told her that selling condoms was against his religious beliefs.
In response, a Walgreens spokesperson said that its employees are allowed to “step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection.” The company’s policy has troubling implications considering that the U.S. Supreme Court may soon reconsider its decision guaranteeing people’s rights to contraception.
While vacationing in Wisconsin with her husband, Pentz realized she left her oral contraceptives at home, she told the Star Tribune. So she visited a Walgreens store in the city of Hayward to purchase condoms.
When she arrived at the checkout register, a clerk named John told her, “I can’t sell those to you.” When she asked for clarification, the clerk allegedly replied, “We can sell that to you. But I will not, because of my faith.”
Pentz said, “That’s none of your business.”
The clerk responded, “Well, I’m sorry, this is what my faith demands.”
“You’re not sorry,” Pentz replied.
She said that during their interaction, a line of customers began forming behind her. She then realized she was the only woman in the store. She began wondering if the clerk would’ve refused to sell her the condoms if she were a man.
The clerk called over a manager who signed the clerk out of the register, and the clerk reportedly left the area with a smirk. The manager then proceeded to sell Pentz the condoms.
When Pentz left the store, another customer named Alec Jeffery followed her into the parking lot. He had overheard her conversation with the clerk, had seen the clerk’s smirk, and told Pentz, “It was complete bulls**t, and you handled that way better than I would have.”
Pentz was shocked that a store clerk would refuse to sell her a product carried in their own store. She also felt bad for any younger or less confident person who might experience similar pushback from an unwilling sales clerk.
When asked about the incident, a Walgreens spokesperson said, “Our company policy allows team members to step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection and refer the transaction to a fellow team member or manager who will complete the customer’s request.”
The policy is troubling considering that Walgreens, the second-largest pharmacy chain in the U.S., may serve as the only source for contraceptives in some communities.
The store’s policy is even more alarming considering that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recently stated wish to overturn previous Supreme Court decisions, including Griswold v. Connecticut, the ruling that recognized the right to access to contraceptives.
Even if the Supreme Court doesn’t overturn that ruling, it could still issue a “religious freedom” ruling that would empower employees of any business to refuse to sell just about any item to an LGBTQ customer or any other customer under the guise of “religious beliefs,” even if a state bans discrimination in public accommodations.
A married woman was refused by a religious Walgreens employee from purchasing a box of condoms, saying that the sale goes against their religious beliefs. If that wasn’t startling enough, Walgreens sided with the employee, saying that there’s a company policy that protects employees from “completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection.” Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.
“A woman named Jessica Pentz has shared her story of an employee of a Walgreens drugstore refusing to sell her a box of condoms. The employee told her that selling condoms was against his religious beliefs.
In response, a Walgreens spokesperson said that its employees are allowed to “step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection.” The company’s policy has troubling implications considering that the U.S. Supreme Court may soon reconsider its decision guaranteeing people’s rights to contraception.
When she arrived at the checkout register, a clerk named John told her, “I can’t sell those to you.” When she asked for clarification, the clerk allegedly replied, “We can sell that to you. But I will not, because of my faith.””
“It’s hard to even see the mission right now, much less put your faith in it,” one Biden bundler said regarding the difficulty of fundraising for the president these days.
Scott Bixby
White House Reporter
Angelo Merendino/Getty
The Biden administration’s halting response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, along with an inflammatory criticism by a senior White House official over the weekend, has angered some of the very people that President Joe Biden hopes will stir up voters ahead of the midterms—and even a few of the people who are supposed to support those efforts with their wallets.
“Furious,” texted one Biden bundler for whom abortion is a key issue, when asked about the mood of like-minded financial supporters of the president. “The statement was just so unnecessarily disrespectful of people who helped elect him, truly.”
“We are experts at at what we do and what it takes to get an abortion in this country,” said Morgan Hopkins, the interim executive director of campaigns and strategies at All* Above All, an abortion-rights group, who pointed out that it was activists who pushed Biden to reverse his opposition to the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding going to abortion services. “We have a political organization, we know the importance of voting, and people across this country know the importance of voting, and we need the boldest of action from the White House.”
“I will not take being called an activist as an insult,” Hopkins said. “Activism works.”
The statement in question—in which outgoing White House communications director and longtime Biden media guru Kate Bedingfield declared that the president’s “goal” was not to “satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party”—incensed abortion rights advocates when it was first published in TheWashington Post on Saturday.
“People around the country are rightfully terrified and seeking leadership that is bold and effective,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, which recently joined 18 other civil rights groups to demand a meeting with Biden to discuss concrete steps to protect abortion access. “Advocates around the country are pushing every leader to do more, and that must include the White House.”
But while Biden and his team have long since grown accustomed to public displays of frustration from activists on issues ranging from immigration to LGBTQ rights, some told The Daily Beast that this latest slight risks discouraging those groups from coordinating with the White House going forward—with the razor-thin Democratic majorities in Congress at stake.
Biden ‘to Nominate an Anti-Abortion Judge in Kentucky’
WHAT A DEAL
“We have never depended on Biden to get abortions—when he was vice president or now,” said Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of We Testify, an organization that represents those who have had abortions. “The question is whether he’s ready to plug into the organizing that’s happening with or without his administration.”
In the weeks after the initial leak of a draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that found ruled that the ability to end a pregnancy was a constitutional right, the Biden administration pledged to pursue a “whole-of-government” response to any potential threat to abortion access. But once the decision was finally released on June 24, that plan has primarily focused on encouraging Democrats to vote more abortion supporters into office in order to codify Roe into law.
“The only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law,” Biden said hours after the Dobbs decision was released, noting that as president, he was powerless to do so himself. “Voters need to make their voices heard. This fall, we must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law once again.”
That is a tall order ahead of midterm elections in which the Democratic Party is on track to lose its majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate—and the kind of plan that requires working hand-in-hand with advocates and activists who have decades of experience mobilizing voters who support abortion access.
Abortion-rights advocates say there’s no chance that they will walk away from the work they’ve done for decades because of one pissy statement. But the Biden administration’s “vote, vote vote” message, to them, feels like an abdication of authority—to say nothing of the White House’s rejection of proposals like expanding the Supreme Court, building abortion clinics on federal lands and declaring a national public-health emergency.
“We’ll continue doing what we’ve always done for the past decade: getting people to the abortions they need and organizing our communities,” said Sherman. “But the president cannot continue to say that he’s doing everything he can to support abortion when he had to be begged to say the word and is installing a lifetime of barriers in the judicial system.”
The feeling of disengagement from Biden, if not from the midterm elections entirely, has also percolated up to the donor space, according to three high-dollar bundlers from the 2020 presidential campaign. The White House’s cautious response to Dobbs, one of the bundlers said, won’t singlehandedly push donors to ditch Democrats—but combined with Biden’s poor polling and the gloomy outlook for his domestic agenda, is not exactly making the case for doubling down on investing in Biden’s political future.
“When you’re a fundraiser and you’re reaching out to your network on a candidate’s behalf, you need to believe in that candidate and his/her mission,” one bundler said. “It’s hard to even see the mission right now, much less put your faith in it.”
Negative feelings about the administration’s handling of any issue, another noted, makes fundraising more difficult—even if the president’s biggest bundlers are still stalwart supporters.
“Nobody who stayed Team Biden during Iowa-New Hampshire-Nevada is going to ditch him over this,” they said. “But the parvenus who came onboard once he got the nomination are fickle almost by definition.”
Across the board, bundlers and activists noted that with the Senate filibuster intact and the Supreme Court’s makeup set for years, the decks are largely stacked against major executive action. Biden has also issued executive orders directing his administration to help increase access to abortion medication, as well as promising to fight state laws that could criminalize crossing state lines to obtain an abortion.
“They have taken important steps,” Goss Graves said. “The executive order was important, the materials the agencies are releasing this week have provided critical clarity, but the work is not done.”
But that work will require working together, said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who said that her organization is “committed” to working with the Biden administration on abortion protections.
“We recognize that there are limits to what the Biden administration can do to remedy the chaos caused by this decision,” said McGill Johnson. “People expect actions from elected officials at all levels of government—including the president—that not only affirm, but protect their right to abortion and freedom to make decisions about their own bodies and futures.”
More than one in ten wild tree species is threatened by unsustainable logging
One in five people around the world rely on wild animals, plants and fungi for food and livelihoods, according to a landmark assessment.
But many wild species are not being harvested sustainably, putting food security at risk, the report found.
In 2019, experts estimated that one million plants and animals could go extinct in coming decades.
And much of this is being driven by unsustainable fishing, hunting and logging.
Now a new report by the same influential body concludes that the sustainable use of wild species is critical for people and nature.
And climate change and increased demand is likely to push more species to the brink, putting food security at risk.
IMAGE SOURCE,WILD POETS SOCIETY
Image caption,
Over-fishing threatens a third of marine fish species
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is conservation scientists’ equivalent of the IPCC group of climate scientists.
Their most recent assessment, approved by 139 countries in Bonn, Germany, focuses on how fishing, hunting and logging can be carried out more sustainably without damaging biodiversity and food security.
It found that billions of people across the world rely on 50,000 species of wild animals, plants and fungi for food, medicine, fuel, income and other purposes.
The assessment paints a picture of widespread exploitation of nature, with about a third of wild fish in the ocean overfished, more than 10% of wild trees threatened by unsustainable logging, and more than 1,300 mammals pushed to extinction by unsustainable hunting.
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Forest being cleared for cattle ranching in Brazil
Actions that would help address these challenges include a crackdown on illegal fishing and wildlife trade; better management and certification of forests; and recognising the rights of indigenous people who look after land and forests, it said.
Dr Jean-Marc Fromentin, co-chair of the assessment for France, said rural people in developing countries were most at risk from unsustainable use, and had few alternatives, “often forcing them to further exploit wild species already at risk”.
The report found:
About 50,000 wild species are used for food, fuel, cosmetics, medicines, tourism and other purposes.
More sustainable use of wild species is critical for people and nature, with billions of people in every corner of the globe relying upon them.
The sustainability of wild species in the future is likely to be challenged by climate change, increased demand for such products, and technological advances in methods of hunting, logging and fishing.
Addressing these challenges will require “transformative changes”.
Commenting on the assessment, Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said more sustainable use of animals and plants can provide a strong incentive for conservation and living in harmony with nature.
“Today one million species are at risk of extinction,” she said. “And the unsustainable, illegal and unregulated use of species is a large part of the problem. For example, the illegal wildlife trade is a 23 billion dollar annual business that lines the deep pockets of a few unscrupulous individuals. These people get rich at the expense of nature and ecosystems.”
The 2019 IPBES global assessment alerted the world that the direct exploitation of species is one of the main reasons that one million species of plants and animals now face extinction.
The new report will provide decision-makers with evidence for enhancing the sustainable use of wild species and will feed into negotiations in Montreal later this year on setting global targets to stem the loss of biodiversity.
Sustainable development will remain out-of-reach unless humanity changes the way it values nature, according to the UN’s science advisory panel for biodiversityJOHN WESSELS AFP/File
A major UN report warned Monday that a global economy focused on short-term profit is wrecking the planet and called for a drastically different approach as to how we value nature.
Without this shift, universally accepted goals of sustainable development and greater equity will remain out-of-reach, the science advisory panel for biodiversity, known as IPBES, found.
“The way we understand economic growth is at the core of the biodiversity crisis,” Unai Pascual, an ecological economist at the University of Bern and co-chair of a 139-nation meeting in Bonn that approved the report, told AFP.
“The new assessment aims to bring different types of values into the decisions leading us to transformative change.”
Some 80 experts combed through more than 13,000 studies, looking at how market-based values have contributed to the destruction of ecosystems that sustain us, and what other values might best foster sustainability.
A 34-page Summary for Policymakers, approved over the weekend, comes as the UN steers an international process to stem species loss and protect nature.
In December, nations gather to finalise a treaty tasked with halting the decline of biodiversity and setting humanity on a path to “live in harmony with nature” by mid-century.
“Nature is what sustains us all,” commented Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme. “It gives us food, medicine, raw materials, oxygen, climate regulation and much more.”
But a five-fold increase in per-capita GDP since 1950 has maimed the natural world that made such growth possible.
A million species — including, arguably, our own — are threatened with extinction and global warming is on track to make large swathes of the planet unlivable.
‘Not going to be easy’
Two landmark UN reports — one on climate change in 2018, another on biodiversity in 2019 — concluded that only a wholesale transformation of the way we produce, distribute and consume almost everything can stave off runaway global warming and a collapse of ecosystems.
That already Herculean task becomes nigh impossible, the IPBES report warns, unless humanity also changes the way it perceives and values nature.
More nuanced valuations of nature could lead to better policy choices, the IPBES authors concludeANDI AFP/File
“If you think of nature as a factory at your service, your emphasis will be on extracting the highest yields possible,” said Patricia Balvanera, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a co-chair of the report.
Many still fear that sustainability can only be achieved at the expense of well-being, when in fact a natural world that can regenerate itself is the bedrock for healthy societies in the future, scientists say.
More nuanced valuations of nature could lead to better policy choices, the IPBES authors conclude.
A narrow cost-benefit analysis of development projects such as the Grand Renaissance Dam along Ethiopia’s Blue Nile or the Mayan Train project on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula weighed the value of electricity, tourism or jobs against the cost of construction or displacing populations.
A “living from nature” perspective may even quantify the economic value of damage to ecosystems, such as a CO2 absorbing forest or wetlands, or the loss of insect populations that pollinate crops.
“If nature is part of me, part of my family, then — as in a family — the priority is to take care of each other,” said Balvanera. “It is a totally different mindset.”
Many of the delegates and scientists in IPBES — the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services — are also part of the 196-nation Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), which has struggled to find consensus on the draft treaty to be delivered in December.
Civil society will play a critical role in changing the way societies value nature, according to a major report from the UN science advisory panel for climate changeMORRIS MAC MATZEN AFP/File
“We think this values assessment can help the negotiations, politically speaking, to provide find a solution,” noted Pascual, who said several delegates called it a “game-changer”.
“Right now, there is a gloomy sense that this is not going to be easy at all.”
Ah yes, the right wings favorite tool, lie, misdirect, and misinform. Accuse, slander, make false claims, and attack anyone / anything that doesn’t walk the right wing line. Again notice the wording used to describe even just being gay or supporting equality. Hugs
Facebook and Instagram both allowed anti-LGBTQ sentiment and misinformation to proliferate despite claiming to support the LGBTQ community during Pride Month, according to a pair of Media Matters reports released this week. Both social media platforms are owned by Meta, which publicly promotes its platforms as safe spaces for LGBTQ users.
Facebook enabled right-wing media to amplify anti-LGBTQ lies during Pride month, according to Media Matters. The progressive media watchdog group found that during the month of June, right-leaning pages posted about LGBTQ and Pride nearly 3,500 times and earned just under four million interactions.
“Facebook and its parent company Meta had eagerly promoted Pride Month, adding Pride features on the platform, claiming to amplify LGBTQ creators, and reiterating the company’s supposed commitment to supporting LGBTQ people and to eliminating hate speech targeting them. But Facebook has regularly failed to remove the dangerous and dehumanizing hate speech and misinformation targeting LGBTQ people coming from right-wing outlets, figures, and groups. And this Pride Month, under Facebook’s watch, posts that amplify longstanding, baseless, and dangerous rhetoric about the LGBTQ community proliferated across the platform,” the report found.
Pages run by right-wing media outlets TheBlaze, The Western Journal, and The Daily Wire, which regularly exploit Facebook’s algorithm, spread lies and fearmongering posts about Pride events and LGBTQ people “grooming children.” Similar anti-LGBTQ posts about Pride were also found all over right-wing Facebook groups both public and private.
“During Pride Month, Meta announced it was ‘celebrating pride’ by launching Pride-themed stickers and avatars, a Global LGBTQ+ Cultural Guide, and an LGBTQ+ Safety Hub,” the report on Instagram reads. “Despite Meta’s newly announced resources, Instagram has allowed its users to spread propaganda against the LGBTQ community — and even against the same individuals it’s publicly celebrating. In several cases, these are accounts dedicated to targeting LGBTQ people, while in others, these are accounts of right-wing media outlets and personalities who also push anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Many of these posts seem to violate Meta’s policies.”
Media Matters tracked a number of right-wing accounts on Instagram – including Libs of TikTok, which has become notorious on various social media platforms for posting anti-gay propaganda and encouraging followers to harass LGBTQ people – that have been allowed to post homophobic memes and disinformation to their hundreds of thousands of followers.
As Media Matters points out, the rise in anti-LGBTQ hate on social media has coincided with a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in state houses across the U.S. as well as Pride events being targeted by extremist groups this summer. “The false narratives right-wing figures are spinning to support these bills are being projected through online platforms and news outlets and have already led to real-world harm.”
“While some queer users are profitable for Instagram, especially during the month of June, its ongoing failure to address accounts actively spreading harmful rhetoric against the LGBTQ community make the platform’s ‘Happy Pride’ messaging hollow,” the report concludes. “Once again, Meta is showing that it will prioritize the engagement that these high-profile right-wing accounts generated through hateful, lie-filled content, even when it leads to real-world harm and the degradation of LGBTQ rights and safety.”
LGBTQ Nation reached out to Meta for comment and will update this article if they respond.
Photo: Shutterstock
IMAGE SOURCE,RICH CAREY
IMAGE SOURCE,WILD POETS SOCIETY
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Sustainable development will remain out-of-reach unless humanity changes the way it values nature, according to the UN’s science advisory panel for biodiversity JOHN WESSELS AFP/File
