Categories Uncategorized

Biden backs California farmworkers union bill as pressure on Newsom grows

President Biden on Sunday endorsed a California bill that would expand union organizing rights for agricultural workers, a measure long pushed by labor organizers who are now pressuring Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to sign the legislation.

The bill, which state lawmakers sent to Newsom’s desk last week, would allow farmworkers to choose whether they want to vote in a union election in person, by mail or by submitting a card to a California Agricultural Labor Relations Board office.

“Farmworkers worked tirelessly and at great personal risk to keep food on America’s tables during the pandemic,” Biden said in the statement. “In the state with the largest population of farmworkers, the least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union. I am grateful to California’s elected officials and union leaders for leading the way.”

Advocates say the bill, titled the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, would help prevent intimidation during in-person elections from management, including fears of workers’ deportation if they attempt to unionize. The legislation faces opposition from the agricultural industry.

Biden in his statement did not name Newsom, who vetoed a similar bill last year, but Biden’s support comes as many advocates stage protests and vigils in Sacramento calling on the California Democrat to sign the bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro have both urged Newsom to sign the bill.

“CA farmworkers provide for our families — but far too many can’t provide for theirs because they are exploited and don’t have a voice on the job,” Pelosi tweeted. “We can mend this injustice by expanding workers’ rights. I urge the governor to sign #AB2183 for the farmworkers and For The Children.”

A spokesperson for the governor told the Fresno Bee days prior to the bill’s passage that Newsom couldn’t support the legislation in its current form, but was open to negotiation.

The Hill has reached out to Newsom’s office for comment.

Biden has pledged to be the most pro-union president in history, hosting union leaders organizing at major companies and speaking at the AFL-CIO’s convention in June. He reiterated his support for organized labor in his statement on Sunday, characterizing it as “democracy in action.”

“Government should work to remove – not erect – barriers to workers organizing,” Biden said. “But ultimately workers must make the choice whether to organize a union.”

Currently, farm workers’ union elections are held via secret ballot at a polling place designated by a state labor board, typically the place of employment. The bill would expand voting options to include voting by mail or dropping off a ballot card directly to the labor board office, according to a summary of the legislation.

The bill would also enable workers to receive assistance in filling out and returning their ballot card.

United Farm Workers, a prominent agricultural labor union, sponsored the bill’s passage and last month organized supporters for a 335-mile march to Sacramento, the state’s capital, to raise awareness.

“Today, President Biden communicated to the country his support for #AB2183 – the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act,” tweeted United Farm Workers president Teresa Romero. “Farmworkers are grateful. ¡Sí se puede!”

The union has been holding 24-hour vigils as pressure grows for Newsom to sign the legislation. Newsom has requested the bill require an advance notice to employers about the specific union election date, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Newsom vetoed a similar bill last year, saying it contained “various inconsistencies and procedural issues.”

“Significant changes to California’s well-defined agricultural labor laws must be carefully crafted to ensure that both agricultural workers’ intent to be represented and the right to collectively bargain is protected, and the state can faithfully enforce those fundamental rights,” he wrote to lawmakers at the time.

Source: TEST FEED1

Zelensky says Russia is using 'nuclear weapon' by occupying Zaporizhzhia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia is using a “nuclear weapon” by occupying Europe’s largest power plant, where ongoing conflict has heightened international concern about potential nuclear accident.  

Russia’s military presence at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Zelensky said, is tantamount to Russia occupying “six Chernobyls,” referring to the site of a 1986 nuclear meltdown in Ukraine under the former Soviet Union.

“You see, they occupied our nuclear station, six blocks. The biggest in Europe,” Zelensky told ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir in an interview excerpt shared Sunday.

“It means the biggest danger in Europe. So, they occupied it. So that is — means that they use nuclear weapon. That is [a] nuclear weapon.”

Russia has controlled the area where the Zaporizhzhya is located since early in the war, though Ukrainian workers still operate the plant.

“There shouldn’t be any military personnel. There shouldn’t be any military equipment on the territory. And there shouldn’t be the workers of nuclear power plant who are surrounded by people with firearms,” Zelensky said in the interview.

The two countries have blamed each other for recent shelling around the plant. Ukraine says the strikes have damaged the facilities, and Zelensky last month called the strikes “Russian nuclear terror.”

Amid growing fears of potential disaster, a mission from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency traveled to Zaporizhzhya last week and learned that the plant was disconnected from its last operational external power line.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters at the plant Thursday that it is “obvious that the plant, and the physical integrity of the plant has been violated, several times,” per a U.N. update. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Chileans poised to resoundingly reject new constitution

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chileans appeared set to reject a new constitution to replace a charter imposed by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet 41 years ago, a decision that would deal a stinging setback to President Gabriel Boric who argued the document would usher in a new progressive era.

With 72% of the votes counted in Sunday’s plebiscite, the rejection camp had 62.2% support compared to 37.8% for approval amid what appeared to be a heavy turnout with long lines at polling states. Voting was mandatory.

“Today we’re consolidating a great majority of Chileans who saw rejection as a path of hope,” said Carlos Salinas, a spokesman for the Citizens’ House for Rejection. “We want to tell the government of President Gabriel Boric, who during the campaign played his hand in favor of approval, that ‘today you must be the president of all Chileans and together we must move forward.”

The rejection of the document was broadly expected in this country of 19 million as months of pre-election polling had shown Chileans had grown wary of the document that was written up by a constituent assembly in which a majority of delegates were not affiliated with a political party.

Despite these general expectations, no analyst or pollster predicted such a large margin for the rejection camp, showing how Chileans were not ready to support a charter that would have been one of the most progressive in the world and would have fundamentally change the South American country of 19 million people.

The proposed charter was the first in the world to be written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates, but critics said it was too long, lacked clarity and went too far in some of its measures, which included characterizing Chile as a plurinational state, establish autonomous Indigenous territories, and prioritize the environment.

“The constitution that was written now leans too far to one side and does not have the vision of all Chileans,” Roberto Briones, 41, said after voting in Chile’s capital of Santiago. “We all want a new constitution, but it needs to have a better structure.”

The result deals a major blow to Boric, who at 36 is Chile’s youngest-ever president. He had tied his fortunes so closely to the new document that analysts said it was likely some voters saw the plebiscite as a referendum on his government at a time when his approval ratings have been plunging since he took office in March.

What happens now amounts to a big question mark. Chilean society at large, and political leadership of all stripes, have agreed the constitution that dates from the country’s 1973-1990 dictatorship must change. The process that will be chosen to write up a new proposal still has to be determined and will likely be the subject of hard-fought negotiations between the country’s political leadership.

Boric has called on the heads of all political parties for a meeting tomorrow to determine the path forward.

The vote marked the climax of a three-year process that began when the country once seen as a paragon of stability in the region exploded in student-led street protests in 2019. The unrest was sparked by a hike in public transportation prices, but it quickly expanded into broader demands for greater equality and more social protections.

The following year, just under 80% of Chileans voted in favor of changing the country’s constitution. Then in 2021, they elected delegates to a constitutional convention.

The 388-article proposed charter sought to put a focus on social issues and gender parity, enshrined rights for the country’s Indigenous population and put the environment and climate change center stage in a country that is the world’s top copper producer. It also introduced rights to free education, health care and housing.

The new constitution would have established autonomous Indigenous territories and recognized a parallel justice system in those areas, although lawmakers would decide how far-reaching that would be.

In contrast, the current constitution is a market-friendly document that favors the private sector over the state in aspects like education, pensions and health care. It also makes no reference to the country’s Indigenous population, which makes up almost 13% of the population.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump says Fox News pushing 'Democrat agenda,' offers to help CNN go 'Conservative'

Former President Trump on Sunday accused Fox News of pushing a Democratic agenda while offering to help rival network CNN become a “gold mine” by going conservative.

“Wow! Fox News is really pushing the Democrats and the Democrat agenda,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Gets worse every single day. So many Dems interviewed with only softball questions, then Republican counterparts get creamed.”

Trump, a regular cable news watcher, often appeared on and praised Fox News during his time in the White House, but the dynamic between the former president and the network has shifted in recent months.

The former president proceeded in Sunday’s post to mention CNN, a rival to Fox that Trump has long described as fake news.

“If ‘low ratings’ CNN ever went conservative, they would be an absolute gold mine, and I would help them do so,” Trump wrote.

The Hill has reached out to CNN and Fox News for comment.

Newly-minted CNN President Chris Licht has promised the network will renew its commitment to objectivity and fairness after accusations from the right about the network’s partisan slant and sensationalism.

CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter have departed from CNN in recent weeks, both seen as part of an effort to be less confrontational politically.

In his Sunday post, Trump specifically lashed out at Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who has criticized Trump during recent appearances.

Rove, who was a senior adviser to former President George W. Bush, has criticized Trump over his handling of classified information in the wake of the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, saying he had “no legal authority” to hold onto presidential records.

“RINO Karl Rove is unwatchable, very negative, and on all the time – has a big record of losing!” Trump wrote.

Others on the network have questioned Trump over the documents. Host Steve Doocy late last month asked why the former president had “secret stuff” recovered in the FBI search.

Source: TEST FEED1

Canadian police: 10 dead, 15 injured from stabbings

REGINA, Saskatchewan (AP) — A series of stabbings in two communities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan left 10 people dead and 15 wounded, authorities said Sunday. Police are looking for two suspects.

The stabbings took place in multiple locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, police said.

Rhonda Blackmore, the Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP Saskatchewan, said some of the victims appear to have been targeted by the suspects but others appear to have been attacked at random. She couldn’t provide a motive.

“It is horrific what has occurred in our province today,” Blackmore said.

She said there are 13 crime scenes where either deceased or injured people were found. She urged the suspects to turn themselves in.

Police said the last information they had from the public was that the suspects were sighted in Saskatchewan’s capital of Regina around lunchtime. There have been so sightings since.

“If in the Regina area, take precautions & consider sheltering in place. Do not leave a secure location. DO NOT APPROACH suspicious persons. Do not pick up hitch hikers. Report suspicious persons, emergencies or info to 9-1-1. Do not disclose police locations,” the RCMP said in a message on Twitter.

Weldon resident Diane Shier said she was in her garden Sunday morning when she noticed emergency crews a couple of blocks away.

Shier said her neighbor, a man who lived with his grandson, was killed. She did not want to identify the victim out of respect for his family.

“I am very upset because I lost a good neighbor,” she said.

The search for suspects was carried out as fans descended in Regina for a sold out annual Labor Day game between the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The Regina Police Service said in a news release that with the help of Mounties, it was working on several fronts to locate and arrest the suspects and had “deployed additional resources for public safety throughout the city, including the football game at Mosaic Stadium.″

The alert first issued by Melfort, Saskatchewan RCMP about 7 a.m. was extended hours later to cover Manitoba and Alberta, as the two suspects remained at large.

Damien Sanderson, 31, was described as five feet seven inches tall and 155 pounds, and Myles Sanderson, 30, as six-foot-one and 200 pounds. Both have black hair and brown eyes and may be driving a black Nissan Rogue.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority said multiple patients were being treated at several sites.

“A call for additional staff was issued to respond to the influx of casualties,” authority spokeswoman Anne Linemann said in an email.

Mark Oddan, a spokesman with STARS Air Ambulance, said two helicopters were dispatched from Saskatoon and another from Regina.

He said two carried patients to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, while the third carried a patient to Royal University from a hospital in Melfort, a short distance southeast of Weldon.

Oddan said due to privacy laws, he could not disclose information about their ages, genders or conditions.

Source: TEST FEED1

Lofgren says Trump’s FBI criticism ‘potentially’ incitement

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, said on Sunday that former President Trump’s recent attacks against the FBI “potentially” amount to incitement.

During an appearance on “CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta,” Acosta asked Lofgren about Trump’s characterization of the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) as “vicious monsters” during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.

“You’ve looked at, along with the committee, Trump’s rhetoric leading up to January 6th,” Acosta said. “Do you think that kind of rhetoric is more incitement essentially?”

“Well, potentially yes,” Lofgren responded. “In the lead-up to January 6th, there were extravagant claims made meant to inflame public opinion, and that is what is happening here.”

“Although I think it’s meant to turn people against law enforcement officers,” she continued. “And we’ve seen that sometimes that rhetoric reaches people who are prepared to act on it.”

Lofgren voted to impeach Trump for incitement to insurrection after the Capitol attack and has attempted to portray him as directly responsible for the riot through her work on the Jan. 6 House panel.

After the FBI and DOJ searched Trump’s Florida home on Aug. 8, the former president has repeatedly lambasted the agencies as pursuing its investigation for political purposes.

Agents recovered some 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified records during the search, which took place in connection with the DOJ’s investigation into whether Trump violated the Espionage Act and two other federal statutes.

“The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical left scoundrels lawyers and the media who tell them what to do—you people right there—and when to do it,” Trump said at Saturday’s rally. 

The intelligence community has warned of increased threats to federal law enforcement in the wake of Trump and his allies’ attacks on the FBI and DOJ. 

Lofgren on CNN referenced an armed man who attempted to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office last month. Officials have also arrested other individuals who they say made threats following the search.

“This is not responsible and the ex-president ought to stop it,” Lofgren said on CNN. “But meanwhile all of us, Democrats and Republicans, in elected office should call this out. This is not proper behavior.”

Source: TEST FEED1

South Dakota names viral 'corn kid' its official 'corn-bassador'

A boy who went viral for his effusive praise of corn was invited to South Dakota’s “Corn Palace” and named the state’s official “Corn-Bassador” over the weekend.

The state’s Department of Tourism welcomed “Corn Kid” Tariq — whose commentary on corn in a Recess Therapy video was turned into a viral TikTok audio — to “the World’s Only Corn Palace” in Mitchell, South Dakota.

In the viral video, 7-year-old Tariq says that when he tried corn with butter, “everything changed.” 

He famously described the vegetable as “a big lump with knobs” and juice. “I can’t imagine a more beautiful thing,” Tariq said in the interview.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) issued a proclamation rife with puns and references to Tariq’s viral video — declaring Sept. 3 as “Official Corn-bassador Tariq Day.” 

“South Dakota is one of the top corn producers in the nation, providing nourishment to people across the globe but especially to Tariq, a 7-year-old boy who recently discovered that corn was real,” Noem noted in her declaration. 

“Since being told that corn was real, Tariq believes wholeheartedly it tastes good, especially with butter; and… Tariq’s determination that corn is “awesome” and “a big lump with knobs (and) juice” has led him to be unable to imagine a more beautiful thing.”

Per local media, Tariq will also receive a scholarship to learn about South Dakota’s agrotourism industry.

Source: TEST FEED1

How labeling dumbs down American politics

There was a time not long ago when the labels we assigned politicians meant something. Moderate, liberal, Democrat, Republican, conservative—these descriptors generally reflected some underlying truth. No longer. Today, labels assigned to public officials—RINO, MAGA, socialist, “true” conservative, “sem-fascist”—often have no bearing on what anyone actually believes. And that dissonance, amplified by social media, has dumbed down the public dialogue. Labeling in politics is now something akin to cussing in an argument—we resort to it to distract from the issues at hand. And that’s a shame.

I can attest to the new power and the utter distortion of labeling because I saw the shift first hand. By the time I had been elected governor of North Carolina in 2012, my approach to governing was well-established. I’d been a Republican mayor of a Democratic city, Charlotte, for 14 years. And I decided to take the same approach to the governor’s mansion—a principled conservative who was also pragmatic and believed in bipartisan collaboration—that I’d employed as mayor. Working with the legislature, I both cut taxes and invested in the state’s universities and community colleges. I paid off over $2 billion in debt, balanced the budget, and still gave teachers a raise.

But then two things happened. First, I signed a bill designed primarily to overturn a local law that dictated to private businesses how they needed to handle who went in which bathroom—a choice I thought the businesses should get to decide for themselves. Suddenly people who weren’t paying close attention decided that meant I was “transphobic.” And so, after decades working with Democrats and Republican alike, I was reduced in the public’s mind to being little more than a “radical right-winger.”

Then, earlier this year, while running for the U.S. Senate, I was assigned a different label altogether—one coined by none other than the former president, Donald Trump. Endorsing my primary opponent, the former president called me a Republican in Name Only (a “RINO”), suggesting to the state’s Republican electorate I “didn’t represent ‘our’ values.”

So the same person who just a few years earlier had been deemed too conservative to serve as the state’s governor was now deemed to be too moderate to be one of the state’s U.S. senators. It didn’t make any sense. I’d served in government for decades. I’d taken positions on dozens of issues. But my record didn’t matter a lick. Rather than take issue with my ideas, my opponents took turns canceling me by saying I was just “one of them”—whomever the “them” was in any given moment. And the same thing is happening everywhere in our politics.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), for example, may not be a Trump supporter—but she’s certainly not a RINO. Nevertheless, she lost a bid for reelection to another Republican. And among the Democrats, Oregon’s Rep. Kurt Schraeder might have been a bulwark for bipartisanship, but he was hardly a traitor to his party, as evidenced by the fact that President Biden endorsed him for reelection. Nevertheless, after being accused of being less than a true progressive, he was ousted in a primary early this year.

George Carlin had an old bit that I believe speaks to this moment. He said, “I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a ‘common purpose’. ‘Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they’re going to visit at 3am.” And that’s exactly what labeling does in our politics. It posits that people are just mindless followers of some ideology, incapable of thinking for themselves, or defining themselves apart from a broader class of people.

The problem here isn’t that labels are bad in and of themselves—short descriptors have long played a role in defining candidates for office. The real issue is twofold. First, today’s labels have no real grounding in reality, and yet they stick today in ways that they did not before. A single viral post distorting a public official’s record with an inappropriate label can define a campaign. Calling a principled conservative a RINO can undermine their career. And “cancelling” someone over not being 100 percent aligned on every issue is a big problem.

Perhaps of more concern, labeling has come to distort the incentives that define public service. To avoid being labeled, officials are now afraid of doing what they think is in the public’s best interest. Even if the general electorate is eager for them to reach across the aisle, principled conservatives and principled liberals will avoid doing so for fear of being labeled a RINO or a DINO. And that shift is sure to burnish the entrenched notion that our politics is becoming increasingly disconnected from the problem-solving approach the electorate demands and, quite frankly, the country needs.

Pat McCrory served as governor of North Carolina from 2012-2016.

Source: TEST FEED1

Web security firm Cloudflare drops anti-trans website over 'threat to human life'

Web security firm Cloudfare on Saturday dropped services for stalking website Kiwifarms, citing an “threat to human life” posed by the social media platform’s users.

For the past few weeks, Cloudfare has faced calls from transgender rights activists to shut down the website, which they say gives a platform for users who are harassing, doxxing and threatening the LGBTQ+ community.

Earlier this week, Matthew Prince, a co-founder and CEO of Cloudfare, defended the firm’s decision to continue defending controversial websites.

However, on Sunday, Prince said in a blog post that visitors who navigate onto Kiwifarms will now see a popup blocking access, with a link to his post.

Prince said the website was hosting “revolting content” that escalated into “potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life.”

“This is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare’s role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with,” he wrote, saying he had to shut down the website even after working with law enforcement.

“The rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before,” Prince added.

Clara Sorrenti, a Twitch streamer behind the “DropKiwifarms” campaign, said the far-right platform is “falling to pieces as we speak.”

“Just now they have been able to get the website up, but now it’s on the dark web,” Sorrenti tweeted Sunday afternoon. “Less than 1% of users will come over now that it’s incredibly inaccessible. This is a huge win.”

Sorrenti began her campaign after Kiwifarms users made threats against her life, leaked sexually explicit photos of her and even doxxed her — or released information about her online.

Cloudfare is used by more than 20 percent of the entire internet for its web security services. The company protects customer’s websites online, usually against distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattacks, which can shut down a website by flooding it with fake traffic.

Kiwifarms, which evolved from a Wiki site in 2008, is a chat platform where users communicate on threads. Most of the site is used to specifically target and harass online figures, especially the transgender community.

According to Sorrenti, who has kept track of harassed targets, users have been known to record “Kill Counts” — targets who committed suicide — in their profile bios.

Cloudfare has twice before dropped services for customers it deemed in violation of its policies.

In 2017, Cloudfare dropped support for The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. In 2019 they halted services for the conspiracy social platform 8chan, which has been used by mass shooters to post manifestos or screeds, including the El Paso, Texas, shooter in August 2019.

However, both websites found other internet infrastructure that allowed them to come back online. The same could be true for Kiwifarms, Prince wrote in his blog.

“We recognize that while our blocking Kiwifarms temporarily addresses the situation, it by no means solves the underlying problem. That solution will require much more work across society,” he wrote.

Source: TEST FEED1

Lofgren says Trump’s Saturday rally ‘proving’ Biden’s case on MAGA Republicans

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) on Sunday called former President Trump’s rally the day prior “bizarre,” saying he was proving right President Biden’s warnings about “MAGA Republicans.”

Trump on Saturday traveled to Wilkes-Barre, Penn. in support of Republican candidates in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial and Senate elections. During his speech, the former president criticized the FBI as “vicious monsters” after it searched his Florida home and called Biden an “enemy of the state” for condemning Trump’s movement during a recent primetime address.

“Well it’s bizarre,” Lofgren said when asked about the latter remark during an appearance on “CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta.” 

“President Biden did caution Americans about extremism in his speech in Philadelphia, and the ex-president is proving his case,” she continued. “To call out law enforcement as vicious enemies, I understand that he identified an FBI agent by name on his social media, probably exposing that law enforcement official to threats that we’ve seen.”

Biden’s primetime address on Thursday portrayed Trump and his “MAGA” movement as a threat to democracy.

Republicans have called the speech as divisive and condescending, but White House officials have pushed back, arguing defending democracy is not a partisan issue.

“If we want to be accurate about it, as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state — you’re all enemies of the state,” Trump said. “[Biden’s] an enemy of the state, you know that? The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him.”

Trump has also repeatedly attacked the FBI after it executed a search warrant at his Florida home, accusing the agency of pursuing its investigation for political motives.

Lofgren also pushed back on those saying Biden smeared the entire Republican party with his comments.

“The Republican voters I know here in my district — they didn’t steal classified documents and put them in a little room off their pool,” Lofgren told Acosta. “The ex-president did that.”

Source: TEST FEED1