Progressive Political News

“Don’t let a fascist tell you what being woke means,” she said.

On Tuesday, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) lifted the veil on Republicans’ war on “woke,” saying aloud what the GOP won’t admit: that their use of the word as a pejorative is just a thin disguise for their contempt toward Black people.
In a House Oversight Committee hearing about environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment — a longtime milquetoast corporate initiative that’s become Republican’s latest boogeyman — Bush, a Black racial justice activist, explained that the word “woke” originated within Black communities standing up against anti-Black violence wrought by police and the government. She recounted marching on the streets protesting the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, when Black activists advised each other to “stay woke” to oppressive anti-Black forces.
“When that came about, we said we ‘woke up’ because we won’t allow anyone else to do this to us without us fighting back,” she said. “And so when you say ‘I’m anti-woke,’ when you talk about wokeness, you’re saying ‘I’m anti-Black and I don’t want Black people to speak up for themselves.’”
“Unless you are saying ‘I’m racist, white supremacist and I’m bigoted,’ stop talking about wokeness. And you can’t tell me that I’m wrong because I’m from the very movement where this came about,” she continued. “Don’t let a fascist tell you what being woke means.”
Moving on, she continued, “Now. Responsible investment, which has nothing to do with being woke.”

Republicans have indeed been hurling the word “woke” at essentially anything they dislike. ESG, so-called cultural Marxism (a far right conspiracy theory with roots in virulent antisemitism), any corporation (including Christian-owned Chick-fil-A) that so much as hires a “diversity officer” dedicated to ensuring that a company doesn’t violate equal opportunity hiring laws — all entities and individuals are fair game for becoming “woke,” and therefore contemptible, for the right.
As such, “woke” means both nothing and everything to Republicans. Recently, in an embarrassing clip in a news show on The Hill hosted by Briahna Joy Gray, right-wing writer Bethany Mandel froze up when asked to define the word “woke” — despite having gone on the show to promote her book supposedly exposing the “woke agenda.” While stammering to find a definition that never came, Mandel dejectedly said, “this is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.” Indeed, it did.
Even Donald Trump has admitted that the word holds no meaning — despite himself describing the military as “woke” just hours after mocking the use of the word (which is, notably, a favorite of his presidential opponent Ron DeSantis).
In reality, however, there are many conservatives who seem to understand that the use and misuse of the word is just cover for Republicans to be as racist or bigoted as they want without directly saying what they mean, as Bush pointed out.
The progressive lawmaker said that Democrats must push against the GOP’s campaign against “wokeness,” saying that, if it’s obvious to conscious observers that they’re really attacking Black and other marginalized communities, then Democrats should push back against the campaign.
“As Democrats, we’ve got to push back on the GOP’s ‘war on woke.’ We know it’s rooted in anti-Blackness. We cannot sit idly by as these folks get in front of cameras and yell ‘woke’ at everything,” she said on Twitter on Wednesday. “It’s our communities that the GOP is targeting. We have to stand up for us.”

u201cNew York City now with the worst air quality in the world among major cities:u201d — Capital Weather Gang (@Capital Weather Gang)
1686099512
“In the capital city of the United States of America it is medically unsafe to inhale air,” the group Climate Defiance
wrote on Twitter. “Fossil-fueled climate change has parched Canada, where 6,600,000 acres of forest just burst into flames. Those majestic woodlands are now ash. And we are inhaling the soot.”
u201cBREAKING: in the capital city of the United States of America it is medically unsafe to inhale air.nnFossil-fueled climate change has parched Canada, where 6,600,000 acres of forest just burst into flames. Those majestic woodlands are now ash. And we are inhaling the soot.u201d — Climate Defiance (@Climate Defiance)
1686140401
Millions of people in the U.S. and Canada are breathing unhealthy air for the second day in a row Wednesday, with more than 55 million under air quality alerts in the Eastern U.S. and the Canadian capital of Ottawa also hard hit,
CNN reported.

“The smoke—making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season—is not normal,”
The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang tweeted. “The air is compromised from Minneapolis to D.C. to Boston, and the worst from western NY to around Ottawa.”
u201cThe smoke — making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season — is not normal.nThe air is compromised from Minneapolis to DC to Boston, and the worst from western NY to arround Ottawa. A thread… 1/u201d — Capital Weather Gang (@Capital Weather Gang)
1686072533
New York Mayor Eric Adams advised vulnerable residents to stay inside until the smoke cleared.

“This is not the day to train for a marathon,” he said, as
The New York Times reported.

AccuWeather assessed that the smoke was the worst the Northeast had experienced in more than two decades.

“Unlike other wildfire smoke episodes in the Northeast, where the smoke was primarily present well above the ground, only resulting in hazy skies and more vivid sunrises and sunsets, the smoke in recent days has also been at ground level resulting in poor air quality, low visibility, and serious health risks to people, especially those outdoors,” the outlet wrote in a media advisory.

Wildfire smoke is a cause of particulate matter air pollution, which has been
linked to a growing number of health hazards from heart and lung disease to poor mental health and cognitive decline. In the U.S. West, regular smoke from climate-fueled wildfires has begun to reverse policy-driven improvements in air quality, and now the East is beginning to see similar impacts.

New York City’s air quality on Wednesday was its worst since the 1960s, New York City health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said, according toThe New York Times. AccuWeather, meanwhile, likened spending hours breathing the air in the hardest-hit Northeast cities to smoking five to 10 cigarettes.
u201cLive view of Lower Manhattan from @Earthcam as dense wildfire smoke settles in close to the surface. Air quality is very poor and visibility has dropped significantly.u201d — New York Metro Weather (@New York Metro Weather)
1686091573
“If you can see or smell smoke, know that you’re being exposed,” William Barrett, the national senior director of clean air advocacy with the American Lung Association, told
CNN. “And it’s important that you do everything you can to remain indoors during those high, high pollution episodes, and it’s really important to keep an eye on your health or any development of symptoms.”

The smoke is coming from more than 400 fires burning in Canada, as officials in that country said this year could be the worst for fires on record, the
Independentreported. In the province of Quebec alone, more than 150 fires were burning as of Tuesday, with more than 110 out of control, forcing thousands to evacuate, The Associated Press reported.

The climate crisis is fueling these fires with record spring heat, and high latitudes are warming faster than the global average, as
The Washington Post pointed out. Already in May, Canada saw more than 6.5 million acres burn, far surpassing the average for the month of around 370,000 acres.

“These conditions this early in the season are unprecedented.”

“These conditions this early in the season are unprecedented and of course they are deeply concerning to all Canadians,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair
toldCBC News June 1.

Smoke from the Quebec fires is being pushed south over the Great Lakes, Northeast, and Mid Atlantic by a clockwise low pressure system over Nova Scotia,
The Washington Post reported further. It has drifted as far south as South Carolina and as far west as Minnesota.
u201cAs we continue to monitor the widespread smoke from wildfires in Canada, @NOAA’s #GOESEast ud83dudef0ufe0f can see some of it being swept up by a large swirling low pressure system. Numerous #AirQuality Alerts are in effect across the central and eastern U.S.nnMore: https://t.co/wJGBXDcNu2u201d — NOAA Satellites (@NOAA Satellites)
1686142437
It’s not clear when the smoke will end, though a change in wind direction could improve conditions Friday into Saturday.

“As bad as the smoke and air pollution was on Tuesday, the air quality can be even worse at times across parts of the Northeast on Wednesday and poor air quality is expected to linger in some areas into the weekend,” AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter said.

The location of the smoke could also change as the week progresses.

“On Thursday and Friday, the worst smoke and related air quality is expected to shift west across the Great Lakes and parts of Ohio Valley and interior Northeast including the cities of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Detroit,” AccuWeather director of forecasting Operation Dan DePodwin said.

DePodwin warned that a system in the Ohio Valley region in the coming days or next week could turn into something called a “smoke storm,” causing the smoke “to wrap westward across the Great Lakes and then southward through the Ohio Valley and into the mid-Atlantic.” While millions wait for the smoke to lift, climate activists pointed out that a change in political wind is really what is needed to prevent such extreme weather events.

“Hey @POTUS, about that climate emergency?” Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn tweeted over a picture of a smoke-darkened New York.u201cHey @POTUS, about that climate emergency?u201d — Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn)
1686152278
Food and Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh also tweeted a smoky D.C. streetscape Wednesday as he headed to Capitol Hill to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile natural gas pipeline that Congress fast-tracked as part of the debt ceiling deal signed into law by President Joe Biden on Saturday.
“The hazy sky over D.C. this morning, from climate change charged wildfires in Canada, is just one more way the fossil fuel industry is killing us in their blind pursuit of profit,” Walsh said.
Oil Change International U.S. program co-manager Allie Rosenbluth also called out the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for providing another $2.24 billion in loan guarantees to the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline.”This has to stop if we want to have a livable planet,” Rosenbluth said. “While Global South, Indigenous, coastal, and other frontline communities feel effects of the climate crisis first and worst, the inability to breathe clean air for millions who are unaccustomed to climate fires, should be a wake up call.”Rosenbluth urged action as international negotiators meet for the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany as part of the lead-up to the UN COP28 climate change conference later in the year.”We cannot dig our way out of this hole with false solutions that prolong the life of fossil fuels,” Rosenbluth said. “The response must be to slash carbon pollution by phasing out fossil fuels. And fast.”

u201cNew York City now with the worst air quality in the world among major cities:u201d — Capital Weather Gang (@Capital Weather Gang)
1686099512
“In the capital city of the United States of America it is medically unsafe to inhale air,” the group Climate Defiance
wrote on Twitter. “Fossil-fueled climate change has parched Canada, where 6,600,000 acres of forest just burst into flames. Those majestic woodlands are now ash. And we are inhaling the soot.”
u201cBREAKING: in the capital city of the United States of America it is medically unsafe to inhale air.nnFossil-fueled climate change has parched Canada, where 6,600,000 acres of forest just burst into flames. Those majestic woodlands are now ash. And we are inhaling the soot.u201d — Climate Defiance (@Climate Defiance)
1686140401
Millions of people in the U.S. and Canada are breathing unhealthy air for the second day in a row Wednesday, with more than 55 million under air quality alerts in the Eastern U.S. and the Canadian capital of Ottawa also hard hit,
CNN reported.

“The smoke—making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season—is not normal,”
The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang tweeted. “The air is compromised from Minneapolis to D.C. to Boston, and the worst from western NY to around Ottawa.”
u201cThe smoke — making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season — is not normal.nThe air is compromised from Minneapolis to DC to Boston, and the worst from western NY to arround Ottawa. A thread… 1/u201d — Capital Weather Gang (@Capital Weather Gang)
1686072533
New York Mayor Eric Adams advised vulnerable residents to stay inside until the smoke cleared.

“This is not the day to train for a marathon,” he said, as
The New York Times reported.

AccuWeather assessed that the smoke was the worst the Northeast had experienced in more than two decades.

“Unlike other wildfire smoke episodes in the Northeast, where the smoke was primarily present well above the ground, only resulting in hazy skies and more vivid sunrises and sunsets, the smoke in recent days has also been at ground level resulting in poor air quality, low visibility, and serious health risks to people, especially those outdoors,” the outlet wrote in a media advisory.

Wildfire smoke is a cause of particulate matter air pollution, which has been
linked to a growing number of health hazards from heart and lung disease to poor mental health and cognitive decline. In the U.S. West, regular smoke from climate-fueled wildfires has begun to reverse policy-driven improvements in air quality, and now the East is beginning to see similar impacts.

New York City’s air quality on Wednesday was its worst since the 1960s, New York City health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said, according toThe New York Times. AccuWeather, meanwhile, likened spending hours breathing the air in the hardest-hit Northeast cities to smoking five to 10 cigarettes.
u201cLive view of Lower Manhattan from @Earthcam as dense wildfire smoke settles in close to the surface. Air quality is very poor and visibility has dropped significantly.u201d — New York Metro Weather (@New York Metro Weather)
1686091573
“If you can see or smell smoke, know that you’re being exposed,” William Barrett, the national senior director of clean air advocacy with the American Lung Association, told
CNN. “And it’s important that you do everything you can to remain indoors during those high, high pollution episodes, and it’s really important to keep an eye on your health or any development of symptoms.”

The smoke is coming from more than 400 fires burning in Canada, as officials in that country said this year could be the worst for fires on record, the
Independentreported. In the province of Quebec alone, more than 150 fires were burning as of Tuesday, with more than 110 out of control, forcing thousands to evacuate, The Associated Press reported.

The climate crisis is fueling these fires with record spring heat, and high latitudes are warming faster than the global average, as
The Washington Post pointed out. Already in May, Canada saw more than 6.5 million acres burn, far surpassing the average for the month of around 370,000 acres.

“These conditions this early in the season are unprecedented.”

“These conditions this early in the season are unprecedented and of course they are deeply concerning to all Canadians,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair
toldCBC News June 1.

Smoke from the Quebec fires is being pushed south over the Great Lakes, Northeast, and Mid Atlantic by a clockwise low pressure system over Nova Scotia,
The Washington Post reported further. It has drifted as far south as South Carolina and as far west as Minnesota.
u201cAs we continue to monitor the widespread smoke from wildfires in Canada, @NOAA’s #GOESEast ud83dudef0ufe0f can see some of it being swept up by a large swirling low pressure system. Numerous #AirQuality Alerts are in effect across the central and eastern U.S.nnMore: https://t.co/wJGBXDcNu2u201d — NOAA Satellites (@NOAA Satellites)
1686142437
It’s not clear when the smoke will end, though a change in wind direction could improve conditions Friday into Saturday.

“As bad as the smoke and air pollution was on Tuesday, the air quality can be even worse at times across parts of the Northeast on Wednesday and poor air quality is expected to linger in some areas into the weekend,” AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter said.

The location of the smoke could also change as the week progresses.

“On Thursday and Friday, the worst smoke and related air quality is expected to shift west across the Great Lakes and parts of Ohio Valley and interior Northeast including the cities of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Detroit,” AccuWeather director of forecasting Operation Dan DePodwin said.

DePodwin warned that a system in the Ohio Valley region in the coming days or next week could turn into something called a “smoke storm,” causing the smoke “to wrap westward across the Great Lakes and then southward through the Ohio Valley and into the mid-Atlantic.” While millions wait for the smoke to lift, climate activists pointed out that a change in political wind is really what is needed to prevent such extreme weather events.

“Hey @POTUS, about that climate emergency?” Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn tweeted over a picture of a smoke-darkened New York.u201cHey @POTUS, about that climate emergency?u201d — Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn)
1686152278
Food and Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh also tweeted a smoky D.C. streetscape Wednesday as he headed to Capitol Hill to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile natural gas pipeline that Congress fast-tracked as part of the debt ceiling deal signed into law by President Joe Biden on Saturday.
“The hazy sky over D.C. this morning, from climate change charged wildfires in Canada, is just one more way the fossil fuel industry is killing us in their blind pursuit of profit,” Walsh said.
Oil Change International U.S. program co-manager Allie Rosenbluth also called out the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for providing another $2.24 billion in loan guarantees to the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline.”This has to stop if we want to have a livable planet,” Rosenbluth said. “While Global South, Indigenous, coastal, and other frontline communities feel effects of the climate crisis first and worst, the inability to breathe clean air for millions who are unaccustomed to climate fires, should be a wake up call.”Rosenbluth urged action as international negotiators meet for the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany as part of the lead-up to the UN COP28 climate change conference later in the year.”We cannot dig our way out of this hole with false solutions that prolong the life of fossil fuels,” Rosenbluth said. “The response must be to slash carbon pollution by phasing out fossil fuels. And fast.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence announced on Wednesday that he’s running for president in 2024.
Within his announcement, Pence alluded to his Christian faith many times, and included rhetoric as well as imagery that highlighted his Christian nationalist viewpoints.
The former vice president, who narrated the political ad, also alluded to his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, whom he will be running against in the GOP primaries, alongside at least eight other declared candidates. Pence did not mention Trump by name, but made a subtle dig at him by saying the Republican Party needs a leader who “will appeal … to the better angels of our nature.”
Religion featured prominently in Pence’s announcement. “Today, before God and my family, I’m announcing I’m running for president of the United States,” Pence said at one point in his campaign video. In another spot, Pence said that “God is not done with America yet.”
Visual religious symbolism, too, was included in his ad. For a brief moment, for example, an image of Pence speaking from a church altar can be seen in the video.

Pence also made it clear that he was an adherent to far right, bigoted views, attacking Biden and the supposed “radical left” in the ad, and blaming them for purported attacks on “timeless American values.” Alongside the commentary, the campaign video also juxtaposes images of news reports on transgender athletes and drag show performances, with Pence looking directly into the camera to say, “We’re better than this.”
The words and imagery are an apparent appeal to the far right voters Pence will be trying to court, many of whom are attacking LGBTQ people by seeking to limit their rights, including LGBTQ youth, as well as wrongly and dangerously suggesting drag shows are harmful and/or a bad influence on children.
Pence’s announcement is historical in many ways. For the first time in 83 years, and only the third time in U.S. history, a former vice president will be running for the office of president against his former boss in the White House.
Such instances have been seriously contentious, and Pence’s run against Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024 will be no different. Although the two share many ideological beliefs, Pence has blamed Trump for the violence that took place on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol building, as he and other lawmakers in Congress at the time were certifying the 2020 presidential election results.
Pence’s most notable action as vice president was to decide, after consulting with legal experts, not to take part in a scheme to overturn the election results, counting as legitimate fake electors that the Trump campaign had organized to disrupt the Electoral College. Trump’s strong protestations over that decision led to many in the mob of his loyalists attacking the Capitol to chant “Hang Mike Pence” and to blame him for Trump having to leave office.
Pence spoke out against his former boss at a private dinner earlier this year, calling Trump’s words “reckless” and decrying the former president for “endanger[ing] my family and everyone at the Capitol” on January 6. Those words weren’t nearly as forceful as they could have been, however, as the event where he made those remarks was not televised, recorded or broadcast, and Pence also refused to testify before the January 6 committee about Trump’s actions and demands on that day and in the run-up to it.
If elected president, Pence would undoubtedly seek to curtail the hard fought recognition of LGBTQ rights, given his past statements. In the 1990s, for example, Pence argued at multiple junctures against recognizing civil rights protections for LGBTQ people, firmly stating that his belief — that being gay was a “learned” behavior, which most experts reject — precluded the need for LGBTQ individuals to deserve political recognition.
As governor of Indiana, Pence also infamously signed into law a bill that granted businesses and other entities the ability to discriminate against LGBTQ people without facing legal repercussions for doing so. And in Congress, Pence also blocked extending hate crime prevention laws to the LGBTQ community, wrongly stating there wasn’t evidence that those individuals were targets of violence due to prejudice and bigotry.
Pence’s hard-held beliefs also resulted in significant harm to others, including victims of drug abuse. When an outbreak of HIV occurred in southern Indiana under his watch, Pence waited for months before issuing an executive order allowing localities to begin needle exchange programs. His initial inaction needlessly caused the virus to spread unchecked. Once the exchange program began, rates of new HIV cases in the area declined dramatically.
Pence faces extremely uphill odds of winning the Republican Party’s primaries, due to Trump remaining popular within the base of the party’s support. An aggregate of polling data compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows that Pence is only currently garnering around 5.4 percent of support among GOP voters. Trump, meanwhile, receives 53.7 percent of support, according to that data, with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis receiving 21.3 percent.

The Human Rights Campaign has declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States over a wave of discriminatory laws passed in states across the country. There have been more than 70 anti-LGBTQ+ bills signed into law so far in 2023 — more than double last year’s number, which was previously the worst year for discriminatory legislation. These laws have primarily targeted the transgender community, with many states banning gender-affirming medical care and participation in sports by trans youth. The Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest organization devoted to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in the U.S., made its declaration on Tuesday, just a few days into Pride Month. “There is an imminent health and safety crisis facing our community,” says the group’s president.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization in the United States has declared its first-ever state of emergency due to an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The Human Rights Campaign says more than 525 anti-LGBTQ state bills have been introduced this year, in the 2023 legislative session; over 70 have become law.
In the latest move, on Tuesday, Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature passed a ban on gender-affirming care for most minors, sending the bill to the Democratic governor, who’s opposed it, but a GOP supermajority in the Legislature could override his veto.

Most major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors and adults.
Also Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Florida’s bans on gender transition care for three transgender children amidst ongoing legal challenges. Their families filed a lawsuit arguing the bans are unconstitutional, and the judge agreed they represent, quote, “purposeful discrimination against transgenders.”
Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, police declared an unlawful assembly Tuesday night after more than 500 people protested outside a school board meeting where a vote was scheduled on recognizing June as Pride month. A physical fight broke out between anti-LGBTQ protesters and LGBTQ supporters, and the brawl was so big, it was picked up by a local news traffic cam.
This comes as 2024 Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley tried to connect teen girls’ suicidal ideation to transgender rights during a CNN town hall Sunday.

NIKKI HALEY: The idea that we have biological boys playing in girls’ sports, it is the women’s issue of our time. My daughter ran track in high school. I don’t even know how I would have that conversation with her. How are we supposed to get our girls used to the fact that biological boys are in their locker rooms? And then we wonder why a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide last year?

AMY GOODMAN: A recent report by The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ young people, found roughly half of transgender and nonbinary young people said they had seriously considered suicide over the last year. And 30% said laws and policies that target LGBTQ people had worsened their mental health.
This is Nebraska state Senator Megan Hunt, whose son is transgender, responding to Republican Governor Jim Pillen after he signed a bill last month that bans gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth. Hunt had joined a months-long filibuster to block the measure.

SEN. MEGAN HUNT: This person said that they had attempted suicide during this session in Nebraska, a trans person. And I said to them, “Do not let one of these trash people who I work with be the reason that you’re not here. They don’t matter. The potential you have for the rest of your life is so much bigger than the damage any of these trash people can do in their little four-year or eight-year term.” … Senator Kauth has stood up and said that trans kids are suicidal and depressed because they’re trans. No, it’s because of bullies like her, who are trying to legislate their existence and take away their right to be viewed as fully human in our culture and society.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization in the United States.
This is the first time in the 40-year history of your group that you’ve decided to issue this emergency declaration. Talk about why you did this, Kelley Robinson.
KELLEY ROBINSON: Thank you.
You know, we felt like we had a responsibility to do so. I mean, you’ve laid it out. We’ve seen unprecedented attacks at the legislative level. We’re seeing real-life violence impacting our community, from California to the one in five of every hate crime being motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias.
And in this moment, when people are traveling across the country, when they’re deciding to move or what schools to go to, we had a responsibility to let people know that, one, there’s an imminent health and safety crisis facing our community, and, two, there’s a dizzying patchwork the protections for us and for our families depending on the state that you’re in. This report lays it out and also gives resources on what your rights are and what you can do if you find yourself in one of these hostile states.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what’s behind this wave of — and “wave” doesn’t really state it accurately. We’re talking about, as you’ve documented, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bills that have been put forward across the country.
KELLEY ROBINSON: This is political theater. They are doing this to pander to a MAGA Republican base in so many of these states. Look, the majority of the people support the LGBTQ+ community. Seventy percent of Americans support the LGBTQ+ community and believe that legislatures should be standing with our values. One in five of Generation Z identifies as a member of one of this community, 20 million American adults. This is not an issue of the margins.
What we’re seeing play out is a loud and vocal minority that is sowing hate and fear against our community because they’re not willing to solve the real problems. If they actually cared about the safety of our kids, they would be moving forward legislation to prevent gun violence, the number one killer of our children, not taking away the rights of parents to support our kids in growing into their fullest selves.
AMY GOODMAN: Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker ruled a new Tennessee law restricting drag performances in public was unconstitutional. This is drag performer Cya Inhale at a Pride event in Franklin, Tennessee.

CYA INHALE: Having the answer finally delivered and that breath of fresh air and that weight off our shoulders that it’s finally gone, we don’t have to worry about it, is lovely. We can breathe easy for the rest of the year. There’s still a fight, and we still have to continue fighting. There are still other states that we are — drag is still being criminalized, that we still have to work on, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

AMY GOODMAN: And in related news, a federal judge blocked parts of a Florida law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Judge Robert Hinkle asserted, “Gender identity is real,” and he ruled in favor of three families with three transgender children who will be allowed to obtain prescription puberty blockers. So there is very bad news but also good news, and some of these rulings are by Trump-appointed judges.
KELLEY ROBINSON: Yes, that’s very true. I mean, that’s just showing the extent to which they are going, how unconstitutional the laws are that they’re passing in these states.
But the thing that I really want to pull forward is the impact is real. The fact that over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced, even if they don’t pass into law, it is having a devastating impact on the safety and well-being of our community. And when you match that with easy access to firearms, with an extreme rhetoric of hate, that’s when we’re getting these real-life outcomes of violence, from kids having increased incidence of mental health crises to real assaults at Drag Queen Story Hours or bomb threats on hospitals.
That’s why this is such a crisis right now, because it’s got the legislative impact, the human impact, and then it’s creating a culture of fear for our community, because we know they’re trying to push us back into the closet right now. And we are doing all that we can to show up in joyful resistance and resilience to make that not the case, not only for ourselves today but for every young person that’s watching this play out.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about doing this as presidential candidates are coming forward and taking very strong stands against the gay community in the Republican field, everyone from Governor DeSantis of Florida to the former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Can you talk about what you hope declaring this national state of emergency, how it will affect the presidential campaign?
KELLEY ROBINSON: You know, I have to say that what I see playing out in the Republican primary is devastating, it’s sickening, and it’s horrifying. They are pandering, again, to an extremist base and sowing fear against our kids, against our trans children, only for political gain. They know that this isn’t where the majority of the country is. They know that we’ve identified 62 million voters in the country that prioritize LGBTQ+ issues when deciding who to vote for. That’s, of course, LGBTQ+ people, but that’s also our allies, our friends, our family.
We can’t allow them to continue this line of attack. And even more so, we’ve got to bolster up our champions. We’ve got to make sure that everyone that is a supporter and ally of this community turns into a champion in 2024 to hold the strongest line possible. We can’t cede ground to these bullies, especially politically.
At the end of the day, we also have to recognize that this is an intersectional attack. The same people that are coming after gender-affirming care are also attacking our access to abortion. The same people that are trying to outlaw the ability to teach queer theories in schools are trying outlaw — excuse me, ban books and outlaw the ability to teach about Black history. They are launching an attack on all of our communities that is truly a crisis to our democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about what’s happening in the United States going global, Kelley. In May, the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, signed a sweeping anti-LGBTQ measure into law that makes same-sex relationship punishable by life in prison — even the death penalty in some cases. It’s one of the most draconian anti-LGBTQ laws in the world. In April, we spoke to the Ugandan activist Frank Mugisha about the role of U.S. evangelicals in pushing this law forward in Uganda.

FRANK MUGISHA: The homophobia and transphobia we are seeing towards queer and trans persons in Uganda is from the West. It is mostly peddled by extreme American evangelicals.
Just last week, we had American evangelicals in Uganda attending a conference that was titled “The Interparliamentary Conference on African Values.” But the agenda for this conference was anti-gay and anti-gender. In fact, some of the African members of parliament who attended this conference are trying to introduce similar legislation in other countries. For example, Kenya, a member of parliament who attended this conference in Uganda, that was heavily supported by American evangelicals, is now trying to introduce a similar legislation in Kenya. We are seeing this anti-gay propaganda and anti-gay legislations moving around Africa. Ghana already has one. We are worried about other countries, like Burundi, Tanzania, that could introduce similar legislations.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Frank Mugisha, the LGBTQ activist in Uganda. So many LGBTQ people are fleeing Uganda right now with the passage and signing of this law, Kelley Robinson. In that conversation, he particularly focused on the American evangelical Scott Lively, who talked about homosexuality as a Western agenda. Can you talk about how what’s happening in the United States is having such a massive effect globally?
KELLEY ROBINSON: I mean, it’s heartbreaking. It truly is. It is devastating to see how impactful that piece of legislation is in Uganda. And we know that it’s true, what he’s saying, that the same people that are pushing these anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the United States, they are exporting this hate. They are using places like Uganda and the full African region as a testing ground for what they hope to do in the United States of America. These are groups that are designated hate groups, like the Alliance to Defend Freedom. This is a true crisis.
You know, and it’s also heartbreaking because America used to be the beacon of hope. We used to be going to countries talking about what it means to expand rights to people. And now this is the legacy that we’re moving forward. All of us need to see this for exactly what it is: a precursor to what they also want to make true in the United States of America.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Kelley, if you can talk about what you feel people need to do in this time, as your organization has designated a national emergency?
KELLEY ROBINSON: I think that we need to recognize that, first, there are children looking to us to see what we are going to do and say in this moment, to see if we will stand up for their lives, if we will validate their humanity and their dignity. And all of us have a responsibility to do that vocally and proudly. We have to stand up and tell our stories in every way that we can about being a member of the community or being an ally to this community.
You have to take political action. Contact your legislators and tell them not to mess with our trans kids, not to mess with the LGBTQ+ community. And ultimately, we have to vote. We have to change the political dynamics in this country so that it is no longer advantageous to our opposition to attack the LGBTQ+ community. We can get on the other side of this issue, but we’ve got to do it together.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Kelley Robinson, I thank you so much for being with us, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. For the first time in its 40-year history, it has declared a national emergency for the LGBTQ+ community.
Coming up, Cornel West, the famed public intellectual, has just announced he is running for president to challenge both the Democratic and Republican parties. Stay with us.

Climate change is “making our planet uninhabitable,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres in late March. Indeed, the threats of the impending climate crisis have become very tangible, and the world’s top scientists are warning that the Earth is likely to pass a dangerous temperature threshold very soon unless we act now. Nonetheless, the gap between what is happening to the planet and what is needed in terms of climate action is growing rather than decreasing because, as Noam Chomsky points out in the joint interview with Robert Pollin that follows, “this is how the system works,” unless collective action forces those in power to change course. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly evident that a just transition is pivotal to transformative climate action for workers, communities, and all regions of the world. Pollin shows what a just transition entails and why it is so important.
Noam Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world’s most cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy, and world affairs. His latest books are Illegitimate Authority: Facing the Challenges of Our Time (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2023); The Secrets of Words (with Andrew Moro; MIT Press, 2022); The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power (with Vijay Prashad; The New Press, 2022); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2021). Robert Pollin is distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. One of the world’s leading progressive economists, Pollin has published scores of books and academic articles on jobs and macroeconomics, labor markets, wages and poverty, and environmental and energy economics. He was selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the 100 “Leading Global Thinkers for 2013.” Chomsky and Pollin are coauthors of Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with C. J. Polychroniou: Verso 2020) and are now working together on a new book on the climate emergency.
C. J. Polychroniou: Noam, it has been clear for decades that human activities are having a huge impact on the physical environment in many critical ways, and that we are the cause of global warming, with the burning of fossil fuels accounting for nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It is true, of course, that some concrete actions have been taken over the past three decades or so to stop environmental degradation and reduce carbon emissions, but the gap between what is happening to the planet, which includes a sharp decline in biodiversity, and what is needed in terms of environmental and climate action seems to be growing rather than decreasing. Indeed, one could even argue that our handling of the climate crisis is flawed as evidenced by the growing emphasis on carbon capture technologies rather than doing away with fossil fuels. Another revealing example of governments constantly advancing highly incomplete courses of action with regard to climate change is the adoption of a historic new law from governments across the European Union today toward deforestation. European governments have agreed to ban the import of goods linked to deforestation, but the new deforestation law does not oblige European banks or investors to stop funding deforestation. So, if it is the link between policy making and economic interests that prevents us from implementing fully comprehensive strategies to stop environmental destruction and prevent global warming from becoming worse, what ways are there out of this conundrum?
Noam Chomsky: Two years ago, John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate, reported that he’d been “told by scientists that 50% of the reductions we have to make (to get to near zero emissions) by 2050 or 2045 are going to come from technologies we don’t yet have.”
While intended to strike a note of optimism, this forecast was perhaps a little less than reassuring.

A few months later, as U.S. representative at the COP27 Glasgow international conference on climate, Kerry was still more optimistic. He reported exuberantly that now the market is on our side, as asset managers pledge tens of trillions of dollars to overcoming the impending catastrophe.
A qualification was noted by political economist Adam Tooze: The pledge holds as long as the investments are profitable and “de-risked” by guarantees from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The “technologies we don’t yet have” remain technologies we don’t yet have or can realistically envision. Some progress has been reported, but it is very far from what would be required to deal with the impending crisis.
The present danger is that what must be done to eliminate fossil fuel use is being set aside on the pretext that some remote technological breakthrough will ride to the rescue. Meanwhile we can continue to burn up the Earth and pour even more cash into the bulging profits of the fossil fuel industry, now so overflowing that they don’t know what to do with their incredible riches.
The industry of course welcomes the pretext. It might even spare some cash for carbon capture — maybe as much as a rounding error for their accountants — as long as the usual qualification holds: funded by the friendly taxpayer and de-risked. Meanwhile more federal lands are opened up for fossil fuel production, more gifts are provided to them like the 300-mile long Mountain Valley Pipeline – Manchin’s condition for not tanking the global economy — and other such amenities.
In the background of the euphoria about asset managers and technological miracles lies the Stimson Doctrine, enunciated by Secretary of War Henry Stimson 80 years ago as he was overseeing the huge mobilization for war: “If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won’t work.”
That’s how the system works — as long as we let it.
In the early stages of the war, business was reluctant to accept the bargain. Most hated the reformist New Deal and did not want to cooperate with a government not entirely devoted to their interests. But when the spigot was opened, such reservations disappeared. The government poured huge resources into war production. Keeping to the Stimson Doctrine, policies were structured to ensure great profits for business contractors. That laid the basis for what was much later criticized as the military-industrial complex but might more accurately be described as the not-so-hidden system of U.S. industrial policy, the device by which the public funds the emerging high-tech economy: A highly inefficient system, as elaborated by Seymour Melman and others, but an easy way to gain congressional approval for what approved rhetoric calls a marvelous system of free enterprise that helps the munificent “job creators” labor day and night for the benefit of all.
Eisenhower apparently at first wanted to use the term “military-industrial-congressional complex.” That would have been appropriate. Why does Congress go along? One major reason is provided by political economist Thomas Ferguson’s well-confirmed “investment theory of politics.” In a current updating, once again corroborating the theory, he summarizes the crucial conclusion simply:

The dominating fact about American politics is its money-driven character. In our world, both major political parties are first of all bank accounts, which have to be filled for anything to happen. Voters can drive politics, but not easily. Unless they are prepared to invest very substantial time and effort into making the system work or organizations that they control will – such as unions or genuine grassroots political organizations – only political appeals that can be financed go live in the system, unless (of course) as helpful diversions.

That insight into “our world” also offers advice as to ways out of the conundrum. And also, ways to confront the reigning Stimson Doctrine, which is a virtual epitaph for the human species in the context of the awesome and imminent threat of heating the earth beyond the level of recovery.
It is suicidal to look away from the gap between what is happening to the planet, which includes a sharp decline in biodiversity, and what is needed in terms of environmental and climate action seems to be growing rather than decreasing. When we do look, we find a mixed picture.
One critical case is the Amazon Forest. Its central role in global ecology is well understood. It is self-sustaining, but if damaged can shift rapidly to irreversible decline, with catastrophic effects for the region, and the entire world.
During Bolsonaro’s term in Brazil, agribusiness, mining and logging enterprises were unleashed in an assault on the forest and the Indigenous societies that have long lived there in harmony with nature. To take just one measure, “Deforestation across Brazil soared between 2019 and 2022 under the then president, Jair Bolsonaro, with cattle ranching being the number one cause.” More than 800 million trees were destroyed for beef export. The main researchers, the Indigenous peoples expert Bruno Pereira and his journalist collaborator Dom Phillips, were murdered while conducting their work in the Amazon.
Brazilian scientists report that some sectors of the forest have already passed the tipping point, transitioning to savannah, permanent destruction.
Lula’s election in 2022 offered hope to limit, perhaps end, the destruction. As minister of the environment, he appointed Marina Silva, a courageous and dedicated environmentalist, with a truly impressive record. But “the masters of mankind” who own the economy (in Adam Smith’s phrase) never rest. Their congressional supporters are chipping away at Silva’s jurisdiction.
Those who hope to save the world are not resting either. Brazilian ecologists are seeking ways to support Indigenous communities that have been the guardians of the forest, and to extend their reach.
The struggle continues.
It continues on other fronts as well. Some good news from China is summarized in the Washington Post. Reviewing many studies, the Post reports that China is far in the lead globally in “churn[ing] out batteries, solar panels and other key ingredients of the energy transition” as China has “moved aggressively on renewables,” leaving the U.S. far behind — very far behind in per capita terms, the relevant figure. China is “likely on track to meet its goals of peaking its emissions before 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2060. It installed a record amount of solar power capacity last year — and this year alone is set to install more than the entire existing solar capacity of the United States.”
I’ve been mispresenting the article, however. The Post does not come to praise China, but to condemn it. Its praise is for the U.S., which, from its lofty perch on transitioning to renewable energy is seeking ways “to pressure China to help avert climate catastrophe” — the headline of the article. The article warns ominously that China is responsible for more than double U.S. emissions; or to translate from Newspeak, China is far behind the U.S. in per capita emissions, again the relevant figure.
The article discusses the means under consideration to induce China to join us in our noble pursuit of saving the climate, omitting, however, the most important of these: “Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Tuesday that the U.S. will rally allies in order to mount pressure on the world’s second-largest economy. ‘If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe,’ Raimondo said.”
We have to make sure to contain China’s innovations in producing the advanced technology that might save the world. The prime method, openly announced and highly praised, is to deny China access to the computer chips that are necessary for advanced technology.
At the same time, Raimondo warned China that the U.S. “‘won’t tolerate’ China’s effective ban on purchases of [Idaho corporation] Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such ‘economic coercion’.”
More insight into the famed “rules-based international order” and its subtle design, as the world burns.
Polychroniou: India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, and its population is certain to continue to grow in the decades ahead. Do we have to reduce global population to save the planet?
Chomsky: The global population should be reduced, perhaps considerably. Fortunately, there is a method to achieve this result, one that is furthermore humane and should be undertaken irrespective of the goal of saving the planet: education of women. That’s been shown to lead to sharp population reduction in both rich countries and poor.
Education of women should be supplemented by other humane methods, such as those prescribed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was initiated by the U.S., but that was in a different era, when New Deal social democracy still had not been undermined by the bitter business assault that finally reached its goals with Reagan. By then, the socioeconomic provisions of the declaration, including the ones just quoted, were ridiculed as “a letter to Santa Claus” (Reagan’s UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick). Kirkpatrick was echoed by Paula Dobriansky, the official in charge of human rights and humanitarian affairs in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Dobriansky sought to dispel “the myth [that] ‘economic and social rights’ [of the declaration] constitute human rights.” These myths are “little more than an empty vessel into which vague hopes and inchoate expectations can be poured.” They are “preposterous” and even a “dangerous incitement,” in the words of Bush ambassador Morris Abram when he was casting the sole vote against the UN Right to Development, which closely paraphrased the socioeconomic provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
By then dismissal of the letter to Santa Claus had become largely bipartisan, though the GOP has maintained the lead in savagery, as we can see right now in the farcical doings in Congress.
There is a lot more to say about this, but for another time.
Polychroniou: Bob, a “just transition” is seen as essential for advancing ambitious climate change policies. Why is a “just transition” so crucial for effective climate action, and how exactly does it affect average citizens?
Robert Pollin: The term “just transition” has been used in various ways. I will first use it to refer to measures to support workers and communities that are presently dependent on the fossil fuel industry for their incomes and well-being. I will then consider below a second use of the term, considering the ways in which high-income economies need to support the Green New Deal programs advanced by low-income economies.
The reigning Stimson Doctrine … is a virtual epitaph for the human species in the context of the awesome and imminent threat of heating the earth beyond the level of recovery.
With respect to the first issue of supporting workers and communities that are now dependent on the fossil fuel industry, the broader context is very important. As we have discussed many times before, investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy to build a global zero-emissions energy infrastructure will be a major engine of overall job creation. That is, overall, saving the planet is very good for jobs. This is, of course, the opposite of the fulminations we hear from likes of Donald Trump, but also much more widely across the political spectrum. The vaguely respectable version of this position is that phasing out fossil fuel consumption might well be beneficial on environmental grounds, but it still going to be a job killer. And everyone other than rich coastal elites care more about jobs than the environment.
Here is how this position can actually resonate. While the clean energy transition is indeed a major engine of job creation overall, it is still also true that phasing out the fossil fuel industry will inevitably mean losses for workers and communities that now depend on the fossil fuel industry. In the absence of generous just transition policies, these workers and communities will indeed be facing layoffs, falling incomes and declining public sector budgets to support schools, health clinics and public safety. Should we be surprised that, without hard commitments to generous just transition policies, a good share of these workers and communities will vehemently oppose the fossil fuel industry phase out?
A viable just transition program for these workers and communities needs to build from the framework first advanced by Tony Mazzocchi, the late great labor movement and environmental leader. Mazzocchi was the person who came up with the term “just transition” in the first place. In considering the phasing out of nuclear plants and related facilities, Mazzocchi wrote in 1993: “Paying people to make the transition from one kind of economy to another is not welfare. Those who work with toxic materials on a daily basis … in order to provide the world with the energy and the materials it needs deserve a helping hand to make a new start in life.”
Starting from this Mazzocchi perspective, we still need to establish what specifically would constitute a generous set of just transition policies. For the workers, I would argue that, as a first principle, the aim of such policies should be simply, to truly protect them against major losses in their living standards. To accomplish this, the critical components of a just transition policy should include three types of guarantees for the workers: 1) a guaranteed new job; 2) a guaranteed level of pay with their new job that is at least comparable to their previous fossil fuel industry job; and 3) a guarantee that their pensions will remain intact regardless of whether their employers’ business operations are phased out. Just transition policies should also support displaced workers in the areas of job search, retraining and relocation. These forms of support are important but should be understood as supplementary. This is because, in themselves, they are not capable of protecting workers against major losses in their living standards resulting from the fossil fuel industry phase out.
Among major high-income economies, just transition policies for workers have recently been enacted within the European Union, Germany and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. Such initiatives are still mainly at the proposal stages in the U.S., Japan, Canada. But even in the cases of Germany, the U.K. and the European Union, these policies remain mostly limited to the areas of job search, retraining and relocation support. In other words, in none of these cases have policies been enacted that provide workers with the guarantees they need.
The most substantive commitments to just transition policies have been advanced by the European Union, within the framework of the European Green Deal. Thus, Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Commission, has stated that that “We must show solidarity with the most affected regions in Europe, such as coal mining regions, and others, to make sure the Green Deal gets everyone’s full support and has a chance to become a reality.”
In that spirit, the European Commission established a Just Transition Fund in January 2020 to advance beyond broad principles into meaningful concrete policy commitments. Nevertheless, to date, the scope of these programs and the level of funding provided are not close to adequate to achieve the goals set out by Vice President Timmerman, of “making sure the Green Deal gets everyone’s full support.” In particular, the categories of support for displaced workers under the Just Transition Fund are limited to skill development, retraining and job search assistance. The fund does not include any provision for the most critical areas of support for workers who will be facing displacement — that is, the guarantees with respect to reemployment, wage levels and pensions.
To obtain a sense of what a much more robust just transition program would look like, I have developed, with coworkers, illustrative programs for eight different U.S. states, for the U.S. economy overall, and, most recently, for South Korea. For now, it might be useful to focus on the case of West Virginia, since it is one of the most fossil fuel dependent state economies in the U.S. As such, West Virginia provides a highly challenging environment in which to mount a generous just transition program.
It is critical that the just transition policies for West Virginia would be one component of an overall Green New Deal program for the state. Under the overall program, fossil fuel production will fall by 50 percent as of 2030 and clean energy investments will make up the difference in the state’s overall energy supply. We estimate that the clean energy investments in West Virginia will generate an average of about 25,000 jobs throughout the state through 2030.
What about the job losses from the state’s fossil fuel industry phase out? There are presently roughly 40,000 people employed in West Virginia’s fossil fuel industry and ancillary sectors, comprising about 5 percent of the overall West Virginia labor force. But it is critical to recognize that all 40,000 workers are not going to lose their jobs right away. Rather, about 20,000 jobs will be phased out by 2030 as fossil fuel production is cut by 50 percent. This averages to a bit more than 2,000 job losses per year. However, we also estimate that about 600 of the workers holding these jobs will voluntarily retire every year. This means that the number of workers who will face job displacement every year is in the range of 1,400, or 0.2 percent of the state’s labor force. This is while the state is also generating about 25,000 new jobs through its clean energy transformation.
In short, there will be an abundance of new job opportunities for the 1,400 workers facing displacement every year. We estimate that to guarantee these workers comparable pay levels and intact pensions, along with retraining, job search and relocation support, as needed, will cost about $42,000 per worker per year. This totals to an average of about $143 million per year. This is equal to about 0.2 percent of West Virginia’s overall level of economic activity (GDP). In short, generous just transition policies for all displaced fossil fuel workers will definitely not create major cost burdens, even in such a heavily fossil fuel dependent state as West Virginia.
For the other seven U.S. states that we have examined, the costs of comparable just transition programs range between 0.001 and 0.02 percent of the state’s GDP. For the U.S. economy overall, the just transition program’s costs would total to about 0.015 percent of GDP — i.e. one-tenth to one-twentieth of what the West Virginia program would cost relative to the overall economy’s size. In short, providing workers with robust just transition support amounts to barely a blip within the U.S. economy. It is almost certainly the case that similarly robust just transition programs in other high-income economies would generate comparable results.
Now let’s consider communities’ transitions. In fact, communities that are now dependent on the fossil fuel industry will face formidable challenges adjusting to the decline of the industry. At the same time, it is critical that, as I described for the case of West Virginia, the decline of the fossil fuel industry will be occurring in conjunction with the rapid expansion of the clean energy economy. This will provide a basic supportive foundation for advancing effective community transition policies.
One important example has been the integration of clean renewable energy sources — primarily wind and solar power — into Alaska’s long-standing and extensive energy microgrid infrastructure. A microgrid is a localized power grid. Since the 1960s, these grids have been heavily reliant on diesel generators. But since 2005, renewable energy has become an increasingly significant alternative to diesel fuel. As of 2015, the Alaska Center for Energy and Power described this development as follows:

Over the past decade, investment in renewable energy generation has increased dramatically to meet a desire for energy independence and reduce the cost of delivered power. Today, more than 70 of Alaska’s microgrids, which represent approximately 12 percent of renewably powered microgrids in the world, incorporate grid-scale renewable generation, including small hydro, wind, geothermal, solar and biomass.

Another important development, primarily thus far in Australia, Germany and the U.S. is with creating pumped storage hydropower sites in now defunct coal mines. A Wall Street Journal article from late 2022 reports as follows:

Mining operations that contributed to greenhouse-gas emissions could soon help to cut them. Around the world, companies are seeking to repurpose old mines as renewable-energy generators using a century-old technology known as pumped-storage hydropower. The technology, already part of the energy mix in many countries, works like a giant battery, with water and gravity as the energy source. Water is pumped uphill to a reservoir when energy supply is plentiful. It is released and flows downhill through turbines generating hydroelectric power when electricity demand is high or there are shortages of other types of power. Finally, the water is captured to be pumped uphill again in a repeated cycle. Surface and underground mines hold potential as reservoirs for the water, and could be developed with a lower environmental impact and upfront costs than building such plants from scratch, experts say.

More broadly, there is no shortage of opportunities for revitalizing fossil fuel dependent communities through developing innovative clean energy projects in these very communities. To its credit, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act — which is primarily about financing clean energy investment projects in the U.S. — is providing large-scale funding for such projects. Naturally, the congressional Republicans tried to kill such funding through the farcical and now mercifully concluded debt ceiling debate. Fortunately, they failed.
Polychroniou: If moving away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy is the only way forward for the survival of the planet, climate action must be ultimately coordinated on a global level. What does global just transition entail, and what sort of new relationships of power need to be created since the world remains divided by huge differences between rich countries and poor countries?
Pollin: Let’s first be clear that there is no such thing as a viable climate stabilization program that applies only to rich countries. All countries, at all levels of development, need to drive their emissions to zero by 2050. It is true that, at present, China, the U.S. and the European Union together account for 52 percent of all global CO2 emissions. But that also means that if, miraculously, emissions in China, the U.S. and the European Union were all to fall to zero tomorrow, we would still be only a bit more than halfway to driving global emissions to zero. Moreover, if large, fast-growing developing economies like India and Indonesia continue to power their growth through a fossil fuel-dominant energy infrastructure, we will not cut global emissions at all by 2050 relative to today, even if emissions in China, the U.S. and the European Union were to indeed fall to zero. The point is that every place does matter if we really are going to hit the target of zero emissions by no later than 2050.
Thus, recognizing that a Green New Deal program has to be global in scope, the worker-and-community just transitions that I have described above for high-income economies applies equally, if not more so, for low-income economies. For starters, the clean energy investment transition programs will be a major engine of job creation in low-income economies just as it is for high-income economies. For example, research that I have done with coworkers finds that creating a clean energy economy in places like India, Indonesia and South Africa will generate between two-to-three times more jobs for a given spending level than maintaining these economies’ existing fossil fuel-dominant energy infrastructure. At the same time, phasing out fossil fuels in these economies will still also entail losses for fossil fuel industry dependent workers and communities. These workers and communities will require just transition support comparable to what we have described above for the U.S. and other high-income economies.
We still need to ask the question: who pays for the Green New Deal in low-income countries? As a baseline matter of planetary survival, we can start by recognizing that somebody has to pay. How then should we establish fair and workable standards as to who should pay, how much they should pay and via what financing channels?
Two initial points are critical. First, starting with the early phases of industrial development under capitalism, what are now the globe’s high-income countries, including the U.S., western Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia, are primarily responsible for loading up the atmosphere with greenhouse gas emissions and causing climate change. They therefore should be primarily responsible for financing the global Green New Deal. And second, moving from this historical perspective to the present, high-income people in all countries and regions have massively larger carbon footprints today than everyone else. As documented in a 2020 Oxfam study, the average carbon footprint of people in the richest 1 percent of the global population, for example, is 35 times greater than the average emissions level for the overall global population.
Thus, by any minimal standard of fairness, high-income countries and high-income people, no matter where they live, need to cover most of the upfront costs of a global clean energy transformation. At the same time, let’s also remember that these upfront costs are investments. They will pay for themselves over time, and then some, by delivering high efficiency and abundant renewable energy at average prices that are already lower today than fossil fuels and nuclear, and falling.
But it is still necessary to mobilize investment funds into low-income economies right now at both a speed and scale that are unprecedented. We are already seeing that, despite various pronouncements and pledges, private capitalists are not about to accomplish this on their own. As Noam described above, private capitalists are rather waiting for their clean energy investment prospects in developing economies to become “de-risked” by public entities. That means, to summarize Noam, that the private investors get big subsidies from public entities to undertake investments, but then pocket all the profits when the investments pay off. The public entities handing out the subsidies can include their own rich country governments, the governments of the low-income countries where they might invest, or international public investment institutions like the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.
It is also the case that the rich country governments have not been fulfilling the pledges they made initially in 2009 to provide $100 billion in annual climate-related support for poor countries. Between 2015-2020, 35 high-income countries reported providing an overall average of $36 billion per year, only one-third of the $100 billion annual pledge. Moreover, even this low-end figure overstates the actual level of climate finance rich countries are providing, given that countries can claim virtually anything as constituting “climate finance.” Thus, according to a Reuters story from June 1, 2023:

Italy helped a retailer open chocolate and gelato stores across Asia. The United States offered a loan for a coastal hotel expansion in Haiti. Belgium backed the film La Tierra Roja, a love story set in the Argentine rainforest. And Japan is financing a new coal plant in Bangladesh and an airport expansion in Egypt….
Although a coal plant, a hotel, chocolate stores, a movie and an airport expansion don’t seem like efforts to combat global warming, nothing prevented the governments that funded them from reporting them as such to the United Nations and counting them toward their giving total.

It’s obvious that a serious system of monitoring is one necessary step toward moving significant financial resources into legitimate climate projects in developing economies. But in addition, it will also be critical that public investment banks in low-income countries serve as primary conduits in moving specific investment projects forward in their economies. The public investment banks should be managing the financing of clean energy projects in both the public and private sectors, along with mixed public/private projects. We cannot know what the best mix should be between public and private ownership with any specific project in any given low-income country (or for that matter, any high-income country). There is no point in being dogmatic and pretending otherwise. But, in all situations, we need to operate under the recognition that it is not reasonable to allow private firms to profit at rates that they have gotten away with under 40 years of neoliberalism. If private firms are happy to accept large public subsidies to support their clean energy investments, they then also need to be willing to accept limits on their profitability. Such regulatory principles are, for example, routine in the private U.S. electric utility sector. Similar standards can be easily established in all regions of the globe.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires fueled by the climate crisis continued to smother eastern regions of the United States on Wednesday, with 13 states
issuing air quality alerts affecting millions of people.

New York City
had the worst air quality of any major city Tuesday night, and the third worst as of 11:38 am ET Wednesday, behind only Delhi and Dhaka. Both New York and Washington, D.C. have issued Code Red Air Quality Alerts and canceled outdoor activities at public schools.
u201cNew York City now with the worst air quality in the world among major cities:u201d — Capital Weather Gang (@Capital Weather Gang)
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“In the capital city of the United States of America it is medically unsafe to inhale air,” the group Climate Defiance
wrote on Twitter. “Fossil-fueled climate change has parched Canada, where 6,600,000 acres of forest just burst into flames. Those majestic woodlands are now ash. And we are inhaling the soot.”
u201cBREAKING: in the capital city of the United States of America it is medically unsafe to inhale air.nnFossil-fueled climate change has parched Canada, where 6,600,000 acres of forest just burst into flames. Those majestic woodlands are now ash. And we are inhaling the soot.u201d — Climate Defiance (@Climate Defiance)
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Millions of people in the U.S. and Canada are breathing unhealthy air for the second day in a row Wednesday, with more than 55 million under air quality alerts in the Eastern U.S. and the Canadian capital of Ottawa also hard hit,
CNN reported.

“The smoke—making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season—is not normal,”
The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang tweeted. “The air is compromised from Minneapolis to D.C. to Boston, and the worst from western NY to around Ottawa.”
u201cThe smoke — making the Eastern U.S. look like California at the peak of fire season — is not normal.nThe air is compromised from Minneapolis to DC to Boston, and the worst from western NY to arround Ottawa. A thread… 1/u201d — Capital Weather Gang (@Capital Weather Gang)
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New York Mayor Eric Adams advised vulnerable residents to stay inside until the smoke cleared.

“This is not the day to train for a marathon,” he said, as
The New York Times reported.

AccuWeather assessed that the smoke was the worst the Northeast had experienced in more than two decades.

“Unlike other wildfire smoke episodes in the Northeast, where the smoke was primarily present well above the ground, only resulting in hazy skies and more vivid sunrises and sunsets, the smoke in recent days has also been at ground level resulting in poor air quality, low visibility, and serious health risks to people, especially those outdoors,” the outlet wrote in a media advisory.

Wildfire smoke is a cause of particulate matter air pollution, which has been
linked to a growing number of health hazards from heart and lung disease to poor mental health and cognitive decline. In the U.S. West, regular smoke from climate-fueled wildfires has begun to reverse policy-driven improvements in air quality, and now the East is beginning to see similar impacts.

New York City’s air quality on Wednesday was its worst since the 1960s, New York City health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said, according toThe New York Times. AccuWeather, meanwhile, likened spending hours breathing the air in the hardest-hit Northeast cities to smoking five to 10 cigarettes.
u201cLive view of Lower Manhattan from @Earthcam as dense wildfire smoke settles in close to the surface. Air quality is very poor and visibility has dropped significantly.u201d — New York Metro Weather (@New York Metro Weather)
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“If you can see or smell smoke, know that you’re being exposed,” William Barrett, the national senior director of clean air advocacy with the American Lung Association, told
CNN. “And it’s important that you do everything you can to remain indoors during those high, high pollution episodes, and it’s really important to keep an eye on your health or any development of symptoms.”

The smoke is coming from more than 400 fires burning in Canada, as officials in that country said this year could be the worst for fires on record, the
Independentreported. In the province of Quebec alone, more than 150 fires were burning as of Tuesday, with more than 110 out of control, forcing thousands to evacuate, The Associated Press reported.

The climate crisis is fueling these fires with record spring heat, and high latitudes are warming faster than the global average, as
The Washington Post pointed out. Already in May, Canada saw more than 6.5 million acres burn, far surpassing the average for the month of around 370,000 acres.

“These conditions this early in the season are unprecedented.”

“These conditions this early in the season are unprecedented and of course they are deeply concerning to all Canadians,” Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair
toldCBC News June 1.

Smoke from the Quebec fires is being pushed south over the Great Lakes, Northeast, and Mid Atlantic by a clockwise low pressure system over Nova Scotia,
The Washington Post reported further. It has drifted as far south as South Carolina and as far west as Minnesota.
u201cAs we continue to monitor the widespread smoke from wildfires in Canada, @NOAA’s #GOESEast ud83dudef0ufe0f can see some of it being swept up by a large swirling low pressure system. Numerous #AirQuality Alerts are in effect across the central and eastern U.S.nnMore: https://t.co/wJGBXDcNu2u201d — NOAA Satellites (@NOAA Satellites)
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It’s not clear when the smoke will end, though a change in wind direction could improve conditions Friday into Saturday.

“As bad as the smoke and air pollution was on Tuesday, the air quality can be even worse at times across parts of the Northeast on Wednesday and poor air quality is expected to linger in some areas into the weekend,” AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter said.

The location of the smoke could also change as the week progresses.

“On Thursday and Friday, the worst smoke and related air quality is expected to shift west across the Great Lakes and parts of Ohio Valley and interior Northeast including the cities of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Detroit,” AccuWeather director of forecasting Operation Dan DePodwin said.

DePodwin warned that a system in the Ohio Valley region in the coming days or next week could turn into something called a “smoke storm,” causing the smoke “to wrap westward across the Great Lakes and then southward through the Ohio Valley and into the mid-Atlantic.” While millions wait for the smoke to lift, climate activists pointed out that a change in political wind is really what is needed to prevent such extreme weather events.

“Hey @POTUS, about that climate emergency?” Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn tweeted over a picture of a smoke-darkened New York.u201cHey @POTUS, about that climate emergency?u201d — Jamie Henn (@Jamie Henn)
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Food and Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh also tweeted a smoky D.C. streetscape Wednesday as he headed to Capitol Hill to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile natural gas pipeline that Congress fast-tracked as part of the debt ceiling deal signed into law by President Joe Biden on Saturday.
“The hazy sky over D.C. this morning, from climate change charged wildfires in Canada, is just one more way the fossil fuel industry is killing us in their blind pursuit of profit,” Walsh said.
Oil Change International U.S. program co-manager Allie Rosenbluth also called out the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for providing another $2.24 billion in loan guarantees to the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline.”This has to stop if we want to have a livable planet,” Rosenbluth said. “While Global South, Indigenous, coastal, and other frontline communities feel effects of the climate crisis first and worst, the inability to breathe clean air for millions who are unaccustomed to climate fires, should be a wake up call.”Rosenbluth urged action as international negotiators meet for the Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany as part of the lead-up to the UN COP28 climate change conference later in the year.”We cannot dig our way out of this hole with false solutions that prolong the life of fossil fuels,” Rosenbluth said. “The response must be to slash carbon pollution by phasing out fossil fuels. And fast.”

The United States’ healthcare system is the worst in the developed world, delivering the highest death rates for treatable conditions, the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, and the lowest life expectancy at birth.
But a system that is failing patients, often in catastrophic ways, has been a massive boon for the executives who run the few private companies that dominate the nation’s healthcare sector.
Last year, the CEOs of CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Elevance Health, Centene, Humana, and Molina Healthcare — the top seven publicly traded health insurance giants in the U.S. — brought in a combined $335 million in compensation, STAT recently reported.
The outlet emphasized that “high-flying stock prices again fueled a vast majority of the gains,” which mark a new record. Joseph Zubretsky, the CEO of Molina Healthcare — a company whose revenue comes entirely from taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid — took home a staggering $181 million in 2022.
As former Cigna executive Wendell Potter noted Tuesday, “these health insurance CEOs have been so successful not because they have improved the health and well-being of Americans, but rather because they have sustained financial returns for Wall Street investors.”

“Not much has changed in how insurer CEOs are compensated since I left Cigna in 2008. Except they’re making way more,” wrote Potter, who is now the executive director of the Center for Health and Democracy.
In a new analysis of the latest CEO pay figures, Potter observed that “had it not been for their companies’ share buybacks” — which help boost the price of their stock by reducing the number of shares outstanding — “they wouldn’t have banked nearly that much money.”
“My analysis of how much the companies have used our premiums and tax dollars to buy back shares of their own stock showed that combined they spent $141 billion on share repurchases between 2007 and 2022,” Potter wrote. “Keep in mind that that is $141 billion that otherwise could have been used to reduce our premiums and deductibles–and keep an untold number of American families out of bankruptcy and away from GoFundMe–but was used instead to increase the wealth of their shareholders and top executives.”
(1/6) LATEST: CEOs from the 7 big health insurance companies pulled in $335 million in just 2022 alone.How did they do it?By imposing high out-out-pockets requirements and premiums; stock share repurchases; and by gaming the Medicare and drug supply chain. pic.twitter.com/jx7OEqRVWE— Wendell Potter (@wendellpotter) June 6, 2023
Potter argued that the CEOs’ exorbitant pay packages are “especially alarming when you consider that they are getting more and more of it from us as taxpayers” as tens of millions of Americans go without insurance, struggle to afford their prescription medicines, and drown in medical debt.
In an analysis released earlier this year, Potter estimated that government programs are the source of around 90% of the health plan revenues of Molina, Humana, and Centene.
Centene CEO Sarah London brought in more than $13 million in total compensation last year, and Humana chief Bruce Broussard took home more than $17 million. Both companies are major providers of Medicare Advantage — a privately run, publicly funded, and fraud-ridden program that is a growing source of insurance company revenues.
“Keep all of this in mind the next time you go to the pharmacy counter and are told that even with insurance you’ll have to pay a king’s ransom for your meds because your insurer—through its pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) — has once again jacked up your out-of-pocket requirement,” Potter wrote. “Or the next time you notice how much has been deducted from your paycheck for your health insurance–and Uncle Sam.”
Fresh outrage over the pay of insurance industry CEOs, which surged during the coronavirus pandemic as millions lost health coverage and got sick, comes amid a renewed Medicare for All push in Congress.
Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and others reintroduced Medicare for All legislation in both chambers, with more co-sponsors than ever before — though the bill has no chance of passing the divided Congress.
The legislation would virtually eliminate private health insurance and provide comprehensive care to all for free at the point of service, a transformative change that would likely save tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
“In America, your health and your longevity should not be dependent on your bank account or your stock portfolio,” said Sanders. “After all the lives that we lost to this terrible pandemic, it is clearer now, perhaps more than it has ever been before, that we must act to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on earth to not guarantee healthcare to all.”

The bigots’ latest rallying cry is a crude, transphobic and embarrassingly low-quality rap song littered with slurs.

When Newsweek reported that an anti-Target novelty song had topped the iTunes charts on May 30, besting pop star Taylor Swift’s latest single in the process, both political journalists and music fans were left scratching their heads — surely no one was actually enjoying this sonic garbage? Meanwhile, right-wing pundits crowed about what they perceived to be a victory over the “woke agenda” they’ve decided has crept into every facet of American life, including its big box stores. With Pride Month upon us, the rainbow capitalism that has saturated the season for years has been taking fire from the far right, whose current violently obsessive crusade against LGBTQIA people has led to capitulation from the same corporations that had been planning to profit off the queer community this June.
The bigots’ latest rallying cry, “Boycott Target,” is a crude, gleefully transphobic and embarrassingly low-quality rap song that’s littered with both slurs and lackluster features from other Z-list right-wing rappers. Its creator, Forgiato Blow (Kurt Jantz), is a 38-year-old white rapper from South Florida who has risen to the top of the grievance-soaked microgenre of “MAGA rap” by releasing a steady clip of ham-fisted odes to right-wing culture war obsessions.
He is also an extremely mediocre artist, who sank a rumored $5 million inheritance into a struggling rap career that foundered until he transitioned into his current pro-Trump grift in 2016. Jantz is an heir to the Autotrader fortune (his late grandfather, Stuart Arnold, founded the immensely successful car magazine in 1973) and his early material revolved around wealth, women, and — true to the family business — luxury cars. But in 2016, he released his first Trump-themed song, “Silver Spoon,” introducing the MAGA-branded formula he’s clung to ever since. The self-proclaimed “Mayor of MAGAville” has responded to his song’s relative success by going on major television network Fox News to complain about being silenced (truly, you cannot make this sh-t up).
The music video for “Boycott Target” features Jantz and his buddies romping through a Target, gesticulating at Pride-branded merchandise, carrying cases of Bud Light, and inexplicably filling his arms with boxes of tampons. The cause for their alarm is the current far right-fueled panic over Target’s line of Pride merchandise, which includes queer and trans-inclusive clothing offerings. (Never mind that the multibillion-dollar corporation has been rolling out its annual Pride collection for more than a decade). The song’s iTunes chart position might have meant something 10 years ago, too, but it has become a dated metric for determining musical popularity and success. The rise of streaming has meant that most modern music consumers now use services like Spotify or Apple Music, while older generations prefer to buy individual songs (and as Newsweek notes, it only takes a relatively small number of those purchases to impact the charts).

Jantz himself seems to be aware that his audience skews older, and accordingly markets his songs towards extremely online right-wing Boomers. “My fans aren’t teenage boys,” he told reporter Tess Owes in a 2022 profile. “My fans are 50-to-60-year-old people that probably never listened to rap music in their life. And I make them love rap music. Now they love rap music.”
The music video for “Boycott Target” features Jantz and his buddies romping through a Target, gesticulating at Pride-branded merchandise, carrying cases of Bud Light, and inexplicably filling his arms with boxes of tampons.
Jantz’s crappy song is only one small part of the ongoing anti-LGBTQIA campaign that the far right is pushing, and in some cases, it’s already led to threats of physical violence against Target workers. Last month, the company announced that it would be removing some of its Pride collection from stores following the manufactured backlash, including merchandise from British designer Abprallen, whose (extremely cute) Satanic-themed artwork drew particular attention from joyless conservatives. Workers at some Southern locations have also reported being told to move Pride-themed swimsuits to the back of the store, including a gender inclusive “tuck-friendly” design. It’s truly pathetic to see a corporation as massive as Target caving to the demands of a handful of frenzied bigots, but it’s imperative to protect the workers who have been forced to deal with them and their ginned-up outrage.
The entire episode is shameful, and the ongoing harassment, dehumanization, criminalization and violence against queer and trans people that has been allowed — and encouraged in some quarters, like the one Jantz occupies and enables — is nothing less than an increasingly fast-moving genocide. One iTunes chart doesn’t change that, nor does it provide any real cover to the wretched human beings acting like it actually means they’re in the right. Conservatives’ desperate attempts to latch onto pop culture and use it to push their disgusting agenda always fails, and “Boycott Target” is no exception.
Unfortunately for the bigoted right-wingers insisting that the flash-in-the-pan success of “Boycott Target” means that their hateful viewpoints are justifiable, the facts don’t care about their feelings — and despite all of their sweaty, poorly tattooed posturing, Forgiato Blow and his nasty MAGA cronies will never be cool.