Category: Politics and American Democracy

A Florida teacher who couldn’t get vaccinated because of her cancer treatment died of COVID-19.

A Florida teacher who couldn’t get vaccinated because of her cancer treatment died of COVID-19. Her union says she caught it from her classroom, which had no mask mandate.

Ashley Collman                         
Lake Shipp Elementary
Lake Shipp Elementary School in Florida Google Street View
 
  • Florida elementary school teacher Kelly Peterson died of COVID-19 complications on Monday.
  • She was advised not to get a COVID-19 vaccine by her doctor due to her leukemia treatment.
  • Her sister and union believes Peterson got infected in the classroom, where masks were not mandatory.

A 41-year-old Florida teacher whose doctor had advised her against getting vaccinated has died of COVID-19 complications after she was forced to return to in-person teaching where there was no mask mandate, local outlets say.

Kelly Peterson was not vaccinated against the coronavirus because she had leukemia and her doctor advised against getting the shot in her already weakened state, her sister, Christin, told KTVU.

Lake Shipp Elementary School announced Peterson’s death in a Facebook post on Monday, saying she “touched hundreds of students’ lives” and “made a lasting impression on us all.”

Both Peterson’s sister and the Polk County teacher’s union said that she contracted COVID-19 in the classroom, KTVU reported. However, it should be noted that it’s almost impossible to know how someone contracted COVID-19.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned mask mandates in the state, but several schools have defied the order.

Peterson’s sister told KTVU of the doctor’s warnings against the COVID-19 vaccination: “Because her leukemia was so bad at this point, their concern was by getting the vaccine that potentially could put too much stress on her body.”

Cancer patients and survivors are encouraged to get the vaccine, but to discuss the decision with their doctor first, according to the American Cancer Society. ACS said the main question about vaccines and cancer is not whether the vaccine is safe, but whether it is as effective in people with already compromised immune systems.

Last year, Peterson worked remotely, but her sister said she was forced to return to in-person learning this school year, even though she’s immunocompromised.

“With all the COVID cases this year and her medical situation, she should have been a virtual teacher this year. The school didn’t offer that,” Peterson’s sister told The Ledger.

Both the Polk County School District superintendent and the Lake Shipp principal did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Lorinda Utter, one of Peterson’s coworkers, told The Ledger that Peterson took every precaution in the classroom, wearing a mask at all times and sanitizing surfaces regularly.

“She did everything she could to try to stay away from COVID,” Utter said.

Peterson was terrified of getting COVID-19, her sister said, and knew the effects it would have on her if she contracted it.

“She had voiced concerns many times that if she contracted COVID, she was afraid that it would kill her, and unfortunately that’s what happened,” Christin Peterson told KTVU.

Christin Peterson also said she hopes her sister’s story will encourage more people to get vaccinated.

Stephanie Yocum, president of the Polk County Teachers union, said she hopes parents “set good examples” for their kids by wearing masks.

“If wearing a mask can keep somebody from dying, that should be something that every person should do right now,” Yocum told KTVU.

Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

Pristine Lake Tahoe shrouded in smoke from threatening fire

Sam Metz and Brian Melley                

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — Ash rained down on Lake Tahoe on Tuesday and thick yellow smoke blotted out views of the mountains rimming its pristine blue waters as a massive wildfire threatened the alpine vacation spot on the California-Nevada state line.

Tourists ducked into cafes, outdoor gear shops and casinos on Lake Tahoe Boulevard for a respite from hazardous air coming from an erratic blaze less than 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.

The Caldor Fire erupted over the course of a week into the nation’s No. 1 firefighting priority and was “knocking on the door” of Tahoe, said Thom Porter, California’s state fire chief. A major wildfire has not penetrated the Lake Tahoe Basin since 2007.

Tourists typically come to swim and hike, relax along the lake’s calm shores or take their chances gambling, not risk their lives in the face of a potential disaster.

Although there were no evacuations ordered and Porter said he didn’t think the fire would reach the lake, it was impossible to ignore the blanket of haze so thick and vast that it closed schools for a second day in Reno, Nevada, which is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the fire.

Visitors wore masks outdoors — not because the coronavirus pandemic, but because of the toxic air and inescapable stench of fire. The gondola that ferries summer passengers to the summit of the Heavenly Mountain ski area was closed until winter due to the wildfire risk.

Cindy Osterloh, whose husband pushed a relative in a wheelchair beneath the idled cables, said she and family members visiting from San Diego were all on allergy medications to take the sting out of their eyes and keep their noses from running so they can ride out the smoke for the rest of their vacation.

“We got up and it was a lot clearer this morning. We went for a walk and then we came back and now it’s coming in again,” she said of the smoke. “We’re going to go and see a movie and hopefully it clears up enough that we can go do our boat rides.”

An army of firefighters worked to contain the blaze, which has spread explosively in a manner witnessed in the past two years during extreme drought. Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Massive plumes have erupted in flames, burning embers carried by gusts have skipped miles ahead of fire lines, and fires that typically die down at night have made long runs in the dark.

Northern California has seen a series of disastrous blazes that have burned hundreds of homes and many remain uncontained. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists in California and ordered federal aid made available in four northern counties ravaged by blazes dating back to July 14.

The Caldor Fire had scorched more than 190 square miles (492 square kilometers) and destroyed at least 455 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe. It was 11% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.

Nationally, 92 large fires were burning in a dozen states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Although many fires are larger, the Caldor Fire has become the top priority to keep it from sweeping into the Tahoe.

As the fire grew last week, politicians, environmentalists, and policy makers gathered on the shore for the 25th annual Lake Tahoe Summit dedicated to protecting the lake and the pine-covered mountains that surround it.

With the Caldor Fire burning to the southwest and the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history with a 500-mile (804-kilometer) perimeter, burning about 65 miles (104 kilometers) to the north, the risk to the lake was top of mind.

“The fires that are raging all around us nearby are screaming this warning: Tahoe could be next,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif.

The last major blaze in the area took South Lake Tahoe by surprise after blowing up from an illegal campfire in the summer of 2007. The Angora Fire burned less than 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) but destroyed 254 homes, injured three people and forced 2,000 people to flee.

Scars from the fire can still be seen not far from the commercial strip where South Lake Tahoe meets the Nevada border in Stateline, where tourists go to gamble.

Inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, cocktail waitresses in fishnet stockings and leopard-print corsets served customers playing slots and blackjack who said they weren’t overly concerned about the fire.

Sitting at a slot machine near a window looking out at cars driving through the haze on Lake Tahoe Boulevard, Ramona Trejo said she and her husband would stay for their 50th wedding anniversary, as planned.

Trejo, who uses supplemental oxygen due to respiratory problems, said her husband wanted to keep gambling.

“I would want to go now,” she said.

Melley reported from Los Angeles. Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Over 100 million U.S. households paid no federal income tax last year

MarketWatch

Over 100 million U.S. households paid no federal income tax last year

By Andrew Keshner                       August 22, 2021

‘If this was a permanent and not a pandemic-driven phenomenon, this would be very troubling to me’

A new Tax Policy Center study looked at the number of Americans who didn’t pay taxes in 2020. CARMEN MANDATO/GETTY IMAGES

Nearly two-thirds of America’s households owed no federal income tax in 2020, due to the pandemic’s economic upheaval and the government responses, like stimulus checks, crafted to counter the financial damage.

Nearly 61% of the tax base for individual income taxes at the federal level. It equates to a 40% increase year-over-year from the almost 76 million households who didn’t have a federal income tax bill in 2019, researchers said.

Almost 107 million households — clustered on the lower rungs of the income ladder — had a $0 federal income tax liability in tax year 2020, according to the estimates released Thursday by the Tax Policy Center.

But the situation is both unusual and temporary as the economy improves and pandemic-related tax credits fade away, noted Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The percentage of households without a federal income tax liability usually hovers around 40% — and it will be 2022 before getting back to that point, the Tax Policy Center’s estimates show.

These households still had payroll taxes, state income taxes and sales taxes to pay up. Approximately 20% of households paid neither federal income taxes nor payroll taxes in 2020, up from almost 17% in 2019, the research found.

The percentage of households without a federal income tax liability usually hovers around 40%.

This year, culminating in tax returns filed in 2022, the Tax Policy Center estimates that 101.7 million households — 57% of the tax base — will not have a federal income tax bill.

That can be partly attributed to the tax effects of the third round of stimulus checks and boosted credits like the child tax credit and earned income tax credit, Gleckman said.

It can also be linked to improving job conditions and more pay for people who were once out of work.

Assuming tax laws stay where they are now, an estimated 74.8 million households (41.6% of the tax base) will not face a federal income tax bill in 2022, the estimates showed.

The projections were based on Tax Policy Center modeling, not IRS statistics for a tax year where people can still file through Oct. 15.

Low incomes

There are two powerful forces at play, Gleckman said. First off, “COVID wrecked the economy. It threw a lot of people out of work,” Gleckman said.

Many of those people, he added, were on the lower end of the income ladder and, as a result, faced smaller income tax bills to begin with. Without income to report, their tax exposure fell even lower.

The income tax brackets start at 10%, and in 2020, it kicked in for individuals making up to $9,875 and $19,750 for married couple filing jointly. The 12% bracket for individuals ran up to $40, 125.

Nearly half (40%) of the households making under $40,000 who had a job in February 2020 didn’t have it one month later, Federal Reserve data revealed. Approximately 22 million people were laid off early in the pandemic, and 6.7 million workers still aren’t back in the labor force.

Stimulus checks

Secondly, the two rounds of stimulus checks in 2020 effectively reduced the liability even further, Gleckman said. Technically speaking, the economic impact payments were refundable tax credits that the Internal Revenue Service paid in advance.

The stimulus-check payment “in effect, was subtracted from the taxes you owed. You could almost think of it as getting an advance refund.”

The first round of direct checks paid $1,200 to adults and $500 for eligible children, while the second round paid $600 apiece. As of earlier this year, the IRS said it distributed more than $412 billion in payments between the two batches.

The American Rescue Plan passed in March exempted the first $10,200 in jobless benefits from federal income taxes.

Congress had other ways to reduce 2020 tax bills, Gleckman noted. For instance, the American Rescue Plan passed in March exempted the first $10,200 in jobless benefits from federal income taxes.

The IRS has received 152.4 million tax returns as of early June, and distributed more than 100 million refunds. The average refund was $2,775, it said.

“It’s very important as many people as possible contribute to the general operations of the government because they have a stake in the operations of the government,” Gleckman said.

But he still viewed the findings as an anomaly that illustrated just how jarring 2020 was for households. “If this was a permanent and not a pandemic-driven phenomenon, this would be very troubling to me,” he said.

Afghanistan’s Music School Falls Silent, Its Future Is Uncertain Under The Taliban

NPR – Music

Afghanistan’s Music School Falls Silent, Its Future Is Uncertain Under The Taliban

Students practice the cello during class at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music on Sept. 26, 2010 in Kabul. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

 

The doors of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul are closed. The music school’s young students, teachers and faculty are staying home — they have reason to fear. According to founder and director Ahmad Sarmast, “armed people entered school property” recently. He says they tried to steal cars the school uses for transportation and destroyed musical instruments. Under the Taliban in the 1990s, music was strictly forbidden. Performing, selling or even listening to music at home could get you in trouble.

Read What The Taliban Told NPR About Their Plans For Afghanistan

ASIA
Read What The Taliban Told NPR About Their Plans For Afghanistan

Now ANIM’s future is uncertain. With the disorder caused by the Taliban’s takeover of the city, “The situation is very unpredictable,” says Sarmast. “Things are changing very fast in Kabul nowadays.”

Sarmast, who spoke to NPR from Australia where he’s visiting family, is in constant contact with the school’s faculty. He says some students did not bring their instruments home, “because of the fear that if Taliban will be searching door to door, if the instruments will be found in the house, it might cause them some trouble.” When he reported the recent break-in, he says a policeman in the area, “blamed our security people for failure that they opened the gates of the school.”

Eden MacAdam Somer of the New England Conservatory performs at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul on Jan. 9, 2013. Musadeq Sadeq/AP

It’s Afghanistan’s leading music school

With help from donors including the World Bank and the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), ANIM opened in Kabul in 2010. Boys and girls study music and academics in the same classrooms. Students learn to play instruments from both the Afghanistan and Western classical traditions.

The school has been held up as a great success story in the effort to renew cultural life and the arts in Afghanistan. Ensembles from the school, including the all-female Zohra orchestra, have performed around the world. From Carnegie Hall in New York to the World Economic Forum in Davos, these young musicians, many from impoverished communities, have shown audiences a side of Afghanistan that often gets lost in news accounts.

Making music can have deadly consequences

Making music has long been a risky endeavor in Afghanistan. Over the years, musicians have reportedly been threatened, kidnapped or killed. During one of ANIM’s concerts in 2014, a suicide bomber sitting behind Sarmast exploded. Two people were killed and several others were injured. Sarmast lost his hearing for a time and had an operation to remove shrapnel from his head and body. “Luckily, no students have been injured or killed,” he says, “But of course, the trauma that they received during this bombing probably would have stayed with them all their life.”

Students play the xylophone and drums during class at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul on July 30, 2016. Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images

While the Taliban have presented themselves to the media as less violent than they were in the 1990s, Sarmast is skeptical. “Today the Taliban are promising that they would be respecting human rights and they will be having respect for diversity,” he says, “But … the video footage emerging with the social media is not very encouraging.”

Music entertains, strengthens and heals

Sarmast is concerned about the future of the school’s students. He says 10 of its graduates have received scholarships to study music in the U.S., including pianist Elham Fanoos who attended Hunter College in New York and recently got his master’s from the Manhattan School of Music. Speaking from his home in New York, Fanoos credits ANIM as, “the reason I am here.” He, too, is worried for the safety of everyone involved with the school and hopes Afghans can continue making music.

“I think a culture makes the country and give the country the strength that it needs to have and to represent the country,” says Fanoos. “Without … cultural activities, a country is completely incomplete.”

Young Afghan musicians perform in Kabul on Feb. 2, 2012. Shah Marai/AFP via Getty Images

Sarmast seems determined not to let the Taliban get in the way of the progress ANIM has made. The school had recently expanded to a larger building to accommodate more programs and ensembles. “Music is not just a type of entertainment. It’s not just an art,” he says. It’s a “powerful force” to help Afghans heal “from the years of civil war.”

Sarmast plans to reopen the Afghanistan National Institute of Music because, he says, “the nation needs it.” He hopes the international community will “keep an eye” to make sure the Taliban keep its promises to respect human rights, “to make sure that the musical rights of the Afghan people [are] not toppled again.”

Former NC lawmaker got off easy. No wonder people are losing faith in democracy.

Former NC lawmaker got off easy. No wonder people are losing faith in democracy.

Staff                      

 

Rep. David Lewis

Is anyone else upset that former N.C. Rep. David Lewis got a $1,000 slap on the wrist and avoided prison for taking nearly $400,000 for his personal use? (Aug. 17)

He had raised these funds for his campaign and to support other Republican politicians. He admitted guilt under a plea bargain and has to pay back $365,000. But Lewis once chaired the House Rules Committee and was a leader on election law, voter ID and redistricting and restricting others’ rights to vote.

No wonder people are losing faith in our democracy. We have one set of rules for the powerful and well-connected, another set for everyone else. What a travesty. It’s disgusting! Our democratic fabric is fraying.

James D. Joslin, Raleigh

Redistricting

Wake County was excluded from the list of 10 proposed public hearing sites for the upcoming round of redistricting. In addition, hearings have only been scheduled prior to maps being released, which prevents the public from providing meaningful feedback on maps once they have been drawn.

Wake is now the largest county in the state and its citizens should have an opportunity to provide public testimony before and after new voting maps are drawn. If the General Assembly is committed to and open and transparent redistricting process, then opportunities for public participation must be broadened to provide more opportunities for citizen participation.

Laurel Voelker,

Redistricting Chair, League of Women Voters of Wake County

Afghan war

In his “United States of Incompetence” (Aug 22 Opinion) Jay Ambrose makes his case for President Biden’s incompetent leadership around the tragic conclusion to the Afghanistan war.

This conclusion seems to be the nature of war in our lifetime. Even WWII had its refugees, reprisals, devastated civilians, unintended consequences and political turmoils — and we “won” that one.

We act as if war, especially one thousands of miles from our shores in a place few people can find on a map, can be used for geopolitical purposes that leave us feeling proud, honorable and secure.

Our veterans deserve respect, compassion and appreciation for their sacrifices. But, we should not act as if recent U.S. miscalculations, incompetence or malice are responsible for the mess that is Afghanistan. We chose war in 2001. Now we must live with the natural, sad and tragic results of that choice.

Doug Jennette, Raleigh

Child care

Our elected leaders must do everything in their power to end America’s child care crisis. If we look at current policies, it’s obvious that child care is not a priority. Families are left to figure it out on their own, which, in the past 18 months has led women to leave the workforce, causing businesses to suffer.

My brother and sister-in-law have two small children. He works for a nonprofit. She is a nurse at Duke. The pandemic has been hellish for them as they struggle with $3,000 a month in child care costs and the constant pivots required each time one of their kids has a runny nose.

It has caused my sister-in-law to wonder whether she should quit nursing. The last thing we need in this country right now is fewer nurses.

I know that when America decides something is a common good, we find the funding. We need a child care system that meets the needs of children, families, communities and child care providers.

Kristin Baker, Durham

Invest in people

As a Raleigh resident I’ve seen firsthand how the state budget affects my community.

I want N.C. lawmakers to commit to expanding Medicaid so my neighbors feel safe and can care for their families and themselves.

I want all children in my community to receive a sound, basic education. I want all in N.C. to have access to affordable housing. I want our leaders to listen to constituents, not just the powerful few and rich corporations that benefit from tax breaks.

There is much uncertainty and fear right now, particularly as students and teachers return to school and the health of our communities and economy remain in jeopardy. By building a budget that work for all, state leaders can make a huge difference in easing those fears and the very real suffering.

Katherine Hirscher, Raleigh

Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook

Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook

Rebecca Solnit                  
<span>Photograph: Salvatore Cavalli/AP</span>
Photograph: Salvatore Cavalli/AP

 

Personal virtue is an eternally seductive goal in progressive movements, and the climate movement is no exception. People pop up all the time to boast of their domestic arrangements or chastise others for what they eat or how they get around. The very short counterargument is that individual acts of thrift and abstinence won’t get us the huge distance we need to go in this decade. We need to exit the age of fossil fuels, reinvent our energy landscape, rethink how we do almost everything. We need collective action at every scale from local to global – and the good people already at work on all those levels need help in getting a city to commit to clean power or a state to stop fracking or a nation to end fossil-fuel subsidies. The revolution won’t happen by people staying home and being good.

But the oil companies would like you to think that’s how it works. It turns out that the concept of the “carbon footprint”, that popular measure of personal impact, was the brainchild of an advertising firm working for BP. As Mark Kaufman wrote this summer:

British Petroleum, the second largest non-state owned oil company in the world, with 18,700 gas and service stations worldwide, hired the public relations professionals Ogilvy & Mather to promote the slant that climate change is not the fault of an oil giant, but that of individuals. It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint” in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life – going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling – is largely responsible for heating the globe.

The main reason to defeat the fossil fuel corporations is that their product is destroying the planet, but their insidious propaganda, from spreading climate-change denial to pushing this climate footprint business, makes this goal even more worthwhile.

Carbon footprints caught on, and I routinely see people on social media zooming in on individual consumption habits when climate chaos is under discussion. Bill McKibben made the case against them in 2008:

Say you have a certain amount of time and money with which to make change – call it x, since that is what we mathematicians call things. The trick is to increase that x by multiplication, not addition. The trick is to take that 5 percent of people who really care and make them count for far more than 5 percent. And the trick to that is democracy.

That is, private individual actions don’t increase at a rate sufficient to affect the problem in a timely fashion; collective action seeking changes in policy and law can.

Too, the goal of personal virtue is merely not to be part of the problem. It’s not good enough for a bystander to say “I personally am not murdering this person” when someone is being stabbed to death before them (and those of us in the global north have countless ties to systems that are murdering the climate, so we are not exactly bystanders). The goal for those of us with any kind of resources of time, rights and a voice, must be being part of the solution, pushing for system change. To stop the murder.

Underlying this is a conflict in how we imagine ourselves, as consumers or as citizens. Consumers define themselves by what they buy, own, watch – or don’t. Citizens see themselves as part of civil society, as actors in the political system (and by citizen I don’t mean people who hold citizenship status, but those who participate, as noncitizens often do quite powerfully). Too, even personal virtue is made more or less possible by the systems that surround us. If you have solar panels on your roof, it’s because there’s a market and manufacturers for solar and installers and maybe an arrangement with your power company to compensate you for energy you’re putting into the grid.

In my own case, some of what I could tout as personal virtue is only possible because of collective action. I have 100% clean electricity at home because people organized to make that option and the solar and wind power behind it available. I do some of my errands by bicycle because the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition worked for decades to put bicycle paths across the city and otherwise make it safer to get about on two wheels. I can take public transit because there is public transit. Across the Bay, the city of Berkeley led the way in making all-electric houses the standard for the future; more than fifty California cities and counties have followed suit. Paired with the clean electricity California has committed to, this mandate matters. Having an all-electric house or driving an electric car fueled by renewables won’t be a virtuous choice in the future; it’ll just be the norm.

But individual and collective action don’t have to be pitted against each other. Individual choices do add up (they just don’t, in McKibben’s terms, multiply). That vegan options are available at a lot of fast-food chains is because enough consumers have created a profitable market for them. We do influence others through our visible choices. Ideas spread, values spread, habits spread; we are social animals and both good and bad behaviors are contagious. (For the bad, just look at the contagiousness of specious anti-vaccination arguments.)

Vegetarian and vegan diets (and low-meat or no-red-meat diets) have become far more common, creating markets for new products and different menus. But they have not made the beef industry go away or reformed its devastating climate impact. Climate chaos demands we recognize how everything is connected. Seeing yourself as a citizen means seeing yourself as connected to social and political systems. As citizens we must go after the climate footprint of the fossil-fuel corporations, the beef industry, the power companies, the transportation system, plastics, and so much more.

  • Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions. Her most recent book is Recollections of My Nonexistence

‘We’re peons to them’: Nabisco factory workers on why they’re striking

‘We’re peons to them’: Nabisco factory workers on why they’re striking

Michael Sainato                     
<span>Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP</span>
Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

The pandemic drove many people to the cookie jar and helped Nabisco, maker of Oreos, Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons and other sweet treats weather the worst of the outbreak. But as the company’s profits continue to recover, workers at its US plants are striking over the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico and concessions demanded by their employer in new union contract negotiations.

On 10 August, about 200 workers in Portland, Oregon, represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) went on strike. Union workers in Aurora, Colorado, began their strike on 12 August, followed by those in Richmond, Virginia, on 16 August and Chicago, Illinois on 19 August.

Through the pandemic, Nabisco’s parent company, Mondelēz International, has recorded billions in profits; in the second quarter of 2021, the company reported more than $5.5bn in profits and spent $1.5bn on stock buybacks in the first half of 2021. The CEO of Mondelez International received $16.8m in total compensation in 2020, 544 times the company’s median employee annual compensation of $31,000.

“It’s greed. They don’t have any respect for their workers that gave them the opportunity to make that kind of money. We’re peons to them, and everyone is at the point where enough is enough,” said Darlene Carpenter, business agent of BCTGM local 358 in Richmond and a former employee at the plant. “We’re at the point where we’re saying this is how the cookie is going to crumble now because we can’t do this.”

According to Keith Bragg, president of BCTGM local 358 who has worked at the Nabisco plant in Richmond for 45 years, during a discussion about contract negotiations with management, the company said that when the company does well, employees do well.

He took offence to this notion, citing his concerns about the treatment of workers over the past few years and the recent concessions being asked of them. During the pandemic, many workers had to work 12-hour shifts, six to seven days a week for several months and were praised as “heroes” for their roles as essential workers. But now workers are being asked to give up overtime pay and concede to a two-tier healthcare system, Bragg said, which would downgrade benefits for new employees and cut overall wages.

“They’re doing well, we’re losing all the way around,” said Bragg. “They shut down two plants this year, they’re cutting overtime, they’re making profits, but we lost half of our union membership. How is it that we’re doing well?”

In 2012, Kraft Foods split into two companies, with Mondelēz International formed as the parent company of Nabisco. Since the split, the union has been pressed to accept concessions during drawn-out contract negotiations, such as eliminating union pension contributions in May 2018 and switching to 401 retirement plans.

“A lot of folks were very close to retirement, and were able to do so under the old plan, but when the company pulled out that basically meant that they had to continue working, they were no longer eligible to retire,” said Mike Burlingham, who has worked at the Nabisco plant in Portland since 2007 and serves as vice-president of local 364. “It impacted all of us in a way that we can no longer count on this as being a place we can retire comfortably from.”

Mondelēz International has shuttered several Nabisco plants in the US over the past several years, offshoring much of the work to Mexico. The plight of its workers briefly became a campaign issue during the 2016 election cycle, with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump attacking plans to shift jobs overseas. “I’m not eating Oreos any more,” Trump told voters in New Hampshire.

But despite the political heat the trend has continued. In 2021, Nabisco plants in Fairlawn, New Jersey, and Atlanta were closed, resulting in the loss of about 1,000 jobs. Mondelēz International denied that jobs from the two plants shut down in 2021 were offshored to Mexico, but a petition for trade adjustment assistance alleging outsourcing by the union at one of the plants is under review by the Department of Labor. In 2016, hundreds of workers were laid off at the Nabisco plant in Chicago and a plant in Philadelphia was shut down in 2015.

“We can’t compete with the Mexican workers,” said Cameron Taylor, business agent at Local 364 in Portland. “They just want to exploit cheap labor. If we were to accept all of what they want us to, accept all the working conditions and the two- tiered system of healthcare, this job would turn into a job not even worth fighting for.”

In 2016, the union launched a “check the label” boycott campaign that was endorsed by the AFL-CIO, asking consumers to refuse to buy Nabisco products that are made in Mexico. Workers have frequently reported finding Nabisco products for sale near their plants that were produced in Mexico.

“We are disappointed by the decision of the local BCTGM unions in Portland (OR), Richmond (VA) and Aurora (CO) to go on strike,” said a spokesperson for Mondelēz International, noting the company has a continuity plan in place at the facilities where workers are on strike. “Our goal has been – and continues to be – to bargain in good faith with the BCTGM leadership across our US bakeries and sales distribution facilities to reach new contracts that continue to provide our employees with good wages and competitive benefits, including quality, affordable healthcare, and company-sponsored Enhanced Thrift Investment 401(k) Plan, while also taking steps to modernize some contract aspects which were written several decades ago.”

I served in Afghanistan as a US Marine, twice. Here’s the truth in two sentences

I served in Afghanistan as a US Marine, twice. Here’s the truth in two sentences

Lucas Kunce                       

What we are seeing in Afghanistan right now shouldn’t shock you. It only seems that way because our institutions are steeped in systematic dishonesty. It doesn’t require a dissertation to explain what you’re seeing. Just two sentences.

 

One: For 20 years, politicians, elites and D.C. military leaders lied to us about Afghanistan.

Two: What happened last week was inevitable, and anyone saying differently is still lying to you.

I know because I was there. Twice. On special operations task forces. I learned Pashto as a U.S. Marine captain and spoke to everyone I could there: everyday people, elites, allies and yes, even the Taliban.

The truth is that the Afghan National Security Forces was a jobs program for Afghans, propped up by U.S. taxpayer dollars — a military jobs program populated by nonmilitary people or “paper” forces (that didn’t really exist) and a bevy of elites grabbing what they could when they could.

You probably didn’t know that. That’s the point.

And it wasn’t just in Afghanistan. They also lied about Iraq.

I led a team of Marines training Iraqi security forces to defend their country. When I arrived I received a “stoplight” chart on their supposed capabilities in dozens of missions and responsibilities. Green meant they were good. Yellow was needed improvement; red said they couldn’t do it at all.

I was delighted to see how far along they were on paper — until I actually began working with them. I attempted to adjust the charts to reflect reality and was quickly shut down. The ratings could not go down. That was the deal. It was the kind of lie that kept the war going.

So when people ask me if we made the right call getting out of Afghanistan in 2021, I answer truthfully: Absolutely not. The right call was getting out in 2002. 2003. Every year we didn’t get out was another year the Taliban used to refine their skills and tactics against us — the best fighting force in the world. After two decades, $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 American lives lost, 2021 was way too late to make the right call.

You’d think when it all came crumbling down around them, they’d accept the truth. Think again.

War-hungry hawks are suggesting our soldiers weren’t in harm’s way. Well, when I was there, two incredible Marines in my unit were killed.

Elitist hacks are even blaming the American people for what happened this week. The same American people that they spent years lying to about Afghanistan. Are you kidding me?

We deserve better. Instead of politicians spending $6.4 trillion to “nation build” in the Middle East, we should start nation building right here at home.

I can’t believe that would be a controversial proposal, but already in Washington, we see some of the same architects of these Middle Eastern disasters balking at the idea of investing a fraction of that amount to build up our own country.

The lies about Afghanistan matter not just because of the money spent or the lives lost, but because they are representative of a systematic dishonesty that is destroying our country from the inside out.

Remember when they told us the economy was back? Another lie.

Our state of Missouri was home to the worst economic recovery from the Great Recession in this part of the country. I see the boarded-up stores and the vacant lots — one of which used to be my family’s home. When our country’s elites were preaching about how they had solved the financial crisis and the housing market was booming, I watched the house I joined the Marine Corps out of sit on the market for two years. My dad finally got $43,000 for it. He owed $78,000.

The only way out is to level with the American people. I’ll start. With the two-sentence truth about what we are seeing in Afghanistan right now:

For 20 years, politicians, elites and D.C. military leaders lied to us about Afghanistan.

What happened last week was inevitable, and anyone saying differently is still lying to you.

Cole County native Lucas Kunce is a Marine veteran and antitrust advocate. He is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger rips into Trump and Mike Pompeo for ‘getting rolled’ by the Taliban

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger rips into Trump and Mike Pompeo for ‘getting rolled’ by the Taliban

Oma Seddiq                        

adam kinzinger
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images
  • Rep. Adam Kinzinger slammed Trump and Pompeo for their negotiations with the Taliban last year.
  • “They set this up to fail,” Kinzinger told CNN.
  • Kinzinger also blamed Biden over the current failure in Afghanistan.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger slammed the former Trump administration’s deal with the Taliban, saying on Sunday that it set the stage for the current failure in Afghanistan.

The Illinois Republican said former President Donald Trump and his then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are at fault for America’s “disastrous” withdrawal from the country.

“Donald Trump was publicly saying, ‘We have to get out of Afghanistan at all costs. It’s not worth it.’ Mike Pompeo meets with the Taliban and tries to ‘negotiate’ something,” Kinzinger said during an appearance on CNN.

Read more: Trump’s enablers: Meet the 125 people and institutions most responsible for his rise to power

“They ended up getting rolled almost as bad as Neville Chamberlain,” he continued, referring to the British prime minister who negotiated the 1938 Munich Agreement, which was widely panned as enabling the Nazi invasion of Poland.

“They set this up to fail,” Kinzinger said.

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming on Sunday also blasted Trump’s deal, calling it a “surrender” to the Taliban.

“We sat down and negotiated with terrorists,” Cheney told NBC News. “We gave credibility to the Taliban … We completely undercut the Afghan national government. We absolutely emboldened the Taliban.”

While president, Trump was eager to remove American troops from Afghanistan and end the US’ longest-running war. But he took an unprecedented step to try and fulfill that aim: negotiate directly with the Taliban. His administration engaged in a series of talks with the militant group in Qatar, and even invited them to a secret meeting at the presidential retreat Camp David for the 9/11 anniversary in 2019. Trump later reversed this decision after a Taliban attack killed a US service member in Afghanistan.

Still, Trump reached a deal with the Taliban in February 2020, which stipulated that US troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan within 14 months on the condition that the Taliban not turn the country into a terrorist base. The agreement had been widely criticized at the time for acceding to the Taliban and excluding the Afghan government. Pompeo attended the signing ceremony and took photos alongside Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is anticipated to head the next Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Trump has now attempted to absolve himself from the situation and pinned responsibility solely on President Joe Biden for the Taliban’s takeover and the Afghan government’s collapse.

Though Kinzinger on Sunday attacked Trump, he also placed blame on Biden, who “could’ve easily turned this around” once he became president.

“The Republicans are putting out talking points to make Biden look bad. The Democrats are putting out talking points to point out the past administration. In truth, they’re both responsible,” Kinzinger said.

“Both parties have failed the American people,” he added.

Biden agreed to carry out Trump’s deal and pull out of Afghanistan. This week he defended his withdrawal of US troops, despite receiving widespread criticism from both sides of the aisle amid disturbing scenes coming out of Kabul of people clamoring to leave the country and the resurgence of the Taliban.