Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
asmPolitics-298 [Katie Pavlich, President Barack Hussein Obama]
As healthcare workers in hospitals across America scramble to find N95 masks to protect against Wuhan coronavirus, the federal government is working with the private sector to produce them as quickly as possible.
"The outpouring from the private sector has also been extraordinary. I'm pleased to report that Honeywell, great company, has just announced it will immediately expand its personal protective equipment manufacturing operations in Rhode Island to produce millions of additional N95 masks. They’re very hard to get. They're actually quite complex. For the U.S. government’s Strategic National Stockpile. They'll be immediately then delivered to the various states," President Trump said at the White House Sunday.
But according to a new piece in the Washington Examiner, which pulls information from the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News, the Obama Administration failed to replenish the government's N95 stockpile after the H1N1 swine flu outbreak of 2009.
The national shortage of N95 respirator masks can be traced back to 2009 after the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, when the Obama administration was advised to replenish a national stockpile but did not, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times.
In 2009, the H1N1 outbreak hit the United States, leading to 274,304 hospitalizations, 12,469 deaths, and a depletion of N95 respirator masks.
A federally backed task force and a safety equipment organization both recommended to the Obama administration that the stockpile be replenished of the 100 million masks used after the H1N1 outbreak, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Charles Johnson, president of the International Safety Equipment Association, said that advice was never heeded.
“Our association is unaware of any major effort to restore the stockpile to cover that drawdown,” he said.
Meanwhile former Vice President Joe Biden, who caused a public panic during the swine flu outbreak, is doing his best to stay releveant while President Trump manages the crisis.
Monday, March 23, 2020
asmPolitics-295 [Joe Biden, Farrakhan]
South Carolina Democrat Congressman Jim Clyburn officially endorsed Joe Biden for president on Wednesday morning. The move comes just days before the South Carolina primary, a contest Biden desperately needs to win in order to keep his campaign alive.
But Biden isn't the only political figure Clyburn has endorsed. He's also a supporter of rabid antisemite, Hitler praising, Soleimani worshipping, anti-gay, anti-white, racist Louis Farrakhan. From the Daily Caller:
The third-highest ranking House Democrat shared a stage with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious racist and anti-Semite, and has refused to condemn the hate group leader.
South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn attended a 2011 event with Farrakhan and shared the stage with him, even after Jewish groups voiced their opposition to Clyburn attending the event. Clyburn told the Final Call, a Nation of Islam publication, that he was “not bothered in the least bit” by criticisms of his attendance at the event.
As the assistant Democratic leader, Clyburn is the third-highest ranked Democrat in the House. He declined to condemn Farrakhan in a statement released to The Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.
“I have fought all my life to advance the cause of social justice and equality, and I have always opposed bigotry in all its forms,” Clyburn said in the statement. His office declined repeated inquiries regarding whether the congressman is willing to condemn Farrakhan, and whether he stood by his decision in 2011 to shrug off criticisms of Farrakhan.
asmPolitics-294 [Joe Biden, Virtual Town Hall]
When I logged onto Joe Biden’s first-ever virtual town hall, I was greeted with one Illinois senator adjusting the angle of her webcam and another showing off an adorable (but screaming) baby in an oddly intimate video call before the former vice president even appeared onscreen. What was at first an awkwardly silent video conference evolved into a complete technical nightmare that resulted in Biden sounding as if he was screaming in TV static for the first few minutes of the event.
Friday night’s town hall wasn’t even supposed to take place online. Earlier this week, the last two major Democratic primary candidates, Biden and Bernie Sanders, were forced to cancel some campaign events because of the coronavirus pandemic. State officials across the country started banning large gatherings, like rallies, for fear of spreading the disease. Still, rallies remain an important part of any presidential campaign, and Biden’s team tried to mitigate the threat by hosting a public Zoom call for supporters to join and ask questions. Unfortunately, it completely missed the mark.
The Zoom call was plagued with technical problems from the beginning. First, it began over three hours late. Once Biden did start speaking, his staff had to restart his entire speech because there was no audio, fading his campaign logo in and back out again to signify that they were redoing the address. As he started reading off his prepared remarks again, Biden’s audio was suddenly painful to hear and impossible to understand, at least until they replaced whatever mic he was using with a smartphone.
After his opening address was finished — as unintelligible as it was — staff opened the call up to questions. “Mr. Biden’s speech was garbled the entire time,” the first questioner said before being cut off.
A staffer responded saying, “We appreciate you bearing with our technical difficulties.” Then, they quickly clicked on to the next questioner. It was a few more seconds of dead air and another supporter who seemingly couldn’t unmute themselves before the town hall got its first real question. Toward the end of the call, Biden started moving offscreen while answering supporters. One time, his staff cut off the camera feed entirely because he walked so far out of frame. “Am I on camera?” Biden said once during the event.
Campaign staff also said that the call would be viewable over Facebook Live. That Facebook stream went up late and lasted around four minutes before going dark. Facebook viewers took note of the video and audio problems, with one commenting, “Joe, you need a new technical team. They’re making you look bad…”
Biden’s first-ever virtual town hall was a sorry first sign for the future of digital campaigning, something that will become ever more important as the presidential race heats up and coronavirus spreads across the country. As more and more of our lives move online over the next few weeks, political campaigns will need to come up with creative solutions to fill the gaps of face-to-face events.
Hopefully the Biden campaign and others can get it together before November, or at least until the pandemic fades.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
asmPolitics-241 [Cosecha Movement, Joe Biden, Obama Deportations]
Detroit police officers arrest protesters at a rally over immigration policy at the Detroit-Windsor international tunnel in downtown July 31, 2019.
Protestors championing immigrant rights tried to shut down the Detroit-Windsor international tunnel ahead of the second Democratic presidential debate Wednesday, leading to arrests by Detroit police.
Some 100 protestors chanted, "No hate no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” as they attempted to block access to the tunnel.
The protest was organized by the Cosecha Movement aimed at protection the rights of undocumented immigrants. Cosecha launched the Dignity2020 Campaign, laying out an immigration platform for the Democratic Party and 2020 hopefuls that recognizes dignity for immigrant workers and families. The platforms calls for:
- An end to all detention and deportation on Day 1 in Office
- Reunification of families separated by deportation under previous administrations
- Immediate legalization of all 11 million undocumented immigrants
Police arrested some 20 people at a immigrant rights protest on Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit on Wednesday, July 31, 2019.
"For decades the Democratic party was complicit in a bipartisan attack on the immigrant community: While Republicans fanned the flames of white supremacy with their anti-immigrant rhetoric, President Obama campaigned on the promise of immigration reform but ended up deporting almost 3 million people -- a record in our country’s history."
As the protest concluded in Grand Circus Park, minor scuffles broke out when some right-wing supporters tried to disrupt the protest. Police intervened to deescalate tension among the two groups.
Protestors dispersed at 7:30 p.m., half an hour before the second night of the Democratic debate.
asmPolitics-240 [Cosecha Movement, Joe Biden, Obama Deportations]
“Three million deportations!”
Over and over, the call rang through Detroit’s Fox Theatre on Wednesday night, where CNN was hosting the second night of the July Democratic debates.
The target: former vice president Joe Biden.
The voices behind the chant: Movimiento Cosecha activists Lorena Aguayo-Marquez and Ofelia, who declined to provide Teen Vogue with her last name. The two women kept up the cry until, they said, security removed them from the premises.
Movimiento Cosecha started nationally in 2015 and has been organizing in Michigan since 2017, according to a representative for the group. Cosecha is an immigrant-led movement that seeks to “win permanent protection, dignity, and respect for all 11 million undocumented immigrants,” and, as the Cosecha representative put it, to highlight “the power of the immigrant community through its workers and consumers, boycotts and strikes.” The word “cosecha” means harvest in Spanish, and is meant to honor the undocumented workers who have long labored in American fields.
Ofelia and Aguayo-Marquez advocated for immigrant rights in the Great Lake state for years before getting involved with Cosecha. At the debate, the pair carried banners that read, “Stop All Deportations on Day 1.”
Although they were not inside Fox Theater to witness the conversation started by their words, their chants prompted New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio to ask Biden if he used his power as vice president to stop deportations under the Obama administration.
“Did you say those deporations were a good idea?” DeBlasio asked, “Or did you go to the president and say ‘this is a mistake, we shouldn’t do it,’ which one?” To which Biden responded, “What I do say to you is, [Obama] moved to fundamentally change the system. Much more has to be done.”
Teen Vogue caught up with the activists both before and after the action.
“I did this because the immigrant community in Michigan is facing a crisis and we need our voices and our demand to be heard: any candidate who claims to be against Trump’s raids and family separations needs to make a real commitment to protect all 11 million undocumented immigrants from detention and deportation,” Ofelia said in a statement sent to Teen Vogue “That means using executive authority to stop all deportations on day one in office. We won’t accept empty promises of immigration reform. Obama promised immigration reform and then separated 3 million families. We cannot allow history to repeat itself.”
Movimiento Cosecha has taken on Biden before. In July, Cosecha activists shut down his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia, and approached him in New Hampshire, demanding an apology to the immigrant community, as well as a commitment to ending all detention and deportation if he is elected president.
Teen Vogue reached out to both the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee for comment on Movimiento Cosecha’s recent activities, but did not hear back.
Cosecha recently launched their Dignity2020 Campaign, which lays out a platform for Democratic hopefuls, calling for “an end to all detention and deportation,” as well as family reunification for everyone separated by deportation,” and “immediate legalization for all 11 million undocumented immigrants.”
Cosecha organizers felt the Democratic candidates had paid insufficient attention to immigration thus far in the campaign. Cosecha’s organizing around the Detroit debate was two-fold: to provoke a response from the presidential candidates and to shed light on the issues faced by the state’s large immigrant community.
“There are over 100,000 undocumented immigrants here in the Michigan community,” Brenda Valladares, a representative from Movimiento Cosecha, told Teen Vogue. “They are experiencing the same levels of harassment as people at the southern border.”
“The fact that no one is addressing the idea to end detention and deportations on day one, it’s sickening. For our community, there is no debate. Our community needs a statement from the candidates saying we commit to doing this,” Michigan Cosecha organizer Nelly Fuentes, who is undocumented, told Teen Vogue. “What they are not seeing is that we are not a topic, we are human beings. The fact that we are being pawns on their political gains, it needs to end… We need to make sure that the public knows that this is not concentrated at the southern border. It also happens on the northern border.”
Prior to Wednesday night’s debate, Cosecha and their allies, including activists from Never Again Action, a group of Jewish activists who stand in solidarity with the Latinx immigrant community, and the Sunrise Movement, a climate justice organization, attempted to shut down the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, also known as the Detroit-Canada tunnel. This tunnel connects Detroit in the United States to Windsor, Ontario in Canada. The action called attention to the danger Detroit immigrants face every day as a result of the city’s close proximity to the Canadian border, which means there is a high volume of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and Border Patrol agents in the community.
“We are trying to shift the narrative, not only calling attention to the crisis of immigration, but the treatment in immigrant communities every day,” Cindy Gamboa, a Cosecha Michigan activist, told Teen Vogue, “I live less than one mile from the national border. My community is living in constant fear of being stopped by federal agents… There have been raids, ICE and Border Patrol scope out and are usually around schools after school gets out. They have been known to patrol around our churches and places of work, and I want to call attention to the inhumane practices happening in our community.”
Police arrested 21 Cosecha allies at Wednesday’s protest, but all 21, including Grand Rapids, Michigan native, Deirdre Cunningham, were released shortly after. Cunningham was introduced to Movimiento Cosecha during a “Day Without Immigrants” rally the group organized on May 1. In their hometown, it drew an estimated 4,000 people.
“I’m coming to stand with the immigrant community in solidarity and put my body on the line. I don’t have much power in the system, but what I do have is my body,” Cunningham told Teen Vogue in a phone conversation prior to Wednesday’s action. “I’m a little nervous. I don’t know what exactly is going to take place... I’m not sure when I’m going to come home. But that is the fear that my immigrant neighbors face everyday.”
Following their arrest and release, Cunningham told Teen Vogue, “I [did] this for the people I love and the people they love... Civil disobedience is a long and time-honored tradition that works, and I'm honored to have the privilege to participate.”
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
asmPolitics-234 [Obama Family Separation]
President Donald Trump's openly xenophobic hardline anti-immigration agenda has brought the United States to a "moment of reckoning" on immigration policies that have been in place for decades, a New Jersey-based advocacy group said Wednesday as it led families whose loved ones were deported in a protest at Joe Biden's campaign headquarters.
The former vice president, the Cosecha Movement said, must apologize for his part in the Obama administration's separation of thousands of families as it deported more people than ever before in U.S. history. Biden must also commit to ending the detention and deportation of immigrants, the group added.
In a press release, the group noted that the Trump administration's separation of thousands of families, violent ICE raids, and reports of abuse and neglect in the detention centers where thousands of immigrants are in custody, have called attention to the U.S. government's treatment of migrants and asylum seekers—but stressed that the Obama administration also separated and detained thousands of families and was complicit in the country's broken immigration system.
"While Republicans scapegoated immigrants and fanned the flames of white supremacy," the group wrote, "the Obama administration failed to deliver on the promise of legalization, and instead chose to deport three million immigrants."
This "false strategy of appeasement to anti-immigrant forces," the group continued, "resulted in the meteoric expansion of detention and more deportations than ever before in our nation's history."
At least six people were arrested for occupying Biden's headquarters in Philadelphia as the Cosecha Movement held the first public action of its newly-unveiled Dignity 2020 campaign.
The campaign is calling on all Democratic presidential candidates to commit, should they win the presidency in 2020, to ending all detentions and deportations; reunifying all families separated by the Trump, Obama, and other administrations, either through unjust deportations, family separations under Trump's so-called "zero tolerance" law, or the lies of immigration officials who told parents that they would see their children if they agreed to return to their home country; and granting legal status to 11 million undocumented immigrants.
The group began the campaign by addressing Biden, who last month defended the Obama administration's record three million deportations bysaying President Barack Obama had done "a heck of a job" in implementing immigration policy.
"We cannot sit back and allow Biden to defend the three million deportations and the unprecedented expansion of detention that happened under his watch," said Cata Santiago, a leader of the Cosecha Movement. "We need more from the party that claims to support us. It is time [for] Biden to recognize the impact that these policies had on our families and commit to the vision put forth by the immigrant community for what dignity looks like."
The national grassroots organization CREDO Mobile expressed support for the Cosecha Movement's public action, tweeting that the Democratic Party owes immigrant families "a moral reckoning."
Trump threatened in June to deport "millions" of immigrants in pre-dawn ICE raids across the country, but backed down after criticism. Despite the president's threats, the administration has not yet surpassed Obama in the number of deportations in a single year: in 2012, Obama deported more than 419,000 people.
Trump's treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers has opened many Americans' eyes to the broken system, the Cosecha Movement wrote, and Democrats must use the current moment to demand a humane immigration system.
"Our country has reached a moment of reckoning on the issue of immigration," wrote the group. "During this primary election, it is time for the public to push the Democratic party to recognize dignity for all, and finally commit to solving the daily crisis our immigrant families have been facing for more than two decades."
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