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Climate change protesters abandon 2-week hunger strike and swarm Sen. Manchin’s Maserati

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2 years ago

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  • A group of protesters met Sen. Joe Manchin outside of the Capitol Yacht Club “we want to live.”

  • The protesters demanded that lawmakers pass the reconciliation bill in full.

  • Manchin is one of two key holdouts on the bill, which contains climate change solutions.

The day after young climate change protesters from the left-leaning Sunrise Movement ended a two-week hunger strike the group switched tactics.

With a banner that said, “Joe Manchin is burning our future for profit,” over 100 protesters gathered at 6 a.m. ET outside of the Capitol Yacht Club where his houseboat (where he lives while in DC) is docked.

The protester’s demand during the hunger strike and the confrontation with Manchin? Pass the reconciliation bill – particularly without cuts to measures aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

They also demanded that Manchin be ousted as chairman of the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The protesters confronted him near a parking structure, swarming his Maserati, and some even tried to get to the dock by canoeing through the Potomac but were stopped by security.

Protestors captured footage of them shouting at Manchin inside of his Maserati, “We want to live!”

Shortly after the confrontation, Manchin appeared on CNN where he called the Senate “a hostile working environment.”

Kidus Girma, a 26-year-old organizer with the Sunrise Movement who came from Dallas to participate in the two-week hunger strike, described Manchin as “someone who’s made millions of dollars off of coal money.”

Manchin accrued $500,000 in 2020 in stock dividends from his son’s coal company, Enersystems, which Manchin himself founded in 1998, Insider previously reported, and in which he holds an estimated $5 million stake, according to the Guardian and Center for Media and Democracy.

In phone calls with Insider, Girma said that he is “continuously and consistently delaying the legislation that everybody on this planet needs.”

The bill started at $3.5 trillion over 10 years ($350 billion per year) and – after pruning provisions like, but not limited to, free community college and cutting paid family leave from 12 weeks to four – it is now resting at $1.75 trillion over 10 years ($175 billion per year).

Manchin has explained his position by saying he wants to avoid giving Americans “an entitlement mentality.”

“I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy, and the American people,” said Manchin on Monday.

In addition to opposition to the price tag for what Biden has called investments in “human infrastructure,” Manchin opposed some climate change provisions in the bill.

The reconciliation bill in Biden’s Build Back Better plan would reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by 2030.

“I think Manchin must believe that he has enough money to not have to experience the worst effects of climate change, but even if he doesn’t experience the worst effects, he will experience effects,” Girma said.

One of the hunger strikers and climate change activists, Kidus Garma, “bird-dogging” Sen. Joe Manchin. Rachael Warriner

The group of activists, ages 18-26, flew out to DC compelled to take a stand against cuts made to the reconciliation bill, during ongoing deliberations and compromises with Manchin and Sinema of Arizona. Every Democrat, including Manchin and Sinema, must vote in favor of the spending package for it to pass.

Alongside Girma, 24-year-old Julia Paramo from Dallas, 24-year-old Paul Campion from Chicago, 20-year-old Abby Leedy from Philadelphia, and 18-year-old Ema Govea from Santa Ana, California committed to going without food, relying solely on water, to demand that Congress pass the reconciliation bill. The hunger strike lasted a little more than 14 days.

Activists on day 8 of their hunger strike in Washington, DC.

This is not the Sunrise Movement’s first radical action. They have previously occupied government offices in protest and are vocal proponents of the Green New Deal.

Their mission is to relay the urgency of climate change. According to the United Nations Environment Programme website, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by approximately 50% by 2030 “to prevent extreme climate change, biodiversity loss and to curb pollution and waste.”

“Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is a now problem,” Executive Director of UNEP, Inger Andersen, said in a press release. “To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, we have eight years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions: eight years to make the plans, put in place the policies, implement them and ultimately deliver the cuts. The clock is ticking loudly.”

The Office of Senator Joe Manchin did not respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

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Lifestyle

Photographer alleges he was forced to watch Megan Thee Stallion have sex and was unfairly fired

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15 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.

In the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Emilio Garcia said that after a night out in 2022 in Ibiza, Spain, he was in an SUV with the hip-hop star when she began having sex with another woman right next to him. He was unable to get out of the moving car, and would have been in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country even if he was able. Garcia was “embarrassed, mortified and offended throughout the whole ordeal,” according to the lawsuit.

Alex Spiro, Megan’s lawyer, said she would fight the lawsuit in court.

“This is an employment claim for money — with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her,” Spiro said.

The next day Megan told Garcia never to discuss what he saw and berated and fat-shamed him, the lawsuit said. The complaint also said Garcia, who had already considered quitting because he was overworked and underpaid in a hostile work environment aggravated by Megan’s possessiveness and abusiveness, was misclassified as an independent contractor but treated as an exclusive employee.

Garcia raised those issues in the conversation with Megan, and was fired the following day after four years of working for her, the suit said. He has since filed a job discrimination complaint with the California Civil Rights Department.

The lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, names as defendants Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete; her companies Megan Thee Stallion Entertainment and Hot Girl Touring; and her label, Roc Nation. A defense response has yet to be filed. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from a representative of Roc Nation.

Garcia is seeking financial damages to be determined at trial, alleging he has suffered severely both emotionally and physically because of his treatment on the job, the firing and having to witness the scene in the SUV.

Megan, 29, was previously involved in major legal drama — and underwent a torrent of online abuse — as the victim of a shooting by rapper Tory Lanez, who a jury found fired at her feet on a street in the Hollywood Hills in 2020. She testified at the trial where jurors convicted Lanez of three felonies and a judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Already a major rising artist at the time of the shooting, Megan has since become one of hip-hop’s biggest stars. She won a Grammy for best new artist in 2021, and she had No. 1 singles with “Savage,” featuring Beyoncé, and as a guest on Cardi B’s “WAP.”

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Body of O.J. Simpson to be cremated this week; brain will not be studied for CTE

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1 week ago

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April 16, 2024

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April 15 (UPI) — The body of O.J. Simpson, who died last week at the age of 76, is to be cremated, a lawyer representing the ex-football superstar’s estate said, adding his brain will not be donated for research.

Malcolm LaVergne, Simpson’s longtime attorney and executor, told the New York Post that his client’s body is to be cremated Tuesday in Las Vegas.

He said Simpson’s family also gave a “hard no” to scientists seeking to examine the former running back’s brain for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is better known as CTE.

CTE is a rare and little understood brain disorder that is likely caused by repeated blows to the head. According to the Mayo Clinic, CTE results in the death of nerve cells in the brain and the only way to definitively diagnose it is with an autopsy of the organ after death.

Memory and thinking problems, confusion, personality changes and erratic behavior, including aggression, depression and suicidal ideation, are among CTE’s symptoms, the Alzheimer’s Association said.

The disease has been found in those who play contact sports, including football and hockey.

LaVergne confirmed to NBC News on Sunday that at least one person has called seeking Simpson’s brain.

“His entire body, including his brain, will be cremated,” he said.

Simpson died Wednesday following a battle with cancer.

Known by the nickname “The Juice,” Simpson was a NFL superstar during the 1970s, which made him a household name that propelled him into film and television during the next decade.

But his stardom would come crashing down in the mid-1990s when he was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

His high-profile trial lasted months, but ended with his acquittal.

In 2008, he was found guilty on a dozen charges, including kidnapping and armed robbery, and was paroled in 2017 after serving nine years of his 33-year sentence.

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Africa

Donors raise more than 2 billion euros for Sudan aid a year into war

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1 week ago

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April 16, 2024

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PARIS/CAIRO, April 15 (Reuters) – Donors pledged more than 2 billion euros ($2.13 billion) for war-torn Sudan at a conference in Paris on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said, on the first anniversary of what aid workers describe as a neglected but devastating conflict.
Efforts to help millions of people driven to the verge of famine by the war have been held up by continued fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), restrictions imposed by the warring sides, and demands on donors from other global crises including in Gaza and Ukraine.
Conflict in Sudan is threatening to expand, with fighting heating up in and around al-Fashir, a besieged aid hub and the last city in the western Darfur region not taken over by the RSF. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge in the area.
“The world is busy with other countries,” Bashir Awad, a resident of Omdurman, part of the wider capital and a key battleground, told Reuters last week. “We had to help ourselves, share food with each other, and depend on God.”
In Paris, the EU pledged 350 million euros, while France and Germany, the co-sponsors, committed 110 million euros and 244 million euros respectively. The United States pledged $147 million and Britain $110 million.
Speaking at the end of the conference, which included Sudanese civilian actors, Macron emphasized the need to coordinate overlapping and so far unsuccessful international efforts to resolve the conflict and to stop foreign support for the warring parties.
“Unfortunately the amount that we mobilised today is still probably less than was mobilised by several powers since the start of the war to help one or the other side kill each other,” he said.
As regional powers compete for influence in Sudan, U.N. experts say allegations that the United Arab Emirates helped arm the RSF are credible, while sources say the army has received weapons from Iran. Both sides have rejected the reports.
The war, which broke out between the Sudanese army and the RSF as they vied for power ahead of a planned transition, has crippled infrastructure, displaced more than 8.5 million people, and cut many off from food supplies and basic services.
“We can manage together to avoid a terrible famine catastrophe, but only if we get active together now,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, adding that, in the worst-case scenario, 1 million people could die of hunger this year.
The United Nations is seeking $2.7 billion this year for aid inside Sudan, where 25 million people need assistance, an appeal that was just 6% funded before the Paris meeting. It is seeking another $1.4 billion for assistance in neighbouring countries that have housed hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The international aid effort faces obstacles to gaining access on the ground.
The army has said it would not allow aid into the wide swathes of the country controlled by its foes from the RSF. Aid agencies have accused the RSF of looting aid. Both sides have denied holding up relief.
“I hope the money raised today is translated into aid that reaches people in need,” said Abdullah Al Rabeeah, head of Saudi Arabia’s KSRelief.
On Friday, Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry protested that it had not been invited to the conference. “We must remind the organisers that the international guardianship system has been abolished for decades,” it said in a statement.

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