therealnews--2020-03-11--Mississippi Prisons Claim 25 Lives in 3 Months

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Kim Brown : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Kim Brown .
Within the past week , five incarcerated people have died while in custody in Mississippi ’ s Department of Corrections .
Now , that ’ s an astounding number in itself , but consider that 25 people have died in Mississippi state prisons since December 29th , a period of less than three months .
Now , those who are locked up , along with their advocates on the outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the human rights abuses happening there .
Speaker 2 : I would never drink the water at Parchman .
I don ’ t like to wash my hands in the bathrooms , because when you turn the water on it ’ s literally the color of mud .
The water fountains , when they work , it ’ s the same way .
The water that comes out of the water fountains , you ’ re too scared to drink .
The guards will tell you not to drink .
I ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I didn ’ t have any .
They wouldn ’ t let me drink the water , but my clients drink that water all the time .
So the water varies between two ways .
It ’ s either too chlorinated , or it smells like sewage .
And so , all of the pipes leak , right ?
So the guys tie their socks around the leaky pipes , and so if the socks are brown , they know not to drink the water .
If the socks are white , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s in the water .
We can wash our clothes , ” and that if you ’ re going to drink the water , you ’ re going to drink it at that time period .
If there ’ s a boil water notice in the area , the guys don ’ t get bottled water .
They ’ re still forced to drink that water .
They take their medication with water that smells like sewage .
They take medication in water that visibly , if you put it in a cup @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they let the water sit , and they let all of the soil and all of the particles go to the bottom .
And then , they just drink the water that ’ s clarified on top .
Kim Brown : That was an excerpt from the documentary titled Parchman Prison : Protest & Pain , a special report compiled by activist Devyn Springer and RT News .
You should check it out on YouTube .
It is quite revealing .
And today , we ’ re joined with an activist who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Mississippi .
Mrs. Pauline Rogers is the co-founder of the RECH Foundation , a group that helps the formerly incarcerated to reenter society .
She ’ s joining us on the line today from Jackson , Mississippi .
Ms. Rogers , thank you so much for being here .
Pauline Rogers : Thank you so much for the coverage .
Thank you .
Kim Brown : You ’ re welcome , Ms. Jackson .
So , first … excuse me , Ms. Rogers , let ’ s start with the most obvious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ died in such a short span of time while locked up in Mississippi prisons ?
Pauline Rogers : The reasons they have died , in my opinion , are numerous .
Lack of healthcare , proper healthcare , adequate healthcare .
Some violence , people under pressure , people treated like animals , they die like animals .
So , you have a combination of that going on .
Kim Brown : So , a good number of these prisoners have died from non-violent ways .
So , what are you hearing from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fact that people are dying , not because of violence , how does that speak to the conditions that they are facing ?
Pauline Rogers : Those conditions are unresolved conditions for years .
It ’ s been going on for years .
The women ’ s facility here that was built over 30 something years ago , was built as a means to intercept some of the problems that was going on at Parchman decades ago .
It ’ s just issues that haven ’ t been dealt with .
People @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a volcano , eventually , the lava keeps popping up , giving you a warning that there ’ s about to be an explosion .
This is what ’ s been taking place at Parchman for decades .
And finally , it came to an eruption point , by way of revealing through contraband cell phones , so it ’ s been going on decades .
Kim Brown : Talk to us a little bit more about that because , as you said , these conditions are not new .
This has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but given that we ’ re now in the 21st century , people are smuggling in cell phones into prisons and , as a result , the prisoners themselves are documenting what ’ s happening to them , and pretty much advocating for better conditions for themselves .
Talk to us about how- Kim Brown : The cell phones have done this .
Pauline Rogers : Well , the cell phones , you got officers , underpaid staff .
All the people that are imprisoned aren ’ t indigent prisoners , some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have had means of making and generating money .
So you have these people , some of the prisoners paying , are compensating salaries for underpaid staff that are bringing them in the contraband , in order for them to be able to expose the conditions and treatments that ’ s going on inside the prison .
So , you ’ ve got them meeting salaries , making payrolls to some of these prisoners who get some of the staffers who are underpaid , and are eligible for TANF and food stamp benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ correctional facility , at a prison .
So you got that going on .
And some of the staffers are getting paid more than the state is paying them , and it ’ s created an environment for corruption , and corruption at the highest level .
We even had a commissioner who fell prey to contract , is now doing federal time .
So , it ’ s an ongoing crisis that the prisoners have become privy to or prey to and party to , and subjected to .
And all levels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Kim Brown : So the ACLU won a case about 10 years ago against the Mississippi prison system .
Can you talk to us about what was achieved and whether or not it led to any improvements ?
Pauline Rogers : A lot of cases have been presented .
The ACLU , Southern Poverty Law Center , and even some of the prisoners .
I can remember a guy that was formerly incarcerated , that ’ s no longer incarcerated filed a suit about the conditions , I believe it was at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the plumbing and sewer system .
It lasts for a season .
Or you may put , just say you put a realm around a plumber condition and you have a work order that shows that that quiets that settles people from going further , pursuing it further because you can present a document or a receipt that reflects that you did something , but you may not have necessarily resolved the problem .
So that ’ s a lot of what goes on .
If you can submit a receipt , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did something , or even to the health department , then it quiets the situation , the circumstance , and the public or the prisoners to say , “ Yeah , we did something , ” but you in essence did not resolve the issue .
So it ’ s the systemic corruption .
The health department show conditions of the prison , Parchman , years ago , but nothing was done about .
And even recently , just last year , it show the conditions of Parchman .
Well , the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bad way , so you keep getting these perpetual problems unresolved .
Kim Brown : And , as indicated in the documentary that I referenced at the beginning of the interview , one formerly incarcerated person described how the health department has been barred in some instances for entering the prison to check on the conditions of the water and the sewage , et cetera .
But Ms. Pauline I wanted to ask you , so , like I said , this documentary is really good .
It was very insightful because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mississippi prison system , and the factors behind it that , basically , this was just a way to re-enslave black people into a manual labor system that was prison slave labor .
So , in 2020 , are there any elected officials there who are truly listening to what you and others are saying about Parchman and the other Mississippi state correction facilities ?
And who in terms of elected officials are taking actions on behalf of the prisoners ?
Pauline Rogers : There are elected officials , Kimberly , that are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the national news , if you go to my social media page , November 11th , 2019 , I finally got the ears of one our state senators who has a radio program , had myself on radio program .
I invited a Caucasian female to show both sides of the poor being incarcerated .
And from November 11th until we became national news zero was done because I told them the prisoners were at a boiling point and I , in essence , gave the phone number , posted the phone number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these prisoners had access to .
And they were given a time to call the radio station so that the Senator could hear firsthand through this contraband cell phone the story .
But he is powerless without the collective government supporting that .
Like right now we have Governor Tate Reeves , a Republican governor and that ’ s important because he calls himself or refers to himself as a Trump supporter , where it has been ordered by the Department of Justice to come in and investigate Parchman .
However , if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re not going to come in and make yourself look bad .
So it ’ s like you come in and you say , “ The Department of Justice is going to come in and investigate , ” but then you watch on the national news where it ’ s seemingly the president is fighting the Department of Justice , so you can ’ t have it both ways .
You either coming in and you want a fair investigation , or you ’ re going to control the parts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t say you ’ re closing down Parchman , but you send out two or three people , and you keep certain people their housed , and you make the public think that we ’ re really progressing .
And then , you sending these people into private prisons , which is another problem .
For private prison , that ’ s the part that we ’ ve been working out to close the private prison because the same thing is happening in the private prison .
Kim Brown : You know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cause celebre , with rappers Jay-Z and Yo Gotti filing a lawsuit on behalf of some of the prisoners .
How has the added attention impacted the work that you have been doing Ms. Rogers ?
Pauline Rogers : The added national attention is great , however , the missing piece is because we ’ re not of the caliber of the Jay-Zs and the Yo Gottis you ’ ve missed the full impact of the stories and what ’ s really going on , and how deep rooted it has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are grabbing hold , who have the excess , the means , the resources to further add legs or extensions to who they are or who they desire to be that the real stories may get untold .
We have memos going back to the 1980s .
In one of our transitional halls , we keep on an easel 24/7 the gas chamber that was at Parchman , camp 29 .
And then , you have the people who are just getting buried because for years Parchman was doomed .
William Faulkner labeled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what Parchman was called , destination doom .
Destination doom meant you were to never leave Parchman once you enter .
And the Freedom Riders , when they came through years ago , got a taste of that by , the then governor , Ross Burnett , who the reservoir in the state of Mississippi is named after this governor , was to put heavy oppression on these Freedom Riders to give them a taste of Parchman , and to quiet them , that they never wanted to come through Mississippi again .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hatcher , who was the first female chaplain that was hired by Parchman , that Parchman became the for-profit model place of for-profit prisons .
And you had the trusty shooters , who in the segregation and gangs were actually created by the system , not by the prisoners who went in to be gangs , but the system created this .
They had segregated parts of the prison .
The white prisoners went here .
The black was with there .
Didn ’ t matter what the crime was , or if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because you were black , there was the reason , that you were black , and we didn ’ t want you free , and you got incarcerated for that .
So you were segregated , then you have the trust white trusty shooters who were ordered to shoot black prisoners .
Later , black prisoners were armed to be trusty shooters but they had to shoot other blacks , or ended up losing their own lives .
So the gang creation was started and created by the system .
Kim Brown : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a little short on time , but I wanted you to have the opportunity to tell our audience the work you and your husband , Fredrick , have been doing with the RECH Foundation and some of the stories , if there ’ s a story or two that you could share with us , about a person that you ’ ve worked with as they came out of jail and some of the trauma that they experienced but , at the same time , the amount of resources they need to overcome @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Can you talk to us about that ?
Pauline Rogers : Well , yes .
30 some years ago , Kimberly they didn ’ t have anything , so we were all over the place .
Advocacy activists , housing , transportation .
Helping with supervision fees , making parole , probation appointment , so we had to be everything .
But one of the stories for a woman , the first woman that we transitioned was in 1989 simply because I had an extra role , and she needed somewhere .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ because she had health issues , and those health issues progressed .
We ended up trying to find her and did get her a nursing home that would accept her .
I don ’ t know how they were able to keep her at that nursing home and she still needed us because she didn ’ t have family members , or so that ’ s what she told us .
Well mind you , we were new in the game so we kept being a part of her support system .
Fast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get moved to another nurse .
How fast forward , another nursing home that was closer to us .
She ended up dying , and they called us and we were very active in her life , and ended up having to bury her .
And when they released her records to us , she actually had me listed as a sibling .
To this day , before Facebook was popular , it was Myspace posted her own social media , nobody ever came for .
We ended up baring her .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we have sitting , nobody ever to this day came forward .
That ’ s one issue , but the barriers to employment , housing … So , we provide housing .
My husband , who did 16 years in prison , most of that in Parchman still works with … and one of our biggest volunteers is a guy who ’ s older than him that kept this youth juvenile on track that works with him every day .
So we do transitional housing , we do life skills training , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , behavior .
We teach them how to operate within boundaries because boundaries is a issue .
So we just all over the place in our services .
But when they leave us with housing , we are able to give them something to start with when they leave here , whether that ’ s a refrigerator , a table , household items .
We ’ re just doing a little bit of everything .
July 1 last year , we were a part of getting house bill 1352 passed , which gives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eligibility to apply for TANF and food stamps , and they ’ ve not had that .
And you would think that would be something on the list , but that just went into effect in Mississippi July 1 , 2019 .
Kim Brown : That ’ s incredible .
And to our audience , if you ’ ve ever seen the show on cable television on the weekends , it ’ s called Locked Up Abroad , let me tell you something , Parchman prison looks worse than the prisons featured on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you something .
That ’ s happening right here in the United States in Mississippi .
And today , we ’ ve been speaking with Mrs. Pauline Rogers , she is the co-founder of the RECH Foundation , a group that helps the formerly incarcerated to reenter society .
And we ’ ve been talking specifically about 25 deaths in less than three months in the Mississippi Department of Corrections .
These people are facing inhumane conditions .
Ms. Pauline , thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brown : And thank you for watching The Real News Network .

While there’s “no foul play suspected” in most of the deaths, there’s plenty foul about drinking contaminated water and breathing black mold.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Kim Brown: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Kim Brown. Within the past week, five incarcerated people have died while in custody in Mississippi’s Department of Corrections. Now, that’s an astounding number in itself, but consider that 25 people have died in Mississippi state prisons since December 29th, a period of less than three months.
Now, those who are locked up, along with their advocates on the outside, have been sounding the alarm on the human rights abuses happening there.
Speaker 2: I would never drink the water at Parchman. I don’t like to wash my hands in the bathrooms, because when you turn the water on it’s literally the color of mud. The water fountains, when they work, it’s the same way. The water that comes out of the water fountains, you’re too scared to drink. The guards will tell you not to drink. I’ve had guards give me bottled water because I didn’t have any. They wouldn’t let me drink the water, but my clients drink that water all the time.
So the water varies between two ways. It’s either too chlorinated, or it smells like sewage. And so, all of the pipes leak, right? So the guys tie their socks around the leaky pipes, and so if the socks are brown, they know not to drink the water. If the socks are white, they know, “Oh, chlorine’s in the water. We can wash our clothes,” and that if you’re going to drink the water, you’re going to drink it at that time period. If there’s a boil water notice in the area, the guys don’t get bottled water. They’re still forced to drink that water. They take their medication with water that smells like sewage. They take medication in water that visibly, if you put it in a cup … and the guys will tell you that they let the water sit, and they let all of the soil and all of the particles go to the bottom. And then, they just drink the water that’s clarified on top.
Kim Brown: That was an excerpt from the documentary titled Parchman Prison: Protest & Pain, a special report compiled by activist Devyn Springer and RT News. You should check it out on YouTube. It is quite revealing. And today, we’re joined with an activist who is very familiar with the ongoing crisis in Mississippi. Mrs. Pauline Rogers is the co-founder of the RECH Foundation, a group that helps the formerly incarcerated to reenter society. She’s joining us on the line today from Jackson, Mississippi. Ms. Rogers, thank you so much for being here.
Pauline Rogers: Thank you so much for the coverage. Thank you.
Kim Brown: You’re welcome, Ms. Jackson. So, first … excuse me, Ms. Rogers, let’s start with the most obvious question. Why have so many people died in such a short span of time while locked up in Mississippi prisons?
Pauline Rogers: The reasons they have died, in my opinion, are numerous. Lack of healthcare, proper healthcare, adequate healthcare. Some violence, people under pressure, people treated like animals, they die like animals. So, you have a combination of that going on.
Kim Brown: So, a good number of these prisoners have died from non-violent ways. So, what are you hearing from those who were in jail? And the fact that people are dying, not because of violence, how does that speak to the conditions that they are facing?
Pauline Rogers: Those conditions are unresolved conditions for years. It’s been going on for years. The women’s facility here that was built over 30 something years ago, was built as a means to intercept some of the problems that was going on at Parchman decades ago. It’s just issues that haven’t been dealt with. People under pressure, it’s like a volcano, eventually, the lava keeps popping up, giving you a warning that there’s about to be an explosion. This is what’s been taking place at Parchman for decades. And finally, it came to an eruption point, by way of revealing through contraband cell phones, so it’s been going on decades.
Kim Brown: Talk to us a little bit more about that because, as you said, these conditions are not new. This has been happening for an extended period of time, but given that we’re now in the 21st century, people are smuggling in cell phones into prisons and, as a result, the prisoners themselves are documenting what’s happening to them, and pretty much advocating for better conditions for themselves. Talk to us about how-
Pauline Rogers: For themselves.
Kim Brown: The cell phones have done this.
Pauline Rogers: Well, the cell phones, you got officers, underpaid staff. All the people that are imprisoned aren’t indigent prisoners, some of them from affluent backgrounds, or have had means of making and generating money. So you have these people, some of the prisoners paying, are compensating salaries for underpaid staff that are bringing them in the contraband, in order for them to be able to expose the conditions and treatments that’s going on inside the prison. So, you’ve got them meeting salaries, making payrolls to some of these prisoners who get some of the staffers who are underpaid, and are eligible for TANF and food stamp benefit with this paid job, at a correctional facility, at a prison. So you got that going on.
And some of the staffers are getting paid more than the state is paying them, and it’s created an environment for corruption, and corruption at the highest level. We even had a commissioner who fell prey to contract, is now doing federal time. So, it’s an ongoing crisis that the prisoners have become privy to or prey to and party to, and subjected to. And all levels, the prisoners are part of it.
Kim Brown: So the ACLU won a case about 10 years ago against the Mississippi prison system. Can you talk to us about what was achieved and whether or not it led to any improvements?
Pauline Rogers: A lot of cases have been presented. The ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, and even some of the prisoners. I can remember a guy that was formerly incarcerated, that’s no longer incarcerated filed a suit about the conditions, I believe it was at the time camp 12 of Parchman about the plumbing and sewer system. It lasts for a season. Or you may put, just say you put a realm around a plumber condition and you have a work order that shows that that quiets that settles people from going further, pursuing it further because you can present a document or a receipt that reflects that you did something, but you may not have necessarily resolved the problem.
So that’s a lot of what goes on. If you can submit a receipt, the DOC, to the governor that you did something, or even to the health department, then it quiets the situation, the circumstance, and the public or the prisoners to say, “Yeah, we did something,” but you in essence did not resolve the issue. So it’s the systemic corruption. The health department show conditions of the prison, Parchman, years ago, but nothing was done about. And even recently, just last year, it show the conditions of Parchman. Well, the state is not going to reflect itself in a bad way, so you keep getting these perpetual problems unresolved.
Kim Brown: And, as indicated in the documentary that I referenced at the beginning of the interview, one formerly incarcerated person described how the health department has been barred in some instances for entering the prison to check on the conditions of the water and the sewage, et cetera. But Ms. Pauline I wanted to ask you, so, like I said, this documentary is really good. It was very insightful because it delved into the history of the Mississippi prison system, and the factors behind it that, basically, this was just a way to re-enslave black people into a manual labor system that was prison slave labor. So, in 2020, are there any elected officials there who are truly listening to what you and others are saying about Parchman and the other Mississippi state correction facilities? And who in terms of elected officials are taking actions on behalf of the prisoners?
Pauline Rogers: There are elected officials, Kimberly, that are listening. Prior to us being in the national news, if you go to my social media page, November 11th, 2019, I finally got the ears of one our state senators who has a radio program, had myself on radio program. I invited a Caucasian female to show both sides of the poor being incarcerated. And from November 11th until we became national news zero was done because I told them the prisoners were at a boiling point and I, in essence, gave the phone number, posted the phone number rather on social media that I knew these prisoners had access to. And they were given a time to call the radio station so that the Senator could hear firsthand through this contraband cell phone the story.
But he is powerless without the collective government supporting that. Like right now we have Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican governor and that’s important because he calls himself or refers to himself as a Trump supporter, where it has been ordered by the Department of Justice to come in and investigate Parchman. However, if you’re a Trump supporter, you’re not going to come in and make yourself look bad. So it’s like you come in and you say, “The Department of Justice is going to come in and investigate,” but then you watch on the national news where it’s seemingly the president is fighting the Department of Justice, so you can’t have it both ways.
You either coming in and you want a fair investigation, or you’re going to control the parts of the investigation. So, you can’t say you’re closing down Parchman, but you send out two or three people, and you keep certain people their housed, and you make the public think that we’re really progressing. And then, you sending these people into private prisons, which is another problem. For private prison, that’s the part that we’ve been working out to close the private prison because the same thing is happening in the private prison.
Kim Brown: You know the concerns over parchment have almost become a cause celebre, with rappers Jay-Z and Yo Gotti filing a lawsuit on behalf of some of the prisoners. How has the added attention impacted the work that you have been doing Ms. Rogers?
Pauline Rogers: The added national attention is great, however, the missing piece is because we’re not of the caliber of the Jay-Zs and the Yo Gottis you’ve missed the full impact of the stories and what’s really going on, and how deep rooted it has been going on because you have opportunists who are grabbing hold, who have the excess, the means, the resources to further add legs or extensions to who they are or who they desire to be that the real stories may get untold. We have memos going back to the 1980s. In one of our transitional halls, we keep on an easel 24/7 the gas chamber that was at Parchman, camp 29.
And then, you have the people who are just getting buried because for years Parchman was doomed. William Faulkner labeled and tagged Parchman as destination doom is what Parchman was called, destination doom. Destination doom meant you were to never leave Parchman once you enter. And the Freedom Riders, when they came through years ago, got a taste of that by, the then governor, Ross Burnett, who the reservoir in the state of Mississippi is named after this governor, was to put heavy oppression on these Freedom Riders to give them a taste of Parchman, and to quiet them, that they never wanted to come through Mississippi again. And Parchman became the, as Wendy Hatcher, who was the first female chaplain that was hired by Parchman, that Parchman became the for-profit model place of for-profit prisons.
And you had the trusty shooters, who in the segregation and gangs were actually created by the system, not by the prisoners who went in to be gangs, but the system created this. They had segregated parts of the prison. The white prisoners went here. The black was with there. Didn’t matter what the crime was, or if the blacks were innocently put in prison because you were black, there was the reason, that you were black, and we didn’t want you free, and you got incarcerated for that. So you were segregated, then you have the trust white trusty shooters who were ordered to shoot black prisoners. Later, black prisoners were armed to be trusty shooters but they had to shoot other blacks, or ended up losing their own lives. So the gang creation was started and created by the system.
Kim Brown: Ms. Pauline, we’re running a little short on time, but I wanted you to have the opportunity to tell our audience the work you and your husband, Fredrick, have been doing with the RECH Foundation and some of the stories, if there’s a story or two that you could share with us, about a person that you’ve worked with as they came out of jail and some of the trauma that they experienced but, at the same time, the amount of resources they need to overcome in order to not reenter that system. Can you talk to us about that?
Pauline Rogers: Well, yes. 30 some years ago, Kimberly they didn’t have anything, so we were all over the place. Advocacy activists, housing, transportation. Helping with supervision fees, making parole, probation appointment, so we had to be everything. But one of the stories for a woman, the first woman that we transitioned was in 1989 simply because I had an extra role, and she needed somewhere. Well, she was released from prison because she had health issues, and those health issues progressed. We ended up trying to find her and did get her a nursing home that would accept her. I don’t know how they were able to keep her at that nursing home and she still needed us because she didn’t have family members, or so that’s what she told us. Well mind you, we were new in the game so we kept being a part of her support system.
Fast forward and she ended up having to get moved to another nurse. How fast forward, another nursing home that was closer to us. She ended up dying, and they called us and we were very active in her life, and ended up having to bury her. And when they released her records to us, she actually had me listed as a sibling. To this day, before Facebook was popular, it was Myspace posted her own social media, nobody ever came for. We ended up baring her. We still have or in a mahogany urn that we have sitting, nobody ever to this day came forward. That’s one issue, but the barriers to employment, housing … So, we provide housing. My husband, who did 16 years in prison, most of that in Parchman still works with … and one of our biggest volunteers is a guy who’s older than him that kept this youth juvenile on track that works with him every day.
So we do transitional housing, we do life skills training, workforce development, social training, mannerism, behavior. We teach them how to operate within boundaries because boundaries is a issue. So we just all over the place in our services. But when they leave us with housing, we are able to give them something to start with when they leave here, whether that’s a refrigerator, a table, household items. We’re just doing a little bit of everything. July 1 last year, we were a part of getting house bill 1352 passed, which gives people that are convicted with drug felonies eligibility to apply for TANF and food stamps, and they’ve not had that. And you would think that would be something on the list, but that just went into effect in Mississippi July 1, 2019.
Kim Brown: That’s incredible. And to our audience, if you’ve ever seen the show on cable television on the weekends, it’s called Locked Up Abroad, let me tell you something, Parchman prison looks worse than the prisons featured on Locked Up Abroad and that should tell you something. That’s happening right here in the United States in Mississippi. And today, we’ve been speaking with Mrs. Pauline Rogers, she is the co-founder of the RECH Foundation, a group that helps the formerly incarcerated to reenter society. And we’ve been talking specifically about 25 deaths in less than three months in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. These people are facing inhumane conditions. Ms. Pauline, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. We really appreciate it.
Pauline Rogers: Thank you.
Kim Brown: And thank you for watching The Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-03-11--Impulsive Saudi Crown Prince Cracks Down, Rattles Global Markets

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Greg Wilpert : It ’ s the Real News Network .
I ’ m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore .
Saudi Arabia ’ s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested four senior princes over the weekend , including his only surviving uncle , Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz .
The motivation for the arrests is not clear , but it seems that the Crown Prince is trying to further consolidate his hold on power in Saudi Arabia .
The rest took place shortly before Saudi Arabia announced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by over 2 million barrels per day to reach its maximum oil production capacity of 12.3 million barrels .
The reaction on the world markets was swift .
On Monday , oil and stock prices plunged as a result .
In the U.S. , the Dow Jones average dropped by 7.8 % and the price of oil dropped by 30 % to $ 28.50 per barrel .
The drop in stock prices was also a reaction to the news about the coronavirus spread throughout the world .
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they can have around the globe .
But what does it mean ?
Why did MBS , as the Crown Prince is often known , arrest high level family members and plunge his country into an oil price war with Russia ?
Joining me now to explore these questions is Medea Benjamin .
She ’ s cofounder of the peace group Code Pink and author of the book Kingdom of the Unjust : Behind the U.S. Saudi Connection .
Thanks for joining us again .
Media .
Medea Benjamin : Nice to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wilpert : So according to most accounts , MBS is solidly in power in Saudi Arabia , especially since his crackdown shortly after he became Crown Prince in 2017 .
What is your interpretation of why MBS launched this crackdown on his own family members this past weekend ?
Medea Benjamin : There ’ s a lot of different speculation and one never knows because it ’ s such a tightly controlled kingdom , but we know that MBS is ruthless .
He has at other times arrested several hundred members of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shook them down for billions of dollars .
He arrested Hariri , the Prime Minister of Lebanon , kept him incommunicado for several days .
He does very rash things and I think that when he feels that anybody might be criticizing him or might be a potential rival , he wants to make sure that they are out of the way .
So I think because the world community allows MBS to get away with whatever he wants and because he has so intimidated people inside the kingdom he can once again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinks he can get away with it .
Greg Wilpert : Hmm .
Now this brings me to the next question , which is that the MBS portrays himself though as a modernizer , as someone who would bring Saudi Arabia into the 21st century .
We have a clip here of what he has said on this .
Crown Prince M… : We only want to go back to what we were , the moderate Islam that is open to the world , open to all the religions .
And quite frankly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of our lives in dealing with extremist ideas .
We will destroy them today .
Greg Wilpert : Medea , do you think there ’ s any truth to this claim that he ’ s a modernizer and what does this latest crackdown say to you about him ?
Medea Benjamin : Well , he really is very erratic .
He has done a couple of things that have brought some degree of modernization .
For example , he did grant women the right to drive , but then he immediately through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that right to drive in prison where they have been languishing for the last two years .
In fact , this week they ’ re due in court , but they have been tortured in prison and facing very harsh sentences .
He also is bragging about how he ’ s brought musicians and concerts and other kind of entertainment to the kingdom , which I ’ m sure is something that many people in Saudi Arabia are happy about and he is trying to open up the economy to be less dependent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remains a very , very tightly controlled kingdom where Mohammad bin Salmon is clear that he is the one in control even though it ’ s supposed to be his father and that he can throw anyone he wants to in prison .
I mean , look at what he did to the Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi and got away with it , even though the CIA came out and said that he was the one who ordered the murder .
So it really is the problem of the Western democracies like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interested in selling weapons to the Saudis and getting the benefits of the petrodollars and not holding them accountable that allows Mohammad bin Salmon to be the way he is .
And let ’ s remember , he is also the one that got the Saudis involved in the internal conflict in Yemen that will be going on its fifth year now causing tremendous catastrophe hardship , countless deaths in Yemen .
And yet the Western world basically allows it to go on and provides the weapons , the bombs , the planes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saudi regime .
Greg Wilpert : I wanted to return to the issue of the war in Yemen in a moment , but first regarding U.S. Saudi relations , I mean , they ’ ve always been very tight but seems to be even more so under Trump .
Now , do you think that MBS might ’ ve coordinated his assault on his family members and also on oil prices with the U.S. , and how do you interpret this oil price war ?
I mean , why would he do that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems that he coordinated perhaps or told the administration in the U.S. about him going after his rivals because he had just met with Mike Pompeo .
I don ’ t know about the oil war .
You would think he would have called the White House , but yet why would the White House have agreed to it because it affects the global economy ?
It affected the stock markets .
It certainly is not good for Donald Trump .
It might mean that prices come down somewhat at the gas tank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a side benefit , but it really is not good for the global economy to be in the midst of these oil price wars at a time when the demand for oil is low , when the coronavirus is affecting the global economy , when the markets are so shaky .
So it ’ s not clear why Mohammad bin Salman thinks this is a good thing for the Saudis .
The lowering of the prices of oil also affects the Saudi economy , and depending how things go in the next couple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damage to the economy that Mohammed bin Salman has been telling his people that he is capable of running and capable of providing the benefits for the Saudi people .
If he shows he is not , he might have a lot of internal problems that he has not faced yet .
Greg Wilpert : Hmm .
Now , finally , returning again to the war in Yemen , this brutal war , which is continuing with U.S. support as you mentioned , has killed over 100,000 people since 2015 .
But last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to halt U.S. support for the war in Yemen , but Trump vetoed it and Congress wasn ’ t able to override that veto .
But still , has MBS shown any signs or willingness to put an end to this brutal war so far ?
Medea Benjamin : Well , there ’ s a lot of pressure on MBS to put an end to this war because it ’ s been going on for so long and because not just the United States , but Germany , France , the U.K. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard , not only to stop the weapon sales , but to push for peace talks and there have been peace talks that have been going on .
There also is the factor that the G20 is planning to meet in Saudi Arabia in November and it will be very embarrassing for the leaders of the world to go to Saudi Arabia while they continue to bomb the people of Yemen .
So there is hope that the peace talks will come to some positive conclusion , but we don ’ t know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shown himself to be open to compromise .
He wants to win .
He hasn ’ t been winning for all of these years and hopefully there will be enough pressure on him to make the necessary compromise to have the peace talks be successful .
Greg Wilpert : Hmm .
Okay .
Well , we ’ re going to leave it there for now .
I ’ m speaking to Medea Benjamin , cofounder of the peace group Code Pink .
Thanks again , Medea , for having joined us today .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , Greg .
Greg Wilpert : And thank you for joining the Real News Network .

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested high-ranking members of his family and launched an oil price war with Russia, tanking the market. Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin says it just demonstrates how impulsive and capricious MBS’s decision making can be.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Greg Wilpert: It’s the Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested four senior princes over the weekend, including his only surviving uncle, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz. The motivation for the arrests is not clear, but it seems that the Crown Prince is trying to further consolidate his hold on power in Saudi Arabia. The rest took place shortly before Saudi Arabia announced that it is increasing its oil production by over 2 million barrels per day to reach its maximum oil production capacity of 12.3 million barrels. The reaction on the world markets was swift. On Monday, oil and stock prices plunged as a result. In the U.S., the Dow Jones average dropped by 7.8% and the price of oil dropped by 30% to $28.50 per barrel. The drop in stock prices was also a reaction to the news about the coronavirus spread throughout the world.
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s actions point to the wide repercussions they can have around the globe. But what does it mean? Why did MBS, as the Crown Prince is often known, arrest high level family members and plunge his country into an oil price war with Russia? Joining me now to explore these questions is Medea Benjamin. She’s cofounder of the peace group Code Pink and author of the book Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S. Saudi Connection. Thanks for joining us again. Media.
Medea Benjamin: Nice to be on with you, Greg.
Greg Wilpert: So according to most accounts, MBS is solidly in power in Saudi Arabia, especially since his crackdown shortly after he became Crown Prince in 2017. What is your interpretation of why MBS launched this crackdown on his own family members this past weekend?
Medea Benjamin: There’s a lot of different speculation and one never knows because it’s such a tightly controlled kingdom, but we know that MBS is ruthless. He has at other times arrested several hundred members of the business community and the Royal Family, shook them down for billions of dollars. He arrested Hariri, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, kept him incommunicado for several days. He does very rash things and I think that when he feels that anybody might be criticizing him or might be a potential rival, he wants to make sure that they are out of the way. So I think because the world community allows MBS to get away with whatever he wants and because he has so intimidated people inside the kingdom he can once again do this kind of thing and he thinks he can get away with it.
Greg Wilpert: Hmm. Now this brings me to the next question, which is that the MBS portrays himself though as a modernizer, as someone who would bring Saudi Arabia into the 21st century. We have a clip here of what he has said on this.
Crown Prince M…: We only want to go back to what we were, the moderate Islam that is open to the world, open to all the religions. And quite frankly, we will not waste 30 years of our lives in dealing with extremist ideas. We will destroy them today.
Greg Wilpert: Medea, do you think there’s any truth to this claim that he’s a modernizer and what does this latest crackdown say to you about him?
Medea Benjamin: Well, he really is very erratic. He has done a couple of things that have brought some degree of modernization. For example, he did grant women the right to drive, but then he immediately through the very women who had been advocating for that right to drive in prison where they have been languishing for the last two years. In fact, this week they’re due in court, but they have been tortured in prison and facing very harsh sentences. He also is bragging about how he’s brought musicians and concerts and other kind of entertainment to the kingdom, which I’m sure is something that many people in Saudi Arabia are happy about and he is trying to open up the economy to be less dependent on oil. But in reality it remains a very, very tightly controlled kingdom where Mohammad bin Salmon is clear that he is the one in control even though it’s supposed to be his father and that he can throw anyone he wants to in prison.
I mean, look at what he did to the Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi and got away with it, even though the CIA came out and said that he was the one who ordered the murder. So it really is the problem of the Western democracies like the United States that are much more interested in selling weapons to the Saudis and getting the benefits of the petrodollars and not holding them accountable that allows Mohammad bin Salmon to be the way he is. And let’s remember, he is also the one that got the Saudis involved in the internal conflict in Yemen that will be going on its fifth year now causing tremendous catastrophe hardship, countless deaths in Yemen. And yet the Western world basically allows it to go on and provides the weapons, the bombs, the planes, all kinds of support to the Saudi regime.
Greg Wilpert: I wanted to return to the issue of the war in Yemen in a moment, but first regarding U.S. Saudi relations, I mean, they’ve always been very tight but seems to be even more so under Trump. Now, do you think that MBS might’ve coordinated his assault on his family members and also on oil prices with the U.S., and how do you interpret this oil price war? I mean, why would he do that?
Medea Benjamin: Well, it seems that he coordinated perhaps or told the administration in the U.S. about him going after his rivals because he had just met with Mike Pompeo. I don’t know about the oil war. You would think he would have called the White House, but yet why would the White House have agreed to it because it affects the global economy? It affected the stock markets. It certainly is not good for Donald Trump. It might mean that prices come down somewhat at the gas tank and Trump has said that would be a side benefit, but it really is not good for the global economy to be in the midst of these oil price wars at a time when the demand for oil is low, when the coronavirus is affecting the global economy, when the markets are so shaky. So it’s not clear why Mohammad bin Salman thinks this is a good thing for the Saudis.
The lowering of the prices of oil also affects the Saudi economy, and depending how things go in the next couple of weeks, it could really do damage to the economy that Mohammed bin Salman has been telling his people that he is capable of running and capable of providing the benefits for the Saudi people. If he shows he is not, he might have a lot of internal problems that he has not faced yet.
Greg Wilpert: Hmm. Now, finally, returning again to the war in Yemen, this brutal war, which is continuing with U.S. support as you mentioned, has killed over 100,000 people since 2015. But last year Congress passed a War Powers resolution to halt U.S. support for the war in Yemen, but Trump vetoed it and Congress wasn’t able to override that veto. But still, has MBS shown any signs or willingness to put an end to this brutal war so far?
Medea Benjamin: Well, there’s a lot of pressure on MBS to put an end to this war because it’s been going on for so long and because not just the United States, but Germany, France, the U.K., their people there have been pressing very hard, not only to stop the weapon sales, but to push for peace talks and there have been peace talks that have been going on. There also is the factor that the G20 is planning to meet in Saudi Arabia in November and it will be very embarrassing for the leaders of the world to go to Saudi Arabia while they continue to bomb the people of Yemen. So there is hope that the peace talks will come to some positive conclusion, but we don’t know. MBS is not somebody who has shown himself to be open to compromise. He wants to win. He hasn’t been winning for all of these years and hopefully there will be enough pressure on him to make the necessary compromise to have the peace talks be successful.
Greg Wilpert: Hmm. Okay. Well, we’re going to leave it there for now. I’m speaking to Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the peace group Code Pink. Thanks again, Medea, for having joined us today.
Medea Benjamin: Thanks for having me on, Greg.
Greg Wilpert: And thank you for joining the Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-03-13--Sanders vs. Biden on the Coronavirus Pandemic

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therealnews--2020-03-13--How Presidential Debates Frame Issues to Support Moderate Candidates

Editorial Note : The eleventh Democratic Debate has been relocated from Phoenix , AZ to Washington DC The 11th Democratic Debate is coming up on Sunday , March 15th , in Phoenix , Arizona with only two candidates this time around , Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders .
CNN , Univision and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will be hosting it .
However , the debate will not really be a debate this time .
Rather , it will be more like a seated conversation where audience members get to ask questions .
The Sanders campaign has questioned this new format @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s ability to debate Biden directly .
Also , there is the issue of what questions are asked and how they are framed .
According to a recent analysis published by the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , FAIR , the questions in the 10 previous debates were almost all framed in a way to favor the policies of the more moderate candidates and to suggest that the progressive candidates , mainly Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders , took highly questionable policy positions .
Joining me now to discuss how debate questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She ’ s senior analyst for FAIR ’ s Election Focus 2020 Project and author of the FAIR article , Debate Moderators Frame Questions to Define Acceptable Politics .
Thanks for joining us today , Julie.Julie Hollar : Thanks for having me on , Greg .
Greg Wilpert : So let ’ s start with the premise of your recent analysis that how moderators frame questions is a problem .
There ’ s an old saying in journalism that says that there are no bad questions , only bad answers .
Is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , why is the framing of a question so important ?
Julie Hollar : Well , you know in journalism there is this conceit that journalists are unbiased , right ?
That if you are watching CNN or if you are reading New York Times , then what you ’ re getting is some sort of objective news .
And the same , of course , would theoretically apply to the debates , right ?
That the moderators are asking essentially unbiased questions and the candidates are getting an opportunity to present their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with questions that , in fact , are framing all of the progressive positions in a more critical light , perhaps giving more of a pass to some of the more moderate positions , people are primed to receive this information .
They are primed to hear these questions as being more unbiased and , therefore , thinking , “ Oh , wow .
Maybe Medicare For All really is a dangerous position .
Maybe we don ’ t need to scrutinize the moderate positions as much as we do the progressive positions.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ are probably a bit more savvy than that , but there is this general idea that media are supposed to be objective , which , obviously , is not true .
Greg Wilpert : Now you specifically look into three areas of how the moderators have framed questions , health care , military intervention and the issue of electability .
Let ’ s take a quick look at each one of them , beginning with healthcare .
Here we have a typical example of how healthcare questions were asked .
Recording : Let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Senator Warren , you are running on Medicare For All .
Democrats have been winning elections even in Red States- … with a very different message on healthcare protecting Obamacare .
Democrats are divided on this issue .
What do you say to voters who are worried that your position on Medicare For All could cost you critical votes in the general elections ?
Greg Wilpert : Healthcare was the main topic in all the debates and was raised a total of 161 times according to your article .
Now , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the other examples of how healthcare questions were framed ?
Julie Hollar : So Medicare For All has been a primary subject of debate for good reason .
It ’ s an idea that a lot of people are very interested in .
Democratic voters have consistently said that they ’ re interested in Medicare For All and at the beginning , at least , of the primaries , there were a lot of candidates who were supporting Medicare For All .
But what we found when we looked at the questions that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were asking the questions about Medicare For All , they were characterizing it typically in negative ways , talking about forcing people off of their private insurance , talking about what are you going to do about all of the healthcare industry workers who might lose their jobs as a result of this , talking especially about is this going to raise taxes on the middle class ?
There was one question of all of the Medicare-For-All questions that included the characterization that , oh , also it will eliminate premiums and copays @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , at the same time , it ’ s going to raise taxes in the middle class , right ?
So in the overwhelming number of questions about Medicare For All , it was here are some problems with it , please address these problems , right ?
And then what we found was that when other candidates who did not have Medicare-For-All plans were asked questions about their healthcare position , they received much less scrutiny .
Biden , for instance , he had one critical question that was asked .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similarly to those Medicare For All questions , asked him , I think it was will your plan do enough , something along those lines .
Otherwise , most of the questions to the other candidates were things like , is Medicare For All a problem ?
Are these Medicare-For-All candidates being realistic ?
Do they owe voters a price tag on their plan ?
Sanders and Warren have been repeatedly asked about raising taxes on the middle class for Medicare For All .
Biden , first of all , I would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what Biden ’ s healthcare plan is because he ’ s been asked so few questions about it .
But he has never been asked to explain how he ’ s going to pay for it .
And , in fact , he has never answered that question in any forums or on his website or anywhere .
So the fact that the Medicare-For-All candidates are continually asked this question and the non-Medicare-For-All candidates are basically given a pass , I think it shows you very clearly where media stand on this question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s look at the military interventions .
Here ’ s a typical example of those kinds of questions that were asked in this area .
Recording : Senator Warren , you said you wanted to bring home all troops from the Middle East and then you walked that back to say you want to bring home combat troops .
How does that protect America ’ s national security ?
Greg Wilpert : Now , how would you characterize this framing ?
I mean , what was typical about that ?
I mean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more moderate candidates versus acting against or being more critical towards the more progressive candidates ?
Julie Hollar : Well , what we found was that when discussing war , when discussing military intervention , that the questions very much skewed in favor of intervention .
In other words , probing candidates , would you pull out even if there ’ s no peace deal ?
Would you pull out even if it meant that there might be a resurgence of ISIS ?
In other words , presenting potential negative outcomes of non-intervention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only a couple of questions that were anti-intervention in terms of framing and those were about the Iraq war , which , at this point , has such low favorability that even in the media you can talk about being against Iraq .
Greg Wilpert : And , finally , now the issue of electability was also quite significant , coming up at least 80 times .
Now , here we have an example of how this was raised .
Recording : Senator Warren , I have a question for you .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Biden accused Senator Sanders ’ supporters of bullying union leaders here with “ vicious , malicious misogynistic things.
” You said Democrats can not build an inclusive party on a foundation of hate .
Are Senator Sanders and his supporters making it harder for Democrats to unify in November ?
Greg Wilpert : Now , what was typical about how these questions of electability were raised ?
That is , assuming that Democrats , above all , want to defeat Donald Trump in November isn ’ t actually electability a reasonable issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Electability is a very valid question for voters to consider , but voters are , ultimately , the ones who decide the answer to that question .
The way that you know whether a candidate is electable is , ultimately , it ’ s whether they do win .
But before an election you can ask [ inaudible 00:08:55 ] is if the election were tomorrow , would you vote for Biden or Trump ?
Would you vote for Sanders or Trump ?
In those kinds of head-to-head polling , Sanders and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump .
Both of them defeat Trump in the polls that we ’ ve seen month after month , actually .
So a responsible media would have been reporting for the past several months that it appears that Biden and Sanders are , at this point , our most electable candidates .
But that ’ s not what we ’ ve been seeing at all .
And , in fact , Biden has been running essentially on a campaign of “ I am the most electable .
That is why you should vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debates we see that he is not asked questions about his electability hardly at all .
Sanders has gotten four times as many questions about his electability as Biden has .
Those questions are about are you too far left for the country ?
Are you too socialist ?
Things like that .
One of the tough questions about electability that Biden ’ s gotten is Trump is going to throw everything that he has at you .
Are you ready for it ?
So there ’ s a very clear skew in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are being asked , which we would argue it doesn ’ t really make a lot of sense in a debate to ask electability questions because , again , that ’ s not something that candidates need to answer to .
It ’ s something that the polls answer to .
And so asking those sorts of questions doesn ’ t really help voters very much in the long run .
Greg Wilpert : Now just to summarize , basically , it seems to me that the main issue is really not so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked critical questions or having questions framed in a critical way , but rather that the more moderate candidates , the more centrist candidates not having critical questions posed to them .
Would you agree with that ?
Julie Hollar : It ’ s really both .
It ’ s going both ways .
It ’ s that the more progressive candidates or candidates espousing more progressive positions have been getting more critical questions about those positions and the more centrist candidates or candidates espousing particular centrist positions have been getting less scrutiny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Now , finally , what would you say needs to change in the way debates are organized for debate questions to be framed in a better way ?
Julie Hollar : Well , first of all , I mean one thing that FAIR has been calling for for a long time is to have different people asking questions .
We don ’ t need to have CNN host four debates .
If they are hosting this many debates , we need to include progressive questioners as well .
When the Republicans hold their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the past , they have consistently brought on , at least on occasion , a conservative questioner , in addition to the sort of establishment media journalists .
For the Democratic debates , that doesn ’ t happen and we ’ ve continually called for that and the Democratic party , in the form of the DNC , does not agree to it .
If you ’ re getting only the establishment media to ask the questions in debates , you ’ re always going to have the same kind of outcome .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of a skew in the questions that are being asked because that is the bias of the media .
It is a centrist bias , and so you ’ re going to get a bias towards these centrist positions .
Greg Wilpert : Right .
Okay .
Well , we ’ re going to continue to follow , of course , these debates and also how they ’ re organized , but we ’ re going to leave it there for now .
I was speaking to Julie Hollar , senior analyst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Project .
Thanks again , Julie , for having joined us today .
Julie Hollar : Thanks for having me .
Greg Wilpert : And thank you for joining the Real News Network .

Editorial Note: The eleventh Democratic Debate has been relocated from Phoenix, AZ to Washington DC
Greg Wilpert: It’s the Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Baltimore.The 11th Democratic Debate is coming up on Sunday, March 15th, in Phoenix, Arizona with only two candidates this time around, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. CNN, Univision and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will be hosting it. However, the debate will not really be a debate this time. Rather, it will be more like a seated conversation where audience members get to ask questions.The Sanders campaign has questioned this new format, saying that it limits Sanders’s ability to debate Biden directly. Also, there is the issue of what questions are asked and how they are framed. According to a recent analysis published by the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR, the questions in the 10 previous debates were almost all framed in a way to favor the policies of the more moderate candidates and to suggest that the progressive candidates, mainly Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, took highly questionable policy positions.Joining me now to discuss how debate questions have been framed is Julie Hollar. She’s senior analyst for FAIR’s Election Focus 2020 Project and author of the FAIR article, Debate Moderators Frame Questions to Define Acceptable Politics. Thanks for joining us today, Julie.Julie Hollar: Thanks for having me on, Greg.Greg Wilpert: So let’s start with the premise of your recent analysis that how moderators frame questions is a problem. There’s an old saying in journalism that says that there are no bad questions, only bad answers. Is that not the case? And if not, why is the framing of a question so important?Julie Hollar: Well, you know in journalism there is this conceit that journalists are unbiased, right? That if you are watching CNN or if you are reading New York Times, then what you’re getting is some sort of objective news. And the same, of course, would theoretically apply to the debates, right? That the moderators are asking essentially unbiased questions and the candidates are getting an opportunity to present their positions.So when you end up with questions that, in fact, are framing all of the progressive positions in a more critical light, perhaps giving more of a pass to some of the more moderate positions, people are primed to receive this information. They are primed to hear these questions as being more unbiased and, therefore, thinking, “Oh, wow. Maybe Medicare For All really is a dangerous position. Maybe we don’t need to scrutinize the moderate positions as much as we do the progressive positions.”I think most of your viewers are probably a bit more savvy than that, but there is this general idea that media are supposed to be objective, which, obviously, is not true.
Greg Wilpert: Now you specifically look into three areas of how the moderators have framed questions, health care, military intervention and the issue of electability. Let’s take a quick look at each one of them, beginning with healthcare. Here we have a typical example of how healthcare questions were asked.
Recording: Let’s talk about Medicare For All. Senator Warren, you are running on Medicare For All. Democrats have been winning elections even in Red States-
That’s what happens [crosstalk 00:03:06]-
… with a very different message on healthcare protecting Obamacare. Democrats are divided on this issue. What do you say to voters who are worried that your position on Medicare For All could cost you critical votes in the general elections?
Greg Wilpert: Healthcare was the main topic in all the debates and was raised a total of 161 times according to your article. Now, what is the framing here and what are the other examples of how healthcare questions were framed?
Julie Hollar: So Medicare For All has been a primary subject of debate for good reason. It’s an idea that a lot of people are very interested in. Democratic voters have consistently said that they’re interested in Medicare For All and at the beginning, at least, of the primaries, there were a lot of candidates who were supporting Medicare For All.
But what we found when we looked at the questions that were being asked is that when moderators were asking the questions about Medicare For All, they were characterizing it typically in negative ways, talking about forcing people off of their private insurance, talking about what are you going to do about all of the healthcare industry workers who might lose their jobs as a result of this, talking especially about is this going to raise taxes on the middle class?
There was one question of all of the Medicare-For-All questions that included the characterization that, oh, also it will eliminate premiums and copays. But even that question talked about, at the same time, it’s going to raise taxes in the middle class, right? So in the overwhelming number of questions about Medicare For All, it was here are some problems with it, please address these problems, right?
And then what we found was that when other candidates who did not have Medicare-For-All plans were asked questions about their healthcare position, they received much less scrutiny. Biden, for instance, he had one critical question that was asked. In other words, one question that, similarly to those Medicare For All questions, asked him, I think it was will your plan do enough, something along those lines. Otherwise, most of the questions to the other candidates were things like, is Medicare For All a problem? Are these Medicare-For-All candidates being realistic? Do they owe voters a price tag on their plan?
Sanders and Warren have been repeatedly asked about raising taxes on the middle class for Medicare For All. Biden, first of all, I would be surprised if many of your viewers know what Biden’s healthcare plan is because he’s been asked so few questions about it. But he has never been asked to explain how he’s going to pay for it. And, in fact, he has never answered that question in any forums or on his website or anywhere.
So the fact that the Medicare-For-All candidates are continually asked this question and the non-Medicare-For-All candidates are basically given a pass, I think it shows you very clearly where media stand on this question.
Greg Wilpert: Now let’s look at the military interventions. Here’s a typical example of those kinds of questions that were asked in this area.
Recording: Senator Warren, you said you wanted to bring home all troops from the Middle East and then you walked that back to say you want to bring home combat troops.
I do.
How does that protect America’s national security?
Greg Wilpert: Now, how would you characterize this framing? I mean, what was typical about that? I mean, in what way was this favoring the more moderate candidates versus acting against or being more critical towards the more progressive candidates?
Julie Hollar: Well, what we found was that when discussing war, when discussing military intervention, that the questions very much skewed in favor of intervention. In other words, probing candidates, would you pull out even if there’s no peace deal? Would you pull out even if it meant that there might be a resurgence of ISIS? In other words, presenting potential negative outcomes of non-intervention.
Whereas, generally, there were only a couple of questions that were anti-intervention in terms of framing and those were about the Iraq war, which, at this point, has such low favorability that even in the media you can talk about being against Iraq.
Greg Wilpert: And, finally, now the issue of electability was also quite significant, coming up at least 80 times. Now, here we have an example of how this was raised.
Recording: Senator Warren, I have a question for you. On Sunday on Meet the Press, Vice President Biden accused Senator Sanders’ supporters of bullying union leaders here with “vicious, malicious misogynistic things.” You said Democrats cannot build an inclusive party on a foundation of hate. Are Senator Sanders and his supporters making it harder for Democrats to unify in November?
Greg Wilpert: Now, what was typical about how these questions of electability were raised? That is, assuming that Democrats, above all, want to defeat Donald Trump in November isn’t actually electability a reasonable issue for voters to consider?
Julie Hollar: Electability is a very valid question for voters to consider, but voters are, ultimately, the ones who decide the answer to that question. The way that you know whether a candidate is electable is, ultimately, it’s whether they do win.
But before an election you can ask [inaudible 00:08:55] is if the election were tomorrow, would you vote for Biden or Trump? Would you vote for Sanders or Trump? In those kinds of head-to-head polling, Sanders and Biden have been pulling roughly equally against Trump. Both of them defeat Trump in the polls that we’ve seen month after month, actually. So a responsible media would have been reporting for the past several months that it appears that Biden and Sanders are, at this point, our most electable candidates.
But that’s not what we’ve been seeing at all. And, in fact, Biden has been running essentially on a campaign of “I am the most electable. That is why you should vote for me.” And yet in the debates we see that he is not asked questions about his electability hardly at all. Sanders has gotten four times as many questions about his electability as Biden has. Those questions are about are you too far left for the country? Are you too socialist? Things like that. One of the tough questions about electability that Biden’s gotten is Trump is going to throw everything that he has at you. Are you ready for it?
So there’s a very clear skew in the way that even the electability questions are being asked, which we would argue it doesn’t really make a lot of sense in a debate to ask electability questions because, again, that’s not something that candidates need to answer to. It’s something that the polls answer to. And so asking those sorts of questions doesn’t really help voters very much in the long run.
Greg Wilpert: Now just to summarize, basically, it seems to me that the main issue is really not so much about Sanders and Warren perhaps being asked critical questions or having questions framed in a critical way, but rather that the more moderate candidates, the more centrist candidates not having critical questions posed to them. Would you agree with that?
Julie Hollar: It’s really both. It’s going both ways. It’s that the more progressive candidates or candidates espousing more progressive positions have been getting more critical questions about those positions and the more centrist candidates or candidates espousing particular centrist positions have been getting less scrutiny about those positions.
Greg Wilpert: Now, finally, what would you say needs to change in the way debates are organized for debate questions to be framed in a better way?
Julie Hollar: Well, first of all, I mean one thing that FAIR has been calling for for a long time is to have different people asking questions. We don’t need to have CNN host four debates. If they are hosting this many debates, we need to include progressive questioners as well.
When the Republicans hold their debates, their primary debates, in the past, they have consistently brought on, at least on occasion, a conservative questioner, in addition to the sort of establishment media journalists. For the Democratic debates, that doesn’t happen and we’ve continually called for that and the Democratic party, in the form of the DNC, does not agree to it.
If you’re getting only the establishment media to ask the questions in debates, you’re always going to have the same kind of outcome. You’re going to have this kind of a skew in the questions that are being asked because that is the bias of the media. It is a centrist bias, and so you’re going to get a bias towards these centrist positions.
Greg Wilpert: Right. Okay. Well, we’re going to continue to follow, of course, these debates and also how they’re organized, but we’re going to leave it there for now. I was speaking to Julie Hollar, senior analyst for FAIR’s Election Focus 2020 Project. Thanks again, Julie, for having joined us today.
Julie Hollar: Thanks for having me.
Greg Wilpert: And thank you for joining the Real News Network.


therealnews--2020-03-13--Sanctions Are Imposed Poverty, Abroad and in the U.S.

Host
Jacqueline Luqman is a host and producer for TRNN. With more than 20 years as an activist in Washington, DC, Jacqueline focuses on examining the impact of current events and politics on Black, POC, and other marginalized communities in the US and around the world, providing a specific race and class analysis at the root of these issues. She is Editor-In-Chief and a co-host of the social media program Coffee, Current Events & Politics in Luqman Nation with her husband, and is active in the faith-focused progressive/left activist community.


therealnews--2020-03-13--Are Police Targeting Rural America for Mass Incarceration?

Stephen Janis is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has been acclaimed both in print and on television .
As @ @ @ @ @ the now defunct Baltimore Examiner , he won two Maryland DC Delaware Press Association Awards @ @ @ @ @ number of unsolved murders in Baltimore and the killings of prostitutes .
His…


therealnews--2020-03-15--Climate Crisis: Coal Storage Ban Suit, Bans on Gas Bans, Shale Bailout

Welcome back to the second edition of The Real News Network ’ s Climate Crisis News Roundup , where we will sift through , report on , and analyze the top stories on the climate crisis each week .
This roundup covers everything from new scientific studies , energy and land use policy , agricultural sector and transportation choices , political and regulatory decisions , grassroots movements and more .
If you have a story you see as deserving of a summary here , get in touch with me at [ email protected ] .
You can read last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has happened since December of last year when The Real News Network first ran a story about the San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond , California and its leaders ’ decision to pause a vote on an ordinance banning coal storage within city limits .
At the time , Mayor Tom Butt killed the proposal , pushed for years by climate justice groups , and called for the item to receive more discussion among stakeholders .
Butt told The Real News Network back then that he had hoped to broker a bargain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ litigation , and the climate justice groups that supported the ban .
He aimed , he said at the time , to do it “ without legislation and without litigation.
” At the Dec. 3 meeting to consider the ban , many workers employed by the owner of the facility—Levin-Richmond Terminal Corporation—said that the proposal could mean lost jobs and livelihoods .
Just weeks later , however , Butt reversed course at a Jan. 14 City Council meeting and voted to implement a ban .
The ban is part of a broader push @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exportation of coal on the West Coast of the United States to Asia .
The coal stored in Richmond , for example , goes to Japan .
The coal industry , in turn and as Butt had previewed , has held up its end of the bargain by filing lawsuits against the ban .
Earlier this month , both Levin-Richmond and the Wyoming-based coal mining company Wolverine Resources filed lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the City of Richmond .
Wolverine is a coal miner in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the coal stored in Richmond currently originates .
In the Levin-Richmond lawsuit , the company argued that Richmond violated the U.S. Constitution by taking their private property and by interrupting the flow of both interstate and foreign commerce .
Wolverine , meanwhile , argued that the Richmond ordinance defies interstate and international commerce clauses in the U.S. Constitution and is preempted by several other federal laws .
Coal is considered among the most potent of the fossil fuel energy sources from a carbon dioxide emitting perspective .
Coal power plants “ release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produced than any other electricity source , ” explains the environmental advocacy group Green America .
As is the norm for federal litigation , it could take months if not years before this issue is resolved .
Earlier this month , Reuters reported that the natural gas industry is pushing legislation in multiple states against cities proposing bans of natural gas on their electricity grids .
As col plants shutter , natural gas has become the predominant fuel source in power plants across the United States .
And that has meant a huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
These market dynamics have , in turn , faced opposition from climate activists in municipalities across the country , with a dozen different ban bills passed in 2019 .
But now the industry is fighting back with bans on such bans proposed in state legislatures ranging from Oklahoma , Minnesota , Arizona , Missouri , Tennessee .
One of them , HB 2686 in Arizona , became law on Feb. 21 .
It is common for industries to work closely with groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Council of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ written by corporate lobbyists .
The USA Today Network and the Center for Public Integrity teamed up last year on a series called “ Copy , Paste , Legislate ” that showed “ in the last eight years , more than 10,000 bills introduced in statehouses nationwide were almost entirely copied from bills written by special interests.
” And The Real News Network reported last year on a similar effort by ALEC and CSG to push through legislation lobbied for and written by the oil and gas industry to criminalize protests against pipelines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ land near Standing Rock Sioux Reservation territory in 2016 in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline .
Natural gas power plants are cleaner than coal , but still are major carbon dioxide emitters .
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that between 2018-22 , the industry will open up 364 gas power plants .
And even worse , natural gas leakage across the supply chain means an abundance of emissions of methane , a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the key time period during which major action must be taken on the climate crisis to avoid irreversible ecological loses and damages .
As coronavirus has forced shutdowns of the NCAA basketball tournament , likely the rest of the NBA and NHL seasons , the start of the baseball season , the public ’ s ability to attend sessions on Capitol Hill , college campuses across the country and large swaths of the tourism and leisure industries , the fracking industry is possibly getting a bail out a bailout as oil prices continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to reporting done by The Washington Post .
The Post reports that independent oil and gas companies , led in the forefront by the company Continental Resources , has lobbied the Trump Administration for an infusion of federal dollars to avoid what they say could be imminent bankruptcies .
Yet , a Big Lie is on the loose : this financial crisis long predates the rise of coronavirus as a global pandemic and exemplifies what author and activist Naomi Klein calls the “ shock doctrine ” —using a crisis to advance public-private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Continental Resources by the way , was founded by CEO Harold Hamm , a major donor to President Donald Trump who served as his energy advisor during the 2016 presidential campaign and was floated as a potential U.S. Secretary of Energy choice .
Hamm ’ s company , headquartered in Oklahoma City , is a major driller in the Bakken Shake in North Dakota and the industry press has referred to Hamm as “ King of the Bakken.
” Continental Resources oil , I first reported in 2016 , flows through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Post , Hamm said he has not yet had “ direct ” conversations with Trump about the possibility of a bailout , though he had reached out .
“ I don ’ t want to prescribe what the president would or shouldn ’ t do .
He ’ s very capable of handling this situation , ” said Hamm , who attended Trump ’ s 2017 Inauguration speech , as well .
He added , “ this could jeopardize those jobs and the economies in producing states and communities across America , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dakota.
” Meanwhile , oil major companies represented by the American Petroleum Institute are less bullish on the idea of a bailout because they are better equipped to handle oil price fluctuations .
The fracking boom relies on a high global price of oil and back in 2014 , many shale drilling companies declared bankruptcies after rampant drilling by Saudi Arabia drove down the global price .
Activists have taken a stand against a prospect for such a bailout , creating the hashtag # NoShaleOut .
And Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders , Ed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump not to do the bailout in a March 12 letter first published by Politico “ Many of these oil companies are already deeply in debt and have their lost lines of credit at financial institutions , and it would be both bad business and bad policy for the government to use the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to grant these executives a new windfall , ” they wrote .
And lastly , the bipartisan Senate energy bill mentioned in last week ’ s newsletter has hit a standstill over the issue of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of refrigeration devices that emit hydrofluorocarbons ( HFCs ) , greenhouse gases that are 1,370-4,180 times more potent than carbon dioxide .
The vote failed to get a three-fifths majority and failed .
The bill includes many provisions lobbied for by the fossil fuel industry , alongside money provisions which would advance renewable energy , and has received support from some of the larger establishment environmental groups .
During the amendments process , U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer ( R-ND ) —who served as an energy aide in 2016 for the Trump campaign—got a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a feasibility study of a potential petrochemical storage hub in the Bakken Shale region .
The legislation also has a similar provision to study the creation of a parallel storage hub in Appalachia , which has been pushed for years by Manchin , who is considered one of the most fossil fuel industry friendly of any Democratic member of Congress .
The oil and gas industry sees the storage , manufacturing , and exportation of petrochemicals as the next frontier in the fracking boom and a way to create new market segments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ refining facilities have come to life , the industry has even begun exporting ethane , the main petrochemical compound that produces plastics .
Climate activists have decried the notion of fracking for plastics , which is quickly becoming a new on the ground reality .
On March 25 , the HFCs issue will get a hearing in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee .
That ’ s all for now , folks .
Thank you for reading and please come back next week for another edition of the Climate Crisis @ @

Welcome back to the second edition of The Real News Network’s Climate Crisis News Roundup, where we will sift through, report on, and analyze the top stories on the climate crisis each week.
This roundup covers everything from new scientific studies, energy and land use policy, agricultural sector and transportation choices, political and regulatory decisions, grassroots movements and more. If you have a story you see as deserving of a summary here, get in touch with me at steve@therealnews.com. You can read last week’s edition here.
Coal Storage Ban Lawsuit
A lot has happened since December of last year when The Real News Network first ran a story about the San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond, California and its leaders’ decision to pause a vote on an ordinance banning coal storage within city limits. At the time, Mayor Tom Butt killed the proposal, pushed for years by climate justice groups, and called for the item to receive more discussion among stakeholders.
Butt told The Real News Network back then that he had hoped to broker a bargain between the industry, which had threatened litigation, and the climate justice groups that supported the ban. He aimed, he said at the time, to do it “without legislation and without litigation.”
At the Dec. 3 meeting to consider the ban, many workers employed by the owner of the facility—Levin-Richmond Terminal Corporation—said that the proposal could mean lost jobs and livelihoods. Just weeks later, however, Butt reversed course at a Jan. 14 City Council meeting and voted to implement a ban.
The ban is part of a broader push by the climate movement to halt the exportation of coal on the West Coast of the United States to Asia. The coal stored in Richmond, for example, goes to Japan.
The coal industry, in turn and as Butt had previewed, has held up its end of the bargain by filing lawsuits against the ban. Earlier this month, both Levin-Richmond and the Wyoming-based coal mining company Wolverine Resources filed lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the City of Richmond. Wolverine is a coal miner in Utah, the state from which most of the coal stored in Richmond currently originates.
In the Levin-Richmond lawsuit, the company argued that Richmond violated the U.S. Constitution by taking their private property and by interrupting the flow of both interstate and foreign commerce. Wolverine, meanwhile, argued that the Richmond ordinance defies interstate and international commerce clauses in the U.S. Constitution and is preempted by several other federal laws.
Coal is considered among the most potent of the fossil fuel energy sources from a carbon dioxide emitting perspective. Coal power plants “release more greenhouse gases per unit of energy produced than any other electricity source,” explains the environmental advocacy group Green America.
As is the norm for federal litigation, it could take months if not years before this issue is resolved.
Banning Gas Bans
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the natural gas industry is pushing legislation in multiple states against cities proposing bans of natural gas on their electricity grids. As col plants shutter, natural gas has become the predominant fuel source in power plants across the United States. And that has meant a huge boost to fracking in shale fields nationwide.
These market dynamics have, in turn, faced opposition from climate activists in municipalities across the country, with a dozen different ban bills passed in 2019. But now the industry is fighting back with bans on such bans proposed in state legislatures ranging from Oklahoma, Minnesota, Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee. One of them, HB 2686 in Arizona, became law on Feb. 21.
It is common for industries to work closely with groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Council of State Governments to push through model legislation written by corporate lobbyists. The USA Today Network and the Center for Public Integrity teamed up last year on a series called “Copy, Paste, Legislate” that showed “in the last eight years, more than 10,000 bills introduced in statehouses nationwide were almost entirely copied from bills written by special interests.” And The Real News Network reported last year on a similar effort by ALEC and CSG to push through legislation lobbied for and written by the oil and gas industry to criminalize protests against pipelines in the aftermath of the occupation of land near Standing Rock Sioux Reservation territory in 2016 in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Natural gas power plants are cleaner than coal, but still are major carbon dioxide emitters. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that between 2018-22, the industry will open up 364 gas power plants.
And even worse, natural gas leakage across the supply chain means an abundance of emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere. It’s these 20 years that are the key time period during which major action must be taken on the climate crisis to avoid irreversible ecological loses and damages.
Shale Bailout
As coronavirus has forced shutdowns of the NCAA basketball tournament, likely the rest of the NBA and NHL seasons, the start of the baseball season, the public’s ability to attend sessions on Capitol Hill, college campuses across the country and large swaths of the tourism and leisure industries, the fracking industry is possibly getting a bail out a bailout as oil prices continue to plummet globally. That’s according to reporting done by The Washington Post.
The Post reports that independent oil and gas companies, led in the forefront by the company Continental Resources, has lobbied the Trump Administration for an infusion of federal dollars to avoid what they say could be imminent bankruptcies. Yet, a Big Lie is on the loose: this financial crisis long predates the rise of coronavirus as a global pandemic and exemplifies what author and activist Naomi Klein calls the “shock doctrine”—using a crisis to advance public-private partnerships or public subsidies to private industries.
Continental Resources by the way, was founded by CEO Harold Hamm, a major donor to President Donald Trump who served as his energy advisor during the 2016 presidential campaign and was floated as a potential U.S. Secretary of Energy choice. Hamm’s company, headquartered in Oklahoma City, is a major driller in the Bakken Shake in North Dakota and the industry press has referred to Hamm as “King of the Bakken.” Continental Resources oil, I first reported in 2016, flows through the Dakota Access Pipeline.
According to The Post, Hamm said he has not yet had “direct” conversations with Trump about the possibility of a bailout, though he had reached out.
“I don’t want to prescribe what the president would or shouldn’t do. He’s very capable of handling this situation,” said Hamm, who attended Trump’s 2017 Inauguration speech, as well. He added, “this could jeopardize those jobs and the economies in producing states and communities across America, from Pennsylvania to California and Texas to North Dakota.”
Meanwhile, oil major companies represented by the American Petroleum Institute are less bullish on the idea of a bailout because they are better equipped to handle oil price fluctuations. The fracking boom relies on a high global price of oil and back in 2014, many shale drilling companies declared bankruptcies after rampant drilling by Saudi Arabia drove down the global price.
Activists have taken a stand against a prospect for such a bailout, creating the hashtag #NoShaleOut. And Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley also called on Trump not to do the bailout in a March 12 letter first published by Politico
“Many of these oil companies are already deeply in debt and have their lost lines of credit at financial institutions, and it would be both bad business and bad policy for the government to use the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to grant these executives a new windfall,” they wrote.
Senate Energy Bill Pause
And lastly, the bipartisan Senate energy bill mentioned in last week’s newsletter has hit a standstill over the issue of Senate Democrats pushing for a phase out of refrigeration devices that emit hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), greenhouse gases that are 1,370-4,180 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The vote failed to get a three-fifths majority and failed.
The bill includes many provisions lobbied for by the fossil fuel industry, alongside money provisions which would advance renewable energy, and has received support from some of the larger establishment environmental groups. During the amendments process, U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)—who served as an energy aide in 2016 for the Trump campaign—got a new provision inserted into the bill calling for a feasibility study of a potential petrochemical storage hub in the Bakken Shale region.
The legislation also has a similar provision to study the creation of a parallel storage hub in Appalachia, which has been pushed for years by Manchin, who is considered one of the most fossil fuel industry friendly of any Democratic member of Congress.
The oil and gas industry sees the storage, manufacturing, and exportation of petrochemicals as the next frontier in the fracking boom and a way to create new market segments. In recent years, as petrochemical refining facilities have come to life, the industry has even begun exporting ethane, the main petrochemical compound that produces plastics. Climate activists have decried the notion of fracking for plastics, which is quickly becoming a new on the ground reality.
On March 25, the HFCs issue will get a hearing in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for reading and please come back next week for another edition of the Climate Crisis News Roundup
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therealnews--2020-03-16--Democrats Debate: Neoliberal ‘Pragmatists’ Vs. People Pushing for Systemic Change