#public safety industry

[alwaysbewoke]

AGAIN?!?!?

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

You might have heard that the Big Cat Public Safety Act was passed by Congress last week, and is on its way to be signed into law by the President. While I so not oppose with the main goals of the act (ending private ownership of big cats and public contact with them), I have had serious concerns about the impact of other aspects of it for a long time.

For years, I’ve been pointing out that vague language regarding exemptions in the bill could really negatively impact credible zoos and sanctuaries. The bill authors/sponsors clearly didn’t intend the bill to have that result, but because they weren’t more exact with their wording, the full impacts of the law won’t be clear until it’s fully implemented by the Department of the Interior. Since a different federal department oversees zoo and sanctuary regulation, it doesn’t make sense to assume that the Department of the Interior will automatically interpret the new law in a way that aligns with how the industry currently functions.

In the best case scenario, there’s nothing to worry about. In a worst case scenario, though, credible zoos and sanctuaries might find their operations, exhibit construction, and animal programs detrimentally impacted. If there’s any possibility of the latter occurring, there has to be attention on the process to try to ensure it doesn’t come to pass.

This article is my overview of some of the biggest possible problems that could come from a bad implementation of the Big Cat Public Safety act. It’s short (for me), sweet, and simple. Just because the law has been passed doesn’t mean the work has ended - now it just involves holding the federal government accountable for implementing the bill in a way that doesn’t cause harm to credible facilities and programs.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Federal Health Minister Mark Holland said Wednesday he needs new powers to unilaterally take dangerous products off the shelves if they're hurting people and are not being used as intended.

Holland is defending provisions in the government's budget bill, which will allow the minister to put conditions on the sale, advertising, manufacture and importation of health products if he believes they are being used off-label and could be harmful.

"We need to be able to have the powers to act quickly, so that when (tobacco companies) slink out of some new hole ... we can play whack-a-mole with them as fast as their lawyers create new loopholes," Holland said.

The minister called for the powers in response to the sale of nicotine pouches, which are placed between the user's gums and lip. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[clowndensation]

i think all business owners should have to spend 50% of their work week doing the actual job they're supposedly overseeing. since it's all apparently so easy, and they could do so much better. and also then kill themselves.

[dustinsgreenhouse]

Hemp is built different

Hemp is different than what it used to be in the shops years ago.

It’s really about the care you take. Hemp is often mistaken for a dry, hay-like plant used for industrial purposes or clothing. However, modern hemp cultivation has advanced to the point where it’s difficult to distinguish between a hemp plant and a cannabis plant. It’s commonly believed that hemp lacks intoxicating effects. The quality of hemp produced today is some of the finest people have…

[merelygifted]

Democratic Sen. Sherrod  Brown said there is “no question” that Norfolk Southern is fully responsible for the train derailment in his home state of Ohio that killed three people and left a community in fear for their health and safety. The train was carrying vinyl chloride and other carcinogens, and residents are concerned that the chemicals are leaching into the surrounding water, soil, and air.

Brown blamed Norfolk Southern for laying off vital workers, prioritizing profit over caution, and lobbying for lax safety regulations — all of which he said contributed to the crash. “Everything that’s happened here, all the cleanup, all the drilling, all the testing, all the hotel stays, all of that is on Norfolk Southern. They caused it,” Brown said during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “There’s no question they caused it with this derailment, because they underinvested in their employees.”

Brown went on to say that as he understands it, there were only three full-time Norfolk Southern employees on the derailed 150-car train “because they have laid off so many people.” Unions alleged in 2021 that as a result of workforce layoffs, engineers were being forced into performing duties belonging to conductors and brakemen — a violation of their contract.

“That’s why I’m angry, when I look at these companies lay people off,” Brown said. “They never look out for their workers. They never look out for their communities. They look out for stock buybacks and dividends. Something’s wrong with corporate America, and something’s wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists. That’s got to change.”

The senator went on to explain how corporate lobbyists push for weakened rules when a conservative president is in the White House. “Every time there’s a new administration, particularly a more conservative one that’s more pro-corporate, they put all these regulations on the table about safety, about worker safety, community safety, the environment, consumer protections, and, at the behest of lobbyists, far too often, they weaken those laws,” Brown explained.  ...

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"During the winter of 1918–19, Ottawa was rattled by the extreme rhetoric it was hearing from some of the country’s labour leaders. Police spies were sending in alarmist reports that unions were seething with revolutionary discontent. In response, the government set in motion a campaign of counter-propaganda to discredit the Reds. Chief press censor Ernest Chambers routinely fed information gleaned from police reports to members of the print media. Chambers kept his eyes peeled for anti-Red articles in the daily press so that he could dash off a letter offering the author more inflammatory information about the present danger. He did his best to orchestrate a comprehensive propaganda campaign, involving the press, university professors, service clubs, churches, even movies, all fuelled by information of the right type provided by his department. In January he wrote to the presidents of several major universities asking that they makes speeches or write articles exposing the fallacies of “extreme red Socialism and Bolshevism.” At the same time, he warned against revealing the existence of this anti-Red campaign. “Were the agitators conducting this propaganda able to plead that they are being made the subject of organized attack,” he wrote the president of the University of Toronto, Sir Robert Falconer, “it would aid them tremendously in their campaign with the disaffected.” (Falconer wrote back declining the invitation to take part in Chambers’ campaign: “If prices could be kept down and employment could be assured,” he told the censor, “I think many of our immediate troubles could be quickly surmounted.”)

The kind of information Chambers wanted to disseminate could be found in the Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, published by J. Castell Hopkins, a prolific author of popular biographies and encyclopedias. Hopkins’ portrait of the Soviet Union under Bolshevik rule exemplified the mixture of misinformation, fear, and smug middle-class superiority which fuelled anti-Red hysteria in Canada. “In Russia,” he told his readers, “disorganization, starvation, individual license, robbery, brutal crime, the over-throw of social laws and religious influence and ordered government, wholesale immorality, were natural products of the rule of men who were ignorant of all but wild theories nursed in malignant or disordered minds.” For Hopkins, Bolshevism simply meant “wholesale pillage and the murder of the classes owning money or property.” Things were better under the tsars, he said; at least the Romanovs were honest and meant well. The Bolsheviks were terrorists who roused the basest instincts in the Russian masses and rode them to power. Life in Russia, he told his readers, had become a living hell. There was no free speech, no democracy, no private property, only terror, mass executions, and torture,

including mutilations of all kinds, slow starvation, burning alive, piercing with bayonets [...], deliberate breaking of arms and legs, stamping on wounded living bodies with hob-nailed boots, nailing officers’ shoulder straps to their bodies, thrusting of gramophone needles through finger nails, blinding in most brutal forms.

Hopkins’ list of bizarre atrocities was reminiscent of the most extreme anti-German propaganda during the war, now turned against a new enemy, the Bolshevik.

Implicit in Hopkins’ overheated prose was a warning to his Canadian readers: This could happen here. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and other socialists preached a form of class warfare every bit as frightening as their Russian counterparts, he said. Working under the cover of the One Big Union and organizations such as the Social Democratic Party, they intended to destabilize the economic situation with general strikes and exploit the chaos to seize power from the government. According to Hopkins, this was no theoretical danger. “At the end of 1918 there were 21 Soviets established in the country awaiting for action,” he announced, without any evidence whatsoever.

One powerful institution that shared the concern about the insidious threat of Bolshevism was the Canadian Pacific Railway. In the fall of 1918, John Murray Gibbon, CPR publicist, broached the subject with filmmaker George Brownridge. Gibbon was one of the country’s leading intellectuals. A graduate of Oxford University and an experienced journalist, he had joined the CPR’s London operations in 1907 and had moved to the company’s Montreal head office just before the war. He was not only an ambassador for the railway but, as author and festival impresario, he was an energetic promoter of Canadian culture as well. The CPR had a problem with Bolsheviks stirring up its workers, Gibbon told Brownridge, and he thought that the film industry could do something about it. During the war Brownridge had established a studio, Canadian National Features, in Trenton, Ontario, where he managed to make two feature films before going broke. Neither of those films was ever released, but the indefatigable Brownridge was back in business at Trenton two years later as the Adanac Producing Company (the name is Canada spelled backwards) and eager to attract corporate support from the likes of the CPR.

After talking to Gibbon, Brownridge, armed with a suitable script about a Red plot to take over a trade union, came back to the railway for financial help. Eventually the CPR and several other large employers did put up the money. CPR president Edward Beatty made his position clear in a letter that he wrote to journalist and president of the Canadian Reconstruction Association, John Willison.

Of course there can be no doubt that from one end of the country to the other an effort must be made to stamp out this extreme socialism which practically amounts to disloyalty…

Brownridge began work on his film, called The Great Shadow and starring Tyrone Power Sr. The film was directed by Harley Knoles, who had just completed another anti-Red feature in the United States called Bolshevism on Trial co-starring his Canadian-born wife Pinna Nesbitt. The final script of the new film included most of the elements of Red Scare melodrama: vicious Bolsheviks determined to destroy society by setting one class against another; a handsome secret service agent to provide love interest; a fairminded employer who only wants what is best for his workers; and a “responsible” labour leader who must wage a life-and-death struggle to keep his union free of extremism. The Great Shadow was one of several Red Scare features to appear at this time in Canada and the US. The newest forms of popular entertainment were not ignored when it came to combatting the threat of Bolshevism. The film was finished too late to influence opinion during the crucial spring of 1919, but when it did reach the screen in the late fall it met with widespread critical praise. Unfortunately, no copy has survived.

Another busy scaremonger was Charles Cahan. In January Cahan, whose extreme views had managed to alienate most of his support in the federal Cabinet, resigned from his job as director of public safety. He had failed to convince the government to create a secret service modelled on the American Bureau of Investigation, and with his departure the entire Public Safety Branch was abolished after just three months in operation. In a letter to Prime Minister Borden, Cahan explained that,

I tried in vain, after your departure [for Europe], to obtain a hearing from your colleagues; but they treated my representations with such contemptuous indifference, that there was for me no alternative but to retire quietly and await events.

In Cahan’s view, the ultimate aim of the “Reds” was to “kick the Government off Parliament Hill.”

Cahan had no intention of retiring quietly; far from it. He continued to speak out at every opportunity about the Bolshevik threat, and one of his speeches, “Socialistic Propaganda in Canada,” was printed as a pamphlet and had wide distribution. In it, he summarized the four main doctrines of “International Socialism” as he understood them. First of all, class warfare between workers and capitalists caused “envy and hatred of all who have acquired property of any kind whatsoever.” Second, the state acquired ownership of all means of production and responsibility for all social relationships. Third, only the interests of workers had any importance. And last, the capitalist class was stripped of all possessions. Propaganda in favour of these views was flooding the western world, said Cahan. In Canada it was mainly the IWW that was fomenting class warfare, especially among the large “alien” population. If this was allowed to continue, he warned, there would be “tumults and disorders” that would require the intervention of the army. He suggested denying the right to strike, keeping a watchful eye on labour organizations and the foreign-language press, restricting immigration, and the speedy acculturation of immigrant children in the schools. Cahan’s basic message was that anyone who accepted the concept of class differences was contributing to a civil war in Canada that threatened democratic institutions and individual liberties.

Cahan carried his campaign to the pages of Maclean’s magazine. Under the ownership of Colonel John Bayne Maclean and the editorship of Thomas Costain, this magazine had become a major organ of the Red Scare. Cahan sounded his familiar warning about the IWW and other “Red” elements who were spreading “pacifist, socialistic, revolutionary and seditious literature” and organizing “societies for the insidious propagation of doctrines destructive of our existing political, social and industrial institutions.” He revealed that these activities were funded by thousands of dollars provided by agents of the Russian government, and he even hinted that the conspiracy to overthrow the government reached into the corridors of power in Ottawa. In the absence of Borden (in Europe), he wrote, the cabinet had been “utterly lacking in unity of purpose and in courageous action.” In case after case, Cahan claimed, federal authorities had intervened to secure the release of agitators who had been arrested for their activities. And, of course, had he not been removed from any position of influence under suspicious circumstances?

Colonel Maclean was an enthusiastic proponent of conspiracy theories. A long-time member of the militia, he had encouraged the government to take a hard-line, anti-Hun, anti-pacifist approach during the war. At the end of 1918, he wrote in his magazine that the Germans, had they won the war, had plans to dismember Canada and distribute parts of it to their leading bankers, nobles, and businessmen. Quite literally, therefore, the Canadian army had saved the country from extinction; it only made sense, wrote Maclean, to put the army in charge of society now that the war was over. He recommended, for instance, that military men take control of the school system. “It makes one dizzy to think of the great things that could be accomplished,” he wrote.

The January 1919 edition of Maclean’s carried an article titled “Is Bolshevism Brewing in Canada?” to which the author, Thomas Fraser, answered with an emphatic “Yes.” The magazine had commissioned Fraser to discover if Bolshevism was present in Canada. His conclusion: “There is a bold, systematic and dangerous effort being made to lay the fuse of Bolshevism from one end of the Dominion to the other.” The IWW was behind it, he explained. “Their idea is to seize control of all industries and abolish the wage system.” Their aims were completely hostile to democracy, Fraser warned, and to the middle class. The “root of the whole matter” was that “much of the good old Anglo-Saxon stock” was gone, slaughtered in the recent war, and Canada was filled up with “workmen of foreign extraction” sympathetic to Bolshevik propaganda.

One appreciative reader of Fraser’s article was press censor Ernest Chambers. He wrote Colonel Maclean a congratulatory note in which he warned that “the situation is very much more dangerous, in my opinion, than the public has the least conception of.” Encouraging Maclean to continue to raise the alarm, he concluded:

I am firmly convinced that, without the real solid, sensible people of the country taking into their own hand the active combatting of this Bolshevist propaganda, we run the risk of reaching, within measureable time, the conditions which at present prevail in Russia.

Among the more extreme anti-Red fanatics, a rationale seemed to be emerging that justified taking the law into their own hands to preserve the nation from revolution.

In the June 1919 issue of his magazine, Maclean himself took Chambers’ advice. In a provocative article titled “Why Did We Let Trotzky Go?” he blamed unnamed “politicians or officials” in Ottawa for allowing Trotsky to leave his Amherst internment camp and return to Russia to lead the revolution there. Trotsky, claimed Maclean, was a German agent paid to take Russia out of the war. If Canada had held onto him, the war would have been shortened by a year. This was a familiar belief at the time, but Maclean went further. He claimed that Trotsky had organized groups of revolutionaries in Toronto and Ottawa who were poised to take over the country. Charles Cahan had revealed some of this threat, wrote Maclean, but then “the Trotzky influences got busy and Mr. Cahan was ordered to cease his inquiries and send in his resignation.” (Despite the allegations of Cahan and Maclean, no evidence was ever produced that Leon Trotsky had supporters within the Canadian government who were twisting its policies in his favour.)

By the August issue, Maclean was getting even more alarmist. By then, of course, the Winnipeg General Strike had taken place. Not surprisingly, Maclean’s saw it as a prelude to revolution. The Bolsheviks were pouring money into the country to cause strikes and encourage social unrest, the Colonel wrote. It was all a conspiracy organized by the Germans and their Russian Bolshevik agents to disrupt western countries so that Germany could rebuild its economy and regain its markets. For Maclean, and for many others, the Hun and the Bolshevik were indistinguishable. In their view, the war was still going on and it was being fought in the streets of Winnipeg and other Canadian cities."

- Daniel Francis, Seeing Reds: the Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada’s First War on Terror. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011. p. 58-62.

[creativitytoexplore]

Putin to chair Russia Security Council meeting after humiliating explosion on strategic Crimea bridge | CNN

Putin to chair Russia Security Council meeting after humiliating explosion on strategic Crimea bridge | CNN

CNN  —  Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold an operational meeting of his Security Council on Monday, just two days after a massive explosion on a key strategic bridge linking Crimea and Russia. The meeting itself isn’t out of the ordinary – Putin regularly holds operational meetings with the Security Council, usually on a weekly basis, according to TASS. However, it comes just days…

[letsvishu]

Public Safety and Security Market: Growth Drivers & Opportunities

The global Public Safety and Security Market is projected to grow from USD 520.8 billion in 2024 to USD 878.2 billion by 2029 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.0%. Public safety and security markets are effective in protecting people, societies, and the infrastructure that is established within a country from various threats, including crime, terrorism, natural disasters, and pandemics.

[tornadoquest]

Tornado Quest Top Science Links For June 22 - 29, 2024 #science #weather #climate #tornado #hurricane #drought #heatsafety

Greetings everybody! Thanks so much for stopping by. The severe weather pattern has continued to show typical patterns this month with the majority of activity in the central and northern plains states and southern Canada. Of course, the Atlantic hurricane season is here as well. We’ll continue our overview of severe weather and tornado safety, hurricane preparedness, and summer heat safety. I’ve…

[plethoraworldatlas]

Nestle, Kellogg’s, and other big food conglomerates have been funding a massive misinformation campaign to make you think their foods are healthy. Their goal is to get you addicted, and make billions in profits. It’s straight from Big Tobacco's playbook — literally

[seventh-district]

.

[independentjournalism]

Driving Towards Unemployment: How Increased License Suspensions Could Stall the Economy

Good evening, everyone. This is Jordan The Producer with Independent Journalism and Media (iJam) bringing you the latest news. Today, we are discussing a concerning trend that could have widespread effects on employment and the economy. Construction zone: Credit iJam Media Group, LLC Recent data has shown a significant increase in license suspensions across the country. Whether it be due to…

[mariacallous]

The Ocean Sciences Building at the University of Washington in Seattle is a brightly modern, four-story structure, with large glass windows reflecting the bay across the street.

On the afternoon of July 7, 2016, it was being slowly locked down.

Red lights began flashing at the entrances as students and faculty filed out under overcast skies. Eventually, just a handful of people remained inside, preparing to unleash one of the most destructive forces in the natural world: the crushing weight of about 2½ miles of ocean water.

In the building’s high-pressure testing facility, a black, pill-shaped capsule hung from a hoist on the ceiling. About 3 feet long, it was a scale model of a submersible called Cyclops 2, developed by a local startup called OceanGate. The company’s CEO, Stockton Rush, had cofounded the company in 2009 as a sort of submarine charter service, anticipating a growing need for commercial and research trips to the ocean floor. At first, Rush acquired older, steel-hulled subs for expeditions, but in 2013 OceanGate had begun designing what the company called “a revolutionary new manned submersible.” Among the sub’s innovations were its lightweight hull, which was built from carbon fiber and could accommodate more passengers than the spherical cabins traditionally used in deep-sea diving. By 2016, Rush’s dream was to take paying customers down to the most famous shipwreck of them all: the Titanic, 3,800 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Engineers carefully lowered the Cyclops 2 model into the testing tank nose-first, like a bomb being loaded into a silo, and then screwed on the tank’s 3,600-pound lid. Then they began pumping in water, increasing the pressure to mimic a submersible’s dive. If you’re hanging out at sea level, the weight of the atmosphere above you exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi). The deeper you go, the stronger that pressure; at the Titanic’s depth, the pressure is about 6,500 psi. Soon, the pressure gauge on UW’s test tank read 1,000 psi, and it kept ticking up—2,000 psi, 5,000 psi. At about the 73-minute mark, as the pressure in the tank reached 6,500 psi, there was a sudden roar and the tank shuddered violently.

“I felt it in my body,” an OceanGate employee wrote in an email later that night. “The building rocked, and my ears rang for a long time.”

“Scared the shit out of everyone,” he added.

The model had imploded thousands of meters short of the safety margin OceanGate had designed for.

In the high-stakes, high-cost world of crewed submersibles, most engineering teams would have gone back to the drawing board, or at least ordered more models to test. Rush’s company didn’t do either of those things. Instead, within months, OceanGate began building a full-scale Cyclops 2 based on the imploded model. This submersible design, later renamed Titan, eventually made it down to the Titanic in 2021. It even returned to the site for expeditions the next two years. But nearly one year ago, on June 18, 2023, Titan dove to the infamous wreck and imploded, instantly killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself.

The disaster captivated and horrified the world. Deep-sea experts criticized OceanGate’s choices, from Titan’s carbon-fiber construction to Rush’s public disdain for industry regulations, which he believed stifled innovation. Organizations that had worked with OceanGate, including the University of Washington as well as the Boeing Company, released statements denying that they contributed to Titan.

A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show that Boeing and the University of Washington were both involved in the early stages of OceanGate’s carbon-fiber sub project, although their work did not make it into the final Titan design. The trove also reveals a company culture in which employees who questioned their bosses’ high-speed approach and decisions were dismissed as overly cautious or even fired. (The former employees who spoke to WIRED have asked not to be named for fear of being sued by the families of those who died aboard the vessel.) Most of all, the documents show how Rush, blinkered by his own ambition to be the Elon Musk of the deep seas, repeatedly overstated OceanGate’s progress and, on at least one occasion, outright lied about significant problems with Titan’s hull, which has not been previously reported.

A representative for OceanGate, which ceased all operations last summer, declined to comment on WIRED’s findings.

[odinsblog]

🗣️THIS IS WHAT INCLUSIVE, COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here can't be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)

Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get drivers' licenses. (link)

They made public college free for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)

Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)

Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the state's perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)

Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)

Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)

Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This one's interesting because it's the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)

Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the state's medical system. (link)

Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)

Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)

They passed strict new regulations on PFAS ("forever chemicals"). (link)

Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)

They're going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)

I can't even find a news story about it but there's tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)

A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)

They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the state's education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesn't decline over time. (link)

Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when they're not working or getting paid. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)

Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)

Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned conversion therapy. (link)

They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)

Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)

And because the small stuff didn't get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)

Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned "captive audience meetings," where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)

No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.

Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)

They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)

Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)

Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)

I’m happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, I’m also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOP’s “culture wars” and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who aren’t cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it! And the Minnesota Dems did it with a one seat majority, so no excuses. Forget about the next election and focus on doing as much good as you can, while you still can. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1660846689450688514.html

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #24

June 21-28 2024

The US Surgeon General declared for the first time ever, firearm violence a public health crisis. The nation's top doctor recommended the banning of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, the introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons. President Trump dismissed Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in 2017 in part for his criticism of guns before his time in government, he was renominated for his post by President Biden in 2021. While the Surgeon General's reconstructions aren't binding a similar report on the risks of smoking in 1964 was the start of a national shift toward regulation of tobacco.

Vice-President Harris announced the first grants to be awarded through a ground breaking program to remove barriers to building more housing. Under President Biden more housing units are under construction than at any time in the last 50 years. Vice President Harris was announcing 85 million dollars in grants giving to communities in 21 states through the  Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO) program. The administration plans another 100 million in PRO grants at the end of the summer and has requested 100 million more for next year. The Treasury also announced it'll moved 100 million of left over Covid funds toward housing. All of this is part of plans to build 2 million affordable housing units and invest $258 billion in housing overall.

President Biden pardoned all former US service members convicted under the US Military's ban on gay sex. The pardon is believed to cover 2,000 veterans convicted of "consensual sodomy". Consensual sodomy was banned and a felony offense under the Uniform Code of Justice from 1951 till 2013. The Pardon will wipe clean those felony records and allow veterans to apply to change their discharge status.

The Department of Transportation announced $1.8 Billion in new infrastructure building across all 50 states, 4 territories and Washington DC. The program focuses on smaller, often community-oriented projects that span jurisdictions. This award saw a number of projects focused on climate and energy, like $25 million to help repair damage caused by permafrost melting amid higher temperatures in Alaska, or $23 million to help electrify the Downeast bus fleet in Maine.

The Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion to support domestic sources of nuclear fuel. The Biden administration hopes to build up America's domestic nuclear fuel to allow for greater stability and lower costs. Currently Russia is the world's top exporter of enriched uranium, supplying 24% of US nuclear fuel.

The Department of Interior awarded $127 million to 6 states to help clean up legacy pollution from orphaned oil and gas wells. The funding will help cap 600 wells in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, New York and Ohio. So far thanks to administration efforts over 7,000 orphaned wells across the country have been capped, reduced approximately 11,530 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions

HUD announced $469 million to help remove dangerous lead from older homes. This program will focus on helping homeowners particularly low income ones remove lead paint and replace lead pipes in homes built before 1978. This represents one of the largest investments by the federal government to help private homeowners deal with a health and safety hazard.

Bonus: President Biden's efforts to forgive more student debt through his administration's SAVE plan hit a snag this week when federal courts in Kansas and Missouri blocked elements the Administration also suffered a set back at the Supreme Court as its efforts to regular smog causing pollution was rejected by the conservative majority in a 5-4 ruling that saw Amy Coney Barrett join the 3 liberals against the conservatives. This week's legal setbacks underline the importance of courts and the ability to nominate judges and Justices over the next 4 years.