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Van Jones Wants You to Defeat Prop 23 and Maintain California's Clean Energy Policy

The Proposition would overturn California's progressive clean energy and air policy. Here's how to make sure that doesn't happen.

 Ben Jervey
10.08.10

Koch Industries, which Andrew wrote about here, has essentially hijacked California's crucial Prop 23 vote. At stake in the Prop 23 vote are California's extremely progressive clean energy and air pollution standards that were introduced with the passage of the AB32 clean air law four years back. While Texas-based oil companies are funding a massive campaign to pass Prop 23, everyone from venture capitalists to energy researchers to environmental justice activists to clean energy business leaders to Governor Schwarzenegger himself are speaking out against the Proposition.

Here's a great article from The New York Times about the interesting alliances forming to defeat Prop 23.

As I often do when the subjects of environmental justice, clean energy, politics, and jobs collide, I found myself wondering, why would Van Jones have to say about this. Well, here's what:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qjoggMWQ0E

If you're trying to make heads and tails of this Prop 23 debate, Jones has a longer piece on Climate Progress that's also well worth your while.

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Articles

Senior counterterrorism official: U.S. is seen as 'exporter of white supremacist ideology'

Robert Thivierge/Flickr

In the category of "claims to fame nobody wants," the United States can now add "exporter of white supremacist ideology" to its repertoire. Super.

Russell Travers, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, made this claim in a briefing at The Washington Institute in Washington, D.C. "For almost two decades, the United States has pointed abroad at countries who are exporters of extreme Islamist ideology," Travers said. "We are now being seen as the exporter of white supremacist ideology. That's a reality with which we are going to have to deal."

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All the whales have finally been released from the 'whale jail' in Russia

Since the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, whale populations have been steadily recovering. However, whales in the wild still face other dangers. In the summer of 2018, four Russian companies that supply aquariums with marine animals captured almost 100 beluga whales and killer whales (aka orcas). After a public outcry, those whales are swimming free as the last of the captive whales have been released, the first time this many captured whales have been released back into the wild.

In late 2018 and early 2019, a drone captured footage of 11 orcas and 87 beluga whales crammed into holding pens in the Srednyaya Bay. The so-called "whale jail" made headlines, and authorities began to investigate their potentially illegal capture.

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The Planet

Anonymous official claims Trump imitated Hispanics in a thick accent, calling them 'useless'

An anonymous White House official claims President Trump cruelly limited Hispanic immigrants in their new book, "A Warning."

The book, to be released on November 19, gives an alleged insider account of the Trump White House and paints a picture of the president as a chaotic man who lacks the mental and moral acumen required for the job.

The anonymous staffer says that Trump once feigned a Hispanic accent and made fun of women attempting to immigrate to the U.S.

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Politics

Fox News political editor says Biden will beat Trump and it won't even be close

via Gage Skidmore / Flickr

The 2020 election is a year away, but Donald Trump has some serious ground to cover if he doesn't want it to be a historical blowout.

A Washington Post- ABC News poll released Tuesday shows that Trump loses by double digits to the top Democratic contenders.

Vice President Joe Biden (56%-39%); Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (54%-39%); Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont (56%-39%); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (52%-41%); and Sen. Kamala Harris of California (52%-41%) all have big leads over the president.

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Politics

A 92-year-old woman was reunited with the Jewish family she helped hide during the Holocaust

Yad Vashem

Since 1992, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous has been holding reunion ceremonies between Holocaust survivors and rescuers once a year. But the tradition is coming to an end, as many have died or are too frail to travel. What might be the last reunion of its kind took place when a 92-year-old woman met up with the two surviving family members that she helped hide during the Holocaust, and their descendants.

Sarah Yanai and Yossi Mor introduced Melpomeni Dina (nee Gianopoulou) to their almost 40 family members, all decedents of the Mordechai family, the family of seven that Dina and her two sisters hid during WWII. "There are no words to describe this feeling," Dina told the Jeruselum Post. "It is very emotional for us to be together again."

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Culture