The US Senate has just passed a 2-year budget plan that the House passed last week and that President Donald Trump is expected to sign. The bill includes a lifting of the debt ceiling for 2 years, a move that could hamper the agenda of a future Democratic President. Trump tweeted triumphantly about the deal that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to without a fight, saying, “Two year deal gets us past the Election. Go for it Republicans, there is always plenty of time to CUT!” House Democrats voted for the bill that Trump is hailing, without a majority of Republicans backing it. In the Senate both parties passed the bill with majorities.  

Ten contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination debated one another on Wednesday evening at an event hosted by CNN – the second day of debates. Among the frontrunners were Senator Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden who had clashed in the previous debate. This time around Biden and Harris had somewhat of a rematch but Harris faced strong pushback from Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard on her criminal justice record while Attorney General of California.

Joe Biden also faced pushback from other candidates and protesters in the audience. While Biden responded to Julián Castro, a member of the audience chanted “3 million deportations,” referring to the number of undocumented immigrants that the Obama administration deported. Senator Corey Booker also challenged Biden calling him out for disavowing Obama’s legacy. Senator Kristin Gillibrand also challenged Biden on words he had written, about the role of women in society in 1981 but Biden failed to respond. During his closing statements Biden offered an advertisement for his campaign that perplexed many. According to Newsweek, “As Americans began Googling “Joe 30330” or “Joe 3030” following Biden’s remarks, Newsweek found that both Joe30330.com and Joe3030.com redirected to websites plugging the presidential campaign of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.” 

New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio was among the ten candidates that debated on Wednesday night and his presence prompted well-known activists Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour who were in the audience to chant “Fire Pantaleo.” Daniel Pantaleo was just exonerated for his role in the killing of Eric Garner and remains on the NYPD force. The chants were made twice during the debate and DeBlasio was later asked about why Pantaleo remained on the force and claimed that he could not do so while the Justice Department was investigating. AP pointed out that this was a lie saying, “The police commissioner, who reports to de Blasio,

FEATURING JAMES HOGGAN – The 2020 Presidential candidate debate pitted Democrat against Democrat and showcased the widening rift between so-called moderates and progressives within the party. But there was a third force present during the debate – the CNN moderators, who echoed Republican talking points, and even used the favored words of the extreme right wing to challenge candidates. The level of public discourse has become so toxic under President Donald Trump that one wonders if it is infecting us all?

James Hoggan, founder of the influential and award winning website DeSmogBlog. His earlier books include Do the Right Thing: PR Tips for a Skeptical Public, and Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. The 2nd Edition of his book I’m Right and You’re an Idiot is just out.

FEATURING JANNA JIHAD – At the age of 13, Janna Jihad has had more experience as a journalist and a war correspondent than most young journalism graduates. The Palestinian teenager has been reporting from the occupied West Bank since the age of 7, documenting the abuses of Israeli soldiers and settlers at great personal risk. The first cousin of teen activist Ahed Tamimi, Janna has been touring the United States for several weeks now, speaking with Congressional representatives and addressing packed audiences around the US. 

Follow Janna’s work at facebook.com/Janna.Jihad and on Twitter at @JannaJihad1. She’ll be speaking at:

4061 Fairmount Ave, San Diego, CA 92105-1607, on Saturday, August 3 – 2:00 pm

Arab American Community Center, 907 S Beach Blvd, Anaheim, CA, on Sunday, August 4 – 3:00 pm

First Unitarian Church, 2936 W. 8th St. Los Angeles CA 90005, on Tuesday, August 6 – 7:00 pm

Janna Jihad, a 13-year old Palestinian activist, journalist and speaker currently on tour in the US.

The first night of a 2-part Democratic Presidential candidate debate took place Tuesday night with 10 out of 20 hopefuls vying to make their case to the public. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were both part of the first night, and two of the top four frontrunners as per polls. Defying the predictions of media pundits, Sanders and Warren refrained from attacking one another and emerged as powerful advocates of bread-and-butter issues for voters, especially on healthcare. Both progressive stalwarts formed a bulwark of visionary ideas relative to the rest of the more moderate candidates who urged reformist approaches. Arguing against Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan over the Medicare-for-All bill, Sanders fought back against the naysayers. Sanders also hit back at former Maryland Congressman John Delaney accusing him of wanting to make money off of healthcare.

 Senator Elizabeth Warren also clashed with Delaney issuing a retort that emerged as the winning line of the night and highlighting the differences between the progressives and the reformists. Warren and Sanders also both accused CNN, which was hosting the debate, and other candidates, of echoing Republican talking points.  

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg also made a critical point on how Democrats taking bold positions. Author and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson distinguished herself from other candidates on the issue of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Americans.

The Trump administration has announced that it will create a plan to allow Americans to import lower cost prescription drugs from Canada – just days after Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took a caravan of diabetes patients across the border to buy insulin. There is already a law allowing the importation of drugs but government agencies have not approved it claiming drug safety issues. And the White House announced that Trump will visit Central Florida next week for a discussion on the Medicare program and how his administration plans to strengthen it.

In other news the ACLU informed a federal judge that President Donald Trump’s administration has separated nearly 1,000 immigrant children from their parents at the US border after the government was ordered to stop family separations. The Washington Post reported that among the justifications that authorities made for the separations were these two stories: “one migrant lost his daughter because a U.S. Border Patrol agent claimed that he had failed to change the girl’s diaper. Another migrant lost his child because of a conviction on a charge of malicious destruction of property with alleged damage of $5.” Kevin McAleenan, acting Homeland Security Secretary had only recently testified to Congress that family separations after last year’s court order remained “exceedingly rare.” One fifth of the 911 children separated from their parents a...

FEATURING MELEIZA FIGUEROA – The perpetrator in Sunday’s shooting in Gilroy, California at the annual Garlic Festival, has been identified as 19-year old Santino William Legan. The shooting spree that killed 2 children and one adult was conducted with an assault-style rifle. Police shot and killed the shooter.

News media reported that shortly before the shooting Legan posted a caption on Instagram saying, “Read Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard.” According to CNN, “‘Right is Might,’ first published in the late 1800s, has been described as a white supremacist text that promotes anarchy while vilifying Christianity.”

Meanwhile President Trump has decided that rather than study why young white men with white supremacist views are a danger to society, he wants to focus on Antifa – the banner under which anti-fascist activists organize. 

Meleiza Figueroa is a correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali. She’s also a PhD Candidate in Geography at UC Berkeley and Faculty owner at the Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice. She has been a longtime political educator and organizer, involved in a wide range of movements for social and environmental justice in California.

FEATURING BENJAMIN GILMOUR – The United Nations just released a report detailing the devastating toll of the Afghanistan war and found that in the first half of this year alone nearly 4,000 Afghan civilians were killed or injured. The UN has also found that US-backed Afghan forces and the occupying NATO coalition have killed more civilians than members of the Taliban – a new trend in the longest official war that the US has ever waged. 

Although successive presidents have promised to end the Afghan war, it drags along year after year. Now, an independent filmmaker hopes to shed light on the war through a film that was made under extremely dangerous circumstances in Afghanistan. 

For showtimes visit https://www.jirgafilm.com/screenings.

Benjamin Gilmour, writer and director of Jirga. His earlier films include Paramedico and Son of a Lion. His new movie, filmed and set in Afghanistan is called Jirga.

Two people were killed and two more wounded at a Walmart store near Memphis, Tennessee.  So far there is no known motive for the shooter, who is undergoing medical treatment. The shooting comes just two days after two children and a young man were fatally shot in Gilroy, California. California Governor Gavin Newsom didn’t mince his words in blasting Congress’ failure to curb guns posting this video to his Twitter feed. Meanwhile Newsom just approved a bill that would force President Trump to release his tax returns if he wants to be on the 2020 Presidential ballot in California. 

In other news, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, GOP Congressman John Ratcliffe, is facing stiff opposition from Democrats and a lack of enthusiasm from Republicans. Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor slammed Ratcliffe as a partisan figure who lacks experience, announcing his stiff opposition to Ratcliffe as National Intelligence Director after Dan Coats resigned from the position. 

Meanwhile, a former senior analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Trump Administration’s State Department wrote an op-ed in the New York Times explaining why he resigned. Rod Schoonover’s piece was entitled, “The White House Blocked My Report on Climate Change and National Security.” In it, he explained that higher-ups blocked his report issued last month because, “the scientific foundation of the analysis did not comport with the administration’s position on climate change.” He added, “When a White House can shape or suppress intelligence analysis that it deems out of line with its political messaging, then the intelligence community has no true analytic independence. I believe such acts weaken our nation.”

A Virginia state legislator interrupted President Trump during his speech in Jamestown, Virginia marking 400 years of American democracy with signs that said, “Deport hate,” and “reunite my family,” among other things by Ibraheem S. Samirah. The event commemorating 400 years of American democracy had been planned for years but Trump’s participation was announced at the last minute, angering African American leaders who pledged to boycott the event in response. The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus released a statement saying, “The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the President, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric.

FEATURING DR. PHILIP VERHOEF – California Senator Kamala Harris has just released her healthcare plan as part of her Presidential campaign for the Democratic nomination. Harris, who has been polling among the top four candidates, wrote in a post on Medium, “In America, health care should be a right, not a privilege only for those who can afford it. It’s why we need Medicare for All.” But, unlike Senator Bernie Sanders’ plan to immediately expand the existing Medicare plan to every one, Harris wants to transition to an expansion over 10 years. 

Meanwhile Sanders, who is also a front runner candidate for President, traveled to Canada over the weekend with about a dozen Americans who have Type 1 Diabetes. Their mission was to obtain insulin at a lower cost than the exorbitant prices set by the pharmaceutical industry in the US. 

The second Democratic debate is set to take place over two days this week although Sanders and Harris will debate on separate days.

Dr. Philip A. Verhoef, board member of Physicians for a National Health Program. 

FEATURING NOELLE STOUT – The 2008 home mortgage crisis began more than 10 years ago but its impact on millions of Americans is still being fully understood. A shocking 14 million Americans were forced into filing for foreclosure but ultimately the government programs we were told would help these homeowners were largely a failure. 

Telling the story of how predatory corporate practices ripped off Americans who were already vulnerable, is author Noelle Stout. Her book Dispossessed: How Predatory Bureaucracy Foreclosed on the American Middle Class centers on the stories of those who lost their homes, and those bank employees who were told to deny them help. 

Noelle Stout, Associate Professor of Anthropology at New York University, author of the new book Dispossessed: How Predatory Bureaucracy Foreclosed on the American Middle Class.

A festival in northern California became the site of death and destruction after a 19-year old white man went on a shooting rampage on Sunday with an assault-style rifle killing 3 people and injuring 12. Among those killed at the Gilroy Garlic Festival was a 6-year old child named Stephen Romero. The other two victims were a 13-year old girl and a man in his 20s. Police shot and killed the shooter, identified as Santino William Legan but a manhunt is on for a possible second shooter. Police say he cut a hole through a fence to enter the area and bypass security. CNN is reporting that Legan posted a caption on Instagram saying, “Read Might is Right by Ragnar Redbeard.” According to the media outlet, “‘Right is Might,’ first published in the late 1800s, has been described as a white supremacist text that promotes anarchy while vilifying Christianity. The book calls Jesus the ‘true Prince of Evil’ and says that the natural order is a world at war in which the strong must vanquish the weak and white men must rule over those of color.”

President Donald Trump’s National Intelligence Director Dan Coats has resigned after 2 years on the job. Trump announced his departure on Twitter on Sunday, adding that he would be nominating Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe to replace Coats. According to Associated Press, “Coats often appeared out of step with Trump and disclosed to prosecutors how he was urged by the Republican president to publicly deny any link between Russia and the Trump campaign…Coats had been among the last of the seasoned foreign policy hands to surround the president after his 2016 victory.” Democrats denounced Trump’s pick to replace Coats saying that Ratcliffe as unqualified. Senator Chris Murphy said, “I think he’s a television character that the president has watched on TV, and he wants to put somebody in this position who’s going to agree with his political take on intelligence.”

Leaders in Baltimore, Maryland are countering the President’s insults hurled at their city. On Saturday the Baltimore Sun published an op-ed entitled, “Better to have a few rats than to be one,” in direct response to Trump’s attacks on Congressman Elijah Cummings who represents Baltimore. Trump, angry about Cummings’ critique of the President’s cruel anti-immigrant policies, accused the veteran lawmaker of being, “a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol.” He called Baltimore, “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” and a “very dangerous & filthy place.” The Baltimore Sun opined that, “Mr. Trump sees attacking African American members of Congress as good politics, as it both warms the cockles of the white supremacists who love him and causes so many of the thoughtful people who don’t to scream.” In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox,