[Link to the original interview] American Voter: Kathy Byrnes Al Jazeera asks the same key questions about the presidential election to voters across the United States. Kathy Byrnes’s top election issue is climate change [Al Jazeera] 7 Oct 2020 US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are battling for the presidency in a sharply divided United States. Trump has been focusing on “law and order”, Biden has been trying to strike a conciliatory note. The Black Lives Matter movement, and whether Trump
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That's easy: Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Climate activists also have reservations about Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, but hands-down, Klobuchar is the worst. She claims to want to address climate change, but emphatically supports the continued build-out of fossil fuel infrastructure.
Sorry, Senator. You can't be pro-fracking and pro-pipeline and say you're going to address the climate crisis. Since the corporate media have ignored Klobuchar's track record, it's up to us to get the word out.
November 7, Johnston. Kathy Byrnes asks Klobuchar about her stand on DAPL and Line 3. Klobuchar again dodges the DAPL question, making some vague reference to Standing Rock. Regarding Line 3, she speaks about “calling for it to be delayed so that there’s an environmental review,” even as her track record and other public statements have made it clear to Minnesotans that she would never buck Big Oil's interests.
Last week, a Polk County District judge ruled against the Climate Defenders Five, finding us guilty of misdemeanor trespass in our protest against President Trump's abject denial of climate science during the president's visit to West Des Moines in June.
With all due respect, the Court completely failed to understand the growing urgency of the climate emergency, and thus the necessity justification of our defense. My fellow defendants, Channing Dutton (our attorney), and I feel pretty strongly that the Court erred. Will we be filing an appeal? Hell yes! Stay tuned.
“Women's right to vote. Civil rights. Stopping the Vietnam War. Environmental protections. The Women's Movement. LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. These and so many other significant social justice shifts were accomplished because ordinary citizens were willing to take to the streets, and in many cases, willing to commit civil disobedience,” said Kashia. "History tells us that this is what has turned the tide.”
“Given the absolute urgency of the climate crisis and our concern about a million species that will soon be extinct if we don’t act to reverse this crisis immediately, we felt totally justified to be there and to confront Republican donors and the president himself to take action to address climate change, before it’s too late,” said Miriam Kashia of 100 Grannies for a Livable Future, one of the five arrested.
Over 11,000 people and eighteen presidential candidates are expected to attend Saturday's Polk County Steak Fry. We plan to bird-dog every politician there on one or more aspects of the climate crisis, and to make a strong showing for climate action before local, national, and international media, too. If you're coming and would like to help, let us know ASAP.
Dear Friends, Earlier this summer, President Trump visited West Des Moines for a GOP fundraiser. Bold Iowa was there to expose the president’s climate denial to the donors who came to support him. Five of us — Todd Steichen, Kathy Byrnes, Miriam Kashia, Martin Monroe, and I — blocked an entrance to the facility’s parking lot. We then carried our banner toward the building and were arrested by West Des Moines police. We were charged with simple misdemeanor trespass. WE GO TO TRIAL AND NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
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Thirty Bold Iowa supporters called out the president’s climate denial to the donors who came to support him. Protestors blocked one of the entrances to the facility’s parking lot. Later, five carrying a banner approached the building, hoping to enter and bring their urgent message to the attention of president and his supporters. At that point, they were arrested by West Des Moines police for simple misdemeanor trespass.
Des Moines Register Excerpt: “None of us want to go to jail,” said Ed Fallon, the group’s director and a longtime liberal activist who was one of those arrested Tuesday. “But given the severity of what scientists are telling us about the climate crisis, we feel it’s important to try to stop this fundraising event from happening.” “We’re justified for being here because of climate change,” Kathy Byrnes, 57, told the captain. “We’re here for the children — your children … and the children of
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“With the recent science-based prediction of a million species facing extinction by the end of the century - very likely including human - we have a moral duty to do everything we can to halt and reverse the growing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. And we now know we have a very short window of a dozen years in which to do it,” said Miriam Kashia of 100Grannies for a Livable Future.
