Month: October 2019

We hope that all of our California readers–and your households and animals–are safe from fire and smoke. For context on the fires, see the story on PG&E below.

Since you won’t have missed the news about Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, we simply want to recommend that you read Heather Cox Richardson’s post on the subject. She collects the troubling moments about the announcement–that the scene in the situation room was apparently staged, that Trump did not notify Congress as required by law. Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria jeopardized the whole operation, says the New York Times. Three of al-Baghdadi’s children were killed in the raid; 11 were saved.

Tune in to election issues at the federal and state level by reading our colleague Chrysostom’s posts. Other sources of information and opportunities for action are under the Resources tab and below.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Documented: Children abused in ICE custody

Children have described being beaten while handcuffed, being run over by ATVs, being bitten by dogs, being forced to strip, and being left in “icebox” rooms nearly naked for hours at a time, according to 35,000 heavily redacted pages documenting claims of Border Patrol abuse of underage asylum seekers between 2009 and 2014 obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) received after a lengthy legal battle. Public radio station KPBS reports that many of these cases have already been “resolved”—at least as far as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are concerned—though civil cases may still be pursued for some. The range of alleged abuses is deeply disturbing and presents a culture of abuse that significantly predates the current administration.

ABC News also reports that, according to the ACLU, another 1,500 children were separated from their families before the June, 2018, ruling barring the practice. When a judge ordered that all separated children be reunited with their families, the administration said that it had identified 2,814 such children. The judge also gave the administration until October 25 to release the names of any additional separated children. The new list of 1,500 children was released by the government on October 24, one day before the legal deadline. That number includes 207 children under the age of 5. CBS News also reported that the administration separated an additional 1,090 children from families since the court ordered an end to the practice, except in limited circumstances. The current number of separated children is now more than 5,400. S-HP

If you want to challenge the detention of young asylum-seekers and speak up about the conditions in which they are held, here is whom you might write.

2. Evidence destroyed in death of trans asylum-seeker

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is one of the federal agencies required to preserve evidence when it anticipates litigation. The death of transgender asylum-seeker Roxsana Hernández while in ICE custody would seem to be such a case. However, Buzzfeed News reports that according to internal emails, ICE chose to delete surveillance footage that included Hernández. What did the footage show? We don’t know—and even if it didn’t document abuse, it could have provided a valuable benchmark of Hernández’s health and physical condition in ICE detention. Lynly Egyes, legal director at the Transgender Law Center, said that CoreCivic, which ran the detention center, and ICE should have anticipated there would be a lawsuit because Hernández’s family requested an independent autopsy that was performed on June 8. “That autopsy alone made it clear there was interest in this case,” Egyes told BuzzFeed News. “When a detainee death review is conducted, it’s important to keep track of all the documents to understand why someone died, and for that reason alone, they should’ve been keeping all of this evidence.” S-HP

To call for a Congressional investigation of this destruction of evidence that should have been preserved under federal law, see this list of whom to write.

3. A million fewer children uninsured

More than one million children disappeared from Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) rolls btween December 2017 and June 2019, 3% of the children who had been insured before that period. Administration officials insist that these children have not lost health insurance, but that their parents now hold jobs through which the children are insured. However, a New York Times analysis of census data shows that “administrative changes aimed at fighting fraud and waste—and rising fears of deportation in immigrant communities—are pushing large numbers of children out of the programs, and that many of them are now going without coverage.” Some of the states with the highest drops in children’s insurance rates are those that have changed coverage rules to require more frequent checks of family eligibility or have reset their lists with new computer programs. Families who are dropped from insurance as a result of one of these checks often don’t realize their status has changed until the insurance is needed and periods for contesting removals are often brief. S-HP

If you want to raise concerns about the number of children covered by Medicaid, you can find your members of Congress here.

4. Fake pique: Republicans had access to testimony

Congressional Republicans continue to fight the impeachment investigation being undertaken by the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight and Government Reform Committees. In particular, Republican have been complaining about the process for the investigation, claiming that Republicans are being excluded from the process. This is simply untrue. Only members of the investigating committees are allowed to hear testimony, but as with all Congressional committees, members of both parties sit on these three committees. In fact, nearly one quarter of all House Republicans are members of one of those committees. Despite this, on October 23 a group of Republican Representatives stormed a secure room where testimony was scheduled and shut down operations for more than five hours. Eleven of those participating in this act of “resistance” were already members of one of the committees conducting the investigation and had access to the testimony. S-HP

Do you want to ask some of these Republicans what they were thinking? Here is a list.

5. Trump won’t reject “illicit offers” of help

One would think that legislation requiring federal election campaigns to report “illicit offers” of assistance from foreign entities would be a no-brainer. Such assistance is already illegal, and now the House has passed the SHIELD Act, H.R.4617 to mandate reporting. It is not clear, however, whether the Senate will even take this legislation under consideration and Trump has announced that if such legislation is passed by Congress, he will veto it. S-HP

To advocate for safe and fair elections, write your senators–addresses here.

6. Aid to Puerto Rico deliberately delayed

NBC News has reported that “two top officials with the Department of Housing and Urban Development admitted at a Congressional hearing [on October 17] that the agency knowingly missed a legally required deadline that would have made desperately needed hurricane relief funding available to Puerto Rico.” That Congressionally mandated deadline would have begun a months-long process of helping Puerto Rico obtain billions in federal housing funds that had already been allocated by Congress to the U.S. territory. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had been directed to notify Puerto Rico and seventeen disaster-affected states of the available funds by September 4, so that each could begin developing methods for distributing the much-needed funding. All of the states were properly notified; Puerto Rico was not. Congress allocated approximately $43 billion in disaster funding for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Two year later, some two-thirds of that funding remains undistributed. S-HP

If you want to advocate that aid for Puerto Rico be released without further delay, here is a list of people to write.

7. California public utility implicated in fires knew its equipment was unsafe

185,000 people are being evacuated in Northern California this weekend, fleeing the uncontrolled 25,500 acre Kincade fire that has ravaged the wine country and contaminated the air for miles around, according to the Press Democrat, the best source on this ongoing story. The fire was apparently sparked by a PG&E high-voltage transformer which had not yet been shut off; PG&E, the local utility has pre-emptively shut off power to nearly a million people in light of expected high winds, according to NPR.

PG&E has known for years that its transmission lines were unsafe but declined to upgrade them, a Wall Street Journal investigation in July revealed. Some of its 8,500 miles of line as well as its towers are a hundred years old; the Journal notes that it did not even have workers climbing the towers to inspect them and that it spent money on other kinds of less critical upgrades. The state and federal regulatory system appear to have been hands-off, permitting PG&E to regulate itself. The Journal article is behind a paywall, but the Naked Capitalism blog has the story, along with comments from the U.S. district court judge who is overseeing PG&E’s probation following its conviction in other safety-related charges. As NPR points out, PG&E paid out 4.5 billion to shareholders instead of upgrading infrastructure. RLS

Undocufund is raising money to assist undocumented residents of the area, as they will not have access to federal aid.

8. Veterans Affairs retaliates against whistleblowers

A Veterans Affairs (VA) office designed to protect whistleblowers instead stifled claims and retaliated against employees, according to a recently released Inspector General report. The Washington Post reports that the VA’s Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection—created with much fanfare by Trump in 2017—was found to have “significant deficiencies,” including poor leadership, skimpy training of investigators, a misunderstanding of its mission and a failure to discipline misconduct. S-HP

You can write members of the Veterans Affairs committees–see this list.

9. Student loan system “fundamentally broken”

A senior student-loan official appointed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has resigned, reports the Washington Post. Arthur Wayne Johnson was charged with overhauling the student loan repayment system for the Department of Education, but the Washington Post now quotes him acknowledging his failure to effect the overhaul: “When … somebody has $40,000 in student loan debt and, because of forbearances or deferments and the accrual of interest, they wind up with $120,000, you have to step back and say this is fundamentally broken….You have no idea how proud I am of what we’ve done to make the existing process better … but we’re making a broken system better.” Johnson has called for canceling most of the U.S.’s student debt. S-HP 

If you want to speak up about the need for an overhaul of the student loan program, here is how.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

10. Led by high school students, Chileans protest inequality

The Chilean president has declared a state of emergency and Congress has been evacuated as hundreds of protestors stormed the grounds, the Guardian reported on Sunday. As many as a million people have been demonstrating in Santiago over the last week, as well as in cities all over the country.  Human rights observers say that 2000 people have been arrested and more than 500 have been injured in the protests; 19 people have died. Not only has there been a massive military response, but the Guardian reports that masked men are shooting protestors. In contrast to President Pinera’s decision to escalate enforcement against the protests, most of the protestors have been peaceful, according to Al Jazeera, demonstrating by banging on pots with cooking spoons, a tradition called cacerolazo (casserole).

High school students initially launched the protests over a 30 Chilean peso (about 40 cents US) fare hike in the transit system, but larger issues of inequality quickly became central. For perspective, the average income in Chile is about $450 US per month, and most families spend around $65 per month on transportation. Fare-dodging demonstrations followed, which the government addressed by closing the Metro and imposing a police crackdown. Chile is among the most unequal countries in the world, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A comprehensive discussion of conditions in Chile is available at Alborada.net–it’s a two-part series. RLS

11. Bill would provide Protected Status for Bahamians

In August, Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas, displacing some 14,000 people. The administration has refused to allow Bahamians Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which would allow them to legally live and work in the U.S. for a specified period of time. As a result, there is now a movement in Congress to provide TPS to Bahamians through legislation. The Bahamas TPS Act, H.R.4303 in the House; S.2478 in the Senate) would do just that. The House legislation is currently with the Judiciary and Budget Committees. The House Judiciary Committee has assigned the legislation to its Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee. The Senate legislation is with that body’s Judiciary Committee S-HP

To urge that TPS be offered to Bahamians, write the people on this list.

12. You-Tube takes down evidence of war crimes

Under pressure not to broadcast hate speech, You-Tube is taking down videos which portray graphic violence. In doing so, however, the company has also deleted evidence of war crimes, in particular 200,000 videos of human rights violations in Syria. As Syrian human-rights activist and video archivist Hadi Al Khatib, who runs a site called The Syrian Archive, said in a video published in the New York Times, “All these takedowns amount to erasing history.”

The ability to upload video to You-Tube is crucial for recording events that are inaccessible to human rights observers and journalists. Some of the videos have been taken down when the Syrian government flags them–such as the videos that documented the government’s use of Sarin gas. The Columbia Journalism Review has a careful discussion of how this issue is playing out world-wide. RLS

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

13. Racial bias pervades algorithm used in hospitals

An algorithm used in a computer program that is commonly used in hospitals to allocate healthcare resources has been found to have a serious problem with racial bias, according to a study published in the journal Nature. At issue is the complex set of calculations performed to determine who most needs attention and who can wait, a proprietary formula that is not often available for study. Major bias negatively impacting African American healthcare emerged from a seemingly logical set of assumptions; if you paid more in healthcare costs you were less healthy than those who paid less and were therefore assigned a higher “risk score. “

However, the assumption breaks down in the face of long standing cultural beliefs and systemic racism in the healthcare system. It is known that the average African American who spends X amount of dollars on healthcare is far more likely to be in poorer health than a white person spending the same amount. Why is this? It’s because distrust of doctors is widespread in black communities, resulting in fewer opportunities to interact with the healthcare system. Also, inherent bias in care providers often minimizes the complaints of African American patients versus white patients. The company is working quickly to correct the issue and points out than human judgement is no better at weeding out these sorts of biases. What is needed is more thorough audits of the algorithms before they see widespread use. JC

14. The Americans with Disabilities act applies on-line

A victory for accessibility advocates emerged when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to a decision made by the 9th Circuit Court. The case involves the Domino’s Pizza company and its website and phone app. The plaintiff, who is visually impaired, found that neither were able to be parsed by his screen reading program which rendered them useless to those like him. The case was noted to be hugely important, determining whether or not the ADA extended to online accessibility. The law has long said that so-called “public accommodations” must be made accessible to the disabled; now it is clear than online services are considered “public accommodations” as well, Ars Technica reported.  The cost to correct the issue is minor compared to the cost of litigation; the company apparently preferred to pay more money to be able to discriminate rather than to simply make their websites available to all. JC

15. Banning large-capacity magazines would save lives

Would banning large-capacity magazine (LCM) be effective in reducing high-fatality mass shootings? Yes, according to the American Journal of Public Health, which has just published a new study. Researchers looked at sixty-nine mass shooting events with more than six fatalities between 1990 (when LCMs first came into use) and 2017. 73% of those events involved LCMs and those events had death rates 63% higher than those that did not involve LCMs. S-HP

You can urge action on large-capacity magazines by writing those on this list.

Rat poison

A significant cause of death among California’s predators—owls, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions—is the consumption of rodents who have been poisoned by anticoagulants. These poisons cause catastrophic bleeding, not just in the rodents, but also to those higher up the food chain who eat them. Cats and dogs are also at risk from anticoagulant rat poison. California’s AB-1788, which would have prohibited the use of anticoagulant poisons, made it through the state Assembly, but died in committee in the California Senate. S-HP

Californians, if you want to speak up about rat poison, here is whom you should write.

RESOURCES

• The Americas of Conscience Checklist offers clear, well-defined actions you can take.
• Amy Siskind’s list is paradoxically helpful in identifying how surreal things have become.
• Sarah-Hope’s list has an additional important story for Californians as well as cohesive opportunities for action.
• Martha’s list has some urgent items on it requiring comments right away: the reduction of energy efficiency standards, land policy in Alaska, EPA policy re: clean air, ominous-sounding policy changes re: Venezuela.
• As Martha notes, on Mondays, Rogan’s list features a listing of proposed rule and regulation changes that arecurrently accepting public comment. Commenting is the way to show government agencies howwe feel about these proposed changes. Our comments also become part of a record that will bereviewed by courts if and when a reg change is contested. Courts use comments to judge whether an agency is acting arbitrarily and capriciously.

In trying to make what sense we can of careening events, we have tried to note the key elements of the Turkish invasion of Kurdish territory, below. We suggest you read at least the end of Fred Kaplan’s commentary on Slate, in which he explains what seems to constitute Trump’s foreign policy. Robin White has a useful analysis of the situation in Syria as well in the New Yorker.

.Once again, we recommend historian Heather Cox Richardson’s nightly summaries. On Sunday she had a clear analysis of the Clinton/Gabbard dust-up and also notes the silences around the refusal of administration officials to honor subpoenas (see story below on the Constitutional crisis we seem to be in).

Even in the face of events like these, other critical events are unfolding. We offer you a selection below, along with ways to engage.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1. Turkey targeting civilians

According to the Red Cross, tens of thousands of civilians in the pathway of the Turkish invasion are at risk. Al Jazeera has stark photographs of people fleeing and the Guardian has vivid descriptions of civilians–dead and injured–being unloaded at hospitals. The ceasefire announced by Pence on Thursday appears only to have given Turkey carte blanche to accumulate and hold territory, CNN reported, quoting an unnamed “senior US official very familiar with operations in Syria” as confirming that the ceasefire was simply “validating what Turkey did and allowing them to annex a portion of Syria and displace the Kurdish population.” 

Turkey says that the pause in fighting–which has since resumed, according to Democracy Now–was not a ceasefire, only an opportunity for Kurds to leave the area. Amnesty International, however, says that Turkish forces are committing war crimes, shelling civilians and impeding humanitarian aid. In particular, civilians have come to hospitals with terrible burns suggesting that Turkey is using white phosphorus against them, according to Newsweek. The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Kumi Naidoo, said that “Turkey’s continued military offensive has driven thousands of already displaced people from what had been places of safe shelter. Turkey’s actions risk hampering the delivery of life-saving assistance and medical aid to those in need, causing a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe in a country already ravaged by war.”

The Kurds have been holding 10,000 Isis fighters and 60,000 family members in detention, the Intercept reports; the conditions for family members have led to the deaths of several hundred children.  According to Democracy Now, Trump says that Turkey will take over but experts on the region are alarmed, saying that Isis fighters could escape in the invasion.

The way in which Trump’s decision to cede the territory to Turkey came about has startled many. Mitt Romney had posed the theory that Erdoğan simply announced he was invading and Trump caved. The withdrawal has troubled current and recently retired military officials, the Washington Post reports.

Of particular concern are the 50 nuclear weapons now at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, especially since Erdoğan said recently that he could no longer accept the requirement that Turkey not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, according to the New York Times. Turkey is a signer on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Writing for Slate, Fred Kaplan explains how those nukes got there and why they are still there.

Among Trump’s chilling remarks on the situation in Syria was “We’ve taken control of the oil in the Middle East … the oil that everybody was worried about.” Heather Cox Richardson, the historian who produces reasoned nightly commentaries on the most recent events, asks who “we” refers to. As she puts it, “I have spent hours today researching the oil industry in the region and can come up with no scenario in which the US has gained control of oil in the course of the past ten days. The country that has gained control of oil fields is Russia.” In speaking of “we,” the president apparently meant Russia.

Nancy Pelosi is leading a bipartisan delegation to Jordan for a meeting on security in the area, according to Axios, in particular to talk with Jordanian officials about the issue of Isis fighters, the Washington Post reports. RLS

The House passed a resolution 354-60 condemning Trump for the troop withdrawal, but the Senate refused to consider it. If you want to suggest that your senator revisit the question, contact information is here.

2. Trudeau campaign undermined by fake news

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau is in a tight race against the Conservatives’ Andrew Scheer, with the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh making an unexpectedly strong showing. A website in Buffalo, the Buffalo Chronicle is regularly putting out disinformation about Trudeau, among other things that he paid millions to suppress reports of sexual misconduct. The story–debunked by multiple reliable sources–was widely shared on Facebook, which refuses to take it down. RLS

Avaaz is running a petition asking the RCMP to investigate. The election is October 21.

3. Indigenous protesters in Ecuador stop bad IMF deal

Indigenous people in Ecuador forced the government to restore fuel subsidies and reject an International Monetary Fund loan, after two weeks of protests in which eight people were killed and more than two thousand were arrested and/or wounded, according to Democracy Now. Protestors were resisting austerity measures to be imposed in order to meet IMF requirements, the Washington Post reported. Salaries for public workers would also have been cut to pay the IMF, Common Dreams noted. New proposals to address Ecuador’s economic issues will soon be under discussion. Jacobin has an excellent backgrounder on the situation underlying the conflict and in particular on the choices President Lenín Moreno has made that undermined previous successes in addressing inequality. RLS

4. Muslim ban keeps 31,000 people out of the US

Over thirty-one thousand people have been denied entry to the U.S. under Trump’s Muslim ban, according to CNN and the Root. During the first 11 months of the ban, visitors and immigrants from the Muslin majority countries Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen—along with Venezuela and North Korea—have been prohibited from entering, with a small percentage admitted on appeal. The Supreme Court permitted the ban to be implemented last December.

In April, Democrats in both houses introduced “No Ban Bills,” but they are not expected to pass in the Senate. CNN quoted House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, as saying, “The Muslim ban has not made us safer. It has weakened our standing in the world and runs contrary to our country’s moral and philosophical foundation. The United States has always been, and must continue to be, a place that welcomes and embraces people of all religions and nationalities.” RLS

If you want to write your representatives about the Muslim ban, addresses are here.

DOMESTIC NEWS

5. Refusal to honor subpoenas a Constitutional crisis

How many administration figures and government agencies are refusing to provide House committees with material they have a right to access under the Constitution—some of them refusing even when that information has been subpoenaed? Let’s see… Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Secretary Mike Pompeo and the Department of State, Attorney General William Barr and the [ironically named, it appears] Department of Justice, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary Rick Perry and the Department of Energy, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the Pentagon, Director Russ Vought and the Office of Management and Budget, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and no doubt some others, according to the New York Times.

Given the breadth of this refusal to cooperate with Constitutional authority, let’s call the situation what it is—a Constitutional crisis. We have a Constitution. That Constitution and its provisions have been repeatedly violated. If a country with which the U.S. was on less-than-friendly terms had an executive branch so flagrantly violating both Constitution and the legislative branch, we would be denouncing this recalcitrance as a threat to global security and proof that that country’s government was illegitimate. S-HP

If you’d like to remind legislators and administration figures about the significance of the Constitution and their obligations to it, here is a list.

6. No relief from crushing student loans

As NBC News points out, 1 in 5 American adults is paying off student debt—debt that totals $1.6 trillion nationally (yes, that’s trillion with a t). “Sallie Mae” used to be a federally chartered organization processing government loans, but in 2004 it was privatized and now offers private loans, although some Sallie Mae employees also process separate federal loans. Some borrowers have found paying off their debt particularly difficult because, while they thought they were applying for low-interest Federal loans, they have wound up with higher-interest, variable-rate private loans.

Meanwhile, Sallie Mae has celebrated a record year of 374,000 student loans processed, which total $5 billion. The organization celebrated by flying more than 100 of its employees to the Fairmont on Wailea Beach in Maui. Ray Quinlan, CEO of Sallie Mae, did tell NBC that this Hawaii stay was not an “incentive trip.” Rather, it was “a sales get-together for all of our salespeople.” Quinlan also pointed out Sallie Mae has been funding such trips since its founding in the 1972.

A number of pieces of legislation before Congress could address some of the problems with student loans.  Among the most significant are H.R.3887, the Student Loan Debt Relief Act of 2019, which would eliminate up to $50,000 in student debt for every person with a gross household income under $100,000, and H.R.3257, the Student Loan Fairness Act, which would set maximums on the proportion of a borrower’s income that could be assigned to student loan debt payments and provides the opportunity for $45,000 of student loan debt to be cancelled once a borrower has made ten years of consecutive loan payments. H.R.3887 is currently with the House Education and Labor, Ways and Means, and Judiciary Committees. H.R.3257 is currently with the House Education and Labor, Financial Services, and Ways and Means Committees. S-HP

You can let key committee chairs know that you’d like to see these bills pass. Addresses are here.

7. Free lunches at risk under proposed policy

Three million people could lose access to food stamps and one million children could lose their free lunches, according to a Department of Agriculture analysis, if a Trump proposal goes through. Children who receive food stamps automatically have access to free lunches—so application paperwork does not become a barrier, the New York Times explains. Trump sees it as problematic that currently, people whose income is 200% of the poverty line have access to food assistance. In a rare moment of reconsideration, the administration has re-opened public comment on the proposal—just for 14 days. RLS

You can write an official comment on this proposal: the deadline is November 1. Be sure to include the rule title; instructions and addresses are here.

8. New Trump proposal could bankrupt Medicare

Trump has issued an executive order aimed at requiring Medicare to pay amounts equal to those private insurers pay for services, rather than negotiating lower prices for Medicare recipients. This is a move that genuinely could bankrupt Medicare. The language of the executive order frequently cites the “threat” of Medicare-for-All to consumer choice, the LA Times reports. In the executive order, Trump explains his rationale, claiming that the changes will “modify Medicare FFS [fee-for-service] payments to more closely reflect the prices paid for services in MA [Medicare Advantage] and the commercial insurance market, to encourage more robust price competition, and otherwise to inject market pricing into Medicare FFS reimbursement.” How forcing Medicare to pay higher reimbursements will lower healthcare costs is a conundrum that defies logic. At some point, this should be posted as a federal rule change on which we can make official comments, but for now we can seek opposition to this change from our Congressmembers. S-HP

Addresses for members of Congress are here.

9. LGBTQ rights at risk

The rights of LGBTQ Americans are particularly vulnerable at the present moment. A federal judge has overturned health protections for transgender individuals that were part of the Affordable Care Act. The conservative-heavy Supreme Court recently heard arguments on whether or not the Civil Rights Act covers job discrimination against LGBTQ workers. S-HP.

Since we do not have a way to pressure the Supreme Court, urging your members of Congress to pass legislation is the next route toward preserving LGBTQ rights.

10. “Religious freedom” rule upheld

On Tuesday, federal judge Reed O’Connor in the Northern District of Texas ruled against a regulation under Obama Care that prohibited healthcare providers from denying care based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, or pregnancy termination, reports the Hill. O’Connor, who had previously ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, said that the regulation violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The ruling will likely be appealed. JM-L

11. Refugees: Not in our town

An executive order announced by the Trump administration on September 26 requires both state and local governments to consent in writing before refugees can be placed in their jurisdictions. As Forbes explains “Donald Trump’s new executive order appears designed to give veto power over resettling refugees to people who don’t like refugees and elected officials willing to play on those fears…. The executive order could play out in ways that might be characterized as ‘ugly.’ If several African refugee families have been resettled in a town in recent years, some residents could organize and argue to local or state officeholders against new admissions. Some people may not want anyone from the Middle East – or Asian or Jewish refugees – to live near them. The executive order may provide a government-sanctioned outlet for personal animosity toward foreign-born individuals and families.”

The order would also seriously undercut sanctuary legislation on the state and local level. This executive order probably violates existing law—at least if refusals by states or cities target specific refugee groups—but nonetheless promises another long-term court battle of the kind this administration is continually provoking. The Secretaries of State and of Health & Human Services have been directed to implement this new policy in the next 90 days. S-HP

If you object to implementation of this order, here are addresses for whom to write.

12. British family detained for 11 days after accidental detour into US

A British family–two couples, two young children and a 3 month old baby–were held in US Immigration custody for eleven nights, after crossing the US/Canadian border accidentally while vacationing in British Columbia, according to NPR. They were held at a family detention center in Pennsylvania, where they complained of inadequate facilities, including a lack of heat and infant-care supplies. They had a visa waiver to visit the US, the New York Times reported. One of the parents told the Times, “No one should have to suffer this kind of treatment. This would never happen in the United Kingdom to U.S. citizens, or anyone else, because people there are treated with dignity.” JM-L

13. Fewer families to be eligible for public housing

Federal rules changes have been proposed affecting how the Department of Housing and Urban Development would determine eligibility for public housing (also referred to as “means testing”). The changes are abstruse, but boil down to requiring a broader examination of “assets” and financial records in ways that would reduce the number of families qualifying for such assistance. S-HP

If you want to write an official comment about these changes, the instructions are here.

14. Cummings’ last work

Hours before his death, the late Elijah Cummings (D-MD) signed subpoenas relating to the policy shift around delayed deportations for immigrants and visitors who were in the U.S. for treatment of medical conditions when treatments were not available in their home countries. In August, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services sent letters to family members reversing the policy that undocumented visitors might stay to complete their treatment and telling them they would be deported. As CNN reports, a House oversight committee could not get USCIS to explain the origins or rationale for the policy. The testimony resulting from Cummings’ subpoenas may bring clarity. RLS

Share your appreciation for Cummings’ commitment to justice and an America that serves all: Family and Colleagues of Elijah Cummings, 1010 Park Ave, Suite 105, Baltimore, MD 2120

15. Voter purges undermining fair elections

Many state governments are trying to limit access to the right to vote by passing laws allowing regular voter purges. Most states that purge voting rolls, however, are not particularly transparent about the purge process, leaving people who wish to vote disenfranchised and making mistaken purges difficult to spot and rectify.

Ohio offers a case in point. According to the New York Times, Ohio had a list of 235,000 people it proposed to purge from voter rolls, but it did send the list of those who would be purged to voting advocacy groups, including the League of Women Voters. What these groups found in working their way through this massive database is that the list included around 40,000 people, roughly 17%, who should not have been purged under the state’s own rules. One of those slated for purging was Jen Miller, the Ohio Director of the League of Women Voters, who told the New York Times, “I voted three times last year. I don’t like to think how many other individuals this has happened to.” S-HP

If you want to urge your members of Congress to initiate or act on bills intended to preserve election security, here are addresses.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

16. Terminology around climate matters

The Guardian has taken the lead in describing the climate situation with more precision, declaring that “climate emergency” or “climate crisis” are to be used instead of “climate change.” When a specific mechanism is in operation, the publication suggests we use exact terminology when possible. It further recommends using  “climate science denier” or “climate denier” rather than “climate sceptic,” and that we use  “wildlife,” not “biodiversity” and “fish populations” instead of “fish stocks,” as being more respectful of our fellow creatures. RLS

17. Environmental destruction as a war crime

Calls have been made for a Fifth Geneva Convention for the past two decades. The Fifth Convention would define particular kinds of environmental destruction as war crimes, attempting to protect the planet, in addition to people, during times of war, Global Citizen explains. As Nature reports, “military conflict continues to destroy megafauna, push species to extinction and poison water resources.” It also allows for easier global distribution of arms that can lead to “unsustainable hunting of wildlife.” S-HP

If you want to advocate for this proposal, here’s how.

18. Farmers coping with climate crisis ignored by Department of Ag

Farmers suffering from the consequences of the climate crisis have received almost no help from the Department of Agriculture. Earlier this fall, a “bomb cyclone” in the Midwest destroyed crops and livestock, ruined stored grain and meant that 20 million acres could not be planted. Extreme weather and fires elsewhere in the country have been financially catastrophic, but the Agriculture Department devotes only 0.3 percent of its $144 billion budget to helping farmers cope with climate issues, according to Politico. Though it offers resources—called “hubs”—most farmers are not aware of them because the political atmosphere in the USDA is so hostile to any discussion that relates to climate. Thus, changes in farming strategies that might help them adapt are unavailable to them. The Politico story has a wealth of documentation and the detailed backstory on the silences on climate. RLS

If you would like to urge key committee chairs to make sure that farmers have the information they need, here are the addresses.

RESOURCES

• The Americas of Conscience Checklist has a set of clear, important actions you can take on various issues, from election security to immigration to women’s safety.
• Amy Siskind’s weekly list of not-normal things is once again dis/re-orienting.
• Most of Sarah-Hope’s action items follow the stories above, but other possibilities of particular interest to Californians can be found here.
• Rogan’s list suggests whom you might contact about oil production, the situation of the Kurds, the Turkish invasion, the Democratic silence on the climate crisis, and much more.
• Martha’s list offers opportunities to comment for the public record. She notes that there seems to be a good deal of behind the scenes rewriting of manuals and regulations, so a “proposed rule” is not always announced. She observes, too, the persistent undoing of the Clean Air Act. Her list has other Alaska anti-environmental proposals as well, available for comment.
• Our colleague Chrysostom offers an election round-up news and polls from the House, Senate and states, as well as the latest on election security.

Foreign policy too often seems brutal, thoughtless, short-sighted. But Trump’s latest move–to permit Turkey to invade the Kurdish-held territory of Syria, with no provision for security of Isis fighters and family members the Kurds were holding, no plan for the safety of civilians and no thought for the Kurds themelves who had battled Isis and served as a US ally–is beyond comprehension. Historian Heather Cox Richardon has a useful, if chilling, summary on her Facebook page.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1. Turkey invades Kurdish-held areas of Syrian. Isis prisoners escape.

100,000 people have fled the Turkish invasion of northern Syrian and numerous civilians have been killed or injured in the fighting between Turkish forces and Syrian Kurdish fighters, who had been essential to the battle to defeat Isis, according to the AP. Last week, Trump—confounding even his loyalists—told Turkish president Erdogan that he would move US forces out of the area and allow the assault. According to Al Jazeera, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) called Trump’s decision “a stab in the back.”

Absurdly, Trump tried to justify his betrayal of the Kurds saying, ‘they didn’t help us in the Second World War. They didn’t help us in Normandy.’ The Washington Post points out that the U.S. is aligned now with various countries who were enemies during WW II, and that the Kurds did not have a state then (or now), so could not assist as a state. Nonetheless, many Kurds opposed the Nazis and fought them with the British and Soviet armies.”

In addition:

• Havrin Khalaf, a Kurdish politician and advocate for women’s rights, was killed during the Turkish invasion. Some factions claim that she—along with her driver—was killed by Turkish forces while others say she was killed by Isis, according to Rudaw, an Iraqi Kurdish publication.
• Five Isis militants were broken out of a Syrian prison during the fighting, while twenty Isis women attacked officials at a camp in Syria, the Independent reported; Isis also claimed responsibility for a car bombing. On Sunday morning, hundreds of Isis families appeared to have left a detention camp, according to the Washington Post. The Independent noted the warning of a Kurdish official “that Isis detainees could break out of detention as Kurdish-led security forces confront the Turkish offensive and their ability to guard detainees is weakened.”
• Democracy Now points out that among the terrible losses in this invasion is that of Rojava, a progressive democracy in Kurdish territory based on feminist principles.
• In desperation, as of October 14 the Kurds seem to have forged an alliance with the Russian and Syrian governments, changing the dynamics of the regions, according to the New York Times. RLS
  

If you want to speak up about this incomprehensible turn of events, here are some suggestions.

2. China’s sexual abuse of Muslim women

Muslim minority women in China, including Uighurs, Kazakhs, and others who have taken refuge in Kazakhstan, report having been raped, sexually tormented, forcibly implanted with contraceptive devices and forced to have abortions while in China. Aiman Umarova, a Kazakh human rights advocate, told the Independent that “Sexually violating women, including stopping them from reproducing, has become a weapon for China against its Muslim population.”

Over a million Muslims have been detained in re-education camps for the last two years. Even Muslim countries have been reluctant to object to the treatment of women. The U.S. is blacklisting some police departments and eight companies involved in the production of surveillance equipment because they do business in Xinjiang, in northwestern China, which Uighurs live and are detained. The blacklist would prevent them from obtaining US-made electronics, the New York Times reports. Mike Pompeo also announced that Chinese officials suspected of detaining or abusing Uighurs will have their visas restricted.

Meanwhile, The China Tribunal has told the UN Human Rights Commission that China has been killing members of political minorities and extracting their organs, according to the Independent. The Tribunal says it has clear evidence that members of the Falun Gong group have been targets, and possibly the Uighur Muslims as well. A number of countries have already outlawed organ tourism to China, and a bill in the UK is pending. RLS

If you want to urge the Secretary of State and Senate leadership to pressure China on its treatment of Muslim women, here are the addresses.

3. Genocide against Brazil’s Indigenous people

A group of experts has warned that “genocide is underway” against Brazil’s indigenous peoples as President Bolsonaro attempts to undercut indigenous rights and to open significant portions of the Amazon rain forest to mining and large-scale agriculture. According to EcoWatch, the letter was issued after the firing of the coordinator for uncontacted tribes, Bruno Pereira, and warns that “this upheaval [as a result of Pereira’s firing] will provoke the genocide of uncontacted and recently contacted indigenous people.”

At the same time, the Brazilian Mining Minister, Bento Albuquerque has announced that “draft legislation to allow mining and agriculture on indigenous lands should be ready later this month.” Brazil has more uncontacted indigenous tribes than any other country and the policy, at least on paper, has been to forbid contact with these tribes and to leave the areas of the Amazon rainforest they inhabit untouched. In practice, there were 111 documented incursions into indigenous territories during 2018. That number since Bolsonaro took office in January, 2019, has jumped to 160, which suggests that by the end of this year there may have been as many as 240 incursions. S-HP

If you would like to see the Secretary of State and heads of appropriate congressional committees take up this issue, here are the names of whom to contact.

DOMESTIC NEWS

4. Some Trump anti-immigrant initiatives blocked

Several of Trump’s more egregious immigration policies have been blocked in court. In refusing to allow the Trump administration to keep children incarcerated for longer than the 20 days provided for in the Flores agreement, Judge Dolly Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California called the government’s reasoning “Kafkaesque.” The judge’s ruling–a response to a lawsuit by the Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law, will likely be appealed, the NY Times reports.

In addition, the so-called “public charge rule,” which would deny visas and green cards to immigrants whom the government thinks might use public benefits, was blocked by Judge George Daniels of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, as well as by judges in San Francisco (in response to lawsuits by Northern California counties) and Washington State, according to CBS News. The “public charge” rule has already had an impact on immigrant communities, with enrollment in the Affordable Care Act dropping and parents declining food and other assistance for their citizen children.

However, the American Immigration Lawyers Association says that a state department official says they plan to implement the public charge rule on October 15 anyway, despite the injunctions. RLS

5. Dangers to disabled and LGBTQ asylum-seekers in Mexico

Under Trump administration policy, asylum-seekers have been forced to stay in Mexico, rather than entering the U.S. to begin the asylum application process, as is the norm under international law. With over 50,000 asylum-seekers currently forced to stay in Mexico, conditions are horrible: overcrowded, with improvised and inadequate housing, food scarcity, and violence, including rape, kidnapping, and torture.

As highlighted by Presidential candidate Julian Castro, these conditions are particularly dangerous for disabled and LGBTQ asylum-seekers, who can be seen as easy targets for assault. On October 7, as the LA Times reported, Castro led a group of eight lesbian and gay asylum-seekers from Cuba, Guatemala, and Honduras, along with a deaf asylum-seeker from El Salvador and three of her family members. While this action helped highlight the situation at the border, it did not lead to any change in status for the asylum-seekers accompanying Castro, who were all returned to Mexico by the end of the day. S-HP.

If you think that asylum-seekers who are LGBTQ, disabled or children should be able to wait for their hearings in the United States, here is whom to write.

6. Immigrants following legal process deported after marriage interviews

There’s a new twist in the administration’s anti-immigrant moves. Married couples with one partner who is a citizen or legal resident and another who is not must come in for “marriage interviews,” part of the process of gaining legal status for the partner without it. Now federal agents are arresting and deporting undocumented individuals leaving their marriage interviews, even when the result of the interview was positive, according to NBC News. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a pair legal cases in response to this move. The best-known suit involves six couples from Maryland, all of whom have been separated immediately after marriage interviews. The ACLU is pursuing a similar complaint in Massachusetts and says similar detentions have occurred in New York, Virginia, Florida, Illinois, and California. S-HP

If you want to speak up about the detention and deportation of immigrants following legal procedures, write your representatives.

7. Challenges to for-profit detention centers

According to a report from PBS and the Associated Press, Comprehensive Health Services (CHS), the company that runs the children’s migrant detention center in Homestead, Florida, has received almost $300 million in contracts to shelter migrant children, compared to $1.3 million they received in 2015. In June, 20% of children in immigration custody were in CHS centers. CHS currently operates six detention facilities, including three “tender age” shelters that house infants and toddlers. CHS is also working to establish a facility in El Paso that could house up to 500 individuals. There are currently some 5,100 children housed in private immigration detention facilities. California Governor Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, has just signed legislation that will lead to an end of all state contracts with privately run prisons and immigration detention centers. S-HP

If you want to thank Governor Newsom and urge your representatives to close for-profit detention centers everywhere, here are some addresses.

8. Billionaires pay taxes at lower rate than workers

The Washington Post, using information from the recently published report The Triumph of Injustice, has reported that in 2018, the super-rich paid a lower tax rate than working class (in this case the bottom 50% of all Americans). In 1960, the typical tax rate for the wealthiest 400 families in the U.S. was 56%. By 1980, that had dropped to 47%. This year, that had plummeted to 23%—less than the typical 24.2% paid by the bottom half of households. S-HP

If you have something to say about the current rate of taxation, you can write to your senators and representatives at these addresses.

9. Betsy DeVos facing jail time?

In June, 2018, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim issued a ruling that blocked the U.S. Department of Education from pursuing collection on student debts for former students at Corinthian Colleges, Inc. Corinthian filed for bankruptcy protection in the face of multiple investigations for fraud. At that time, an agreement was reached allowing Corinthian students with student loan debt to file a form that would prevent additional debt collection and refund monies already collected.

However, as reported in Bloomberg, in early October the Judge discovered that the Department of Education had repeatedly violated that order. In fact, more than 16,000 former Corinthian students had been contacted by the Department of Education and incorrectly informed that they had payments due on their student loans. At least 1,800 of those former students had wages or taxes garnished by the Department of Education. Judge Kim warned Department of Education lawyers, “At best it [the failure to stop collecting these student debts] is gross negligence, at worst it’s an intentional flouting of my order. According to Newsweek, Judge Kim is now in the process of deciding whether to find Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in contempt of court, which could lead to the Secretary serving jail time. S-HP

Do you think Betsy DeVos should resign? If so, you can tell her so here.

9. Russian interference in election confirmed; McConnell still resists election security

The GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a report affirming that Russian operatives made significant use of social media to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to provide support to “Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin,” according to the New York Times. The goal of this social media campaign was to alienate significant proportions of the American electorate so that they would choose not to go to the polls. African Americans were the most frequent targets.

The Senate investigation also determined that this interference via social media continued—at an even greater rate—after the election. Richard Burr the Republican head of the committee has explained, “Russia in engaging in an information warfare campaign against the U.S. that didn’t start and didn’t end with the 2016 election.” This social media interference was facilitated by the fact that U.S. election laws do not require the disclosure of the funders of online political advertisements. The Senate Intelligence Committee report comes at a time when virtually all election-related legislation has been blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, despite the House’s passage of a number of pieces of legislation addressing the subject. S-HP

If you are inclined to write to McConnell and the Senate Intelligence Committee about election security, you can do so at these addresses.

10. Impeach Kavanaugh?

If you’re still disturbed by the hurried confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice last year, you’ll be interested to know about H.Res.560, a resolution currently before the House of Representatives calling for investigation of possible impeachment of Kavanaugh. This legislation currently has 14 cosponsors, including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Barbara Lee (D-CA), John Lewis (D-GA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Jimmy Panetta is not among the cosponsors. H.Res.560 is currently with the House Rules Committee. S-HP.

If you would like the House to pass H.Res.560 and begin impeachment proceedings to look into Kavanaugh’s possible perjury during those hearings, you can write the Chair of the Rules committee here.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

11. Mass-produced fake comments

Millions of comments for the public record were submitted around the net-neutrality debate—and oddly, given that public opinion polls showed strong support for net neutrality, the comments swung the other way. Of the 22 million comments submitted, 9.5 million were fake, according to the New York Attorney General’s investigation. The FCC [Federal Communications Commission] demolished net-neutrality regulations anyway, a huge gift to big broadband companies.

How could that many fake comments be produced? An investigation by Buzzfeed found that “In a key part of the puzzle, two little-known firms, Media Bridge and LCX Digital, working on behalf of industry group Broadband for America, misappropriated names and personal information as part of a bid to submit more than 1.5 million statements favorable to their cause.” Both companies have been involved in other campaigns, overwhelming public agencies with their submissions; LCX digital is associated with Christian right strategist Ralph Reed, who was also working for Broadband for America, and with right-wing political consultant Mary Cheney. Many of the emails used came from the Modern Business Solutions data breach, Buzzfeed found. Several million pro-net neutrality comments were also identical sentences from suspect addresses. RLS

If you would like to write the chair of the FCC and the congressional committees with oversight over the FCC, here are the addresses.

12. Herbicide plus other triggers leads to aggressive breast cancer, study shows

The commonly used herbicide glyphosate has been shown to cause tumor growth when combined with oxidative stress–“a chemical reaction that results from aging, diet, smoking, and alcohol,” researchers wrote in Frontiers in Genetics. Scientists from the Purdue Center for Cancer Research and an institute in France found that glyphosate alone did not cause breast cancer, but alarmingly, the combination led to an especially aggressive form of breast cancer, luminal B, found in younger women.

Glyphosate was also linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a 2017 meta-analysis, Science Direct reported then. In 2015, the EPA found that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic while in 2017, the EPA declared it “not carcinogenic,” according to Indiana Environmental Reporter.

The lead scientist, Sophie Lelièvre,  a professor of cancer pharmacology in Purdue, said,  “Showing that glyphosate can trigger tumor growth, when combined with another frequently observed risk, is an important missing link when it comes to determining what causes cancer.” RLS

RESOURCES

• The Americas of Conscience Checklist has a number of well-focused action suggestions for voter empowerment and election security.
• Amy Siskind’s list of not-normal events for week 151 is particularly illuminating this week.
• Sarah-Hope’s complete list is at this site, though her action items follow the stories above.
• On her list, Martha calls our attention to item 7 under “NEW”; SEC is massively undoing Dodd-Frank in ways which would de-regulate banks. There are numerous other opportunities to weigh in on proposals to open wilderness areas to roads, lower environmental standards, much more.
• Rogan’s list for Monday has a number of good opportunities to comment.
• Our colleague Chrysostom’s column on elections is on hiatus this week; check it out in a few days.

With a second whistleblower having emerged and more appeals to foreign government being reported, the plot continues to curdle around the impeachment investigation (see last week’s post below for a complete run-down, packed with sources). In this new(s) atmosphere, it can be hard to know what to read. This week we recommend:

♦ “Unfit for Office,” a meticulous piece in the Atlantic by George Conway, the attorney who is famously married to Kellyanne Conway, who since 2017 has advised the president.

♦ Heather Cox Richardson’s Facebook posts. Richardson is a professor of History at Boston College who has been producing lucid reports and analyses of recent events. Her posts are public and she’ll help you catch up without being overwhelmed.

Do keep up with our colleague Crysostom’s summaries of elections news; you’ll be amazed by what is going on under the radar.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. The NRA-Russsia connection

The National Rifle Association (NRA) apparently connected Russian officials with American elected officials in exchange for profitable business deals for NRA leaders. An investigation by Senate Finance Committee Democrats found that top officials at the NRA used the organization’s financial resources—largely collected via member dues—to curry favor with Russians. These activities included an NRA leadership trip to Russia, the NRA arranging meetings between Russians and elected officials, and lucrative business deals between NRA leadership and Russians. The NRA also paid for lodging and travel of Russian nationals throughout 2015 and 2016, as part of a relationship that supported foreign actors looking to influence the U.S. elections.

NBC News reports that “Former NRA President David Keene and his wife, Donna Keene, organized the trip [to Russia] with the promise of new business opportunities by the Russians, including access to a Russian arms manufacturer that was under U.S. sanctions….” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking member of the Finance Committee that conducted the investigation, said that the NRA may have violated numerous tax laws. “The NRA,” he said, “has abused its tax-exempt status and essentially become a business enterprise that its board members and leadership use for lucrative personal business opportunities, including in Moscow.’”

More recently, according to the New York Times, Trump and NRA head Wayne LaPierre met at the White House for a discussion that included both ways the NRA might help Trump fight the current impeachment inquiry and Trump could help prevent action on gun reform. The NRA has responded to the New York Times story, claiming the meeting did not include any “quid pro quo” arrangements.

If you want to see the NRA’s political activities, its relationship with Trump, and its tax-exempt status fully investigated, tell your members of Congress.

2. Who should recuse himself?

Attorney General Barr’s conduct related to the whistleblower’s complaint and the Mueller Report and intelligence investigations have been deeply concerning, according to the New Yorker. He has repeatedly misrepresented his own actions and the Department of Justice’s decision-making process; he has also repeatedly refused Congress access to materials to which the Constitution grants them access. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had the professional ethics to recuse himself at the slightest suggestion of a conflict of interest in the Russia investigation. Barr is certainly equally compromised, both in terms of the Russia investigation and the new impeachment investigation regarding interactions between the Trump administration and Ukraine. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect Barr to at least match Sessions’ (not all that high) level of ethical behavior in his role as Attorney General. S-HP

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has admitted that he was on the infamous phone call in which Trump asked the Ukrainian president to intervene in the election by digging up dirt on Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son, MSNBC reports. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has asked him to recuse himself from any Ukraine-related issue.

Should Barr and Pompeo recuse themselves from the impeachment investigation? Let them know!

3. Blocking asylum-seekers

“This Week in Terrible Immigration News” on the Current Affairs website outlines many of the means by which the Trump administration is trying to limit both the number of asylum claims and the actual granting of asylum. Among the moves the administration is attempting:

• -Make indefinite detention the norm for all asylum seekers, including children, and extend that detention throughout the entire asylum proceeding.
• -Close legal ports of entry for asylum seekers while refusing to process asylum claims for those who enter the U.S. at a point that is not an official port of entry.
• –Force all asylum seekers not from Mexico to remain in Mexico for the duration of their asylum proceeding, while simultaneously making it illegal for asylum seekers not from Mexico to travel through Mexico in their journey to seek asylum.
• -Reverse precedents giving rights to asylum seekers. S-HP
  

Do you have something to say to Democratic candidates and congressmembers about these ongoing efforts to block pathways to asylum? Addresses are here.

4. Legal immigrants denied entry without health insurance

In addition to blocking those seeking asylum, Trump is trying to cut the number of immigrants overall. His latest strategy is a requirement that people already approved to immigrate legally must be able to show that they will have health insurance within 30 days of arriving in the country, either through a family member or an employer, or that they are wealthy enough to cover the costs of any healthcare expenses that might arise. As the Washington Post explains, the measure is clearly designed to cut the numbers of immigrants who have been waiting to join family members in the United States. RLS

If you want to speak up about this policy, which is clearly designed to prevent family reunification, you can write to the addresses here.

5. US wants to delay approval of asylum-seekers’ work permits

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has submitted notice of a federal rules change that would eliminate the requirement that asylum seekers’ initial work permit applications be processed within 30 days. According to Immigration Forum, if implemented, this rule change is apt to have a number of negative consequences. It will limit asylum seekers’ ability to find legal work and encourage participation in “under the table” employment; will lower tax revenues, due to the drop in legally employed asylum seekers; will make it more difficult for businesses to hire workers with needed skills; and will facilitate exploitation of asylum seekers. S-HP

If you want to speak up about this proposed rule change and its likely consequence, here is how you can get your comment on the public record.

6. Workers unsafe at poultry processing plants

ProPublica and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have published a piece on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s issuing of line speed-up approvals to eleven poultry-processing plants, most of which have significant histories of worker injuries and deaths. How has the speed-up affected worker safety? We may never know because the Trump administration has ended a requirement that plants share their injury records with the government. Chicken processing plants in general have worse safety records than both coal mines and construction sites (workplaces typically viewed as hazardous) because workers are required to use extremely sharp knives at top speed with both these knives and other processing-line blades only inches from their hands. ProPublica and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution note, “Scientific studies, including both government-funded and industry-sponsored, have established that going faster worsens the risk of repetitive strain injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome. There is also evidence that feeling rushed or struggling to keep up with the work pace are factors in traumatic injuries.” S-HP

You can speak up about poultry processing line speeds!

7. Auditing the poor

The past spring, ProPublica reported that IRS audit rates are comparable for the working poor and the top 1%, which is counterintuitive, since tax fraud by the wealthy is much more apt than similar activities by the poor to affect government income from taxation. This led Congressmembers to question IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig regarding this IRS practice and to ask for a plan to fix the “imbalanced balance.” Rettig sent a report to Congress, but said that any decrease in audits of low-income taxpayers and increase in audits of wealthier taxpayer could not be undertaken unless the funds that have been cut from the IRS in the past nine years were restored. The reasoning? It’s easier to audit the poor. These audits can be done by low-level employees and are often pursued via mail, rather than in-person meetings. Auditing the rich is hard. The tax filings are more complex and must be done by higher-level employees—and the IRS has had difficulty retaining employees at this level. According to ProPublica, “[Senator Ron] Wyden [D-OR] agreed in a statement that the IRS needs more money, ‘but that does not eliminate the need for the agency to begin reversing the alarming trend of plummeting audit rates of the wealthy within its current budget.’” S-HP

You can speak up about the importance of auditing the rich. Here’s how.

8. Voting security at risk again

At this point, we shouldn’t be surprised to hear about vulnerabilities in U.S. voting machines. The U.S. has no national cybersecurity requirements for voting machines, and vulnerabilities have been documented for years. In fact, some existing weaknesses were originally spotted as much as a decade ago. We also know about ongoing attempts by foreign governments to hack our voting systems, though the Hill thinks that the machines themselves are a higher security risk. Wired recently reported on Defcon Voting Village, a once-a-year gathering of hackers who attempt to compromise election machinery to identify its vulnerabilities so they can be addressed. The weaknesses they found included poor physical security protections, easily guessable hardcoded system credentials, potential for operating system manipulation, and vulnerabilies to remote attacks that could compromise the functioning of systems or bar access to those systems. S-HP

If you are concerned about cybersecurity for voting machines, you can address these officials.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

9. How fracking endangers health

Fracking endangers both the environment and human health, and is associated with birth defects, cancer and asthma, among other health problems, according to a recent report by Physicians for Social Responsibility, which pulled together the results of 1700 studies. Pregnant women in areas where fracking is prevalent are at “higher risk for poor birth outcomes, including premature birth, certain kinds of birth defects and small-for-date births—infants born small for the number of months of pregnancy,” PRI noted. Sandra Steingraber, who worked on the study, said that there was no regulatory framework to deal with the issues. “In other words,” she said, “there’s no evidence that fracking can operate without threatening public health directly or without imperiling climate stability, on which public health, of course, depends.” A 2015 study from the previous EPA demonstrated the danger that fracking poses to drinking water, contaminating water at various stages in the process. RLS

If you want your congress members to address the issue of fracking, here are their addresses.

10. US cities bracing for hundred-year floods–annually

Some island countries and several U.S. cities–including Los Angeles, Miami, Savannah, Honolulu, San Juan, Key West and San Diego–can expect “hundred-year floods” annually if the release of greenhouse gasses continues at the present rate, according to a recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), summarized by the Washington Post. Oceans will rise by several feet by the end of the century; warming oceans have already damaged coral reefs and led to increasingly destructive storms. Science Alert quoted UN Secretary General António Guterres as saying at the most recent climate summit, “Even our language has to adapt: What once was called ‘climate change’ is now truly a ‘climate crisis.’ … We are seeing unprecedented temperatures, unrelenting storms and undeniable science.” RLS

11. Who funds climate deniers?

Meanwhile, the Smithsonian Magazine has identified who funds the climate deniers–and it’s not just Coors and Koch, along with associated billionaires donating through donor trusts, which keep their identities secret. The Vanguard Foundation, a progressive charitable organization, and the Annenberg Foundation, which funds all manner of arts organizations and community groups, are both on the list. The article links to a 2013 study by Robert Brule and published in Climatic Change; Brule explains exactly how the movement to suppress climate change knowledge evolved and who funded it. RLS

If you want to speak up about this, you could write the foundations listed in the article. And you could remind people in Washington that the climate crisis needs to be addressed–now.

RESOURCES

• The Americas of Conscience Checklist has many clear, positive actions that you can take this week.
• Sarah-Hope’s list is always worth reviewing, as there are usually a few items that haven’t made it into our summaries.
• Rogan’s list has a series of excellent action items and resources.
• Martha’s list this week is a compenium of policy changes and proposed changes that affect the environment, public safety, individual rights–and more. Read through it for an education into the fine print of all that is going on. She offers opportunities to comment for the public record as well.