Month: January 2020

Even for print people, film is a metaphor. The new news about the massacre at El Mozote–where, as Al Jazeera reports, in 1981 American-trained forces in El Salvador massacred 1,000 women, children, and elderly people–illustrates the need to pan, to survey the world systematically. The massacre was covered up, but now a Salvadoran general admits that the Salvadoran army did the killing. Representative Ilhan Omar reminded us about El Mozote last February, when she took on Elliott Abrams, who was then named the special envoy to Venezuela. Abrams had been in the State Department in the 80s, among those responsible for sending aid to El Salvador’s right-wing government despite clear evidence that civilians were being murdered. He claimed that the story about El Mozote was communist propaganda, Ray Bonner–who has been covering El Mozote since it happened–reminds us. This is why we need to remember.

The news cycle zooms in, then cuts to black, so that keeping everything in focus–the 69,550 children who were imprisoned by ICE in 2019, the almost-war with Iran, the discriminatory practices of some faith-based organizations–is a challenge. We’ll try to pan across some continuing stories this week, as well as giving you concrete, quick actions you can take. 

Useful in the process of keeping multiple stories in view is ironic humor–so to that end we recommend Foreign Policy in Focus writer Conn Hallinan’s “Are You Serious?” awards for the heights of absurdity in the previous year’s news.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Faith-based organizations would be allowed to discriminate, under new rules

Most of you are probably familiar with Executive Order 13831, even if that number doesn’t ring a bell. 13831 was the order signed by Trump to allow faith-based organizations to receive funding from the government and to participate in government programs while excluding from those programs anyone their faith disapproves of. The worst example of this we’ve seen is an adoption agency in Virginia that receives government funding and will not place children in Catholic, Jewish, Non-Religious, or LGBTQ+ households. If the rule changes proposed in order to implement 13831 go through, we’ll be seeing all sorts of hate-based unkindness. Eldercare programs that exclude Jews, soup kitchens that won’t serve atheists, academic support programs that bar LGBTQ+ youth—the possibilities are many and terrifying. S-HP

At the moment, eight different federal departments have proposed rules changes in order to implement 13831, and, yep, they all have to commented on separately. See the full list of proposing departments and comment instructions below.

2. Rules against flying while (possibly) pregnant

Remember when the term “anchor babies” had conservative pundits foaming at the mouth? Today’s equivalent is “birth tourism.” Just as with “anchor babies,” the horror underlying “birth tourism” is that the child of a non-citizen might be born in the U.S. giving that child citizenship rights—and thereby allowing all sorts of people from all over the place to become citizens because of immigration policies that favor family members. To eliminate this threat the administration has announced a rule change that would allow a State Department officer to deny a Class B recreational tourist visa to a pregnant (or possibly pregnant) women who that officer has “reason to believe” might be hoping to give birth during a vacation to the U.S. or a U.S. territory, NBC news reported. Note, that’s “announced,” as in “it’s a rule starting now,” as opposed to a “proposed” which would allow for public comment. A foretaste of this policy was recently offered by the airline Hong Kong Express that refused to allow a Japanese woman to board a flight to the U.S. territory of Saipan, where that woman had grown up and where her parents still live. A “fit-to-fly” test to which she was subjected included a pregnancy test. An airline employee took her into a bathroom, handed her a pregnancy test strip, and instructed her to urinate on it. (She was allowed a private stall in which to do this.) Only after the pregnancy test had a negative result was she allowed to board her flight, according to the Washington Post. Hong Kong Express has since announced that it has suspended this practice and apologized, but if the administration has its way, this process may be a good deal more common soon. S-HP

In Canada, the CBC came under fierce criticism for running a documentary on so-called “Passport Babies.” Women who come to Canada and pay privately to have their babies put a strain on the public health care system, the CBC says, and the nurses’ union says that the issue of increasing numbers of women coming from abroad to deliver might be mitigated if the private fees were put toward additional labor and delivery nurses. RLS

If you want to voice concerns about the new rule in the U.S., you can find the addresses for the State Department and your members of Congress here.

3. Asylum cases moved away from legal representation

In a move that may deprive thousands of immigrant detainees of legal representation, the Republican administration has announced that it is moving several hundred immigration cases out of San Francisco, where they were originally sited and where many detainees have been able to attain counsel, to a Van Nuys courtroom in northern Los Angeles. In response to increased immigration and asylum cases, a number of immigrant legal aid groups have been established in Northern California to support individuals with hearings in San Francisco.

The Guardian cites Valerie Zukin of the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, who explains that in 2017, only 2% of San Francisco immigration hearings were attended by an attorney. Presently, a group of thirty-five groups covers more than 80% of San Francisco immigration hearings. Zukin says that there is no equivalent group of organizations prepared to cover the hundreds of cases being transferred to Van Nuys. There had been rumblings of such transfers, and the Executive Office of Immigration Review had responded to queries from legal aid groups that no such move was planned. Case transfers are scheduled to begin on February 3. Asylum-seekers with legal representation are five times more likely to be granted asylum than those without, NPR notes, which raises the question of whether the underlying purpose of this move was to reduce immigrant access to legal aid. S-HP

You can object to the relocating of asylum cases and and ask for an investigation into the decision. Appropriate addresses are here.

4. A birthday present for Michelle

On former first lady Michelle Obama’s birthday, the Trump administration announced a proposal that would allow schools to serve foods that are higher in fats and sodium in place of fresh fruits and vegetables, ABC news reported. Better nutrition in school lunches had been one of her most significant policy initiatives.The new rules would make serving items like burgers and pizza easier. They would allow school salad bars to offered outside the point-of-service (in other words, where adults can’t see how much you take of which ingredients—croutons, anyone?). Legumes in meat alternatives would qualify as a “double dip,” simultaneously fulfilling meat and vegetable requirements. Limits on synthetic trans fats would be eliminated under the assumption that they are unnecessary under current Food and Drug Administration regulations. Water could be replaced with “calorie-free, non-carbonated, naturally flavored water” (lime aid with artificial sweeteners, anyone?). Vegetables (including nutritional duds like processed potato products) could substitute for fruit in school breakfasts. The Center for Science in the Public Interest and The Partnership for a Healthier America have called this a step in the wrong direction. Finally, reviews of school lunch and breakfast programs would move from a three-year to a five-year review cycle. S-HP

Want to get this stopped? Comments can be made for the public record; there were only 33 comments submitted as of 1/23/2020; the deadline for comments is March 23. Here is how to comment.

5. DOJ and oil industry–“a team”?

Reporting by Inside Climate News alleges that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been siding with the oil industry, rather than acting on behalf of the American people. What appears to be carefully planned collaboration between the DOJ and industry lawyers began in early 2018, shortly after Oakland and San Francisco filed suit against several oil companies over the effects of climate change. At that point, the DOJ began a series of emails and meetings with industry lawyers and began preparation of an amicus brief supporting the oil companies. At the same time, a group of attorneys/solicitors general from fifteen Republican-led states began preparing their own amicus brief on behalf of the oil industry. In all, between February and May 2018 at least 178 pages of communications were exchanged between DoJ representatives and industry lawyers. A number of meetings among the groups took place, but documentation from these has not become available. According to Inside Climate News, in one email, Eric Grant, a Deputy Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division asked Indiana’s Solicitor General to arrange a meeting to review a plan to intercede on oil companies’ behalf. Another email refers to DOJ and industry lawyers as a “team.” S-HP

If you want to call for a Congressional investigation of this government/industry collaboration, here are the appropriate peopleto write.

6. Franchise workers deprived of protections

If you work at a fast-food franchise and are denied overtime pay, where can you go for remedies? Is your employer the local franchise owner or the fast-food corporation? In a situation where the answer to this question is “both,” you have what is a called a “joint employer” and you can expect both of the two to safeguard your employment rights. The Department of Labor has issued new joint employer rules that are scheduled to go into effect on March 16, US News reports. Under these rules, you are only jointly employed if you work under one or more of four very specific circumstances: if both employers can hire and fire you; if both employers supervise your work schedule; if both employers set your pay; if both employers maintain your employment records. Under the new rules if one or more of these is true, you may be jointly employed. But, if that fast food corporation doesn’t set your work hours or maintain employment records on you, the corporation does not have to worry about the franchise’s failure to honor overtime pay rules and workers are left with little recourse, according to the New York Times. Previously, determination of joint employment took into account the real degree of dependence of workers on the “upstream” company: for example, whether that company provided facilities and equipment for workers. S-HP

You can speak up about how these new rules jeopardize the most vulnerable workers. Here are addresses.

7. National Archives may be leaving Seattle

In 2014, the Alaska branch of the National Archives was closed, and the records it held were moved to the Seattle National Archive branch. Now, the Federal Public Buildings Reform Board, created in 2016 as part of the Federal Assets Sale and Transfer Act, which is charged with identifying and selling high-value government-owned real estate, is considering closing the Seattle Archives. The plan is to move Seattle Archive materials to a facility near Riverside, California, and federal agency records to Kansas City. If this proposal is approved, archives currently under a single roof will now be housed in two locations, complicating research efforts. When the Alaska Archive was closed, the National Archives committed to digitizing the Alaska records that would be less accessible to Alaska-based researchers, the Alaska Historical Society reports. That digitization is still incomplete, and an additional move may delay or even end that process. S-HP

You can write to the national archivist and ask that the Seattle archives remain open.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

8. Another assassination considered, amidst disinformation about Iran

It feels like eons ago that we were almost at war with Iran, following the U.S. assassination of top general Qassem Soleimani. But on January 24, it came out that as a result of missiles from Iran hitting US bunkers in Iraq, 34 people have brain injuries from the attack–contrary to what Trump had said earlier, which was at first that there were “no casualties,” then 11 casualties. Trump referred to the concussions that soldiers had incurred as “headaches,” according to Vox. Indeed, some of these are apparently not serious, as 17 of those affected are back at work. But headaches?

The day before, the State Department’s special representative to Iran, Brian Hook, said that he would order the assassination of Soleimani’s replacement if Americans are killed, Vox reported. Hook is the architect of the devastating sanctions that are causing a humanitarian crisis in Iran, according to the Nation.

Foreign Policy in Focus has an overview of American actions against Iran, covering the last forty years.

You can ask your elected representatives to support asserting Congress’s war powers and to ensure that Trump first receives Congressional approval before ordering military action such as that in Iran. Addresses here.

9. Iranian-born travelers stopped at border, students sent back

Though the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has denied detaining and questioning Iranian-born tourists, the CBC reported on January 23 that an unnamed U.S. border patrol official sent an email to a Washington State immigration lawyer saying that this was part of deliberate policy. On the weekend of January 4, some 200 Iranian-Canadians were detained and questions as they were coming into the US from BC for a concert. And at least 13 Iranian students have been prevented from coming in to attend universities in the U.S., the New York Times reported. The students had valid visas and were enrolled in American universities, having spent all their savings on tuition and plane tickets. RLS

If you want to object to the harassment of Iranian-born tourists and call for an investigation into the deportation of Iranian students registered in US universities, here are some ways to do so.

10. Saudi surveillance comes close to home

Curiouser and curiouser! The Saudis apparently hacked Jeff Bezos’ phone, via a WhatsApp video from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to CNN. (The Saudi embassy called the allegations “absurd.”) Whether they did this at Trump’s request or had their own reasons to monitor Bezos is not known–in addition to being the founder of Amazon, Bezos is the owner of the Washington Post, whose coverage has been persistently criticized by Trump. Raw Story claims that the Crown Prince likely had hacked Jared Kushner’s phone; Kushner and MBS, as the Crown Prince is known, are friends and MBS boasted in 2018 that he had Kushner “in his pocket,” according to the Intercept.

Even more oddly, Saudi Arabia is somehow paying the U.S. for the use of American troops, Rolling Stone reported on January 11. They quoted Trump’s interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News, “I said, listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1 billion in the bank.” Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), who recently left the Republican party, described this practice as the use of U.S. troops as “paid mercenaries.” 

Meanwhile, a report on the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in 2018 should have been sent to Congress by Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence–but was not; it was due last week, according to BuzzFeed. In November of 2018, the CIA had concluded that the Saudi crown prince had ordered the killing, the Washington Post reported then, though the Saudi government has denied this and has imposed the death penalty on five people who they say actually killed Khashoggi.

The Guardian reported on Friday that the Saudis were planning to keep surveillance on Khashoggi’s fiancee in London; the Guardian described this surveillance, the monitoring of a pro-democracy activist who has asylum in Norway, and the hacking of Bezos’ phone as part of a pattern: “Agnès Callamard and David Kaye, UN special rapporteurs who are investigating the matter, have pointed to a ‘pattern of targeted surveillance of perceived opponents’ of the kingdom, especially people who are of ‘strategic importance.’” RLS

Are you troubled by the close relationship between the Trump administration and the Saudis? Are you outraged that the killing of Khashoggi seems to be on the back burner? Some ways to respond are here.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

11. Physicists explain how voter turnout and high polarization are recipes for disaster

An electoral model constructed by physicists has given some insights into why our political system appears to be so broken, and why it might not improve. Physicists are used to reducing incredibly complex systems down to an idealized model to better understand the underlying mechanisms at work. It is this approach that physicists at MIT used to see why electoral results often do not match the actual will of the majority of voters., Ars Technica reports. The key ingredients in creating a broken system that does not accurately represent voter opinion are low voter participation and extreme political polarization. Essentially, as the political poles diverge, more people feel that neither candidate is suited to represent their beliefs and so they simply do not vote. This division leaves the remaining pool of voters concentrated in the extremes–which then repeats the same winnowing process, disenfranchising more voters. These extreme fluctuations are representative of a physical phenomenon called a phase transition, researchers explain in the journal Nature. Unfortunately, in physics, phase transitions are very hard to break out of once they settle to one extreme or the other, a prospect that doesn’t bode well for our democracy. More voter participation is sorely needed.  JC

12. Ocean acidification is already affecting crab larvae

As the gigatons of carbon dioxide human beings have emitted interacts with the world’s oceans, it increases the acidity of the water. This process has been predicted to have long-term negative consequences for wildlife, especially crustaceans and mollusks who depend on calcium carbonate for their shells; the higher acidity will literally dissolve them. A study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Dungeness crab larvae in British Columbia, Oregon and Washington states and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment has found that the process is already well underway, Phys.org reports.. Because of the way that deep water mixes with surface water, the coasts of the area studied have several “hot spots” with increased acidity levels, levels which will become the norm throughout the ocean. These hot spots are ideal for a peek into the future of the world’s oceans. They found that the crab larvae already show signs of pitting and folding in their shells, indicative of severe dissolution of their shell material. In addition, tiny free swimming snails that the crab depend upon for food are also negatively affected. The west coast Dungeness crab fishery is worth $200 million dollars alone.  JC

RESOURCES

• The Americas of Conscience Checklist has accessible, usable information on voter registration and the census, as well as quick actions you can take toward justice–e.g., advocating for workers, transpeople and indigenous people in ICE custody, and more.
• Heather Cox Richardson has illuminating commentary on impeachment–and more.
• Want to thank the National Archive for restoring the images of the Women’s march? Inclined to speak up about the manipulation of aid to Puerto Rico? Sarah-Hope’s list has additional items that may interest you.
• Martha’s list this week has numerous ways you can comment for the public record–on school lunches (2 measures), the Endangered Species Act review, DeVos’s “guidance” on school prayer, and most immediate, changes to SSI and SSDI disability reviews (see our December 23 issues for the full story).
• Rogan’s list has an excellent roundup of actions you can take vis a vis impeachment, elections, and other issues.
• Crysostom’s election news site is on hiatus this week, but here’s the January 7 column to hold you over.

This week we’re rejoicing in small victories. The National Archive repented in response to the outcry over the way they blurred pictures of signs from the Women’s March, according to the New York Times. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Lindey Graham agreed to pause judicial nominations until after the impeachment trial, something that both Martha’s list and Americans of Conscience had called for, Bloomberg Law reports. Earthjustice posted a list of the 33 legal victories it has won as a result of the 40 of its lawsuits that have been heard. These rulings will restore a ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, protect grizzly bears from trophy hunting, continue a ban on coal leasing, and much more. And a federal judge blocked Trump’s order allowing states and municipalities to refuse to accept refugees (Texas was the first state to do so), according to NBC.

All this is to say that as grim as the worldwide picture is, organizing works. Lawsuits are effective. And individual acts of protest or advocacy matter. To that end, see our Resources section at the end of this week’s issue, which offers numerous quick, easy actions you can take. You might start by commenting on the proposed changes to disability regulations that we discussed in our December 23 issue; see the link here for an explanation and the location for comments–due January 31.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. “Forever chemicals” will not be addressed by the Senate

Senator John Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told Bloomberg News that a House bill addressing “forever chemicals” has “no prospects in the Senate,” according to the Hill. Forever chemicals, which Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has found present in a wide range of common foods, resist breaking down over time and have also been linked to health problems like kidney and thyroid cancer, by the FDA, the Hill reports. At the same time, as reported in the Intercept, political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are planning multiple processes for rolling back regulation of chemicals that its own scientists have found to be carcinogens, as well as chemicals linked to autism and neurodevelopmental problems. The Intercept details some of the health consequences of these rollbacks. A few examples:

-EPA rollbacks have included clean air and clean water regulations. The damages from these rollbacks will most impact Black and Latino people, who produce less pollution that white Americans, and who live with a higher burden of pollution because they are more likely to live near facilities using dangerous chemicals.

-The EPA has been pulling funding from centers researching the effects of chemicals on children. One such center, the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment, had identified associations between childhood leukemia and exposure to pesticides, traffic emissions, tobacco smoke, and solvents.

-The 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act, which requires the EPA to identify and restrict dangerous substances, is being undermined by the current administration. As Ever Gartner, an Earthjustice attorney explains in the Intercept, “We’re seeing massive exclusions of known pathways for exposure. EPA is finding that chemicals that are universally understood to present massive risk are fine.”

-The EPA is also proposing a federal rules change, the disingenuously named “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,” which would prohibit the use of studies based on the private health data. Without that data, scientists would be unable to prove a connection between cigarette smoke and cancer, for example. This would end the use of anonymous medical information to create study populations in the thousands—which is currently a standard practice in ethical medical research. S-HP

If you want to urge the Senate to take action against these changes, write Barrasso and his colleagues here.

2. Trump administration send asylum-seekers to Guatemala–without telling them where they are going.

Under the administration’s so-called “safe third country” policy, the Border Patrol is sending some asylum-seekers–including families with small children–to Guatemala, without telling them whre they are going or what they should do when they get there. They are required to apply for asylum within 48 hours, but they do not know to do so, according to the Washington Post. Guatemala itself is no place of refuge; in fiscal 2019, 264,000 Guatemalans sought asylum in the United States, the largest number from any country. Guatemala is plagued by the same gangs as the countries the asylum-seekers have fled. RLS

3. House Judiciary Committee investigates “Remain in Mexico” Program

The House Judiciary Committee has announced an investigation into Homeland Security’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which this past year have forced 57,000 asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are processed; in a letter to the most recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acting Secretary, Chad Wolf, the Judiciary Committee asserts that the program is “exposing thousands of people to threats of murder, sexual violence, and kidnapping…. [and] depriving them of already-scare due process protections.” The Committee also pointed out that “As of today [1/12/2020], there are 31 active travel advisories for Mexico…. It is difficult to understand why this administration is sending children and families to areas where they will face certain harm.” (If you want to know more, the New York Times reported on the investigation; the New Yorker had an eloquent piece on MPP in October, and we covered the issue November 10, if you want to scroll down.) S-HP

If you want to write the DHS secretary, here’s his address–and others.

4. House Democrats call for release of transgender people held by ICE

According to The Hill, a group of House Democrats–“arguing that the U.S. has failed to follow guidelines to protect individuals who face more perilous conditions in detention than other migrants”–is calling for the release of all transgender individuals currently held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The letter goes on to note that “Transgender migrants and asylum seekers are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment, solitary confinement, physical assault, and medical neglect. These inhumane conditions and systematic abuses are evidenced in countless reports and accounts by formally detained people.” A 2015 ICE memo calls for specific accommodations to be made when housing individuals who identify as transgender—policies which ICE has never put into practice. This effort is being led by Representative Mike Quigly (D-IL). S-HP

If you want to thank Rep. Quigly and urge your members of Congress to follow suit, here are the pertinent addresses.

5. The Census: from the frying pan into the fire

As follow-up to an executive order from Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that it is providing the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce, which oversees the census, with records that can “assist in determining the number of citizens, lawfully present non-citizens, and unauthorized immigrants in the United States during the decennial census (2020 Census).” Participating agencies will include DHS, as well as a number of agencies it oversees, including the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), NPR reports. In essence this data-sharing will replace the controversial citizenship question that was struck from the census after court challenges. (Fun fact: note that only one of the individuals directing these agencies has actually been confirmed by the Senate.) S-HP

If this effort to weaponize the census troubles you, here are the various (acting) heads of agencies that you can write.

6. Military equipment used to evict mothers in Oakland

A few facts about Oakland, California. Housing in Oakland, California, as is true of most California Housing, is high-priced and scarce. According to the site Rent Jungle, the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland is $2551, for a two-bedroom apartment $3171. The average rent by neighborhood in Oakland ranges from $1939 to $4122. Move-in fees reach $8000 or more. Oakland has a homeless population of 8,000, which is 47% higher than two years ago. In Alameda County, where Oakland is located, you need to make $48 an hour to afford the median rent, but minimum wage in the County is just $14 an hour. Of 9.304 housing units recently built or in construction in Oakland, only 628 were subsidized affordable housing. When a new group of 28 affordable units became available, more than 4,000 people applied for them. Estimates are that there are 32,000+ unoccupied houses in Oakland—or four empty houses per homeless person.

This is why last November a group of homeless mothers moved into an unoccupied house on Magnolia Street (not one of Oakland’s better addresses), Vice explains. That house was owned by Wedgewood, a real estate company that specializes in “flipping homes” and that owns 125+ homes in the Bay Area; “flipping” partly accounts for the increase in home prices. For fifty-seven days the struggle between Moms4Housing (the name the occupying women gave themselves) and Wedgewood played out with intense news coverage. Then in a pre-dawn raid, Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputies stormed the house and evicted the mothers, SF Gate reports. The equipment they used included tanks and AR-15s. They blasted open the door to the house using a battering ram, according to KTVU. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said she was “shocked” by the use of force. S-HP

If you want to speak up about the excessive force used in these evictions, and about the evictions themselves, here are the addresses for the Alameda County Sheriffs and for Wedgewood.

7. Bar Association calls for investigation of Attorney General Barr

Bloomberg reports that the New York Bar Association, in a letter to the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate, has called for a Congressional investigation of Attorney General William Barr because of his “willing[ness] to use the levers of government to empower certain groups over others.” This follows last year’s chastisement of Barr by 450 former federal prosecutors, who had been appointed by both Republican and Democratic administrations, for his misleading handling of the Mueller report. According to PBS, the letter stated that “The duties to act impartially, to avoid even the appearance of partiality and impropriety, and to avoid manifesting bias, prejudice or partisanship in the exercise of official responsibilities are bedrock obligations for government lawyers. Mr. Barr has disregarded these fundamental obligations in several public statements during the past few months…. Mr. Barr launched a partisan attack against ‘so-called progressives’ for supposedly waging a ‘campaign to destroy the traditional moral order…. [and] vowed to place the Department of Justice ‘at the forefront’ of efforts to resist ‘forces of secularization.’” S-HP

If you want to join the New York Bar Association in calling for an investigation of the Attorney General, the appropriate committee chairs can be found here.

8. Conservative think tank masterminded plan to shrink Bears Ears National Monument

The successful campaign to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by 85 per cent was funded by the Sutherland Institute, a non-profit organization supported by private funding, according the Salt Lake Tribune, which obtained a considerable number of documents from the Department of the Interior, following a public records request. The Sutherland Institute tends to be staffed by people who are connected with the Koch brothers and takes positions opposed to public lands in principle. RLS

9. Trump releases aid for Puerto Rico–but with almost untenable restrictions

Trump has agreed to release the aid for Puerto Rico that was earmarked for them after the hurricanes two years ago, according to NPR (see our story last week). However, the aid comes with severe restrictions–it cannot be spent on the electrical grid; federal workers cannot be paid the mandated wage of $15/hr; its budget plans have to be approved by a fiscal control board. As the New York Times reports, a congressional aide suggested that these restrictions are designed to make it impossible for Puerto Rico to spend the money. RLS

If Trump won’t help, you can. Remezcla suggests some local organizations doing relief work there.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

10. Legal complaints filed against RCMP for refusing to allow delivery of winter supplies

The territory of the Wet’suwet’en people in Northern B.C. was never ceded to Canada nor signed over in a treaty. Nonetheless, the Coastal GasLink/TC Energy (formerlyTranscanada) pipeline is scheduled to go through their land despite their objections. Barricades were removed and 14 people were arrested by the RCMP last year at this time, according to The Real News, and documents recently uncovered by the Guardian reveal that in 2018, the RCMP were prepared to shoot protestors (see our December 23 issue for details). Last week, the RCMP refused to allow deliveries of food and winter gear to the territory, and legal complaints have been filed as a result, the National Observer reports. Indigenous Climate Action articulates their support for the Wet’suwet’en people and identifies other sites where Indigenous sovereignity, climate issues and the fossil fuel industry collide. RLS

The Wet’suwet’en people have sent out a call for support.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

11. Human-linked loss of biodiversity actually predates modern humans

A new study published in the journal Ecology Letters provides evidence that the loss of biodiversity that seems to follow humans wherever we live actually predates us as a species. An international team from Sweden, Switzerland and the UK studied fossil records in east Africa, the place with the longest continuous human presence, and found that the drop in biodiversity goes back millions of years. In particular they found that numbers and variety of predatory species fell with no obvious reason such as climate change to explain the loss. It seems likely that it was human ancestor species that out-competed predators in their overlapping habitats. This would also align with hominid’s development of stealing kills from predatory animals, a behavior called kleptoparasitism. Indeed, it may be the case that the lion’s social organization which is unique among felines and the leopard’s habit of carrying their kills up into trees may be tactics evolved to preserve their food from marauding hominids, Phys.Org explains. JC

12. SpaceX completes an apparently successful launch abort test.

The SpaceX Dragon crewed capsule has completed its final test on the road to carrying human beings into space. The rocket lifted off at 10:30 EST January 19 to perform a test on the safety system that should engage if the rocket suffers a catastrophic failure during launch. In the event the rocket explodes or shuts down for whatever reason, the capsule is designed to rapidly break free of the rocket and clear distance from any possibly debris before safely returning the capsule to earth under parachutes. The test utilized a Dragon rocket that had been flown three times previously, in itself an extraordinary achievement, and appeared to be completely successful with separation and safe splashdown exactly where predicted. The first human crew could launch as soon as a few months to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, Ars Technica reported.  JC

RESOURCES

• Vice provides a comprehensive guide to avoid getting hacked.
• The Americas of Conscience Checklist has quick, easy actions you can take and an announcement about its 2020 strategy.
• Sarah-Hope’s list includes some items above and others from last week that you might want to revisit, including the ERA, the machinations of Cambridge Analytica, and the issue of the changes to disability.
• Martha’s list offers opportunities to comment for the public record on issues such as the additional barriers to asylum (see last week’s issue where we explain this), coal plant waste (also explained last week), farmworker protections, and much more.
• Rogan’s list recommends that we call key senators to demand witnesses at the impeachment trial and suggests that we pressure the Senate on the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. See the list for other straightforward actions you can take.
• As the impeachment trial proceeds, Heather Cox Richardson’s nightly columns will be an essential resource.

News You May Have Missed tries to help you keep multiple issues in your line of vision, especially difficult this week. If you focus on Iran, Puerto Rico, Austrailan fires and impeachment, then long-range issues around climate, the environment, and inhuman policy changes can fall out of view. “Radar” is our metaphor of the week–with its sorrowful echoes of the downed Ukrainian plane filled with Iranians and Iranian-Canadians: all we know to do is to systematically scan the horizon, rotating rather than fixating on one spot.

Once again, Heather Cox Richardson gives it to us straight: “All current evidence suggests that Trump ordered the killing of General Qassem Soleimani either to please his base or to curry favor with key senators before the Senate impeachment trial.” We recommend her January 10 piece.

See our Resources section for many ways you can engage with events rather than letting them happen (to you). In particular, a number of pressing policy changes allow for public comment–and many have received very few comments, likely due to the problem of distraction we mention above.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Cambridge Analytica again

Cambridge Analytica–remember them?–apparently interfered not only in the US 2016 election but in the elections of 68 countries, Democracy Now reports. There has been a leak of tens of thousands of documents from Cambridge, according to the Guardian. Some of these are available on a Twitter feed linked to Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Brittany Kaiser, who has just come out with a memoir. @HindsightFiles, has already posted information pertinent to four countries, including Iran, and has a section of material on Bolton. The Guardian quotes Kaiser as saying that in the documents, “There are emails between these major Trump donors discussing ways of obscuring the source of their donations through a series of different financial vehicles. These documents expose the entire dark money machinery behind US politics.” RLS

2. Pelosi to forward articles of impeachment

Under pressure from members of her own party–including Dianne Feinstein–Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has agreed to forward the articles of impeachment to the Senate, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. She did so even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to provide any guarantees regarding the form of the upcoming Senate trial and has made clear his intention to ensure that the trial is conducted according to the wishes of the President and his advisors. It may be that she is seizing the moment while the U.S. is remarkably not at war to refocus the attention of the country. There is however, at least one good reason for Pelosi to delay acting while McConnell remains intransigent. Trump’s final State of the Union address to Congress will be given on February 4. If McConnell is able to engineer a “fake trial,” Trump will be able to spend a significant part of his address celebrating his “exoneration.” If the Senate trial is delayed, he will doubtless proclaim his own innocence, but will not be able to claim exoneration. RLS, S-HP

If you want to urge Speaker Pelosi to continue to be judicious about releasing articles of impeachment, you can write her at this address.

Puerto Rico denied aid again

Puerto Rico has been hit with a devastating series of earthquakes. The strongest of occurred on January 7 and measured 6.4 on the Richter scale. In the two days following that event, the Island had experienced at least 120 aftershocks, CNN reports. At this writing, the earthquakes continue, as the AP notes. As a result, almost the entire island lost power . Now reports indicate that it may take up to a year to repair the earthquake-damaged Costa Sur power plant, which provides one-quarter of the island’s electricity. And, as we’ve reported previously, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) continues to withhold hurricane relief funds from Puerto Rico (a territory of the United States), ignoring a statutory deadline to issue a Federal Register notice permitting Puerto Rico to use $8.2 billion in disaster relief aid appropriated by Congress, as NBC points out. And as Rep. Darren Soto pointed out in a press release, “Puerto Ricans continue to suffer from major hurricanes that made landfall more than two years ago while HUD illegally withholds this aid.” S-HP

You can ask the Inspector General of HUD and members of Congress to investigate the agency’s failure to process Congressionally approved funds in a timely manner.

3. Justice Department rules against the ERA

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” As basic as this language sounds, only 35 states of the required 38 had ratified the Equal Rights Amendment by the deadline of 1982. Nevada and Illinois ratified it after 2017 and the Virginia legislature was set to do so. However, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Dakota rescinded their ratifications and in December, Alabama, Louisiana and South Dakota sued to block it, according to NPR. And then last week, the Justice Department said that because the deadline had expired, the ratification vote by Virginia would not enable the amendment to be enacted, the Washington Post reported. Advocates argue that because the text of the amendment did not include a deadline, Congress’s deadline should not prevail. On January 7, the League of Women Voters sent a letter to Congressional leadership urging them to rescind the deadline. RLS

If you want to add your voice to that of the League of Women Voters, you can find your Congressmembers’ addresses here.

4. More barriers to asylum-seekers: speak up now

The Executive Office for Immigration Reform has proposed changes to asylum regulations that would create seven new mandatory bars to asylum eligibility and that would end automatic reconsideration of discretionary asylum denials, according the National Immigrant Justice Center. The new bars to eligibility would include illegal reentry (in other words, enter the U.S. a second time and you’re ineligible for asylum); alien smuggling or harboring (which might apply simply to helping other asylum seekers), and offenses related to false identification (which asylum seekers are sometimes forced to use to support themselves as they pursue their claim). The end to “automatic review of reconsideration of discretionary asylum denials” actually means an end to all automatic appeals of denials because asylum rulings are, by definition, discretionary. As of January 10, only 43 comments had been submitted regarding these proposed changes. The comment period for these rule changes closes on January 21.

If you want to add your voice to the 43 others who have raised concerns about these barriers to asylum, you can write to the people listed here.

5. Hundreds of billions in tax breaks for the health care industry, while additional billions would be subtracted from Medicare/Medicaid

Bi-partisan support made possible hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the health care industry, including pharmaceutical and insurance companies. At the same time, three taxes which fund the Affordable Care Act–taxes on expensive health-care plans, medical device manufacturers, and health insurance companies–were repealed, according to the Washington Post.

Simultaneously, the government is proposing new limits on the kind of money that can be used to secure Medicare/Medicaid funding beyond the standard federal payments. In regions with high medical costs, Medicare/Medicaid currently will match state funds spent to cover under-funded medical services. The source of funds to be matched is up to individual states. One solution a number of states have used is to place special taxes on healthcare providers. The monies collected are then used to pay for healthcare, which keeps the bottom line even for the state and makes additional matching federal funds available to healthcare providers. State governments generally see this as a practical way to manage health care spending. Billions of dollars are at stake here, according to Skilled Nursing News, the only publication to cover this issue. Our view is that healthcare costs significantly exceed the funding normally provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and so states are looking for mechanisms to put payments closer to actual costs, while the feds are trying to avoid paying any more than basic fees. The result, if the rule change is approved, will be decreased CMS payments to state governments, most of which are already struggling with healthcare costs, with likely cuts to care for patients. RLS/S-HP

If you’d like states to be able to continue to cover the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, rather than losing billions in federal funding, you can comment for the public record here.

6. Mapping the Arctic coast: promise and perils

The Coast Guard has proposed a study of the Alaskan Arctic coast with the goal of identifying possible port access locations. This survey will involve significant areas of largely untouched wildlands, putting them at greater risk of ecological catastrophe. One of the current written responses to this proposal was submitted by a coalition of Audubon Alaska, Friends of the Earth International, Oceana, the Ocean Conservancy, Pacific Environment, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund of the United States. These groups point out that “The PARS [Port Access Route Study] study area has great ecological significance and is vital for food security and subsistence hunting, which has been—and continues to be—carried out by Indigenous Peoples in the region for millennia. It is also a highly dynamic environment that changes dramatically with the seasons and is subject to sea ice and challenging weather and ocean conditions. What’s more, the Arctic region is experiencing rapid change and is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Vessel traffic in the region is increasing, a trend that is expected to continue in the years to come. Yet most areas of the U.S. Chukchi and Beaufort seas remain poorly charted. The remoteness of the region and lack of infrastructure means that the impacts of a serious vessel accident, especially an oil spill, could be devastating to the marine environment and the people whose lives and livelihoods depend on a healthy ocean.

” At the same time, vessels operating in the Arctic region provide vital services to communities and others in the region, including delivery of goods and fuel and support for search and rescue and spill response. For all these reasons, we appreciate the Coast Guard’s decision to carry out a study of current and predicted vessel traffic in the region and consider whether new mitigation measures could be adopted to enhance vessel safety, safeguard subsistence use, reduce user conflicts and protect the health of the marine environment.” The mitigations they ask for include the use of best available information about marine ecosystems; the seasonally and long-term dynamic nature of region, including changes in sea ice, marine wildlife migrations, and subsistence hunting patterns. S-HP

At this link, you can add your voice to the call for mitigations to prevent ecological disaster, mitigations that take into account sea ice, the dynamic nature of the area, and the current subsistence hunting practices.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

7. “Too many dead and not enough shovels”: Revelations about the US attack on its own Afghan security forces

While we are thinking about the narrowly averted war with Iran and about mistakes and miscalculations, we should remember Afghanistan, and in particular the US raid on its own paid security forces in 2008. According to a USA Today investigation, published January 10, the U.S. announced in 2008 that in the Azizabad raid, called Operation Commando Riot, an important Taliban commander had been killed. This was completely false. He had escaped, and instead many civilians died, including about sixty children. Because there were not enough shovels, a local politician brought in heavy machinery and tried to bury mothers and children together. A doctor took pictures of the dead on his cell phone. Read the whole story to learn what happened, how it was covered up, and how USA Today discovered what really happened.

This story echoes the investigative series the Washington Post ran in December, based on 2,000 pages of interview transcripts, which reveal that American politicians and generals knew very early on that the now 18-year war was unwinnable–but continued it nonetheless. These stories seem to have fallen off the radar given everything else, but they are essential reading as our government considers war with Iran. RLS

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

8. Administration removing environmental protections, climate change considerations on big projects

Under new rules to be proposed by the Republican administration, designers of big projects would no longer have to take into account climate change considerations or the fifty-year old National Environmental Policy Act. This move is in addition to 95 other environmental policy rollbacks over the last three years, the New York Times reports, and 70 lawsuits have been filed challenging these changes. (As of last summer, many of these had prevailed, according to The State of the Planet.) These new rules would exempt significant infrastructure projects–such as pipelines–from clean air and water requirements, and would prevent communities from objecting to projects that would impact them, according to the Washington Post. Opportunities for public comment should open shortly. RLS

We’ll let you know when the comment period opens. Meanwhile, you can urge your members of Congress to fight these rollbacks.

9. Oil and gas industry to release more greenhouse gases

The oil and gas industry are on track to release 270 million more tons of greenhouse gases, according to Houston Public Media. According to Eric Schaeffer, Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project which gathered the data, “To put that in scale, that’s equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions that you’d get from more than 50 large coal plants.” They gathered their data from permits already issued as well as drilling proposals, all concentrated in the Houston area. RLS

You can demand action from the leadership of Congressional Committees charged with protecting the environment and monitoring the fossil fuel industry and from your own Congressmembers. Addresses are here.

10. Locust swarm threatens food security.

Desert locusts, a grasshopper species which travels in enormous swarms of millions of insects and moves quickly, consuming all vegetation in their path, have moved into Kenya after having inflicted massive crop damage in Somalia and Ethiopia. This has led to what has been described by the Food and Agricultural Organization as the worst crisis in 25 years in the Horn of Africa region, Phys.org reports. The situation is exacerbated by the instability in Somalia; no organized response to the situation was provided. The insects are not expected to continue breeding within Kenya, a small mercy for an area known for widespread and devastating famines. JC

11. California considers entering the generic drug business.

California may soon become the first state to market its own brand of generic pharmaceuticals in response to a crisis of high prices for lifesaving drugs. The proposal is part of California governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal, released on January 10th. Under the plan, the state would contract out the manufacture of the drugs and sell them under its own label at a lower cost than is available in the market. Drug industry experts are divided about whether the plan will succeed or not, though it is not the first enterprise to try to tackle high drug prices; a consortium of hospitals started a company to manufacture vital drugs in chronic short supply and has achieved some success, Ars Technica reports. JC

12. Computer intelligence is breaking free of 2D

Artificial intelligence software can play chess, drive cars and even create (bad) original prose but until recently the architecture of the neural network it is based upon limited it to two dimensional extrapolations of three dimensional shapes. This is now changing with the advent of a new model called “gauge-equivariant convolutional neural networks,” which can allow artificial intelligences to find patterns in complex real world shapes, like spheres and asymmetrically curved surfaces. This is important because translating actual geometry to a 2d representation can result in distortions–similar to why maps often show Greenland far larger than it actually is. Wired notes that more accurate and detailed ability to describe real world objects should result in huge improvements in AI driven applications in climate and weather modeling, autonomous vehicle piloting and detecting patterns in the complicated surfaces of the human brain and heart. JC

13. Relaxed regulations on dumping coal ash proposed

Government agencies have a special gift for making potentially catastrophic proposals sound as boring (and, hence, harmless) as the text of a metropolitan phone book. Example: “Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals from Electric Utilities; A Holistic Approach to Closure Part A: Deadline to Initiate Closure.” In plain English, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to weaken the rules for disposing of the coal ash produced by coal-burning power plants. The focus here is “impoundments,” the fancy term for “pits we dump coal ash into.” The Obama administration had created new requirements intended to prevent coal-ash leaks or leaching into surrounding soil and water by ending the use of unlined impoundments and limiting the use of clay-lined impoundments. If the proposed rule change goes through, unlined impoundments can continue receiving coal ash unless they leak, which assures that even if leaking impoundments are closed, they will be allowed to leak for a certain period of time before closure is deemed justifiable. The rule change would also reclassify vulnerable and potentially permeable clay-lined impoundments as “lined,” allowing them to operate indefinitely. As of January 10, only six public comments had been received on this proposal. Comments are due by January 31. S-HP

With only six comments having been posted, your response to the deregulation of toxic coal ash could have a real impact. Here’s how to comment for the public record.

RESOURCES

• Got five minutes? The Americans of Conscience checklist gives you quick, focused actions you can take–objecting to the “Remain in Mexico” policy, supporting the census, pausing judicial confirmations during the impeachment process.
• Emma Marris, writing in the New York Times, provides a clear, direct plan for how to live while engaging the climate crisis.
• If you have a postcarding group, consider Sarah-Hope’s list–it has all the options to speak up that you see here–and more.
• Don’t forget Rogan’s list, which explains how to call on Congress to restrain Trump from war-mongering, has election information, suggests launch parties for a Green New Deal–and much more.
• In her list, Martha reminds us that the deadline to speak up about tariffs, drinking water (de)regulations and the “Remain in Mexico” policy is January 13, while the deadline to comment on new nursing home (de)regulations is January 17.
• See why Crysostom hopes Pompeo tries out for Hamlet after all of this, and more in his most recent election round-up–he covers news and gossip around House, Senate and state races.

We know you won’t have missed the news about Trump’s decision to assassinate a senior Iranian military commander while he was in Iraq. We’re recounting the story to date so you will have all the puzzle pieces; where we can, we have embedded them in the history of US intervention in Iran.

We recommend that readers continue to follow Heather Cox Richardson, as she is putting the pieces together around the Iran situation, as she does with everything else. Richardson alludes to the work of New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi, who has covered ISIS & al-Qaeda and is very much worth following on Twitter.

On another topic, an eagle-eyed reader recommends ProPublica’s letter to partner newsrooms about Documenting Hate, the project it has just concluded, documenting three years of hate and discrimination. Anyone exhausted by conversations with family, friends or students about how much better things are could send them to that link. As ProPublica explains, “We saw a large number of hate incidents in schools, particularly after the 2016 election. Latinos have been targeted based on the (often erroneous) belief that they are immigrants or for speaking Spanish. People of color reported being victimized by people who referred to the president or his border and immigration policies. We found people of color harassed by their neighbors and targeted in hate incidents at superstores. We heard from Muslims and people of Arab descent targeted in road rage incidents…” With the news out of Iran and Iraq, this is only going to get worse.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Iranian general assassinated: Why now? Fallout to come.

On January 2, Trump authorized a drone attack in Iraq which killed Iran’s top military commander, Major General Qassim Suleimani and an Iraqi official, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, along with those accompanying them. Trump claimed that “Suleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him,” according to the New York Times. He offered no evidence that Suleimani was plotting something in particular. Suleiman has been an agent of attacks against American troops in Iraq since 2003, so it is not clear why Trump chose this moment to make this move. Vox has a useful discussion about whether the attack was legal and the New Yorker has a good piece on the implications of assassinating Suleimani.

The attack followed violent protests at the American Embassy in Baghdad by those angry about US air strikes against Iran-backed forces; the attack on the embassy echoed the 1979 hostage-taking at the embassy in Iran, which followed the U.S.’s decision to accept the ousted Shah into the United States. New documents reveal that David Rockefeller and others lied to then-President Carter, telling him that the Shah was deathly ill and could only be treated in the U.S., according to NPR. In 2019, the CIA finally admitted that the U.S. was behind the 1953 coup in Iran that had installed the Shah in the first place, deposing a democratically elected leader who had nationalized the Iranian oil industry. In May of 2018, the U.S. unilaterally exited the nuclear pact that it and other countries had negotiated with Iran; the U.S. went on to impose devastating economic sanctions on Iran. In short, there is a long history of U.S. intervention in Iran and Iranian fury about it, as well as of dubious diplomacy; writing for Esquire, Charles Pierce has a useful reflection on this history.

The US is sending 750 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to the region, and another 4000 are preparing to deploy, the Washington Post reported. Thousands of people in Iraq were mourning Suleiman following his funeral January 4, and hundreds of thousands more were protesting his killing in Iran, according to Common Dreams and CBS.  The BBC quoted the Supreme National Security Council of Iran as saying that  “the US would be held responsible for its ‘criminal adventurism’: ‘This was the biggest US strategic blunder in the West Asia region, and America will not easily escape its consequences.’”

Trump apparently notified Republican leadership–as well as a few friends at Mar-a-Lago–prior to the attack but did not notify or request approval from Congress. A resolution which would prevent Trump from engaging in acts of war or military action against Iran without authorization from Congress–but not from responding to an “imminent attack”–was proposed by Democratic Senator Tim Kaine on January 3, the Hill reported, while Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna introduced legislation that would prohibit Trump from going to war against Iran without Congressional approval, Common Dreams notes.  In December, draft language that would have denied authorization for war against Iran was taken out of the military funding bill that allocated $738 billion for the military, according to Truthout. Trump was apparently offered a range of actions he could take vis a vis Iran; concerned that the attack on the embassy would be seen as his “Benghazi,” he chose the most extreme one. “Top Pentagon officials were stunned,” wrote the New York Times.

Unsurprisingly, the attack complicates the impeachment process; though Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would transfer the articles of impeachment to the Senate once she was assured that a fair trial could be conducted, the dynamics have now radically changed, the Washington Post notes, given that the trial would take place while the U.S. is on the brink of war.

Fallout from the attack has already begun; Iraq has said it will expel all US troops while Iran has withdrawn from the nuclear pact, which had been provisionally in place with other signers. A group of Iranian-Americans–citizens–says they were detained at the U.S.-Canada border when returning home from a rock concert. Border Patrol officials says that these claims are false, the Vancouver Sun reports. RLS

If you have concerns about the march to war with Iran, you can take a variety of actions, listed here. In addition, Rogan’s list this week has links with information and actions you can take.

2. Crisis in immigration courts

In a report issued in June, “The Attorney General’s Judges: How the U.S. Immigration Courts Became a Deportation Tool,” the Innovation Law Lab and Southern Poverty Law Center describe the ongoing failure of U.S. Immigration Courts across multiple administrations. The Immigration and Nationality Act requires the Attorney General to establish and maintain an impartial immigration court system, but that system has consistently been neglected and subject to administration biases. The report executive summary contends, “Overwhelming evidence shows that the Office of the Attorney General has long allowed immigration judges to violate noncitizens’ rights in a systemic, pervasive manner that undermines the integrity of the court system.” The report ends by calling for the formation of a new immigration court system outside of the Attorney General’s control.

At the same time, CNN has documented a crisis within the immigration court system. CNN cites the forty-five immigration judges who have left their positions in 2019. Compare this with twenty-one departures in 2017 and twenty-four in 2018. Some of these departures are the result of deaths, but most result from retirements, resignations, and transfers to other government positions. In interviews, CNN found that departing judges cited “frustration over a mounting number of policy changes that, they argue, chipped away at their authority”: the imposition of case quotas, transfer of power from judges to the director overseeing the courts, reversed rulings, curtailment of judicial discretion, and efforts to decertify the National Association of Immigration Judges, the union representing immigration court judges.

If you want to speak up about the misuse of the immigration court system and the policy changes affecting immigration judges, here are appropriate people to write.

Funds for prisoners health care and job training misappropriated

In a complex piece of reporting, ProPublica and the Sacramento Bee have investigated irregularities in the spending of billions of dollars in “realignment” funds, funds intended to compensate for the state’s transfer of prisoners from state prisons to county jails. This funding was first authorized in 2011, when California began the transfers (aka realignment), hoping to satisfy a Supreme Court ruling that required the reduction of the state prison population by at least 46,000 to mitigate the effects of overcrowding. Realignment funds were to be used for two purposes: first, modernization of facilities and second, improving medical care, addiction treatment, education, and job training in jails.

Since 2011, the state has issued $8 million in realignment monies. While such funding is not supposed to be used for non-realignment purposes, lax spending rules and limited oversight have allowed significant abuse. For example, in Shasta and Monterey counties. civil grand juries identified misuse of realignment funds and requested county-level investigations, which were never held. At issue in Monterey was the use of monies granted for a specialist to direct pretrial inmates to education courses that we actually spent to cover the salary of a single guard. In Contra Costa County, realignment funds were used to pay for police foot patrols. At the close of 2019, the California prison population remained above the limit set by the 2011 court ruling. S-HP

Whether or not you are a Californian, you can object to this misuse of funds.

LGBTQ+ seniors could be denied nutrition assistance

Faith-based organizations providing government-funded nutrition services to seniors could exclude LGBTQ+ individuals from their programs, under a proposal from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of Dignity, the largest U.S. Catholic organization supporting “justice, equality and full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and intersex (LGBTQ+) people in the [Catholic] church and in society,” has written to Secretary of HHS Alex Azar to object to the proposal. Duddy-Burke cites the particular vulnerability of LGBTQ+ elders, who may not have family support and are more likely to live in poverty, and argues that the proposal will put tens of thousands of such elders at risk. In addition, exclusion of LGBTQ+ elders will deprive them of socialization and wellness checks these nutrition programs also provide. The letter notes the large role Catholic institutions play in nutritional programs for the elderly and the “exclusion of LGBTQ+ people by [some] Catholic and other faith-based organizations.” S-HP

If you share Dignity’s concerns about the health of LGBTQ+ seniors, you can tell the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Time to thank civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis

John Lewis, a civil rights pioneer and seventeen-term Representative to the House from Georgia’s 5^th congressional district, has announced that her is being treated for stage four pancreatic cancer. From 1963-1966 Lewis chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one of six groups that organized the famous March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. In fact, Lewis is the last remaining living speaker from the March on Washington. As a college student he organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville. He was one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders who challenged segregation on interstate public transportation. Over this period, Lewis was repeatedly assaulted by both law officers and civilians who opposed the movement for Black civil rights. He suffered a skull fracture in one incident, was knocked unconscious in another, and was a passenger on a bus that was fire-bombed by the Klan. His entire life has been characterized by a fearless advocacy for equality and justice. S-HP

You can send best wishes for successful treatment and thanks for a lifetime of fighting for civil rights to: Representative John Lewis, 300 Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 225-3801

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

#. Ambassador to Zambia recalled after criticizing homophobia

Earlier this year two Zambian men were sentenced to fifteen years in prison each for engaging in gay sex, what Zambian law calls “crimes against the order of nature.” In December, U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Daniel Foote issued a strongly worded statement in response to the sentencing and objecting to rampant homophobia in Zambia. He noted that when he arrived in Zambia “I was shocked at the venom and hate directed at me and my country, largely in the name of ‘Christian’ values, by a small minority of Zambians,” and that “I cannot imagine Jesus would have used bestiality comparisons or referred to his fellow human beings as ‘dogs,’ or ‘worse than animals;’ allusions made repeatedly by your countrymen and women about homosexuals. Targeting and marginalizing minorities, especially homosexuals, has been a warning signal of future atrocities by governments in many countries.” Now, the U.S. has recalled Foote after Zambian officials, including the president, refused to continue working with him. Foote has received death threats limiting his participation in international events. S-HP

You can tell the Secretary of State that you appreciate Foote’s decency and courage: Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20520, (202) 647-4000

Efforts to force Trump to oppose human rights violations in China

The New York Times reports on an upcoming bipartisan effort in Congress to force Trump to take a stance in opposition to Chinese violation of the human rights of Chinese Uighurs, a minority Muslim population. The Council on Foreign Relations has outlined a wide range of Chinese abuses against Uighurs: internment of between 800,000 and 2 million Uighurs in internment camps it calls “vocational training camps”; forced renunciation of Islam; forced abortions and contraception; torture; the placement of Communist Party members in Uighur homes to report on “extreme” behaviors, like fasting during Ramadan; and destruction of mosques. Despite this, as the New York Times notes, Trump continues to refer to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a “terrific guy.” The Uyghur [sic] Human Rights Policy Act, S.178 in the Senate and H.R.649 in the House, has been passed by Congress, but not sent on to Trump while differences in the final versions of the two pieces of legislation are reconciled. The hope is that the final version of this legislation will be embraced by a veto-proof majority in Congress. S-HP

If you want to explain to Trump that “terrific guys” don’t engage in persecution of religious minorities and to urge Congress to pass the two Human Rights bills, pertinent addresses are here.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

11. Ten million acres burned so far in Australia fires

First Nations peoples in Australia are in danger of becoming climate refugees, according to the Guardian. Temperatures are routinely about 40 Celsius, 104 Fahrenheit, with some summer days at 120 Fahrenheit (over 48 Celsius). Indigenous communities are running out of water, electricity is unreliable, and most homes do not have air conditioning. Their historic connection to the land is threatened by the immense fires, the largest in Australia history.

Fifty million animals have died in the fires, including perhaps some entire species. Koalas in particular have suffered, as they move slowly and live in the flammable eucalyptus trees, Australian News.com reports. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a heartbreaking piece by a veterinarian about the devastating cost of the fires to farmers, wildlife, farm animals and the land itself.

Why are the fires so serious this year? Increasingly hot temperatures, a very dry spring, years of drought and the ravages of climate change which have led to very dry vegetation, according to the New York Times. Australia has not summoned the political will to cut carbon emissions, in part due to the mining and coal lobbies. The Guardian has a timeline of how the government has resisted climate action and the government’s attitudes toward climate activism is clear: Michael McCormack, the deputy prime minister, referred to activists as “inner-city raving lunatics.” For a sane voice, read councillor Vanessa Keenan’s heartfelt letter to McComack in the Guardian. 

Recent climate talks in Madrid ended without consensus, according to the New York Times, as Australia, Brazil, China, India and the U.S. blocked any specific action items.

Vice has a page on how to help Australians, with some links specifically for First Nations peoples. RLS

Fish threatened by border wall

What do the Yaqui topminnow, Yaqui chub, Yaqui shiner, Yaqui catfish, Chiricachua leopard frog, Huachuca water umbel, Aplomado falcon, and San Bernardino spring snail have in common?

-All are endangered or threatened species.

-All rely on crucial habitat along the edge of Arizona’s San Bernardino Wildlife Refuge.

-All face catastrophic consequences from the construction of a twenty-mile section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall along the edge of the wildlife refuge, particularly because of the depletion of spring flow and groundwater.

Water in this area was scare before wall construction began due to the effects of the climate crisis and expanded planting of water-intensive crops. Twenty-eight federal statutes and thirteen state laws have been waived to facilitate construction of this section of the wall—construction that requires the use of 50 million gallons of water for each mile of wall constructed (or 1 billion gallons of water for this particular twenty-mile segment). The laws being waived include clean air and water protections, endangered species protections, public lands, and Native American rights, the Guardian reports. Now, bear in mind the havoc that will most likely result from the construction of this twenty-mile segment of wall and consider what the extent of the destruction will be if the full two-thousand-mile-long wall is completed. S-HP

If you want to argue that the survival of species is more important than the construction of a wall (that will not deter immigration), you can write appropriate officials at these addresses.

EPA takes down Toxmap

For fifteen years, Toxmap, an interactive map maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), allowed the general public, as well as researchers and advocates, to pinpoint sources of pollution. The easily navigable map used dots of different colors to represent all U.S. facilities releasing certain toxic chemicals into the environment, as well as every Superfund program site. Now, the NLM has removed the site, claiming it has become redundant as the data it aggregated were all available elsewhere, according to Newsweek and Popular Science. However, Toxmap was the only site that provided this particular mix of data. Now, those wishing to identify environmental hazards will have to move among at least twelve different online sites, none of them as user-friendly as Toxmap was. S-HP

If you want to advocate for the restoration and updating of Toxmap, here is whom to write.

Trump’s own EPA says rollbacks contradict science

The members of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, which includes many members chosen by the Trump administration, has identified three of the administration’s environmental regulation rollbacks to be at odds with established science. These include Obama administration regulations regarding waterways, an Obama administration effort to limit tailpipe emissions, and a plan that would limit the data that could be used to draft health regulations. The New York Times cited a letter from the EPA Science Advisory Board, saying that the rollback on water pollution “neglects established science” by “failing to recognize watershed systems” and that there was “no scientific justification” for exempting certain bodies of water from anti-pollution protections. The changes to emissions standards were marked by “significant weaknesses in the scientific analysis of the proposed rule.” Finally, the health rule would limit data used for decision-making to studies in which all participants are specifically identified, despite the fact that this violates the privacy of medical records required of ethical research. The EPA Science Advisory Board found that “key considerations that should inform the proposed rule have been omitted from the proposal or presented without analysis.” S-HP

To let the EPA know that they should pay attention to their own advisory board, contact appropriate officials and committee chairs.

RESOURCES

• Amy Siskind, who has been posting a weekly list of not-normal actions since the beginning of the Trump administration, has a round-up of particularly egregious behavior.
• Martha’s list focuses on SSI and SDI proposed rules that would result in massive cuts to disability, the “remain in Mexico” comment deadline, and more.
• For regular access to clear, well-defined actions, follow the Americans of Conscience checklist.