Month: August 2020

News You May Have Missed this week is trying to maintain bi-focal vision, with one eye on the California fires and the other on national and world events. Hence, this week we follow the fires and follow up on a number of the stories we have covered before.

With tens of thousands of people having been evacuated, we want to alert everyone to re-register to vote if you expect to be relocated for any length of time. Information about registration is at the California Secretary of State’s office. The deadline to register for the November election is October 19.

Apropos of which, our elections correspondent has a wrap-up of the most recent primaries.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Those caught in California fires pay the price for climate change

The California fires, like disasters everywhere, illuminate many fault lines at once. The climate crisis contributes to the higher temperatures and drier conditions, MIT Technology Review points out, citing a paper in Science that shows how “the number of lightning strikes will increase by about 12% for every degree of rise in global average air temperature.” We know that hurricanes have been increasing in the climate crisis, and what Weather.com called “the ghost” of Hurricane Genevieve is likely to send erratic winds and dry lightning, making the fires worse. As the AP reported, Governor Gavin Newsom said, “If you are in denial about climate change, come to California.”

Newsom has obtained a federal disaster declaration from the Trump administration, permitting access to federal funds and services, even though, as Politico reported, earlier Trump ridiculously said at a rally “They’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.” California and the Federal government had already reached an agreement–before the present fire crisis–to thin California’s forests, the Mercury News noted.

In Monterey County, around 70,000 acres have burned in the three fires–the River, Carmel and Dolan fires, affecting areas south of Salinas, Carmel Valley and Big Sur, according to the Californian. Big Sur Kate, who for decades has been the hub of information and the facilitator of resources in the Big Sur area, is tracking the Carmel, River and Dolan fires. Evacuation locations and fire maps are located at her blog.

Santa Cruz, Alameda and San Mateo Counties are beset by the CZU Lightning Complex, which has grown to 339,968 acres. 1157 firefighters are on the scene, and air support is now possible, since some of the smoke has cleared. Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty says that 24,000 structures are still threatened; many homes have already been lost. Santa Cruz County has links to fire information and shelter options.  Air quality in the Bay Area and the Central Coast is significantly impaired, according to the Mercury News; full of not only smoke but particulate matter, the air is particularly dangerous for people with lung conditions–and for animals.

The LNU Lightning Complex, which has burned 341,243 acres north of San Francisco as of August 23, is now the second-largest wildfire in California history, SF Gate reports, covering an area nearly ten times the area of San Francisco. Status updates on the LNU fire are available at Cal Fire’s website.

Over 100,000 people statewide have been evacuated, according to KPIX, which has a complete list of evacuation orders for Santa Clara County and the Bay Area. 

Even though California hired and trained 830 new firefighters over the last month, the cadre of firefighters is simply insufficient to deal with the 357 fires across the state, the Mercury News reports, and new firefighters will lack experience in coping with a challenge of this magnitude. Ordinarily California depends on inmate firefighters, but many have been released due to the risk of COVID, and many still incarcerated have COVID, KCBS reported. In short, a vital public service depends on people being in prison. Inmate firefighters are not permitted to become firefighters upon their release because of their criminal record. A bill in the Assembly in 2019 was intended to rectify this inequity, but it failed in February of this year. 

Because there are so many fires in the state, the usual sharing of resources among regions and between the state and federal jurisdictions is not viable, leaving firefighting forces in all areas stretched thin. Firefighting agencies across California have requested aid from other states, the Mercury News reported. While the National Guard is expected to be deployed, it will take a week to train them, fire officials on the Central Coast said. And while volunteers have fought fires on an ad-hoc basis until firefighters could arrive, their presence complicates the work of fire-fighting, as firefighters need to keep their safety in focus. 

Those who are vulnerable in ordinary circumstances are especially so in the fires. California farmworkers have been hit hard by COVID-19; those who are able to work are enduring the the falling ash and smokey air, the Guardian reported. Farmworkers are supposed to be provided with masks when the air is bad, but often they are not; what they need for working in smoke are N-95 masks, but these have mostly gone to hospitals. Paid sick leave is rare. As Lucas Zucker, the policy and communications director for the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, told the Guardian, “people are pushed to make an impossible choice during something like a pandemic or a wildfire.” RLS

If you want to suport those deplaced by the CZU lightning complex, we suggest you support the Santa Cruz Community Foundation. The Red Cross is assisting those displaced by the LNU lightning complex. And for those in Monterey County, Big Sur Kate recommends Monterey County Recovers. The Californian has a listing of where you can help people displaced in Napa, as well as various centers who are assisting animals.

2. How Trump could stay president

Trump is famously opposed to mail ballots, but it turns out he is suspicious of in-person voting as well. Asked about worries around fraud in during in-person voting, he said, “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to have hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals. But it’s very hard,” he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity, the Washington Post reported. Visualize the process whereby law enforcement personnel distinguish legitimate from illegitimate voters and what their criteria might be.

Republicans are also hoping to send 50,000 volunteers to 15 states to “monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious,” the New York Times reported. As a result of a court case, the Republican Party is no longer precluded from sending observers to polling places; previously, starting in 1981 with a lawsuit  by the Democratic party, several court decisions up through 2004 found that Republican “poll watchers” were intimidating voters. 

The Trump administration is also suing election boards in Pennsylvania for providing secure drop-boxes for ballots, but in a court hearing, Trump’s lawyers could provide no instances of voter fraud, according to the Intercept.

Newsweek maps a chilling scenario whereby Trump would still be president after the 2020 election: 1) He succeeds in suppressing enough votes in key states; 2) He claims widespread election fraud and invokes emergency powers that allow him to remain president. RLS

3. Latest assaults on the Post Office

• According to Politico, Louis De Joy was not on the original list of candidates being vetted for the position of Postmaster General. DeJoy was instead nominated, after the compiling of the list and initial vetting, by John Barger, a member of the USPS Board of Governors. This represents a significant break in past practice, as has been noted by a number of members of Congress. Politico quotes a written statement from Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): “The appointment of Mr. Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General was highly irregular, and we are concerned that his candidacy may have been influenced by political motivations.”

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer continues to seek information about the process by which Louis DeJoy was selected for the position of Postmaster General, but thus far, as the New York Times reports, the US Postal Service (USPS) Board of Directors has continued to refuse to provide the requested information or to allow the consulting firm it employed for the hiring process to be released from the nondisclosure agreement it had signed at the start of the process. Senator Schumer has also requested specific information from Postmaster DeJoy about the specifics of his promise to delay further USPS changes until after the presidential election. In hearing on Friday with the Senate Homeland Security Committee DeJoy repeatedly refused to provide written transcripts of his meetings with the USPS Board of Governors and other documents related to the slowing of mail service under new policies he instituted, according to refinery29. And while DeJoy did promise a delay in changes, he has been clear that he does not intend to reverse the changes already made, which include taking mail sorting machines offline, removing mailboxes, and cutting postal worker overtime.

• The Anchorage Daily News has reported on a rule change that prevents postal workers from signing as witnesses on absentee ballots. Many states require witnesses, and preventing postal workers from signing as witnesses will make voting more difficult for those who live alone or have limited social contact and who, in the past, might have relied on obtaining the witness signature when dropping off a ballot for mailing. Alaska, one of the states that has a witness requirement, lists postal workers among those who can serve as witnesses, but voters have reported that postal workers are refusing to provide witness signatures, saying they are now barred from doing so.

• According to the Washington Post, Postmaster General DeJoy not only plans to restart paused changes in postal services: he has a lengthy list of changes in the works that will include raising package mailing rates, charging extra for mail services in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, ending reduced mailing rates for nonprofit organizations, and leasing USPS space to other government agencies. The Washington Times discusses the possibility of higher postal rates in rural areas where mail delivery is more costly than in urban areas, which would further isolate many of the nation’s isolated rural communities.

• Vice offers stories about the difficulties small businesses are having relying on the USPS as service becomes more erratic. The New York Times offers similar stories about the experiences of rural Americans, including late deliveries of day-old chicks and ducklings that have resulted in the death of the animals. In other instances, packages containing live animals are being crushed under the backup of coronavirus-related mail-order shipments that have slowed postal deliveries.

• A piece by NBC reveals that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin requested one-on-one meetings with members of the USPS Board of Directors before a decision was made on the hiring of the new Postmaster General. Because one-on-one meetings do not fall under the “sunshine” rules that require public access to information regarding the meetings of federal agencies, there is no way of knowing what the topic of Mnuchin’s meetings was. Mnuchin has been actively advocating for USPS cuts and blocking attempts to provide additional funding for the USPS during the COVID-19 epidemic.

• Labor Notes explains the increasing stress postal workers find themselves under as the workforce is temporarily reduced due to COVID-19 while DeJoy’s policies of barring overtime pay that would ensure mail delivery are in effect. Before DeJoy’s, postal workers might take up to an hour and a half to integrate unsorted mail with presorted mail before going out on their routes. New USPS policies limit sorting time to 30 minutes in the morning and provide no time for it in the afternoon. For postal workers who are committed to fully discharging their responsibilities, that cut necessitates working off the clock or skipping breaks. Milwaukee postal workers have responded to these pressures with a committed refusal to work unpaid time or to be “sped up” during their work hours. By insisting on taking the time necessary to do the work they are responsible for, they have been able to push back against new directives and to gain additional time for activities like integrating sorted and unsorted mail. This resolution does, however, require a certain willing blindness on the part of supervisors, who continue to verbally insist on a thirty-minute limit while requiring more time in practice, and postal workers, who continually have to resist the pressures being put on them. S-HP

If you want to help save the Postal Service, tell the Post Office Board of Governors and others that we are not satisfied with promises from DeJoy, demand his resignation, and warn them that we will be closely monitoring the state of the USPS during the presidential election and after. Addresses are here.

4. Children still being separated from parents, housed in hotels, deported

Children are still being detained in hotels, supervised by transportation workers with a private security company; as far as anyone knows, no records are being kept of who they are or where their parents are, and no representation is being offered to them. Some of the children are as young as a year old, the New York Times reports. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit trying to get injunction against the practice of rapidly deporting children, reports Vox, and Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) has called for an investigation On the one hand, the children are at least not in dubious border shelters in 115 degree weather. On the other hand, the potential for abuse is obvious. As an ACLU attorney told the New York Times, ““As dangerous as it is for children to be secretly held in hotels,” he said, “the ultimate problem is that they are expelled without a hearing, regardless of where they are held.” RLS

The Texas Civil Rights Project urges us to tell Congress to investigate the detention of children in hotels. More information is at their site.

5. Trump’s cabinet voted in 2018 to separate children from their families

Led by Trump’s senior advisor, Stephen Miller, Trump’s cabinet took a “show of hands” vote in 2018 to separate children from their families at the border, even though they all knew that the system was not capable of keeping track of the families and children once separated. According to an investigation by NBC News, also expected to be present (though NBC could not confirm that they were) were Jeff Sessions, then Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Undersecretary of Defense John Rood, then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, White House deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, then-White House counsel Don McGahn and Marc Short, now chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence. RLS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

6. On top of the explosion and the downward-spiraling economy, cases of COVID in Lebanon spike

Following the August 4 explosion of a warehouse filled with 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, Lebanon is coping with a spike in coronavirus cases and has imposed a two-week lockdown. With over 6,000 people injured, the virus likely spread due to crowding in hospitals and close contacts in the desperate search for survivors, as well as among those protesting government inaction, Global News explains. RLS

If you want to assist in Lebanon, a Middle-East scholar of our acquaintance recommends these NGOS.

7. Uyghurs interned, abused, surveilled in China

The situation of Uyghur Muslims in China appears to have slipped off the radar, so it’s time to review what they have been facing. The Chinese government is now holding upwards of one million members of the Uyghur minority in internment camps in the Xinjiang province. The Financial Times reports that interned Uyghurs have been subject to many abuses, including forced sterilization and separation of parents and children (that might sound familiar). Outside of the internment camps, the government is destroying mosques and criminalizing minor expressions of religious practice, including wearing head scarves, growing beards, and refusing to smoke and drink. The government also requires Uyghurs to download tracking software onto their phones and has extensive facial recognition software in use in the Xinjiang province. The government aims to obliterate their Muslim and ethnic/cultural practices a process it calls “deradicalization.” As the Financial Times notes, these abuses border on genocide according to many human rights lawyers

         At the end of July, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced new sanctions against the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in addition to already existing sanctions that bar sales of U.S. goods to eleven Chinese corporations. Construction Corps, an economic and paramilitary group—as described by the New York Times—also oversees state-run companies that export agricultural products. In 2018, the Construction Corps exported $43 million worth of goods to the U.S. and received $103 million in goods exported from the U.S., not necessarily significant amounts in today’s economy, so there are questions about how much effect the sanctions will have. However, the current pandemic which has lessened the U.S. Government’s willingness to try to maintain pleasant relations with China and Trump’s flailing election campaign may provide the impetus for more significant sanctions, which have long been called for by people both on the right and the left.  

Rights groups are pointing out that the fashion industry depends on forced labor provided by the Uyghur Muslims, the Guardian reported. A coalition of human rights organizations are asking companies not to use cotton and other products produced by Uyghur Muslims in China. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling on the National Basketball Association to cease all operations in China, including training programs and broadcasting and licensing agreements, until the persecution of Uyghur Muslims ceases. CAIR cites an ESPN report that one former NBA employee who worked in the Xinjiang province “compared the atmosphere there to ‘World War II Germany.’” S-HP

If you are inclined to urge the NBA to cease all operations in China until the persecution of Uyghur Muslims is halted and call for additional sanctions against China in response to these human rights abuses, appropriate addresses are here.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

8. “Race Detection”: The latest use of facial recognition software

We’ve called attention several times to the inaccuracy of facial recognition software and its potential for abuse and recently alerted you to the actions of Clearview AI, a facial recognition software maker: in particular to block privacy laws allowing individuals the right to refuse the company from using online photos of them in developing the software. According to a February article from the Verge, Facebook and LinkedIn prohibit image harvesting for such purposes, but Clearview continues the practice. The Verge now reports that Clearview AI has just signed a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has its own history of using people’s pictures—in this case from state drivers’ license databases—in developing facial recognition programs. Following February reporting from BuzzFeed on the extensive use of Clearview products by private companies, including the NBA, Bank of America, Macy’s and Walmart, Clearview pledged to end such sales, but it intends to continue marketing its products to government and law enforcement entities, as the new ICE contract demonstrates.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a new type of facial analysis: race detection. The “legitimate” use most often cited for such programs is ad targeting, “Use of the software is fraught, as researchers and companies have begun to recognize its potential to drive discrimination, posing challenges to widespread adoption.” Aside from its potential for abuse—it is one of the tools the Chinese government uses to track Uyghur Muslims— this software is problematic for a reason that would be readily understood by anthropologists. As the New York Times explains in science reporting: “the standard labels used to distinguish people by ‘race’ have little or no biological meaning…. the human species is so evolutionarily young, and its migratory patterns so wide, restless and rococo, that it has simply not had a chance to divide itself into separate biological groups or ‘races’ in any but the most superficial ways.” In other words, racial detection is categorizing people under a construct not of biology, but of human society, which has a propensity for labeling people according to an other/self dichotomy. Even if it’s only used to help sell lipstick—something the Wall Street Journal tells us Revlon tried in 2015—it’s “validating” nonexistent differences and enabling those with exclusionary or prejudicial motives to continue in their exclusion and prejudice. S-HP

If you wish to insist (yet again) on clear limits to unauthorized use of individuals’ photographs to develop facial-recognition software and the use of the software by both government agencies and private companies and call for an examination of the potential misuse of “racial-detection” software and for appropriate limits (or even a ban) to be set on its use by private corporations and organizations and the government, you can find your representatives’ contact information

RESOURCES

• The Americans of Conscience Checklist has bracing messages and easy actions you can take.
• Sarah-Hope’s list is mostly incorporated above, but if you want to work through it with a pile of postcards, here is the link.
• In her list , Martha points out that the opportunity to comment on proposals to shift liquified natural gas by rail, a practice hat Mother Jones calls “bomb trains,” closes soon. There is a new proposal that lets the FDA not review coronavirus tests, and the USPS Board of Governors will post a notice tomorrow under the Sunshine Act that says they met last week, public not allowed–and no info on agenda, discussion, or decisions has been revealed. And note that you can comment on the usual environmental assaults -reminding us that the administration wants to redefine critical habitat in a way that is deadly for endangered species.
• Rogan’s list is back, reinvigorated, from hiatus. She suggests a series of actions to address the issues surrounding the Post Office.
• Heather Cox Richardson this week reflects on the presence of QAnon believers in the Republican party, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, an opponent of Putin, the arrest of Steve Bannon, the Democratic convention, and more.

Heather Cox Richardson reviews the efforts to dismantle the Post Office before the November election in her August 14 letter, along with the illegal tenure of the acting secretary and acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Preserving the Post Office: We did the math

Outrage around the overt assault on the Post Office has begun to have an effect. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says that he will stop removing mailboxes until after the election, according to the Daily Beast. Several issues around this situation reported by Business Insider (and many other sources) deserve highlighting.

• Trump himself has been very open about the fact that the changes being made right now at the USPS are being made in order to interfere with mail-in voting in the November presidential contest: “They want $25 billion—billion—for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said, adding, “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

• 19 mail sorting machines (most in swing states), each of which could process some 35,000 pieces of mail an hour, have been dismantled and removed. If we do the math (our math, not Business Insider’s) we can see that the loss of just those 19 machines will reduce the daily mail processing capacity in the U.S. by almost 8 million pieces of mail. The calculation: 19 machines x 35,000 pieces processed per hour x [this is a guess] 12 hours of operation a day = 7,980,000 pieces of mail daily that just those machines could have processed.

• The Washington Post (and many other sources) notes that the administration has now advised 46 states that their ballots many not arrive in time to be counted due to slower service and lower capacity.

Law and Crime has noted that the Inspector General of the USPS is launching an investigation into these changes, as a result of queries made by Elizabeth Warren. Also per the Washington Post ( and many other sources), Congressional Democrats are trying to launch investigations of the changes at the USPS. The sad fact is that those investigation simply won’t have teeth, regardless of what is discovered. The only people, besides Trump, who have the power to remove DeJoy and see that these changes are reversed are the USPS Board of Governors. S-HP

If you want to add your voice to the discussion, ask the USPS Board of Governors to remove DeJoy in response to his clearly demonstrated intention to hinder U.S. elections. Their addresses are here (maybe they’d like a postcard?), as are their email addresses. You can also join MoveOn’s campaign to get the Post Office funded through the stimulus bill.

2. Black lives at risk from COVID-19

The uneven impact of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) continues to wreak havoc on these communities. We•News provides an update on the virus’s impact on women of color. Through August 4, COVID-19 had killed one in every 2,800 white Americans. In contrast, for Black Americans, that number is one in every 1,250; for indigenous Americans, it’s one in 1,500; for Pacific Islander Americans, it’s one in 1,700; and for Latinx Americans, it’s one in every 2,200. These numbers are particularly problematic because women of color are more likely than white women to be the primary breadwinners for their families. Women of color also make up a disproportionate slice of many occupations—manicurist, skin care specialist, cashier, and health aids of many types—that involve greater possible exposure to the coronavirus. All this is complicated by long-standing discrepancies in basics like housing and healthcare for women of color as compared to white women.      

The Washington Post reports on a CDC finding that Hispanic and Black children have much higher rates of COVID-19-related hospitalization as compared to while children. A Hispanic child with COVID-19 is eight times more likely than their white peers to require hospitalization; Black children are five times more likely than their white peers to require hospitalization. The article goes on to explain that “[t]he report calls for improved understanding of the broader social forces that affect health so that racial and ethnic disparities in pediatric hospitalization rates can be mitigated.”(S-HP)

You can inform your Congressmembers, Congressional leaders, and administration figures negotiating COVID-19 relief of these immense discrepancies and insist that COVID-19 relief funding reaches the communities being most hard-hit be the disease and that the underlying causes of these discrepancies be studies and addressed. Addresses are here.

3. Company collecting coronavirus data instead of the CDC won’t disclose its process of tracking information

The New York Times reports that TeleTracking Technologies, the private company that’s now aggregating COVID-19 data since Trump took this responsibility out of the Centers for Disease Control’s purview, has refused to answer Senate Democrats’ questions about its $10.2 million contract because of a nondisclosure agreement it signed with the Department of Health and Human Services. The information TeleTracking is refusing to provide includes “its process for collecting and sharing data; its proposal to the government; communications with White House staff or other officials; and any other information related to the award.” A Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson has told the Senators to request this information from the administration, instead. The New York Times quoted Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s reaction that “The Trump administration’s decision to hire a private vendor and then cloak that vendor in a nondisclosure agreement raises numerous questions about their motivations and risks the ability of our public health experts to understand and effectively fight this virus.” S-HP

You can demand that HHS honor rules for transparency in government contracting and that it provide all requested information to the Senators. Write or call Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Washington DC 20201, (877) 696-6775. Secretary@HHS.gov.

4. Women assaulted in immigrant detention

Immigrants being held at an immigration detention center in El Paso have been sexually assaulted by ICE guards, an investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune reported. Women are attacked areas that cannot be viewed by cameras, and are threatened and bribed, one woman told ProPublica in a telephone interview. One woman who was assaulted was deported, according to other detainees, and another woman is scheduled for deportation, meaning that witnesses in the case that has been brought by Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center will likely be unavailable. According to a complaint filed by Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) with the Department of Homeland Security, these assaults are not a fluke. CIVIC notes that between 2010 and 2016, 14,700 complaints regarding sexual and physical abuse were filed against ICE. RLS

5. GAO confirms that acting secretaries are serving illegally.

We’ve known that the appointments of Chad Wolf as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Ken Cuccinelli as Acting Deputy Secretary did not meet with current regulatory guidelines. Now, Politico reports that the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—Congress’s investigative arm—has confirmed that fact. Wolf and Cuccinelli took on these positions while Kevin McAleenan restructured the agency’s order of succession while he was serving as Acting Director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The GAO has determined that McAleenan did not have authority to makes these changes. Congressional Democrats are calling for the two to resign, but the Department of Homeland Security has refused to respond to Congressional queries and calls the GAO finding “baseless,” according to the Washington Post. However, assuming the GAO finding is correct, points out Raw Story, Wolf did not have the authority to order changes that would limit and ultimately lead to the end of the Dream Act and the use of DHS officers for riot “control” (by which we mean “incitement”) in Portland. Both men have also been serving in these positions beyond the legal maximum terms of service for “Acting” department leadership. S-HP

You could demand the resignations of these men holding leadership positions illegally and insist to your Congressmembers that these men be removed from their positions and that policies developed under their leadership be cancelled. Addresses are here.

6. Campaign to stop prosecutors from accepting campaign contributions from police

National Public Radio reports that a group of current and former District Attorneys have launched a campaign asking California’s bar association to ban prosecutor candidates from accepting police union and other law enforcement donations due to conflict of interest this creates. CBS SF Bay Area goes on to explain: the group [of DAs] argued that prosecutors cannot ethically investigate and prosecute police misconduct when police unions, sheriff’s offices and correctional divisions offer their endorsements and financial support. That conflict of interest also erodes public trust in law enforcement, they said. “I think it’s apparent to all of us today that America has a crisis of trust in law enforcement,” San Francisco DA, Chesa Boudin said. “It’s a crisis that you can see unfolding on the streets all across this great country.”

If you are in California, you can join current and former DAs in asking the California Bar Association to ban prosecutor candidates from accepting police union and other law enforcement donations and point out the way current practice creates a conflict of interest and betrays the public’s trust in law enforcement.

7. Clearview to claim first-amendment rights?

The New York Times reports that prominent First-Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, who worked on Citizens United, has a new client: the facial recognition company Clearview AI. Clearview has been assembling its facial recognition database using billions of photos available on the internet, without requesting or receiving permission from any of the people in those pictures. Law enforcement can then give Clearview a photo of a person of interest and its database tries to match that photo to images online. Basically, at any moment Clearview can use online images of you for a virtual “perp walk,” which is particularly problematic given the high inaccuracy rates for facial recognition software identifications of people of color. Lawsuits against this use of online photographs, using privacy protection arguments, have been filed in California, Virginia, Illinois, Vermont, and New York. Clearview’s hope, apparently, is that it can convince the courts that its use of online photographs can be seen as a form of speech (or pre-speech), which would make their use of these photographs protected under the First Amendment. S-HP

You might tell Clearview that their use of images of our faces without our permission is an invasion of our privacy, regardless of the source of those images. You can also for legislation on the national and state level to protect us from this use of online photographs that include us. Addresses are here.

8. Felony to assault workers who ask customers to wear masks

You likely haven’t missed the stories of customer service workers being screamed at, spit on, assaulted, and threatened with guns for asking customers to wear masks. Finally, though, there is a strategy: The state of Illinois has enacted legislation that makes it a felony to assault retail workers who are enforcing mask requirements, reports USA Today. S-HP

You can tell your state legislators and Governor that you’d like to see them take similar action. Find your state legislators’ addresses here, and your governor here.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

9. Tracking the dead

An anesthesiologist, Claire Rezba, couldn’t bear it that no one was keeping track of health care workers who died from COVID-19. She began to search for the obituaries, looking for lessons learned. Instead, she found heartbreaking patterns, as ProPublica reported: “men and women who worked two or three jobs but had no insurance; clusters of contagion in families; so many young parents…The majority were Black or brown. Many were immigrants. None of them had to die.” By the end of July, Rezba had 900 names. Rezba connected with a doctor who had had COVID and who had started a Facebook page, Physicians Memorial. Both doctors are commited to preserving not only data but life stories. RLS

RESOURCES

• The Americans of Conscience Checklist is focusing on actions you can take to encourage voter participation.
• If you missed our elections correspondent’s roundup on the most recent primaries, you can find his comprehensive report here.
• If you postcard, see Sarah-Hope’s full list.
• Martha says that the newer proposals inviting public comment involve more environmental assault – on energy efficiency, air quality (ozone) and critical habitat; see her list for details. You might also want to comment on the government’s proposal to expand the options for conducting executions, including moving them to another state if the state in which the sentence is imposed prohibits the death penalty.



DOMESTIC NEWS

Who does our elections correspondent describe as an “odious troglodyte”? It’s not who you think. Find out here and see his exhaustive summary of the primary results.

See Heather Cox Richardson’s August 8 letter on Trump’s efforts to suspend the payroll tax (see below) and that the strategy is behind his plan to provide coronavirus relief.

1. Undermining the Postal Service threatens the November election

This can’t be said often enough: the fate of U.S. democracy may well be determined by the fate of the U.S. Post Office (USPS). The COVID-19 epidemic will certainly remain at play when the presidential election arrives on November 3, and mail-in ballots are the best way to protect the health of voters while allowing them to exercise the franchise. While the Republican administration insists that voting by mail is prone to fraud (it isn’t), there are other, legitimate concerns about voting by mail—particularly given the current state of affairs at the USPS. According to Fortune, new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has introduced “cost-saving measures,” like prohibiting all overtime, regardless of whether mail has been sorted and delivered, that are significantly slowing mail delivery. Democratic leadership has objected to these changes, but they remain in effect.

 And what if a voter sends a mail-in ballot on or after election day because that ballot arrived late? Answer as of now: that ballot most likely won’t be counted. That would be in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling regarding Wisconsin’s primary election. Wisconsin Republicans were unwilling to make adjustments to the ballot-counting procedure that would have allowed late-arriving ballots to be counted, despite the increasing reports of voters not having received ballots and entire crates of ballots misplaced, due to the increase in mail-in voting and the reduced postal staff as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A federal judge ruled in support of a request that ballots arriving up to six days after the election be counted. That ruling was appealed by Republicans. The Supreme Court agreed to an expedited hearing on the issue and ruled, along straight party lines, that the only late-arriving ballots that would be counted were those that were postmarked on or before election day—regardless of when a voter received a ballot.

         At least eight states have made plans to send mail-in ballots to all voters. Given deliberately slowed mail services and the Supreme Court ruling, many voters may have to choose between last-minute, in-person voting at a risk to their own health or the possibility of their vote not being counted. According to reporting by the New York Post, in the New York primary election, some 84,000 mail-in ballots were not counted, one-quarter of them due to late arrival. The House COVID-19 HEROES Act would include an additional $25 billion to save the post office, maintaining services and allowing for timely delivery of mail. No such provision is included in the analogous Senate legislation, the HEALS Act.         Another threat lurks as well, the Washington Post reports: The Republican Party has filed suit against the state of Nevada in an attempt to block its decision to send mail-in ballots to all voters, claiming (here we go again) that mail-in voting is prone to fraud. S-HP

If you want to work to ensure that mail ballots will be viable, you can write to the President, Senate and House leadership, and your Senators, telling them that any new COVID-19 stimulus must include support to maintain the USPS and to ensure that ballots will arrive early and be returned promptly because every vote should be counted. See this link for addresses and other ideas.

2. Eviction crisis and internet access for on-line schooling

As the House, Senate, and White House wrangle over new COVID-19 stimulus legislation, the American public faces a housing crisis as eviction protections expire. A CNBC report using data analysis by Stout Risius Ross shows that between 22% (Vermont) and 59% (West Virginia) of renters in each state are at risk of eviction due to an inability to make rental payments. Nationally, more than 40% of all renter households are at risk of eviction. CNBC points out that the effects of this crisis will not be evenly distributed: “People of color are especially vulnerable. While almost half of White tenants say they’re highly confident they can continue to pay their rent, just 26% of African-American tenants could say the same.”        

Renters who can manage to keep up payments also face a potential shutoff of services like power, water, and internet access if they are unable to meet these bills. This last set of problems could be addressed by legislation proposed by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR). S.3695, the CONNECT at Home Act, would prevent termination of internet service during the COVID-19 pandemic and for 180 days thereafter. Some may think of internet as a luxury, but remote schooling has made it a necessity across much of the country. S.4362, would prohibit power cutoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic and would provide drinking and waste water assistance. S.3695 is currently with the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. S.4362 is with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. S-HP

If you want to act on this, you could tell the Speaker of the House and your Representative that any final COVID-19 stimulus must include protections from evictions and power, water, and internet shutoffs and urge swift, positive action on S.4362 by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Addresses are here.

3. New immigration and asylum application fees imposed

Last week, News You May Have Missed reported on the Trump administration’s refusal to print green cards for immigrants who have been granted residency or need to renew their cards. The administration’s latest assault on immigrants is a raise in fees of all kinds, including a $50 fee to apply for asylum, which has always been free. The fee to apply for citizenship has almost doubled, while fees to submit petitions for employment authorization have increased by 34 percent, the Miami Herald reports. The Herald has a complete list of the fee increases. The U.S. is now one of only four signatories, from a total number of 145, to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which charges fees for asylum applications. The others are Fiji, Iraq, and Australia.In addition, fee waivers have almost been eliminated, so these fees will hit low-income immigrants the hardest. RLS

If you want to speak up about these fee increases, particularly the new decision to charge for asylum applications, appropriate addresses are here.

4. Good news/bad news immigration updates

On July 19, we summed up the situation of the children in detention whom Judge Dolly Gee ordered released. At this writing, ICE continues to refuse to release them, despite the federal court order, Law 360 reports.

Asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico while waiting for their cases to be heard have pleaded with the U.S. to permit them to enter the country, as the camp where they have been staying is being flooded by the rising Rio Grande river, according to Newsweek.

In one significant piece of good news, the National Immigration Law Center reported that a federal judge imposed an injunction on Trump’s public charge rule, which prevented anyone who might be expected to use government-funded services, including the ACA or food stamps, from applying to enter the country legally or to regularize their status. In a pandemic, the rule was keeping families already in the country who hoped to apply for citizenship away from health care. In our February 23 issue (story 4), we explained how the Supreme Court permitted this rule to go forward. RLS

The No Family Separation Action Toolkit is still relevant. Find it here.

5. Trump threatens to “terminate” Social Security and Medicare

As the administration, Senate, and House wrangle over COVID-19 relief, Donald Trump has announced he is taking unilateral action and will issue an executive order suspending the payroll tax—the primary funding mechanism for Social Security. He also said on a live television program that he  would “terminate” the payroll tax if he were reelected in November, Raw Story reported. Common Dreams reports that organizations like Social Security Works and the Alliance for Retired Americans are warning that this could be a first step toward defunding Social Security. It may well also be illegal because Congress is the branch of government charged with legislating tax rates, but blocking the move might require a prolonged court battle during which payroll taxes might not be collected, weakening Social Security.        

Congress, meanwhile, has an opportunity to stabilize Social Security via the Social Security 2100 Act (S.269 in the Senate; H.R.860 in the House). This legislation would increase Social Security payments by adjusting the way they are calculated, would tie cost-of-living adjustments to the Consumer Price Index, would create an alternative minimum benefit for those who have worked for ten or more years, and would include income above $400,000 annually when calculating Social Security taxes and benefits. S.269 is currently with the Senate Finance Committee. H.R.860 is currently with the House Ways and Means Committee and its Social Security Subcommittee, the House Education and Labor Committee, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. S-HP

If you want to object to any suspension of payroll tax collection, here is whom to write.

6. Private Border Protect agents shared violence racist, sexist content

Last summer, ProPublica broke a story about a private Facebook group where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents shared violent, offensive content, images, and memes, reflecting a pervasive culture of racism and misogyny. These included racist insults about Central American immigrants, jokes about migrants who died on their journey to the U.S. and doctored images depicting Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being sexually assaulted. The group membership, according to ProPublica, included 9,500 current or former CBP agents. At the time the story broke, the agency announced that it would be investigating the group and would hold all agents engaging in misconduct online accountable. The House Oversight and Reform Committee also launched its own investigation.        

Last month CBP told the Los Angeles Times it had investigated 138 employees (of the at least 9,500 individuals). Four were fired, 38 were suspended without pay for periods ranging from three days to two weeks, over two dozen were given warnings or reprimands, and sixty were cleared of any wrongdoing. Neither ProPublica nor the House Oversight Committee have received any information about who the punished agents were, what their specific actions were, or where they worked. The last of these was essential to determining whether there were clusters of agents or supervisors at particular CBP posts engaging in this activity. The agency has provided the House Oversight Committee with two batches of documents, but has not included many requested documents and has heavily redacted the documents it turned over. In the words of Oversight Committee member Representative Veronica Escobar (D-TX), who, like Ocasio-Cortez, was a target of many of the Facebook group’s postings: “CBP continues to obstruct a congressional investigation into the results of the agency’s findings, blatantly shielding agents that have dehumanized immigrants and fostered a culture of cruelty and violence.” S-HP

You might want to thank the Oversight Committee for the investigative work it has done thus far and urge them to continue investigating until CBP has provided all requested material and the Committee is able to make its own determinations about this group of rogue agents and the culture within CBP: Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Chair, House Oversight and Reform Committee, 2157 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington DC 20515, (202) 225-5051

7. No parenting while Black

India Johnson and Yazmeen Winston, two Black Washington DC mothers, best friends since 7^th grade, planned to take their infant children to splash in the fountains at the World War II memorial. Unfortunately, the Washington Post explains, they never made it that far. As they parked the van they were driving, Secret Service agents deliberately drove into their vehicle’s front bumper, trapping them in place. They were swiftly surrounded by officers initially not wearing masks to limit coronavirus spread, who pointed guns at them and yelled “Get out!” and “Put your hands in the air.” Neither woman was read her Miranda rights and both spent the next hour handcuffed and separated from their babies, who were in tears as a result of the car being struck. The doors of their cars were left open and the babies remained strapped in their car seats, which made the mothers worry they might overheat. Their vehicle was searched without their giving consent. Eventually, the women were told the vehicle had been reported stolen and the suspects were two African American men. Johnson pointed out that there were no men in their car and provided proof that she was the car’s owner. Winston asked the officers for their cards and was told they didn’t carry any, so she wrote down the badge names and names of all of them. The women remain shaken by the experience and are asking for an investigation—by the Secret Service or by Congress—of the incident. S-HP

You may join Johnson and Winston in their demands for an investigation of their treatment and tell your Congressmembers you would like to see them investigate as well. Addresses are here.

8. A new strategy to obtain justice for Breonna Taylor

A campaign launched by UltraViolet suggests an interesting strategy for achieving justice for Breonna Taylor. As of now, the police who murdered her continue to work and face no charges in her death. Campaigns asking for justice from the Mayor and Chief of Police of Louisville and the Governor and Attorney General of Kentucky have not yielded tangible results. So, why not try using the power of the purse in the pursuit of justice for Breonna Taylor? Three major corporations—Ford, Humana, and UPS—have major operations in Louisville. Each has spoken out in support of diversity during this time when corporations are, purportedly, embracing the Black Lives Matter movement, and between them, they employ over 50,000 people living in the Louisville area.

         Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Jim Hackett have announced to their employees that Ford will “lead from the front” to create a fair and inclusive culture for workers, explaining “We know that systemic racism still exists despite progress that has been made. We cannot turn a blind eye to it or accept some sense of ‘order’ that’s based on oppression.”  According to News Break, Humana “announced actions to support its hometown of Louisville in its efforts to address racial inequity and unite toward a stronger community.” President and CEO Bruce Broussard affirmed, “Caring for each other and respecting differences is who we are as a company, and we do not tolerate racism or discrimination of any kind. At the core of our values is serving the communities in which we operate. The mission of our company has taken on particular significance in our hometown of Louisville that is reeling from the devastating loss of Breonna Taylor, protests and ensuing tragedies.” United Parcel Services (UPS) has signed on to the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s (NMSDC) “In This Together” campaign, which the NMSDC describes as “a portfolio of initiatives to help expedite recovery efforts within the Black business community.” A recent statement by UPS’s chief procurement officer, Joe Turkienicz, noted that UPS is “honored to stand with you [the NMSDC] to support our diverse communities.” Given the commitment they have voiced to racial justice and their standing in the Louisville community, the corporations are in a position to push for justice for Breonna Taylor. S-HP

You can join UltraViolent and ask these Louisville-affiliated corporations to move beyond lip service and to speak out for justice for Breonna Taylor. Addresses are here.

9. Did you receive COVID pay?

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act required most small- and medium- sized businesses to pay a worker’s full salary for two weeks if they became infected with COVID-19. The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) reports that many companies failed to notify workers that they had this right to paid sick days and that nearly half of all workers in the U.S. did not know they had this right. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, CPI has identified nearly 700 companies who did not provide the mandatory sick pay—and that’s just through June 12. These companies include franchises for a number of major corporations, including McDonalds’s, Comfort Suites, Courtyard Marriott, and Red Roof Inn. To make matters worse, it’s unclear whether most of these workers will be able to receive the compensation they are due because they failed to file a complaint with the Labor Department. See the loop there? Workers aren’t informed of rights > workers take unpaid sick time, assuming that is the only option available, and do not file Labor Department claims > the businesses failing to provide information about worker rights don’t pay for the legally mandated sick time. S-HP

You can tell the major corporations whose franchises have denied workers mandated sick pay that they must track down all workers denied sick pay and see that they receive the monies owing to them and penalize franchises that chose to evade coronavirus sick pay rules. You might want to ask for a Congressional investigation while you are at it. The addresses are here.

10. Flush insurers should pay consumers back

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has a provision capping medical insurer profits. Under the act, 80% of all premiums paid by individuals and small employers and 85% of all premiums paid by large employers must go to the actual costs of providing healthcare. Overhead and profits cannot represent more than the remaining 15-20% of premiums paid in. Under the ACA, profits beyond this are to be returned to policy holders as refunds.

Small medical practices and rural clinics and hospitals have struggled to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic. Large health insurance companies, in contrast, have been raking in record profits, the New York Times reports. Anthem, Humana, and UnitedHealth Group have reported second-quarter profits that are double what they were a year ago. Anthem’s profits are $1.2 billion higher than they were for this quarter last year; Humana’s second-quarter profits rose by $860 million over last year; UnitedHealth’s profits beat last year’s quarterly earnings by $3.3 billion. CVS Health, which owns Aetna, had a net gain in second-quarter profits of $1 billion and has acknowledged that second-quarter spending on actual health care costs comprised only 70% of premiums taken in. This sudden rise in health insurance profits has been partially credited to people’s fears of seeking treatment at a medical facility because of the potential exposure to COVID-19 and to the number of elective surgeries being cancelled during the pandemic.  Even the Trump administration has noticed. According to the New York Times, the Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to health insurers on August 4 calling for a rapid rebate of excess profits. However, under current law, health insurers have three years to release any rebates—a delay put in to give the companies time to check for accounting errors. S-HP

You might want to point out to your Congressmembers that capitalism is clearly not regulating the health insurance market in a way that is fair for those insured and to suggest that it is time for higher caps on health insurance profits or for single-payer health care

11. More concessions in national parks would damage local communities

The National Park Service has posted a proposed rule change that would open up national parks to more commercial concessions. The term “Concessions” covers a range of services including lodging, food, retail, marinas, wireless service, parking management, and more. In particular, the rule proposes to identify and add new types of concessions not currently available in national parks. The proposal raises concerns for two reasons. First, many national parks are already overcrowded and increasing the number and variety of concessions available will likely contribute to this overcrowding and significantly impact the environment and species within the park. Second, many small, rural communities near national parks rely on park visitors for the health of their local economies. If additional options for lodging, food, retail purchases, and more are available within parks, this will almost certainly lead to less use of such services in local communities, many of which do not have alternate sources of income to turn to. S-HP

You can comment on the impact increased in-park concessions would have on the national parks themselves and on nearby communities. Comments are due by September 18. You can comment electronically here. If you comment, be sure to include the notations “NPS” or “National Park Service” and “RIN 1024-AE57” in your comment.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

12. Explosion in Lebanon, already wracked by economic devastation

A section of Beirut was demolished and at least 158 people were killed, many of them firefighters, when a warehouse holding 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded in the port area. Thousands of others were injured and some 300,00 homes were destroyed. The volatile chemical had been stored unsecured since 2013, when it was unloaded from a Russian ship, the Guardian reports. It is not yet clear what caused the chemical to ignite. Al Jazeera vividly describes the many warnings the government received about the dangers of the ammonium nitrate. Various news outlets, including the Irish Times, reported that “as recently as six months ago, officials inspecting the consignment warned that if it was not moved it would ‘blow up all of Beirut.’”

Since the explosion, protests have wracked the city, as many Lebanese are furious about a pattern of inaction by the government. According to Al Jazeera, 728 protesters have been wounded. Lebanon was already in a state of economic collapse, according to a New York Times writer, with inflation at 50 percent for three months in a row and 65 percent of its people in poverty. RLS

If you want to assist the people of Lebanon, Marshall Ganz, for decades a community organizer, provides this list of places to donate for relief work. In addition, a Middle-East scholar of our acquaintance recommends these NGOs.

13. Bangladesh takes the burden of climate change

Torrential rain. Flooding. A cyclone. Rising seas consuming villages. The climate crisis is overwhelming Bangladesh, whose people already were struggling to sustain their livelihoods. As the crisis gets worse, so will their suffering. Already, a million homes have been lost to flooding and 24-37 per cent of the country is under water, according to Reliefweb. The situation illuminates how those who contribute least to climate change suffer the most; as the New York Times points out, the average American contributes 33 times as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as the average Bangladeshi. Advocates for the poor in Bangladesh argue that the countries which have caused the climate crisis should compensate those who suffer from it most.  As Farah Kabir, the Bangladesh country director for ActionAid International, asked in the Times article, “When is the global community going to take responsibility?”

On top of extreme weather, the people of Bangladesh have been hit hard by the pandemic, the livelihoods of the poorest people demolished. Think about the challenges endured by Uber drivers, housekeepers and farmworkers in North America–and then look at the stunning photo essay the Washington Post recently ran, a piece which illuminates the beauty and resilience of the people while mapping the dimensions of their hardship. RLS

RESOURCES

• The Americas of Conscience Checklist not only provides clear, focused actions you can take, but tracks what they get done and where they succeed.
• Sarah-Hope’s action items are woven in above, but if you want the whole list in one place for postcarding, here it is.
• Martha’s list identifies ways to comment for the public record. She notes that the window for commenting on the transport of liquified natural gas by rail is closing (see our write-up of this last week) and reminds us to comment on the closure of shelters to transgender people.
• Rogan’s list is on hiatus.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Serious “non-lethal” force injuries by police a decades-old issue

Reporting by the Washington Post shows that in the week following George Floyd’s death, eight people across the country lost vision in one eye due to being struck by police projectiles. These folks were among the 12 who reported partial loss of vision in the first week of protests. USA Today has shown that police use of rubber bullets and bean bag rounds has left “a bloody trail for decades.” Injuries have included skull fractures and head wounds, in addition to eye injuries. The pattern that was observed in the reporting is that individuals are injured, file lawsuits, and cities and police departments attempt to adopt reforms, and then a few years later it happens again. These so-called less-than-lethal munitions have been banned in the United Kingdom for decades. 

But, over decades of use, munitions that originally were touted as safe and nonlethal have proven otherwise: 

• In 2000, a protester at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles lost an eye. Dozens of protestors demonstrating for migrant-rights demonstrators were wounded, shot by “less-lethal” rounds.
• In 2001, after the University of Arizona lost the NCAA men’s basketball championship game, a riot ensued, during which a student was partly blinded.
• In 2003, during protests against the Iraq war, police officers injured 58 people with wooden pellets and other “non-lethal” projectiles. 
• In 2004, a college student in Boston celebrating a Red Sox victory was killed when a pepper-based projectile went through her eye and into her brain.

While civil liberties groups and others have argued for banning the use of these weapons, law enforcement agencies have asked how they would contain violent crowds without them.

In Portland, federal troops incited violence, used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash explosives against peaceful protestors, and according to Newsweek, deliberately destroyed stockpiles of COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment, which would be considered a war crime if we actually were at war. ProPublica has examined nearly 400 social media posts showing police response to protestors in Portland, and found “troubling conduct by officers” in 184 of them; as ProPublica’s investigation noted, “officers punched, pushed and kicked retreating protesters, including a few instances in which they used an arm or knee to exert pressure on a protester’s neck.”

There is no central authority setting standards for police use of force; standards generally demand that officers have a basis for the firing of less-lethal weapon, but that standard can include deeming the protest unlawful, and decisions are often placed in the hands of front-line commanders. The stress of anti-police protests and long hours may also contribute to the reactivity of police officers, according to the experts ProPublica consulted.

In Portland, protestors have filed lawsuits in response to the use of force by Federal officers outside the federal court house. They claim the use of tear gas and projectiles while they were protesting peacefully and offering aid to protestors represents a violation of their first amendment right to protest and represents excessive use of force. In response to the lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon, a restraining order was issued barring federal agents from “dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, or otherwise targeting journalists and legal observers at protests.” Related to the arrests and other threats to journalists, the Department of Homeland Security has been compiling “intelligence reports” regarding journalists who reported on leaked documents about DHS operations in Portland. 

Finally, the Democratic mayor of Portland has called for a meeting with acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and other officials to “discuss a cease-fire and the removal of agents sent to Portland to deal with protests,” CNN reported.  A leaked email, obtained by CNN, shows that the administration is planning to keep agents there until at least October, while the actions of agents are under scrutiny by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General.  JM-L

2, Legislation proposed to deal with police use of force

Several pieces of legislation regarding police use of force and the deployment of federal officers in response to protests are before Congress, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley announced. H.R.7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and S.3912, the Justice in Policing Act, are identical and would do the following

• lower the intent standard to convict law enforcement for misconduct in federal court;
• limit the use of qualified immunity in civil actions;
• authorize the Department of Justice to subpoena police records in order to investigate patterns or practices of discrimination;
• establishe a National Police Misconduct Registry;
• prohibit racial profiling, set up new requirements for training police, and report use of force, as well as use of body cameras.

H.R.7120 has been passed by the House. S.3912 is currently with the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

S.4220, the Preventing Authoritarian Policing on America’s Street Act, was written in response to the actions of federal officers in Portland, Oregon. This legislation would:

• require identification on officer uniforms and vehicles they use;
• allow federal agents to protect only federal property unless requested to do more by the governor of the state and mayor of the city in which they are functioning;
• require disclosure on official web sites within 24 hours of any deployment of federal officers, and specifically require information on the number of personnel deployed and the purpose of the deployment;
• make violations of the above unlawful.

S.4220 is with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

H.R.7719, to Limit Use of Federal Law Enforcement Officers for Crowd Control, was also written in response to the actions of federal officers in Portland, Oregon. H.R.7719 would:

• restrict the ability of Federal Marshalls to deputize other law enforcement such as employees of the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Homeland Security;
• prohibit the Attorney General from using Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) employees to enforce federal laws outside the purview of the DEA.

H.R.7719 is currently with two House committees: Armed Services and Judiciary. S-HP

If you want to have a voice on this issue, contact:Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee, 290 Russell Senate office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3841, and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, 290 Russell Senate office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3841.f

3. Those responsible for Portland debacle in office illegally

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been cooperating with Trump’s dispatching of federal officers to cities experiencing Black Lives Matter protests. Interestingly enough, at least two high-level Department of Homeland Security officials, including the highest among them, are currently serving illegally.

In general, Congress must approve high-level government appointments via Senate confirmation. Officials can be appointed temporarily without this approval, but under the Federal Vacancies and Reform Act of 1998, service in such temporary appointments is limited to 210 days. Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, took on that post on December 13, 2019, and as of August 1 had been serving for 232 days. He took the temporary position when the Republican Senate balked at confirming his appointment. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Mark Morgan, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, began serving on July 5, 2019, and as of August 1 had held that position for 393 days: 118 days (or a full half a year) beyond the legal limit. Not only are these men abusing their positions by allowing those they supervise to violate American’s First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances, but they should have been forced out of these positions by now. Wolf was in day 204 of his 210 days when he approved sending federal officers to Portland and should have stepped down the following week, given the 1998 legislation. On the day federal officers were sent to Portland, Morgan had been in his position for 365 days: 155 days (or roughly five months) beyond his legal term of service. S-HP

If you think Wolf and Morgan have overstayed their welcome, you can propose that they be removed from their positions as is required under law and call for an investigation into the full number of individuals currently serving illegally in DHS. Addresses are here.

4. Guess who the real domestic terrorists are

As Trump uses violence by federal officers to intimidate Black Lives Matter protestors, he keeps warning about the threat of antifa (anti-fascist) violence. A new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based on 900 politically motivated acts of violence in the U.S. since 1994, examines the deaths caused by both leftwing and rightwing extremist violence. As reported in the Guardian, the study reveals 1 death resulting from that period resulting from left wing violence and 329 deaths resulting from rightwing violence. And note, the one “left wing death” was actually the perpetrator of the violence himself. Nonetheless, Trump assures us that white supremacists are “some very fine people.” S-HP

If you want to call for a serious Congressional investigation of and legislation in response to extreme rightwing violence, you can find your congressmembers’ contact information here.

5. Trump defies court orders

The Supreme Court recently ruled that Trump used an improper procedure in ending DACA, the provision allowing children and young people who had been brought to the U.S. by their parents to stay in the country. Trump via the Department of Homeland Security has re-announced a policy to end DACA in a way that he believes will be beyond legal challenge. He has also refused to accept new DACA applications, NPR reports, despite a court order to do so. As the new policy reads, Trump is directing “DHS personnel to take all appropriate actions to reject all pending and future initial requests for DACA.” 300,000 young people are still hoping to apply for DACA, according to the Center for American Progress. RLS

If you want to tell the Senate Majority Leader and your own Senators that it is well past time for Passing the American Dream and Promise Act that would give DACA youth a path toward citizenship, their addresses are here.

6. Trump administration refuses to print green cards for renewals

The Trump administration’s willingness to defy a court order is congruent with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ refusal to renew a contract with the company that prints green cards. Thus, immigrants legitimately in the country—such as those who must renew their cards every ten years and those whose immigration status has been previously approved—have not been able to get their cards, leaving them vulnerable to deportation, the Washington Post reports. The Post quotes immigration attorney Anis Saleh in Coral Gables, Fla. as saying, “The bottom line is that applicants pay huge filing fees, and it appears that these fees have apparently been either squandered through mismanagement or diverted to enforcement-focused initiatives, to the great detriment of applicants as well as the overall efficiency of the immigration process. The administration has accomplished its goal of shutting down legal immigration without actually changing the law.” RLS

If you think this situation should be put right, you can insist that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services obtain an ample supply of green cards immediately and ask for a Congressional investigation into this ill-intended decision not to order additional green cards necessary for the day-to-day function of our immigration system. Addresses are here.

7. Some child asylum-seekers able to seek hearings, others deported

ICE has been holding unaccompanied children arriving in search of asylum in hotels and then deporting them. There are no records of the children nor any information about where their parents are. “Witness at the Border” posted on Sunday about two unaccompanied children, 12 and 9, being deported to the country where their uncle was killed by gangs and where they have received death threats. Their mother lives legally in the US. “The United States is estimated to be deporting approximately 200 unaccompanied children as young as 4 EVERY WEEK to the dangerous countries of Central America. Many have no caregivers. Many will grow ill from the coronavirus to which they’re exposed on these deportation flights. Some will be trafficked, abused, raped, killed.”

In one small piece of good news, a successful challenge to the policy protected 17 people, children and adults, from being deported without a hearing, Buzzfeed reported. Buzzfeed also told the story of a teenager who successfully fought to join his father in the U.S. after receiving death threats from gangs in Honduras. He described his experience of being sequestered under armed guard in a hotel this way: “I felt locked up. I felt alone and isolated,” he said. “I didn’t know what time of day it was. I didn’t know what day it was. I felt utterly disconnected from society. I just felt anxiety and depression.” RLS

Witness at the Border urges you to sign the petition and donate to bring the two children back to their mother.

8. Kids’ schools, parents jobs

One of the great unknowns of the COVID-19 epidemic is how working parents will return to work if their children’s schools, as an appropriate safety measure, remain online. On Thursday, the House passed an important piece of COVID-related legislation that could help address this quandary. H.R.7327, the Child Care for Economic Recovery Act, which would increase federal childcare funding for 2020. H.R.7327 would increase the federal tax deduction for dependent children and make it refundable, would increase the amount of employer-provided childcare that is not taxable, and allow the carryover of any unspent childcare funding into 2021. H.R.7327 is now with the Senate’s Appropriations Committee. S-HP

If you feel strongly about this, urge quick, positive action on H.R.7327 by the Senate Appropriations Committee to help working parents make the return to onsite work as it becomes appropriate. Addresses are here.

9. Strikes for safe schools

The American Federation of Teachers has passed a resolution backing members who go on strike to oppose unsafe school openings, the AP reports. While Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump, who want to make federal school funding dependent on schools’ reopening, are at least claiming—incorrectly—that children do not contract COVID-19. They have said nothing about the risks such reopenings would present for teachers and school staff.

The National Education Association (NEA) has published a report on what safe school reopening would entail, and has been urging constituents to contact their Congressmembers telling them that we still desperately need education-related COVID-19 legislation that would:

• provide at least $175 billion to support school reopenings, whether online or in-person;
• eliminate any requirements regarding whether that instruction should be in-person or online for schools to receive these funds;
• lock any liability protections for schools as they return to in-person instruction, in order to ensure appropriate attention to the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff;
• not set funds aside for private schools or voucher funding at the expense of public schools.

The Council of Chief State School Officers has written Lamar Alexander, Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, to let the Senate know what kinds of flexibility and funding schools will need. The Washington Post has published a heartbreaking opinion piece by a superintendent about the stakes of re-opening in-person schools. S-HP

 You can advocate for appropriate school funding and safety measures modeled on NEA guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic and inform Education Secretary DeVos and your Congressmembers that you will be supporting any teachers who feel compelled to strike because of the health threat presented by hasty school reopenings. Addresses are here.

10. Transgender people to be deprived of shelter

Let’s consider a set of related facts. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, 1 in 3 trans people will be homeless at some point in their lives. Research by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) indicates that in 2017, 71% of all incidents of hate violence were against people of color; 52% were against transsexuals; and 40% were specifically against transsexual women of color. And the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), as reported in USA Today, says that 27 trans people were killed in hate crimes during 2019—and as of July 8, this year has seen 21 such killings.        

Now let’s consider federal homeless housing assistance. Under 2016 rules, single-sex facilities determining whom they could serve are to do so “in accordance with their [the homeless] self-identified gender identity.” This meant trans women could be safely housed in women’s shelters where they would be less apt to suffer the kinds of violence documented by NCAVP and HRC. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now proposing a rule change that would direct shelters “to consider biological sex in placement and accommodation decisions,” and that in making such decisions, shelters could consider “factors such as height, the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adam’s apple, and other physiological characteristics,” Vox reported.

Once you’ve contemplated these facts, you may want to tell HUD your thoughts about this proposal while it is open for official comments and you can get suggestions for wording here. You can also comment for the public record on this cruel and dangerous rule change proposa,l being sure to include the docket number HUD-2020-0047-0001.

11. While Black

The California legislature has an opportunity to enact penalties for deliberately placing an emergency call that is deliberately discriminatory—think of those 911 calls about BBQ-ing while Black, birdwatching while Black, swimming while Black, and entering one’s own home while Black. This legislation, AB-1550, has passed the Assembly and is now with the California Senate’s committees on Rules and Public Safety. S-HP

If you are in California, you might want to advocate for the quick passage of AB-1550. Addresses are here. If you are not, you might want to suggest that your state legislators take up such a bill.

12. Black Lives

Breonna Taylor was killed on March 13 by Louisville police officers serving a questionable no-knock warrant. The men who killed her remain free and uncharged.

If you want to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, write to Kentucky officials and your elected representatives. Addresses are here.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

13. Covid numbers

On July 10, hospitals were ordered to begin reporting COVID-19 case numbers and deaths to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), rather than to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as had been the practice. Because of the politicized nature of DHS and Trump’s desire to keep case numbers low, many have worried that this transition will make it easier for the administration to manipulate COVID-19 numbers, MedPage Today reported. At the moment, HHS numbers are relatively close to the numbers being posted by Johns Hopkins, which has been conservative, but not repressive, in its reporting. Nonetheless, the administration numbers are lower than Johns Hopkins figures—3% lower on total cases and 1% lower on deaths, as of August 1. The uncertainty about the HHS numbers makes accurate state-level numbers all the more important. S-HP

You can ask your State Director of Public Health whether the COVID-19 numbers it’s posting are the state’s own or the numbers from the new HHS system and share your concern about the accuracy of HHS numbers. Links to all state and territory Departments of Public Health can be found here.

14. Transporting liquified natural gas

For years, the energy industry has pushed for approval to transport Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) by rail. Previous efforts have been blocked because of the potential for catastrophic explosions and fire this method of transportation would present. Now, according to EcoRI News, the Trump administration has issued a final rule, that would allow rail transport of LNG beginning August 24 and allows “voluntary compliance” (starting to ship LNG early if the industry promises to honor safety guidelines) as of July 24.

LNG is a form of extremely cold liquid methane (methane becomes liquid at temperatures below -260° F). The cooling process condenses the methane to 1/600^th of the volume it would have at ambient temperatures, Insurance News explains.. An explosion involving 22 tank cars would create an explosion equal in size and power to the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Green America reports. These facts alone are cause for a concern. The extreme cold of LNG poses dangers in its own right, and if LNG ignites it will almost instantly increase in size by a factor of 600, causing massive explosions, as well as fire.  Burning LNG can produce “pool” fires, fires in which a cloud of gas forming as LNG warms in a leak or spill. The gas cloud burns while hovering of the escape LNG and cannot be extinguished until all the LNG has converted to gas and burned. Then, there’s the fact that methane is a greenhouse gas responsible in part for global warming,

         Currently LNG is moved via pipeline. In the six-year period ending in 2016 the LNG industry reported 35 explosions and 32 ignitions at transmission pipelines; they killed a total of seven individuals and injured another 86. Other methane-related explosions and fires include

• the 2010 explosion of an underground pipeline in San Bruno that killed eight and injured 51;
• a 2015 Texas pipeline fire that released up to 165,732 pounds of organic compounds
• an underground pipeline explosion in New Mexico that killed ten people camping nearby;       
• A 2014 explosion in the state of Washington that forced hundreds to evaculate, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

This final rule comes after a 2019 rule proposal, which, oddly enough, remains open for comment, though it was to have closed on January 13 of this year, so there are actually two ways to comment as explained below. Comments on the 2019 proposed rule can be either written or online. Comments on the current final rule must be submitted online. As of August 1, only a single comment had been filed regarding the final rule. S-HP.

If you want to comment for the public record on the unacceptable risks posed by transporting LNG by rail, the instructions are here.

RESOURCES

• Subscribe to the Americans of Conscience Checklist for a list of clear, quick actions you can take.
• Rogan’s list is taking a well-deserved break, but she suggests other sites with lists of actions you can take.
• Sara-Hope’s list is integrated above, but if you want to work through the action items systematically, you can check out the google doc.
• Apropos of her list, which offers many, many opportunities to comment on policy items for the public record, Martha muses that a lot of important proposed regulations either have no to opportunity comment or don’t allow the 60 day comment period -so don’t follow the Administrative Procedure Act. Thus, many may be illegal (as the DACA ruling showed.) If so, it may be easier to set things right later.