Month: January 2022

“No Olvidado” translates as “Unforgotten,” a reference to those who died, unnamed, in the desert. Though the news moves on, we do not intend to forget them–nor the children who died in the bombing of an innocent man outside his home in Afghanistan, nor those civilians who were killed by one of the 112,000 bombs dropped on ISIS targets.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Death in the desert: Unforgotten

We’ve become familiar with scenes of people in line, in detention, in camps at the border. But outside our view are those who die trying to cross–either while they are being chased by the Border Patrol or while they are walking across the desert without water. High speed chases led to 22 reported deaths of immigrants in 2021, reports the New York Times, a practice criticized by the ACLU. The organization provides a fact sheet on this subject, in which they point out that the information is often deleted or tampered with in official reports.  Customs and Border Protection also reported 700 “use of force incidents”–but did not report how many resulted in death. In one instance, a woman was shot in the back of the head while sitting in a patrol car. Though this woman survived, it is unknown how many people did not. Too often, families are never notified.

Countless immigrants have also died off the record, as No More Deaths / No Más Muertes has documented in the three-part report, Disappeared: How US Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis. The report details how border patrol agents have destroyed thousands of water bottles, chased people into difficult terrain and intervened in 911 calls. This story is not new; CNN produced a documentary, “No Olvidado”–Unforgotten–in 2019 on people who search for and bury the dead in the desert.

Beyond Borders describes the work of searching for people in Brooks County, Texas, and provides the names of organizations who do it. Among others, the local sheriff sponsors a recovery and rescue organization that in 2021 found 119 people in that county alone who had died in the desert. Forensic students from the University of Illinois  are returning to the area to search ranch land for missing people and build water stations: Among the many sorrows relatives endure are when their family members who die attempting to cross the border are buried in unmarked graves and never identified.  A documentary about families looking for their lost loved ones in the desert, “Missing in Brooks County,” is premiering January 31 on PBS.

2. Surveillance of journalists’ and activists’ phones continues

Journalists and human rights activists–along with the wife and fiancee of murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi–had their smart phones hacked by Pegasus Spyware, produced by the Israeli NSO group, the Post reported last summer. NSO leases its software to governments around the world, especially those with alarming human rights records. NSO itself was quoted as saying that its software is only supposed to be “deployed against terrorists and criminals. It says it operates ethically and monitors its clients for human rights abuses”; however, in other contexts it says that its software is set up so that it cannot see what users do with it.

The Post’s investigation built on the work of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International, which turned their work over to a media consortium, now called The Pegasus Project. As the Post notes, among those targeted were “politicians, human rights workers, journalists, dissidents and family members of opposition figures.” The list of phones infected with surveillance software included journalists working overseas for “CNN, the Associated Press, Voice of America, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Le Monde in France, the Financial Times in London and Al Jazeera in Qatar.”

Last month, after an extensive investigation, Meta announced that some 50,000 Facebook users had also been surveilled using Pegasus–the report is posted online. As the Post explained, “Pegasus and other forms of spyware allow operators to remotely turn smartphones and other computers into surveillance devices capable of listening to calls and tracking user locations, as well as stealing photos, videos, contact lists and other files.” It can be downloaded into users’ phones without them being aware of it.
This is a long-standing issue; in 2018, Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, identified worldwide issues with Pegasus. Last month, Citizen Lab also identified another surveillance company, Cytox, noting that the iPhone 12 of a former Egyptian presidential candidate and opposition leader, Ayman Nour, was doubly infected with both Pegasus and Cytox software–it became apparent when the phone was running hot from the demands of both. RLS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

3. Civilian casualities–unacknowledged deaths

112,000 bombs were dropped by the US military on ISIS targets between 2014 and 2019, NPR reported recently. The problem, of course, is that though the military has the capacity to do precision targeting, it doesn’t–and indeed, it evades the protocols that would preserve civilian lives. As Dave Philipps, a correspondent covering the military for The New York Times, told NPR, a review of civilian casualties in 2018 revealed that whenever a secret unit called Talon Anvil was involved, more civilians died. Very often the incidents–and the number of deaths–went uninvestigated and undocumented.

Civilian deaths continue elsewhere. In September, we described the mistaken attack on a civilian family in Afghanistan. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the New York Times obtained drone footage of the attack. As Times reporter Azmat Khan told NPR in another story last week, the footage makes it absolutely clear what happened:  “He [Zemari Ahmadi] is doing his job. He’s picking up his boss’ laptop. He’s bringing it to where he’s supposed to bring it. He’s bringing water home to his family. And he’s pulling into his home, where his children and nieces and nephews are running to greet him – where the family told me and many other journalists that one of these little boys wants to help drive the car and gets into it with him. And they rush, they crowd him as he’s coming back. And then they’re all engulfed in flames.”

The errors, one general told Khan, consisted of “execution errors, confirmation bias and communication breakdowns.” Khan argues that civilian deaths are what led to the distrust of the American government and as a consequence, the resurgence of the Taliban. The deaths, she points out, go unrecorded. “They don’t show up in U.N. numbers. They don’t have death certificates. I verified many of these deaths through tombstones, going to graveyards that are just littered across the desert.” RLS

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

4. New treatments for COVID-19

More treatments have become available for COVID-19, but accessing them is complex. The FDA notes that “Paxlovid, sotrovimab, Veklury (remdesivir), and molnupiravir…are expected to work against the omicron variant, and are authorized or approved to treat patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for progression to severe disease, including hospitalization or death.” 

Pfizer’s oral antiviral Paxlovid is about 90% effective in preventing hospitalization and death–but only 30,000 courses of treatment have arrived in Canada, where only patients at the highest risk will have access to it, according to the Toronto Star. In the US, the government has bought enough Paxlovid for 20 million Americans; a course of treatment costs $530 per person but it is supposed to be free.  (A similar drug, molnupiravir, produced by Merck, works like Tamiflu, targeting the virus’s ability to replicate, according to Yale Medicine. It is less effective at keeping people out of the hospital than Paxlovid, as NPR reported in December.) The New York Times ran a first-person essay in which the writer–who covers COVID vaccines and treatments for the paper–(virtually) scours her mother’s neighborhood and beyond to fill a Paxlovid prescription, ending up paying an Uber driver to pick it up (so much for free).

Yet another drug, Evusheld, is very helpful for immunocompromised patients who are at risk if they get COVID, but there are so few doses that some hospitals are running lotteries to decide who gets it, according to NPR. This site can be used to locate doses of Evusheld; if you are immunocompromised. Dr. Vivian Cheung, who advocates for patients who need Evusheld, recommends that you get a letter now from your doctor that you are eligible for it and then contact the centers who have it repeatedly until you find it. 

CADTH, is a Canadian organization that collates information on evidence-based drugs for COVID–it is worth reviewing periodically.  Health and Human Services has an interactive map for those looking for monoclonal antibodies, which as we have described before are effective with patients with significant COVID symptoms–but because two of the combinations do not work against the Omicron variant, the FDA has withdrawn approval for those. The FDA recommends Paxlovid, sotrovimab, Veklury (remdesivir), and molnupiravir instead–as well as getting vaccinated and boosted. RLS

RESOURCES

To keep track of countries’ pledges–and actions–on climate, you can use the Climate Action Tracker.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a podcast series of 70 years of displacement.

The Americans of Conscience checklist this week has a series of encouraging notes. They also provide a list of other short, effective actions you can take.

Are you trying to decide whether to go to an in-person event? The Canadian Institute on Ageing offers a detailed, well-grounded risk assessment tool.

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change, this month focusing on juvenile justice.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

Freedom for All Americans has a very useful legislation tracker on trans issues.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Building back bit by bit

So much depended on Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan–Medicaid coverage for new mothers, $35 insulin, tax credits for local newspapers and public housing repairs, CNN points out. The Biden administration’s climate change initiatives are locked up in the bill, Vox reminds us, and of course, the Child Tax Credit–which lowered poverty by 40% last year, the Washington Post reports. But Senator Joe Manchin opposes it–in part because higher income taxpayers are eligible for it. However, it was Republicans who insisted on the higher income limits, CNN reports–because their agenda was to lower taxes in general. Manchin is now insisting not only on an income cap but on a work requirement for parents or guardians to receive it, according to CNBC–thus excluding disabled parents or older grandparents raising children from receiving the credit and raising the obvious problem of what parents forced into the workplace would do about childcare. The dilemma is that Democrats have one shot at getting some version of Build Back Better through the reconciliation process, which only requires 50 votes. To do that, they have to figure out what Manchin will accept, since he holds that 50th vote.

The alternative is to break Build Back Better into chunks, which Biden alluded to in his speech January 19. However, any “chunk” not in the reconciliation package would require 60 fillibuster-proof votes–extremely unlikely in an evenly divided Senate. Biden’s calculation, then, will likely be to drop the Child Tax Credit in order to get anything else past Manchin. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has done the math on the kind hardship that will result. Among other calculations, they note that: “A mother with two children, one a toddler and one in elementary school, who works full-time at the federal minimum wage is currently receiving $6,600 in the Child Tax Credit. Without enactment of Build Back Better, that credit amount would fall by $4,800, to just $1,800.” RLS

2. Families separated at the border still suffering

Expect issues around the border to be a mid-term election issue, says the Hill. Republicans are persisting in identifying a “border crisis,” weaponizing people’s suffering. The real border crisis, some immigration activists say, is that “5,400 children are still separated from family and 1,150 are unaccounted for,” according to the Americans of Conscience checklist.  And families are still being separated–or dealing with the trauma of being separated. A study by Physicians for Human Rights found that nearly all the parents and children they interviewed expressed “feelings of confusion, general upset to severely depressed mood, constant worry/preoccupations, frequent crying, difficulty sleeping, difficulty eating (loss of appetite), recurring nightmares, and overwhelming anxiety. The asylum-seekers also reported physiological manifestations of anxiety and panic (racing heart, shortness of breath, and headaches) as well as experiencing “pure agony,” emotional and mental despair, hopelessness, and being ‘incredibly despondent’.” The settlement of a lawsuit by a number of families seeking financial compensation was scotched when it became a political hot potato; the Washington Post suggests that Biden can only compensate families if he is forced to do so by the courts.

Biden has certainly taken significant steps around immigration. He has raised the cap on the number of refugees who can be admitted to 125,000 for fiscal 2022–and, the Hill points out, the administration has “…refocused interior immigration enforcement, so that federal agents prioritize violent criminals and national security threats for deportation. They have ended mass workplace raids, and no longer use the “public charge rule” to make it harder for immigrants to apply for legal status.” The public charge rule had kept many immigrants–those whose children were citizens, for example–from accepting public benefits for fear that their own immigration applications would be denied. However, the Biden administration is still using Title 42 to justify deporting nearly everyone except unaccompanied children, and–having been forced to retain the Remain in Mexico policy–he has included Haitians in the immigrants who must wait there, living in poor conditions and at risk of kidnapping and assault, circumstances detailed by the Guardian. RLS

If you want to support the work of the Task Force Biden appointed to reunite families–which reunited 100 families in its first year–you can comment by the 25th. The Americans of Conscience checklist supplies the link and talking points.

3. Bittersweet victory: Surviving same-sex partners can receive Social Security benefits

At long last, long-term gay and lesbian partners who would have married if they could are eligible for Social Security survivor benefits, the New York Times reports. The Social Security administration dropped its opposition in response to a lawsuit brought by several members of long partnerships who either married too late to obtain benefits or were unable to marry at all; the suits were carried by Lambda Legal and other firms. Lambda Legal provides the guidelines for applying, which is still possible even if the partner died years ago. Ordinarily the surviving partner has to demonstrate that the relationship was a committed one, showing evidence of a shared home, a commitment ceremony, children, and so forth. Benefits can be retroactive. Social Security recommends that surviving partners apply right away. RLS

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

4. Traumatic brain injury and domestic violence: “An invisible epidemic”

“About 1 in 4 women and nearly 1 in 10 men have experienced sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime,” according to the CDC. 

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) often follows from intimate partner violence; however, until recently, there was very little research on the issue; most of the research on traumatic brain injury involved men. Dr. Eve Valera, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, has worked on this issue throughout her career; she was stunned to learn early on that of 99 survivors of intimate partner violence whom she interviewed, at least 75% of them had endured at least one TBI–and yet there was no awareness of it in the medical community or elsewhere. In a 2020 report, the Government Accountability Office also noted the need for–and absence of–more research.

Valera also has an entry on the Harvard Health Blog, in which she refers to the “invisible epidemic” of traumatic brain injury, writing “All that is required for someone to sustain a TBI or concussion is an alteration in consciousness after some type of external trauma or force to the brain. For example, either being hit in the head with a hard object (such as a fist), or having a head hit against a hard object (such as a wall or floor), can cause a TBI. If this force results in confusion, memory loss around the event, or loss of consciousness, this is a TBI. Dizziness or seeing stars or spots following such a force can also indicate a TBI. A loss of consciousness is not required, and in fact does not occur in the majority of mild TBIs.”

Last week, NPR interviewed a survivor they call only Freya Doe; she describes the circumstances in which the brain injury occurred and the consequences of it–the ongoing headache and light sensitivity, and ultimately some cognitive challenges. Another eloquent survivor’s story illuminates how surviving the initial assault is only the first step; dealing with subsequent symptoms and getting a diagnosis took years.

The work of Valera and others is summarized in the journal Head Trauma Rehabilitation, which also clarifies the sex differences in head trauma in general, from sports to military injuries. The Center on Partner-Inflicted Brain Injury at Ohio State University has recommendations and resources for those dealing with it. RLS

As the Harvard Health Blog advises, “If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner violence, The Hotline is a 24/7 support service that has a wealth of resources, including access to service providers and shelters across the US.”

5. How the health care system broke during COVID

That COVID has exposed the fault-lines in the health care system is no surprise–but the devilish details are important. A report on NPR’s On Point explains. Hospitals are run on razor-thin margins of 2% to 3%, while most businesses have a margin of 8-10%. Thus, emergency room staffing–for example–is very lean, with only exactly enough staff that the ER is expected to need. Any crisis can overwhelm it. Key to coping with this situation, says NPR’s source, Dr. Vivian Lee, is some kind of early warning system for infectious diseases, available through wastewater analyses. The shortage of hospital beds, she says, could be addressed by more home care, which is less profitable for hospitals but which could ease the stresses on hospitals and hospital staff. She also advocates a shift in incentives to preventative care, broadly defined. (Dr. Lee is the author of “The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Solutions that Work for Everyone.”)

And, as the New York Times explains, chronic and deliberate understaffing of nurses is a critical piece of the picture. Despite claims of a nursing shortage, there had not been one, nurses themselves say, but as an article in BMJ points out, understaffing before COVID hit meant that nurses were already in a burnout state when COVID began. Mandating nurse/patient ratios is one solution, but only California does that. RLS

RESOURCES

To keep track of countries’ pledges–and actions–on climate, you can use the Climate Action Tracker.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a podcast series of 70 years of displacement.

The Americans of Conscience checklist this week has a series of encouraging notes. They also provide a list of other short, effective actions you can take.

Are you trying to decide whether to go to an in-person event? The Canadian Institute on Ageing offers a detailed, well-grounded risk assessment tool.

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change, this month focusing on juvenile justice.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

Freedom for All Americans has a very useful legislation tracker on trans issues.

Martin Luther King Day is behind us but the issues remain. Family members of Martin Luther King, Jr spent the weekend in Arizona rallying for voting rights. Martin Luther King III, his wife and their 13-year-old daughter spoke out about U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who will not vote to reform the fillibuster so that voting rights legislation can pass, according to ABC News. Sinema claims that the fillibuster fosters bipartisanship, so should not be undercut–an old and incorrect myth, according to Vox. Martin Luther King III has an editorial on CNN urging elected officials “to legislate, not celebrate.”

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Chess move in the House will force Senators opposed to voting rights legislation to go on record.

Back in March, the House passed H.R.1, the For the People Act. In fact, it also passed the For the People Act in the previous congressional session: we’ve been here before. In August, the House passed H.R.4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. H.R.1 would expand voter registration and voting access, limit the removal of voters from the rolls, and would require independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting. H.R.4 would reinstate limits on the changes those states with history of voting rights violations could make to voting rules. without approval of the Department of Justice (DoJ)

In an interesting move last week, the House passed additional voting rights measures by modifying H.R.5746, legislation originally intended to allow NASA to lease facilities to other companies or organizations. The original version of this legislation was passed by both the House and the Senate in December, but because the Senate version of the bill was authorized in different form than the House version, this legislation was returned to the House in order to reconcile the differences between the two. This time around, the House removed all NASA-related provisions from the bill, renamed it the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act and folded into it provisions of both H.R.1 and H.R.4 (details for this new version of the legislation are explained in this Business Insider piece.

As The Hill explains, the revised H.R.5746 now returns to the Senate, where—thanks to the Senate rules of procedure—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can bring it to floor debate without needing the 60 votes required to block a filibuster. The legislation itself can still be, and no doubt will be, filibustered, but the filibuster can’t be used to prevent debate, allowing Congressmembers to go on the record regarding the legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Schumer has promised to bring voting rights legislation to the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, the first day the Senate will meet following the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. SH-P

You can urge your Senators to defend voting rights by supporting H.R.1, H.R.4, the revised H.R.5746, and the 24 pieces of election-related legislation that have been sitting idle in Senate committees. Find your Senators here. You can also thank Senate Majority Leader Schumer for—finally—focusing on voting rights and urge him to keep the issue before Congress using all possible means: Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader, 322 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-6542.

2. Corporations support legislators who challenged the 2020 election and supported voting restrictions–after saying they wouldn’t

This time last year, corporate America was decrying the January 6 attack on the Capitol and declaring that lawmakers claiming attempting to overturn the 2020 election results would not be receiving their support. The New York Times notes that at a business summit last January, Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced in response to the attack, “There are some members [of Congress] who, by their actions, will have forfeited the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Period. Full stop.”

Two months later, continues the New York Times, the Chamber of Commerce had reversed course. In a memo, the chamber’s senior political strategist, Ashlee Rich Stephenson, stated, “We do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification.”

 One hundred forty-seven Republican legislators (sometimes referred to as the “Sedition Caucus”) joined in the effort to challenge the 2020 election results. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has now published a comprehensive report looking at how those early-January promises have held up over the past year. The CREW report’s findings include the following

• One hundred forty-three of those 147 have received corporate donations totaling $18 million in the last year, with 717 corporations providing this support.

• $4.8 million of those donations came from corporations that had committed to stopping or pausing their support of Sedition Caucus politicians.

• Among the companies pledging not to support the Sedition Caucus, Boeing, Koch Industries, American Crystal Sugar, General Dynamics, and Valero Energy have made the largest donations to members of that group

• Toyota, Cigna, and AT&T were quickest to reverse course on a policy of not funding Sedition Caucus members.

The CREW report also includes a number of corporations pledged to stop making donations to politicians supporting state-level efforts to disenfranchise voters by limiting access to ballots, removing ballot drop boxes, purging voter rolls, and other means. The “pro-democracy” stances many of them took publicly disappeared as the U.S. returned to business as usual. These include Home Depot, JP Morgan, Delta Airlines, and UPS.

 Additionally, corporations who signed on to a full-page New York Times ad condemning discriminatory voting legislation—including Merck, American Airlines, Ford, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson—continued to donate to politicians responsible for those laws.

If you are outraged by these corporations who pledged to support voting rights and then reneged, corporations who said they would not donate to the “Sedition Caucus” and then did, you can write to them and tell them what you think. Addresses are here.

3. Justices Unmasked

Last week, the Supreme Court heard—and supported via a 6-3 ruling—challenges to President Biden’s requirement that businesses with over 100 employees require those employees by vaccinated against COVID or that they undergo weekly testing to determine their COVID status. Six Supreme Court Justices attended the hearing and wore masks in response to the easily spread Omicron variant. One Justice—Neil Gorsuch—attended, but did not wear a mask. In non-pandemic times, Justice Sonia Sotomayor would have been sitting beside Gorsuch and Justice Breyer would have been sitting next to Sotomayor, but both chose to attend remotely, CNBC reports. Sotomayor is diabetic. At 83, Breyer is the oldest Justice on the Court. Diabetes and advanced age greatly increase the likelihood that an individual will be infected by COVID and that that infection will have severe consequences. We don’t know with certainty why Sotomayor and Breyer chose to attend remotely, but the fact that Gorsuch chose to be unmasked in a workplace situation where colleagues with COVID risk factors might have been present certainly may have played a role. S-HP

If you are appalled by Justice Gorsuch’s behavior, you can castigate him for his indifference to the health of his colleagues on the Supreme Court: Justice Neil Gorsuch, U.S. Supreme Court, 1 First St. NE, Washington DC 20543.

You can also urge Chief Justice John Roberts to insist that all Justices be required to mask during hearings: Chief Justice John Roberts, U.S. Supreme Court, 1 First St. NE, Washington DC 20543

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

4. All cities are sister cities

If you had any doubt that the people of the world are connected, the undersea volcanic eruptions of the coast of Tonga January 15th and 16th should persuade you. From the resulting tsunami, harbors (and cars parked near them) were swamped on the California coast while at least two people died in Peru, 6,000 miles away, caught by high waves. The people of Tonga have sent out a desperate plea for fresh water and food, Al Jazeera reports, as the water supply has been contaminated. Frantic family members outside the country have be unable to find out how their loved ones are faring, according to the New York Times. Ascertaining conditions there has been difficult, as the country’s communication lines were destroyed in the first eruption and the ashy haze limits visibility. NBC News has before and after aerial photos that illuminate what the country looks like today, compared to the period before the eruption. RLS

5. Canada finally settles with Indigenous children

The Canadian government–under a court order–has finally agreed to stop fighting Indigenous children who were or will be removed from their homes between April 1, 1991 and March 31, 2022, and agreed to compensate them, according to the CBC. Some 200,000 children and some parents and guardians will be eligible for compensation. For 15 years, the government has been refusing to compensate Indigenous children who were pulled from their homes and put into the foster care system, effectively severing them from their communities and their culture since there are very few Indigenous foster homes. In general, Indigenous children are removed from their homes for reasons related to poverty–inadequate housing and food–but instead of supporting families with basic needs, child welfare authorities have apprehended children and put them into foster homes, a costly solution that reproduces the trauma of residential schools. As the CBC quoted Assembly of First Nations Manitoba Regional Chief Cindy Woodhouse as saying, “First Nations from across Canada have had to work very hard for this day to provide redress for monumental wrongs against First Nation children.” RLS

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

6. New patent-free COVID vaccine

Patent battles over mRNA COVID vaccines—such as the one between Moderna and the National Institutes of Health—assume that vaccine manufacturing is a for-profit industry. The Guardian reports that at Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine, Drs. Maria Bottazzi and Peter Hotez are taking a different approach using simpler, decades-old technology to develop a simpler-to-produce vaccine. Their COVID vaccine requires only standard refrigeration, unlike vaccines that must be kept in ultra-cold storage. This new vaccine is already in production in India.  Bottazzi and Hotez’ research, which has not received government funding, has been funded via philanthropy, and the scientists have announced that they do not intend to patent the vaccine. The simpler production and storage of their vaccine, along with open access to the formula and means for producing it, should greatly improve developing nations’ ability to fight COVID. S-HP

You can thank Drs. Bottazzi and Hotez, and their coworkers and donors, for their work on this basic, affordable vaccine : Dr. Maria Bottazzi, Texas Children’s Hospital, 6621 Fannin St., Houston, TX 77030. Dr. Peter Hotez, Texas Children’s Hospital, 6621 Fannin St., Houston, TX 77030

RESOURCES

To keep track of countries’ pledges–and actions–on climate, you can use the Climate Action Tracker.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a podcast series of 70 years of displacement.

The Americans of Conscience checklist urges you to contact your Senators and try to persuade them to vote for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. They have a list of other short, effective actions you can take.

Are you trying to decide whether to go to an in-person event? The Canadian Institute on Ageing offers a detailed, well-grounded risk assessment tool.

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change, this month focusing on juvenile justice.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

Freedom for All Americans has a very useful legislation tracker on trans issues.

We’re doing a mid-week issue–instead of Sunday & Sunday–to mark January 6. We know you won’t have missed all the news and commentary, but we will flag a few pieces here that are worth looking at. In addition, we note that Democrats are trying to use the anniversary to energize their ranks around voting rights, as NPR points out. They seem determined to advance their big election package, which in our view is doomed to fail. Instead, as we noted December 19, we think they should they should advance smaller pieces that are more likely to advance. To that end, we’ve been tracking 91 pieces of proposed federal election legislation. Since early October, when we posted the database, none of them has changed status; most of them have been in stasis for longer than that. Unsurprisingly, according to NBC News, Mitch McConnell says it is “distasteful” that Democrats are pivoting new voting rights legislation on the anniversary, describing them as “breaking the Senate.”

Instead of watching news clips again, we recommend that you check out the virtual vigil (starting at 6 PM PST), sponsored by Fix Democracy First, the League of Women Voters of Washington and Seattle Supports Democracy. You could also read the New York Times editorial, “Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now,” that summarizes their view of the state of things; it has a number of excellent interior links, including to Rebecca Solnit’s essay on gullibility and complicity. On Slate, Jeremy Stahl summarized the status of all 733 criminal prosecutions stemming from the insurrection. Short version: “Jan. 6 defendants have been sent home to await trial at a far greater rate than the rest of the federal jail population in 2019”; they have received lighter sentences as well. Heather Cox Richardson’s overview on January 2 was extremely useful; she will no doubt have important commentary later tonight as well.

Finally, to strengthen your heart, watch Amanda Gorman’s new year’s poem. Start at 3:00 to avoid the banter.

DOMESTIC NEWS

1. Voting rights threatened by 262 bills in 41 states

Over the past year, States United Democracy Center (SUDC), a coalition of voting rights organizations, has been tracking attempts in U.S. states to limit voting rights, politicize election administration, criminalize certain election decisions that could previously made by non-partisan election administrators, and interfere in other ways with election administration. As of December 15, 2021, SUDC had identified a total of 262 bills—across 41 states—placing new limits on voting rights or election administration. Nine states have had no such legislation introduced. Twenty-eight states have seen 1-5 pieces of such legislation introduced. Six states have seen 6-10 pieces of such legislation introduced. Seven states have seen 11 or more such legislation introduced. Overachievers in introducing such legislation include Texas (59 new laws proposed), Arizona (20), Wisconsin (19), Georgia (15), and Michigan (14).

 Thirty-two of those 262 bills—across 17 states—have now become law. In Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Tennessee, and Texas state legislatures have taken control of election oversight. In Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas, legislatures have imposed criminal or other penalties for decisions made by election administrators. In Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas have passed legislation that places new limitations on the minutiae of election administration. Overachievers here, with passed legislation in all three categories are Kansas, Tennessee, and Texas.  Texas, an overachiever’s overachiever in the area of election manipulation has just instituted a new version of a program that had been stopped by a judge in 2019. Under this program, explains the Guardian, the Texas Secretary of State provides counties with lists of voters whose citizenship they must verify or from whom they must demand proof of citizenship. While the process by which these lists are assembled is not completely clear, about 12,000 voters have received these demands since September. Voters who are subsequently contacted by county officials are given 30 days to provide proof of citizenship or be removed from voter rolls. The Guardian quotes Thomas Buser-Clancy, a senior staff attorney with the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who said his organization was trying to understand why eligible voters were being flagged, because “something is not going right…. Even if your system flags one eligible voter and threatens to remove them, that’s a problem. If you have hundreds, and if you add it up across counties, you’re probably getting to thousands of eligible voters, being threatened with removal.” Depending on issues with mail delivery, locating documents, and time constraints that can affect provision of these documents to officials, there will almost certainly be a “percentage of people who are going to be removed from the rolls even though they’re eligible voters.” S-HP

If you want to protect the right to vote, you could highlight the anti-democratic legislation being passed on the state level and insist on consistent protections for all voters in federal elections and for all state and local officials administering federal elections. Contacts are here.

2. Members of Congress refuse to work with Ethics Committee

The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) of the U.S. House of Representatives describes itself as “an independent, non-partisan entity charged with reviewing allegations of misconduct against Members, officers, and staff of the U.S. House of Representatives and, when appropriate, referring matters to the House Committee on Ethics.” Established in 2008, the OCE’s first investigations were conducted during 2009-2010. That year, the OCE undertook 68 investigations. In three of those investigations (just over 4%) lawmakers refused to work with the OCE and to provide requested information. This year, while the OCE is conducting many fewer investigations—just fourteen—six law makers, representing 43% of those investigations have refused to participate. In the New York Times, the head of the OCE explains the reduction in the number of investigations to a commitment to focusing on the cases that are potentially most serious. This could help explain the higher level of non-cooperation, but given that the OCE is nonpartisan significant non-cooperation is problematic. S-HP

If you find congressmembers’ refusal to work with the Committee on Ethics rather appalling, ask your Representative whether they are aware of the increasing pattern of non-cooperation with OCE investigations and insist that they commit themselves to cooperating with the OCE should the situation arise. Find your Representative here

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

3. Legislation needed to address the intensifying crisis in Myanmar/Burma

Let’s start by noting that Burma and Myanmar mean essentially the same thing, as PBS explains. Most of the world refers to the nation as Myanmar, rejecting the name Burma, which is associated with British colonialism. The U.S. tends to refer to the nation as Burma, because the change to Myanmar in 1989 was instituted under the military dictatorship. Arguments can be made for and against both names. We raise this point just to clarify the difference between news reporting on the nation (Myanmar) and Congressional legislation regarding the nation (Burma). For want of a better solution, we will refer to the nation as Myanmar/Burma.

 After very gradual steps toward democracy, on February 1, 2021, Myanmar/Burma was once again subjected to military rule following a coup justified by claims that the most recent national election has been riddled with fraud (sound familiar?). Before the coup, the human rights situation in Myanmar/Burma was already grim for the country’s Rohingya Muslims, who were being attacked and killed by the nation’s non-Muslim majority with no resistance from the democratic government led by San Suu Kyi. The military coup has not lessened the violence against Rohingya Muslims; instead it has led to broader violence against a wider range of civilians.

The Washington Post, using analysis 300+ videos and photos, announced in late December that the town of Thantlang was subjected to bombing, arson, and murder of civilians beginning in September, 2021, because of refusals to cooperate with the military coup. One day after the Washington Post’s announcement, the New York Times reported the killing of a group of at least 35 villagers in another part of the country, who had fled their homes to avoid fighting between the military and civilian resistance. The military acknowledge the attack, but characterized it as a defensive manoeuvre and denied accusations that it had burned buildings and bodies following the killings. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners estimates 1,393 civilians killed by the military and another 8,344 arrested, charged and/or sentenced. Follow-up reporting by the New York Times described the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar/Burma. The military are blocking aid convoys, deaths due to lack of medical assistance are increasing, and some 30,000 people have fled the country as refugees in the last few months.

 The U.S. Congress is considering four pieces of legislation that attempt to address the military coup in Myanmar/Burma. H.R.1112, the Protect Democracy on Burma Act requires State Department reporting to Congress on U.S. efforts to engage with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to support a return to Democracy in the nation and to hold those responsible for the coup accountable in the United Nations. This legislation has passed the House and is now with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The BURMA Act (H.R.5497 in the House; S.2937 in the Senate) would authorize humanitarian assistance and efforts to promote democracy and human rights in Myanmar/Burma, as well as the imposition of sanctions against those responsible for the coup. H.R.5497 has been assigned to four committees in the House. The Committee on Foreign Affairs has ordered the legislation reported. It is still in committee with the Judiciary, Financial Services, and Ways and Means Committees. S.2937 is with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The final piece of legislation in this group, H.R.6340, To Establish the United States Policy on Burma in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, and the Asian Development Bank, would do as the title suggests and make it clear to each of the organizations listed the U.S. policy does not support recognition of the military government. This legislation is with the House Financial Services Committee.

Charity Navigator lists a number of organizations working in response to the Rohingya refugee crisis and includes its rankings on the effectiveness of each organization’s use of funds.S-HP

You can engage with and push forward these legislative actions–information is here.

4. Canadian government at last required to address contaminated water in Indigenous communities

At long last, the Canadian government has been forced into a settlement with Indigenous communities over undrinkable water. The Federal Court of Canada has approved the government’s plan to spend $6 billion (Canadian) to develop water infrastructure and another $1.5 billion to compensate 140,000 Indigenous Canadians for decades of unsafe water, the New York Times reported. Water in First Nations communities has been contaminated with bacteria and with toxics, leading to gastrointestinal illnesses and cancer.

As Human Rights Watch wrote in 2016, though hundreds of communities have been under “boil water” advisories for decades, boiling is not feasible for all household uses, and so community members have suffered with skin disorders from the water–or the chemicals used to clean it. The lack of water infrastructure has contributed to the lack of housing in First Nations communities, as housing cannot be built with inadequate provision for water, Human Rights Watch further explained, noting that the problems with drinking water had been noted as early as 1977, and had been serious for decades before that. I

In November 2021, a report commissioned by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) on water and wastewater systems in First Nations’ communities found that there were 99 communities currently under “boil water” advisories, some for as long as 25 years. The report identifies various sources of the problem–extractive industries located near water sources (or communities relocated near extractive industries, such as uranium mining; lack of funding for infrastructure; lack of involvement of Indigenous people; lapses in government responsibility. The report also notes the particular impact of contaminated water on First Nations people, who are culturally mandated to protect water; as the writers note, “From an indigenous worldview, water is considered to be the lifeblood of Mother Earth, a sacred gift from the Creator that connects all things, and a spiritual resource that must be respected, kept clean, and protected for the future generations of all life.” RLS

SCIENCE, HEALTH, TECHNOLOGY & THE ENVIRONMENT

5. Over half a century of damaging nuclear waste yet to be safely stored

The Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington contains 54 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste held in 177 underground storage sites. This waste began being produced during the Manhattan Project that led to U.S. development of a nuclear bomb. At one point, the site included nine nuclear reactors and twelve plutonium processing complexes. More than 60,000 U.S. nuclear weapons have been built using plutonium processed at Hanford. At the end of the Cold War, the plutonium production complexes were decommissioned, but at that point the site held the high-level liquid waste mentioned above, as well as 25 million cubic feet of solid radioactive waste.

The Hanford Nuclear Site is located along the Columbia River, which was used to cool reactor-produced heat, and where–from the beginning of production at the site–radioactive waste, cleaned of short-lived isotopes, but still containing long-lived isotopes, was released. In the 1960s, the U.S, Public Health Service published reports regarding this radioactive waste, which was exposing those living downstream to elevated doses of radiation that placed them at increased risk for various cancers and other diseases. Decades of litigation and remediation proposals have followed.

The U.S. Department of Energy is in the process of planning retrieval and treatment of 2,000 gallons of this radioactive waste as a next step in clean-up efforts. This sounds good, but the latest version of this proposal—Draft Waste Incidental for Reprocessing (WIR) Evaluation for Phase 2 of the Test Bed Initiative (TBI)—is now opened for public comments, and Columbia Riverkeepers is pointing out several crucial unknowns in this proposal and is asking that the public submit comments on these.

◉The plan does not, and needs to, provide plans to deal with potential health and environmental issues that may arise off-site.

◉The process being used, grouting, is unpredictable with the possibility of rapid leaks where the grouting does not set as planned. The plan does not discuss how grout stability will be monitored to identify and prevent such leaks.

◉The plan depends upon waste currently classified as High-Level Waste to Low-Level Waste, a power the Department of Energy does not have.

◉The plan would increase soluble tank wastes by 70% and states that some of this waste would be sent to off-site facilities in other states—which are under no obligation to accept this waste.

◉The draft Environmental Assessment for the plan received comments from solicited groups, but the general public did not have an opportunity to comment at this point in the plan’s development. S-HP

If you want to engage with this issue, you can join Columbia Riverkeepers in asking that Energy address these key safety and environmental concerns: (1) the accountability of offsite grouting and disposal facilities, (2) the efficacy of grout, (3) Energy’s unacceptable attempt to reclassify High Level Waste to Low Level Waste, (4) the possibility of orphaned waste on site, and (5) the lack of public engagement throughout the TBI environmental review process• Jennifer Colborn, HMIS, P.O. Box 450, H6-60, Richland WA 99352 [Note, you can also submit online comments to https://bit.ly/hanford-2022 or via the Columbia Riverkeepers web site]

6. New option for HIV prevention

In 2018, 78 percent of HIV diagnoses among cisgender women in the US were among Black women and Latinas, reports Heather Boerner, writing in Web MD. However, among those who most could benefit from medication for HIV prevention–known as Pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP–those who take it are most likely to be white. The disparity is acute: in 2018, 16 percent of white people at risk of acquiring HIV had prescriptions for PrEP, while only 1 percent of Black people did, and 3 percent of Latino/as. Many fewer women for whom the drug regimen would be appropriate take it. Some of the disparity is caused by class issues, Boerner points out; people with insurance can get prescriptions and deal with the cost, while poorer people have to depend on community organizations to get grants and then to target the medications appropriately. 

Apretude, a new drug, which is given as a shot every two months, was approved by the FDA on December 20. It is approved for people of all genders and sexual orientations, teenagers as well as adults. The shot, however, is expensive, and various levels of reimbursements–especially for low income people–have yet to be approved. Apretude has not yet been approved in Canada (or anywhere outside the US), though a generic PrEp has been, making the drug more affordable. RLS

RESOURCES

To keep track of countries’ pledges–and actions–on climate, you can use the Climate Action Tracker.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a podcast series of 70 years of displacement.

The Americans of Conscience checklist urges you to contact your Senators and try to persuade them to vote for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. They have a list of other short, effective actions you can take.

Are you trying to decide whether to go to an in-person event? The Canadian Institute on Ageing offers a detailed, well-grounded risk assessment tool.

Moms Rising always has clear, focused actions you can take to make change, this month focusing on juvenile justice.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has a useful FAQ about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 Syrians are food-insecure, an increase of 4.5 million over the last year. They are receiving donations for their work providing food for the most vulnerable families. The UNHCR is also requesting donations for displaced families in Syria and surrounding countries, particularly Lebanon and Turkey.

The UN Refugee Agency is requesting donations for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, especially for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people.  Not only because Afghan assets have been frozen, but because of massive inflation and the lack of funds to pay the salaries of public employees, the country is at risk of “a total breakdown of the economy and social order,” according to the UN Special Envoy on Afghanistan.

Among the organizations that supports kids and their families at the border is RAICES, which provides legal support. The need for their services has never been greater. You can support them here.

Al Otro Lado provides legal and humanitarian services to people in both the US and Tijuana. You can find out more about their work here.

The Minority Humanitarian Foundation supports asylum-seekers who have been released by ICE with no means of transportation or ways to contact sponsors. You can donate frequent-flyer miles to make their efforts possible.

Freedom for All Americans has a very useful legislation tracker on trans issues.