20 July 20
The July 2020 funding drive is coming up well short of funds necessary to maintain service. While the overall volume of donations needed is not large, the pace of contribution is simply too slow.
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19 July 20
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "The video does not show a violent mob, and a democracy cannot be having anonymous agents of the state bundling people into unmarked vehicles without probable cause (or even with probable cause)."
PB maintains that the individual was suspected of criminal activity and had to be removed from the area abruptly for fear of a violent mob. Its officials also defended the lack of name tags on the grounds that agents have been targeted by doxing campaigns (the publication of their home addresses and personal details on the internet).
The video does not show a violent mob, and a democracy cannot be having anonymous agents of the state bundling people into unmarked vehicles without probable cause (or even with probable cause).
The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Federal agents in Portland, alleging, according to Skanner, that
- “These agents, which have been deployed over the widespread objections of local leaders and community members, have been indiscriminately using tear gas, rubber bullets, and acoustic weapons against protesters, journalists, and legal observers. Federal officers also shot a protester in the head Sunday with a rubber bullet fracturing the person’s face and skull. Today’s lawsuit seeks to block federal law enforcement from dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force against journalists or legal observers.”
These are the actions of a secret police. Secret police are a common institution in authoritarian states. They target dissidents and protesters, focusing on thought crimes rather than dealing with what you might call actual crimes. They report directly to the executive. They run secret prisons and camps.
The right of peaceable assembly is enshrined in the First Amendment to the US constitution, though it is a right often not de facto recognized by government.
Moreover, the US constitution, Article 1, Section 9, requires the preservation of habeas corpus except in times of foreign or civil war. Only Congress can suspend it. Habeas corpus is the principle that a judge may require law enforcement to produce an arrestee in court and specify the charges against the person or release him or her.
This constitutional principle cannot be upheld if the state agents who arrested the person are unknown and he or she has been whisked away in an unmarked vehicle. To whom would the judge apply for habeas corpus? That is, what the CPB did in Portland profoundly undermines the constitution.
CPB agents, Federal Marshals and agents of the Department of Homeland security were detailed to Portland, ostensibly to protect the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse and other Federal property during the past six weeks of demonstrations in Portland. The courthouse has often been painted with graffiti. The Feds say they have defended the building from charges at it by demonstrators.
It is not clear to me why the defense of the courthouse in Portland is not the responsibility of the civil police in Portland. The Trump administration, as we saw in Washington DC at Lafayette Park, likes having shadowy goons at its service.
U.S. Attorney Billy Williams concurs that an investigation of the arrests is warranted.
That these arrests were a Gestapo sort of politics rather than law enforcement is easily demonstrated.
On May 1, armed protesters entered the State House in Michigan. Some broke into the legislative chamber and stood, with guns, over the state representatives, one of whom put on a bullet proof vest. The militias and right wing agitators came again two weeks later and the legislative session was canceled. These were a right wing mob protesting the shut down of some economic activities by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as a mitigation measure against the coronavirus. As a result of Whitmer’s measures, Michigan is in a substantially better place than the slavishly pro-Trump Deep South this July.
Trump had encouraged such lawlessness, tweeting, “Liberate Michigan.”
You will notice that no CPB agents were flown out to Lansing to defend the State House from this potentially violent armed mob. None were hustled into unmarked vehicles by nameless Federal agents.
The difference in response to the the two protests demonstrates conclusively that the CPB agents in Portland were functioning as Trump’s secret police, since they were only concerned with suppressing dissent when it was dissent against the policies favored by the president. It is not about a neutral rule of law for all. The infiltration of US security agencies by far right wing conspiracy theorists such as QAnon makes these infractions against the Constitution even more frightening.
People wait in line in June to vote at the Kentucky Exposition Center. (photo: Michael Blackshire/For The Washington Post)
The Data Proves Mail-In Voting Is Safe From Fraud and COVID-19
Edie Goldenberg, The Conversation
Goldenberg writes: "As millions of Americans prepare to vote in November-and in many cases, primaries and state and local elections through the summer as well-lots of people are talking about voting by mail. It is a way to protect the integrity of the country's voting system and to limit potential exposure to the coronavirus, which continues to spread widely in the U.S."
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Edie Goldenberg, The Conversation
Goldenberg writes: "As millions of Americans prepare to vote in November-and in many cases, primaries and state and local elections through the summer as well-lots of people are talking about voting by mail. It is a way to protect the integrity of the country's voting system and to limit potential exposure to the coronavirus, which continues to spread widely in the U.S."
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Eviction Filings Are Already Rising
Jordan Weissmann, Slate
Weissmann writes: "Here is some bad news on top of even more bad news about how America's renters are faring as the coronavirus crisis wares on."
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Jordan Weissmann, Slate
Weissmann writes: "Here is some bad news on top of even more bad news about how America's renters are faring as the coronavirus crisis wares on."
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(image:Spencer Platt/Getty Images/Slate)
It's Perfectly Fine to Call It "Defunding" the Police
John McWhorter, Slate
McWhorter writes: "So for example, Black Lives Matter. It's common for some people to say, 'No, all lives matter.' They're missing the point. Black Lives Matter doesn't mean black lives matter more. It means black lives matter, too. Black lives matter as well."
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John McWhorter, Slate
McWhorter writes: "So for example, Black Lives Matter. It's common for some people to say, 'No, all lives matter.' They're missing the point. Black Lives Matter doesn't mean black lives matter more. It means black lives matter, too. Black lives matter as well."
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Transgender people and their supporters gather in Parliament Square to protest against potential changes to the Gender Recognition Act on July 4, 2020 in London. (photo: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Katelyn Burns, Vox
Burns writes: "A proposed Housing and Urban Development rule would allow federally funded homeless shelters to judge a person's physical characteristics, such as height and facial hair, in determining whether they belong in a women's or men's shelter, according to a copy of the rule's text obtained by Vox."
Dylan Waguespack, a spokesperson for True Colors United, an advocacy group that focuses on supporting LGBTQ homeless youth, told Vox in early June that HUD Secretary Ben Carson is “talking out of both sides of his mouth.”
Waguespack told Vox Friday that Carson is showing a “willful disregard for the survival of transgender people” and risks putting trans people in harm’s way. “He’s on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the law,” he said. “It’s critical that trans people across the US hear the message loud and clear that they are legally entitled to gender-appropriate homelessness services under the law.”
Even though it has yet to be released, the HUD rule has already received congressional pushback. In a letter to HUD Secretary Ben Carson dated June 29, Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) urged the agency to reconsider the release of the HUD rule because of the Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County on June 15, which held that discrimination against trans people is considered sex discrimination.
Carson responded to the lawmakers with a letter of his own on July 13, which was obtained by Vox, rejecting the premise that Bostock would apply to the proposed rule. “[A]n individual’s sex is relevant in the specific category of cases covered by the Department’s proposed rule, which is concerned with single-sex temporary or emergency shelters,” read the letter. “These facilities, by virtue of their temporary nature, are not deemed ‘housing’, do not fall within the purview of the Fair Housing Act. Therefore they may lawfully elect to serve only one sex. We note that the Bostock decision assumed that ‘sex’ referred ‘only to biological distinctions between male and female.’”
Carson goes on to claim that the existing rule, which requires shelters to house trans people according to their gender identity, “permits any man, simply by asserting that his gender is female, to obtain access to women’s shelters.”
Associating vulnerable trans women with predatory men is a classic anti-trans dog whistle. In truth, there’s no evidence of wide-scale instances of men posing as trans women just to enter women’s spaces. Instead, advocates say the opposite is true — that putting trans women in men’s shelters is a recipe for harassment and potential assault.
Carson and Wexton have had a lengthy — and public — back and forth on trans issues, stemming back to a May 2019 hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services in which the lawmaker asked Carson whether the agency had any plans to change the Equal Access rule, which currently requires homeless shelters to house trans people according to their gender identity. At the hearing, Carson said there were no plans to do so, but the very next day the agency announced its intention to change the rule.
Wexton immediately called the move out on Twitter.
In an October 2019 HFSC hearing, Wexton challenged Carson over comments in which he called trans women “big, hairy men” at an internal meeting with HUD staff in San Francisco a month earlier. Carson refused to apologize, instead decrying “political correctness.”
At Least 8 Farmers Killed by Armed Group in Columbia, 120 Forced to Flee
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Colombia's Peasant Association of Catatumbo (ASCAMCAT) Saturday denounced the murder of at least eight of its members by the narco-paramilitary group 'Los Rastrojos.'"
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teleSUR
Excerpt: "Colombia's Peasant Association of Catatumbo (ASCAMCAT) Saturday denounced the murder of at least eight of its members by the narco-paramilitary group 'Los Rastrojos.'"
The massacre occurred in the village of Totumito Carboneras, Catatumbo, in the department of Norte de Santande.
"We urge the Regional Ombudsman's Office of Cúcuta and the municipal authorities of Tibú to initiate an investigation into this violent act," the organization said in a statement.
This massacre has deepened the existing humanitarian crisis in the country and has forced at least 120 people from the municipality of Cucuta to leave their communities.
The displaced people fear a possible incursion by armed groups against the community.
"Ivan Duque's government must guarantee the life and safety of our communities and our stay in the territory," the organization added.
Colombia's House of Representatives legislator for the Revolutionary Alternative Force of the Common (FARC) party Sergio Marin also rejected the massacre.
The peace agreement signed in 2016 is very weak now. Is this the Colombia they wanted us to come back to?" Marin tweeted.
Andrew Cuomo. (photo: Grist/Scott Heins/Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty Images)
One Year Later, What Has New York's Landmark Climate Law Accomplished?
Rachel Ramirez, Grist
Ramirez writes: "One year ago today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) into law, committing the state to net-zero emissions by 2050. It was New York Renews, a statewide coalition of nearly 200 advocacy groups, who fought to bring what is now the Empire State's landmark climate law to fruition."
Rachel Ramirez, Grist
Ramirez writes: "One year ago today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) into law, committing the state to net-zero emissions by 2050. It was New York Renews, a statewide coalition of nearly 200 advocacy groups, who fought to bring what is now the Empire State's landmark climate law to fruition."
Despite a bumpy ride, both the CLCPA and a companion environmental justice bill finally went into effect in January. For the one-year anniversary of the CLCPA’s passage, New York Renews is keeping tabs on the law’s progress: On Thursday, the coalition called for a public audit of statewide agency spending to ensure that New York is complying with the law’s mandate that at least 35 percent of state energy and climate spending is invested in pollution-burdened communities.
“Goals are no good unless you meet them,” Timothy Kennedy, a state senator who co-sponsored the CLCPA, said during a virtual town hall on Friday. “We need to make sure that we take the CLCPA and enforce environmental standards that protect the very communities that are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.”
The CLCPA has recently helped remove obstacles that prevent low-income New York residents from accessing clean energy resources. Last month, the state announced a slate of grants totaling more than $10.6 million to help underserved New Yorkers access affordable solar energy. The grants, administered by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, will help offset predevelopment costs to address resource barriers that typically prevent low-income residents — particularly communities of color — from installing clean energy or energy storage in their homes.
PUSH Buffalo — a community-led organization in Buffalo, New York, that focuses on advancing economic and environmental justice — has long promoted a just transition away from fossil fuel dependence, and its particular focus is retrofitting old buildings to meet sustainability standards. Rahwa Ghirmatzion, the organization’s executive director, said that PUSH is already taking steps to implement these grants with a multi-site, 53-unit net-zero emissions housing project that would contain a rooftop solar power installation and geothermal heat pumps. PUSH, which is also one of the founding groups behind New York Renews, also seeks to provide unemployed people or youth who can’t attend college with training opportunities to participate in the green development project.
“We don’t want to just think about legislation — we also want to work on an implementation strategy to make sure the law has teeth,” Ghirmatzion told Grist. “Oftentimes as organizers, we pass a lot of bills and then they become weak and watered down and not actualized.”
Environmental advocates say that New York’s climate targets can’t be met without certain major reforms that need to be executed. Replacing so-called peaker plants — power plants that typically only run during peak periods of high demand in electricity, especially during scorching summer heat waves — is a major demand that environmental justice groups are calling for under the CLCPA’s climate targets. A recent report found that New Yorkers over the last decade have shouldered more than $4.5 billion in electricity bills to pay the private owners of these polluting power plants, just to keep those plants online in case they’re needed — even though they only operate between 90 and 500 hours a year.
“Billions of dollars invested in fossil fuel infrastructure is definitely not part of the equation to get us to our targets fast and equitably,” Summer Sandoval, energy democracy coordinator with UPROSE, a grassroots organization focusing on sustainability and environmental justice, told Grist. “It’s not just about reducing emissions, but also taking a hard look at the different aspects tied to emission reductions, like environmental health risks.”
There have been some victories on this front: Environmental justice groups have been using the CLCPA as a powerful tool to oppose fossil fuel construction and expansion. So far, the biggest victory this year has been putting an end to the controversial Northeast Supply Enhancement project, also known as the Williams Pipeline. National Grid, the gas utility that operates in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, would have been the sole customer of the pipeline’s gas. At one point, the fate of New York’s climate targets was hanging in the balance because the project was still moving forward. But in May, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) officially killed the pipeline by rejecting a key permit for the project, because it wouldn’t meet the state’s water quality standards. While the CLCPA was not the basis for the decision to deny permits, a DEC letter to the company leading the project proves that the climate law clearly weighed heavily in the ultimate outcome, when the project’s qualitative impacts were assessed.
To keep state agencies on track to achieve its goals, the CLCPA created two significant decision-making bodies. The first is the Climate Action Council, which is in charge of writing the entire scoping plan for New York’s economy to transition off of fossil fuels. The second is the Climate Justice Working Group, which is meant to guide the state in carrying out its ambitious climate targets by ensuring that the environmental justice provisions of the CLCPA —such as clean energy spending, green jobs, and affordable resources — are enforced and distributed equitably to low-income communities of color. Its appointees were announced last month, and they include some of New York’s most prominent environmental justice advocates, including Ghirmatzion.
The CLCPA was a long time coming. The Republican-controlled state senate blocked the bill for three consecutive years until Democrats took control in 2018. Then, before penning his signature on the bill, Governor Cuomo not only changed the name by adding the word “leadership” at the last minute, but he also slashed some major provisions that advocates from marginalized communities had pushed for, such as a crucial labor section that advocated for displaced fossil fuel workers and promoted fair wages for workers building the renewable energy sector. Cuomo’s version of the bill also included vague language that made it unclear how much cash would actually flow to “disadvantaged communities.”
With climate change still accelerating against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities, New York Renews says that the state is still moving too slowly and isn’t taking the CLCPA’s social justice provisions seriously. The Climate Action Council has only met twice since it formed in March, while the Climate Justice Working Group has yet to have its first meeting, which is scheduled for later this month.
“We have to work together in an intersectional way,” Ghirmatzion told Grist. “We have to address the root causes, which means focusing on the most impacted in our communities, if we’re ever really going to create the world we want to live in.”
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